B'Midbar/Numbers
CHAPTER 22

2.  Now Balaq the son of Tzippor saw all that Israel had done to the Emorites,

3.  and Moav stood in great awe of the people, because they were numerous, and Moav felt a sickening dread because of the presence of the descendants of Israel,

4.  and Moav told the elders of Midyan, "This company is already licking up all that are around us just as an ox licks up the greenery of the field!"  (Now Balaq, son of Tzippor, was a king of Moav at that time.)

Midyan was the son of Avraham and his later wife Q'turah after Sarah’s death.  Moshe married into a Midyanite family.  So why is Midyan called upon against Israel?  His name means “quarrelsome”.  If they can tear apart Israel’s unity, they know we are beaten, because we are no longer too numerous for them.  What they fear is all Israel in unity.  So they enlist the help of the “quarrelsome” (troublemakers who love to argue and will cause contention).  They fool themselves into thinking they are right.  This is why everyone cannot be allowed their say, because it often results in strife. 

5.  So he sent messengers to Bilaam, son of Be'or, at P'thor, which is by the river of the land of the sons of his people, to summon him, saying, "Behold a people has come out from Egypt, and here, they have overwhelmed the eye of the land, and they are settling right in front of me!

Another son of Be’or referred to in Gen. 36:31 was a king of the land of Edom, descendants of Esau, which is why Bilaam knows YHWH.  Though Edomite royalty, he appears to live elsewhere (in Aram, per 23:7), possibly because most of his countrymen had turned to idolatry. (His name can also mean “without a people” or “not of a people”. )  But these kings still know that to gain an Edomite’s attention, they need to bring physical gain. (v. 7)  Edom had already refused the simplest hospitality to Israel, though the latter had identified itself as Edom’s brother. In Jewish tradition, the scepter of Edom passed to Rome, and from there to the Church as the Empire crumbled.  So today Edom represents Christians, who are brothers to Israel yet have a problematic relationship since they have sold their birthright (the Torah), being men of the field (which Yahshua says represents the world).  Such people are seen as useful to the devastator and the quarrelsome.  Yet Israel had not destroyed them as they did the Emorites, which should have made Moav ask why, and if it was because they were relatives, ask whether YHWH might have similar plans to spare Moav (Deut. 2:4-9), rather than assuming Israel’s proximity meant it was hostile.

6.  "So now, please come put a curse on this nation for me, because they are too numerous for me; [then] maybe I will be able to attack them and drive them away from the land, because I know that whomever you bless is blessed, and whomever you curse is cursed."

They look for an enemy who is powerful with words, who can weaken them, much like the United Nations, which originally spoke modern Israel into existence with its blessing, but now spends most of its time issuing one condemnation of her after another.  “There is nothing new under the sun.”  Even though there was no hint on the part of Israel of hostility toward their distant cousins, this paranoid people perceived them to be a threat, based on the false premise that Israel intended to conquer everyone around them.  The only reason they had destroyed the Emorites was because they stood in the way of Israel’s getting to where YHWH had told them to go.

7.  And the elders of Moav and the elders of Midyan proceeded with the [fee for] divination in their hand, and came to Bilaam and told him Balaq's business.

…

12.  But Elohim told Bilaam, "You are not to go with them nor curse the people, because it is blessed."

Do not even go with those who want to curse Israel, or you may be judged by the company you keep.  Whether you like it or not, and whether the church, the U.N., or the people at the mosque like it or not, they are blessed.  “A curse without a cause will not alight.” (Prov. 26:2)

13.  So Bilaam got up in the morning and told Balaq's leaders, "Go [back] to your land, because YHWH has refused to permit me to go with you."

14.  So the leaders of Moav rose and went to Balaq, saying, "Bilaam refuses to come with us!"

15.  So again Balaq added more and sent leaders more important than they,

…

18.  But Bilaam responded by telling the servants of Balaq, "If Balaq were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the word of YHWH my Elohim to do [anything], minor or major.

19.  "But stay here now tonight, so I may find out if YHWH will tell me anything more."

