I found this donkey on boyslife.org, they have a contest for the best caption. Why a donkey??? Well you'll soon know!
The Israelites had traveled far enough to begin bumping into other civilizations. After the Edomites they came upon the Canaanites. The Israelites promised God that if He would deliver their enemies to them they would completely destroy their cities. The Lord listened and the cities were destroyed.
The Israelites continued to skirt around Edom, which made them complain, again. They whined to Moses and God that they would rather have stayed in Egypt where they were comfortable and had good food to eat instead of that contemptible manna! The Lord sent firey serpents among them and many died. So they changed their tune and asked Moses to ask God to help them. So God told Moses to make a firey serpent out of bronze and put it on a pole, so that anyone who was bitten could look at it and live. Jesus teaches about this in John 3:14-15.
They traveled through many lands and came to the land of the Amorites and sent them a nice note just like the ones they sent to the Edomites. But the king would not let them pass and instead went out to attack them. They lost. Israel took all their cities and stayed there a while. The same thing happened to the kingdom of Bashan.
Here's the part with the donkey...
Balak, the king of Moab was terrified that the Israelites would do to his kingdom what they had done to the Amorites. Balak sent messengers to the holy man, Balaam to come over and put a curse on the Israelites for him. Sounds a bit like voodoo. After asking again and offering to pay Balaam more money God told him to go ahead and go with Balak, but to only say what God told him to and nothing else. On the way, Balaam's donkey sees an angel standing in her way and three times she ends up vexing or injuring Balaam and each time he beats her for it. God let the donkey talk to Balaam and asked him what she had done to deserve to be beaten? This part reminded me of Shrek with the talking donkey. Anyway, Balaam tells her that if he had a sword he'd kill her right then and there. Then she asks him whether she's ever done anything like that to him before? Nope. Then God let Balaam see the angel that had scared the donkey. The angel told him that if it weren't for the donkey stopping as she did he would have killed Balaam and saved her. Balaam apologized to the angel and said he would turn back, but then the angel told him to go ahead and go, but to only speak what he was told to. Naturally Balak was excited when he saw that Balaam was coming. Balak made burnt offerings and wanted Balaam to make the curse. Balaam only said he could only do what God told him to do. The only thing he could do was bless the Israelites, not curse them. This happened three times. It will happen twice more as we will read tomorrow.
Part of what I like about this passage is that it shows that God appeared to other people besides the Israelites. And that animals can see angels and talk!
Tomorrow read Numbers 24-26:34
Duffy, I don't understand why after God told Balaam to go ahead and go with Balak that he then put obstacles in his path........and then again told him to go with Balak, but only speak his Word. Balaam was following God's command by going with Balak, so why did he put the obstacles there?
ReplyDeleteI have noticed that God will be specific about what He wants done, but seems willing to allow men to do things their way. You know, free will and all. In verse 12 of ch 22 he commands Balaam not to go. Then, in verse 21 God says that he'll let Balaam go, but to do only what He says. As he did with Abraham, he allows men to make their own choices, but they suffer for it if they don't simply obey God's commands.
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