James Nisbet Commentary - Numbers 24:1 - 24:1

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James Nisbet Commentary - Numbers 24:1 - 24:1


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TOWARD THE WILDERNESS

‘And when Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, he went not, as at other times, to seek for enchantments, but he set his face toward the wilderness.’

Num_24:1

In Balaam we have a man who, while his audacity and superstition are monstrous, still has a strong fear of Almighty God upon him, a determination not to disobey Him openly, a hope that at last he may be found on God’s side. But it was with him as it is with others who deceive themselves and perform a juggler’s trick with their own soul. First they wish to have their own way in life, and then have it blessed by God as if it were His way. Next they cease to think it impossible to elude or deceive even God. We see here a man beseeching God to allow him to do what He had twice and thrice forbidden him to do. God punished him by letting him take his own course. And it is after his example that all will be lost who from a high standing fall into wickedness. Take these three points:—

I. If Balaam was lost, it was through himself that he was lost.—God gave him both an earnest desire to be saved and the knowledge how to be saved. Yet he is a lost man already when he comes before us. He was lost because he did not follow out his wish into action, and because he did not use the knowledge which he had.

II. What was the means he took for his own destruction, when he had both the wish and the knowledge to be saved?—Exactly that which offers itself to us as very natural—an attempt to combine the service of God and the service of the world. He wished to stand well with the Lord God, but he also wished to have a brilliant alliance with and a strong influence over one of the principal personages of his time.

III. Even the disobedient prophet prophesied of Christ; even the disobedient boy serves Christ’s will.—Both do it without meaning it; therefore they have no reward. But they cannot choose, but serve Him one way or another.

—
Archbishop Benson.

Illustration

(1) ‘The truth is always the same, whether it be seen by a bad man or a good, just as a landscape is. Balaam had his times of illumination, when he saw into the heart of things and pierced the veil of sense. Would that our lives more aptly realised these delineations! That we should be as gardens by the riverside, as lign-aloes planted by the Lord, as cedar trees beside the waters, whilst rivers of water flowed forth from us!’

(2) ‘This is a very common habit, strange though it may seem. People try to make God and Satan to agree.

I daresay there is hardly one amongst us who has not attempted it, not perhaps openly and unreservedly as Balaam did, but who has tried to make God agree with his or her own will and desires, while those desires have been implanted by Satan. We do the thing not so intelligibly as Balaam, but as truly we try to retain some object or will that we know is contrary to the Word of God, and then to make God agree with us, but we cannot do it; thus Balaam had to cease his enchantments. “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” God’s will is to bless without any sorrow added to it. The blessing of the Lord maketh rich, His blessing of salvation in Christ shuts out sorrow.

Balaam lifted up his eyes and saw Israel abiding in their tents, and he opened his mouth and took up his parable, and spoke of himself as “the man whose eyes are open.” His eyes were opened at last, he had not the dimness of sight resulting from enchantments; he had before spoken truth, but his thoughts had not gone with his words; he had been speaking with his eyes closed, so that he could not see the vision though he was obliged to utter it. Now that his eyes were open, he was aware of the circumstances in which he was, and the God with whom he was dealing. He speaks of having “heard the words of God,” and “seen the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open.” ’