Then follows the familiar story of Bilaam’s donkey, a picture of those who try to get him to obey, but are not successful until she speaks up.  YHWH allows Bilaam to go, but He put words in the donkey’s mouth to show that He can also require Bilaam to say only what He allows.  Balaq continues to try to find the right angle, and takes Bilaam to many different points of view, just as the world tries to get us to see from the viewpoint of the “poor Palestinians”, the International Monetary Fund, or anti-Semitic Europe.  But no matter which direction he looks at them from, YHWH’s answer is always, “No, I will not curse Israel, and if you want to speak for Me, neither may you.”

…


CHAPTER 23

…

21.  "He has not taken into consideration [any] crookedness in Yaaqov, nor has He perceived Israel as worn out.  YHWH his Elohim is with him; the [victorious] battle-cry of a king is in him.

He has just brought judgment after judgment for the rebellion after rebellion and complaint after complaint that they had brought against Moshe and ultimately against YHWH Himself.   Sometimes He would not even dwell with them because of the extent of the trouble in the camp.  There was plenty of wickedness and trouble to see.  But even if one had to beat his family into subjection, he would still come to their defense without hesitation in the face of any outside threat, especially from the "accuser of the brethren".  Such problems are none of Bilaam’s business; He will not present Israel to outsiders as anything but righteous. While He may use an outsider to discipline us, He forbids them from bringing a curse with it.  He chooses to see the potential in us.  He is not looking at the wickedness, because He is not worn out by Israel—He does not see Israel as burdensome, hard to deal with, or too much to handle.  He still sees us as worth dealing with, worth the effort to at least give us a shot at being useful.  Israel is blessed by YHWH, which means He bends His “knees” to get down to our level, like a father to his children, and He does not see this as too much trouble.  As we mature, of course we need to make sure we are blessing Him in return. 

...


CHAPTER 25

1.  But Israel tarried among the acacias, and the people [began to] allow [themselves] to be polluted by playing the prostitute toward the daughters of Moav.

After all the battles they had won, Israel might have gotten into too much of a relaxed mode, resting on their laurels and thinking they had earned some pleasure.  After being “on a roll”, planting YHWH’s flag in many places, they had stopped making progress, stopped conquering, and settled into a place that was not yet the Land, even if they could already see it from there.  They became too friendly with their cousins.  They let what was holy become common, to the point of letting their sexuality be spread among many instead of concentrated toward their spouses, but in a worse way as well.  The term for “playing the prostitute” can also refer to spiritual unfaithfulness to YHWH, and that this took place is much more certain.  What a response to YHWH’s blessing!  YHWH saw us as full of potential and worth the effort, and we responded by thinking we could get away with almost anything, and we decided, at least subconsciously, to push the limits and see just how far we could go before He changed His mind.  We have to be aware of such thoughts so that we can steer away from them and not spend His blessings on our pleasures (Yaaqov/James 4:3) as if we owed Him nothing in return.  YHWH told us all the way back at Sinai not to do this, and by now we should have been mature enough to avoid such a pitfall.  But when we start to ask how this could occur, that is the time to start looking in the mirror.  We still have these tendencies, especially after we have just accomplished something major on the positive side.  When we think we have done enough for the Kingdom for a while, we forget to bless YHWH, but start to kick back instead of investing back into the things He has blessed us with.  When we are in the place of slackness (Heb., refidim), that is when enemies like Amaleq attack us.  Revelation 2:14 tells us by the order of its statements that the eating of the meat offered to idols that they ate was a greater concern than the fornication, because even if that alone were their sin, they were still committing adultery against YHWH.  That verse and 31:16 below tell us what the context of this passage should already be making us suspect—that Bilaam is the one behind this strategy.  He was the one who instigated this sin by, assumedly, telling Balaq that he could not defeat Israel by war, but he could waylay them by playing on their weakness in other ways.  He had been looking for a time when YHWH was naturally angry with Israel, so he could take advantage of the timing and curse Israel.  When this opening never came, he told Balaq to create an occasion himself.  We are told he actually instructed them in how to create a trap for Israel.  Bilaam could not curse them, but he was still trying to get a payday out of this, so he showed Balaq how to get them to bring a curse on themselves.  They know we cannot be defeated if YHWH is on our side, so they aim to turn YHWH against us by getting us to do something that disgusts Him.  Because of this, Y’hoshua 13:22 reveals that Bilaam was killed along with the Moavites when Israel fought them.  And there are many modern analogies.  Yehudah in the Land is led astray by continuing to try to please her allies to her own detriment.  Israel in exile is still drawn away from the Sabbath by the promise of prosperity and wealth. Perverted Gospels—“all you have to do is say this prayer”—can also tickle our ears and pull us in among the nations.  Why should YHWH put up with this?  Because He has tied His name to Israel; she is His bride, no matter how wayward.  He takes His commitment seriously even when we do not.  So He provided the antidote before the poison is present; we just have to be wise enough to find it.  They were “among the acacia trees”. Though that was a curse in this case, this is designed to be a place of great blessing, because it held the answer:  The Ark of the Covenant, its poles, the Table of the Bread of the Faces, the planks of which the Tabernacle frame was built, the bronze altar, and the incense altar were all made of acacia wood overlaid with precious metals.  (Exodus 25:10, 13, 23; 26:15; 27:1; and 30:1)  But acacia trees very rarely have trunks large enough to produce long, straight planks. They are spindly trees made mainly of thin, thorny branches from which only small pieces can be obtained.  So no one great tree could provide any complete piece of Tabernacle furniture.  These had to be assembled (probably tongue-in-groove) from many of these small pieces before they could be of any usefulness.  A layer of gold (which represents worthiness for the Kingdom) does not provide much strength; one could easily poke a hole through it.  The strength must be in the wood that supports it, and indeed, as we see in OSB plywood, there is much more strength in the assembling of many small surfaces put together properly than even in a solid beam, especially when a long beam is what is needed.  In Scripture, trees are often used as a picture of people, and Israel, YHWH’s bride, is made up of many individuals.  Acacia sticks provide firewood that adds delectable flavoring to whatever is cooked over them, but as individual sticks they are not useful for much else. No individual with his personal salvation can bring the Kingdom by himself.  It takes the effort of all of us joined together before it can be properly supported.  It takes a lot of work to get us to stay together, but we need to apply the covering of the Kingdom until our love for one another is complete. Being among a grove of acacias, Israel should have been thinking of this analogy.  Dwelling among the acacias is a picture of being properly attached to one another in unity, and it is the antidote to the illegal relationships that so angered YHWH here.  But they chose to “sit as [individual] sticks” (another way of translating “tarried among the acacias”).  Isolated and fragmented, they were an easy target for temptation. 

2.  When they invited the people to the slaughters of their elohim, the people ate and bowed down to their elohim.

After YHWH upheld Israel against her enemies, bragging that He saw no flaw in her, we let Him down!  He had said that we are a people that dwells separately, but the problem was, we were not saying the same thing.  Eating is not just a common everyday act, but particularly an expression of fellowship and even intimacy with whomever we eat with—in this case, these pagans and their deities.  This “barbecue party” to which they were invited by beautiful “missionaries” (Charles Manson’s method) became a trap, because they had dedicated the meat to their elohim, and by eating of it, Israel was paying homage to it.  It is the counterpart to the table of the bread of the Presence, the symbol of our partaking of the twelve tribes in unity.  With the first bite, they are already cheating on YHWH.  It is not possible to "just go" to pagan feasts like Christmas and Easter without participating in the idolatry (v. 3).  Friendship with the world is evidence of hateful hostility and opposition toward YHWH, whether it feels like it or not. (Yaaqov/James 4:4)  The way to flee from idolatry is to seek our neighbors’ well-being—i.e., eating with one’s own people instead of with those with whom we have nothing in common.  Join together with other “acacia sticks” and become something useful to YHWH and worthy of being overlaid with His gold.   

3.  Thus Israel became joined to Ba'al-Peor, and YHWH's anger was ignited against Israel.

Should we be surprised?  Ba'al-Peor ("Lord" or "husband of the gap"), the local manifestation of Ba’al, was worshipped with these licentious rituals. "Gap" or "opening" suggests a connection with the underworld, for they were making sacrifices to the dead. (Psalm 106:28)  Israel had left Egypt, whose preoccupation was with death, and where they were therefore forced to build tombs, whereas the Torah is about life. (Deut. 30:19; 32:47)  Images of “Jesus” focus on his death, and he is sold to the masses as a means to prepare for or even cheat death, when he himself said not to worry about tomorrow.  But it is morbid to make the means of his execution the symbol of all that he stands for; his resurrection is what makes him unique.  Joined: attached or bound.  This sounds much like a wedding ceremony--a clear continuation of the idea of prostituting themselves, as Paul explains (1 Cor. 6:15-16): by simply partaking of food dedicated to it, they became both part of and obligated to this foreign deity, and thus were no longer fulfilling their duty to YHWH, their true "husband".  (Yaaqov/James 4:13ff)  But he says friendship with the world is enmity toward (or making war on) YHWH.  He is jealous when we “cheat on Him” like this.  Anger: literally, nose.  By fastening themselves to another type of “wood”, they became unfit for His altar, and a stench in His nostrils—just the opposite of a soothing aroma.  Though our cousins may be the nicest people in the world, but there are some ways in which we simply cannot relate to them.  We should not condemn them for being what they are; darkness is necessary for light to show up, and they are doing their job, but it is not our job.  Our job is to be Israelites, for our covenant is with Israel and with YHWH.

4.  And YHWH said to Moshe, "Take all the heads of the people of Israel, and hang them up for YHWH, exposed in the sun, so that the burning anger of YHWH may be turned back from Israel."

They wanted to party with the dead, so YHWH sent some death.  Take: may mean gather the leaders, and then determine who is to be hung. (Aramaic interpretation)  The heads are supposed to be overseeing what the others are doing.  Killing them is an extreme response, but they are doing the wrong thing and convinced that YHWH’s blessing is on them.  They must have mixed His name in with Baal-Peor’s.  In the sun: to open, public view (as examples, LXX).  This may also relate to the fact that anyone who is hung may not be left hanging up after sundown. (Deut. 21:22-23)

5.  So Moshe told the judges of Israel, "Each of you kill [those of] his men who were joined to Ba'al-Peor!"

6.  But, lo and behold, a man of the descendants of Israel came and brought the Midyanite woman near toward his brothers in the sight of Moshe and the sight of the whole congregation of the descendants of Israel, who were weeping bitterly at the opening of the Tent of Appointment.

The others committed their sin on the cultic platforms of Ba’al, but he brought this into YHWH’s sanctuary, and expanded the horizons from Moav to Midyan, but they were still allied with Moav.  Brought near: the same terminology used for an offering to YHWH.  In lieu of an animal offering, the Moavite “dinner party” had taught him that by participating in a sexual act in the presence of an elohim would honor Him.  This was not raw animal sex.  It is a religious ceremony.  That is why pagan worship was so appealing to Israel.  Weeping bitterly: Whether they were mourning because people were dying, or because of their sins, if they had been doing something to clean house instead of just bemoaning the problem, this couple might not have gotten so far. 

7.  When Pin'has, the son of El'azar, son of Aharon the cohen saw [it], he rose up from amid the assembly, and took a [metal-tipped] spear in his hand,

This young man was next in line to be the high priest.  His name comes from a root word meaning “to urge on” or “pressure”.  Rose from amid: he was declaring that he was not among this crowd.  The sight of what was going wrong elevated him and urged him on to pressure Israel into doing what everyone else was hesitant to do, though they might have known it was the only response strong enough to be a deterrent to repeating this error.  He should not have had to do this, for other Levites should have stopped him before he got this far; there were armed guards at the entrance to the holy precinct.  But someone was about to defile it, and the priests were ultimately responsible to keep it set apart.  Someone had to stand up and do what needed to be done, rather than just whining about it, so he both judged rightly and acted on it quickly.  Both of these are necessary components of justice. 

8.  and went into the shrine after the man of Israel and thrust both of them through--the man of Israel and the woman, right through her genitalia; thus the striking down was brought to a halt from the descendants of Israel.

9.  But [the number of] those who died in the striking down came to 24,000.

He even killed a leader—something the others might not have felt they could do, so he stood in the “gap” between life and death as his grandfather Aharon had.  Now that Aharon is gone and his father is not permitted to touch a dead body, he rises to his position in a most honorable way.  He soothed YHWH’s burning nostrils.  We could say Yahshua did the same, but the responsibility today is to follow him, so we need to be the ones to do the same—to bless YHWH back for how He has blessed us, pay attention to what is important to Him, and instead of taking advantage of the fact that we are blessed, protect that status by showing YHWH that we do not think His covenant is too burdensome to us either.




Commentary on
Parashat Balaq
How Do We
Respond to
Blessing?