Balaam’s Ass
This article talks about:
- Unexpected Messengers From God
- God's Sovereignty
- Obedience to God
-By Debbie Hunt-Scribner-
Really? Really?? A talking ass??? Are we talking Hollywood here, like in the movie Shrek (which, by the way, is one of my favorite movies!)? Just so that we know what kind of animal (a donkey or an ass) that we are talking about here, ass is apparently a more scientifically correct name.* However, I will use both terms, donkey and ass, interchangeably.
Now, let’s get our cast of characters from Numbers 22:1-35 straight, because we may not be able to tell who is who from the dialogue alone.
First, we have a man, Balaam, who is characterized as a “prophet.” We can conclude that he was a big, important man since King Balak, king of the Moabites, was willing to “honor him greatly” and “do whatever you ask” in exchange for Balaam’s services. So, we have a big, influential, important man—a seer, a wise man, a powerful magician, a diviner—having a verbal sparring match with an ass? And, to make things even more interesting, he was bested in that verbal spar! What exactly was King Balak offering to pay him for? King Balak wanted his enemies, the Israelites, cursed. So, Balaam apparently practiced magic arts of perhaps various descriptions. Later in history, he will lead Israel into apostasy. Outside of our story today, he is best remembered by Peter and Jude as a greedy and unscrupulous man.* As we will see later in today’s story, Balaam appears to have a bit of a temper.
Then we have a donkey who could, at least today, best a ‘wise man’. What do we know about donkeys since most of us have probably never owned one? Donkeys have excellent memories and are capable of independent thinking and decision-making, but probably no one would suggest that they are smarter than humans. The behavior in our story is pretty typical of a donkey, minus the talking of course. When they sense (or see) something wrong, they will refuse to move ahead.* So, we have a mostly, pretty typical donkey in our story.
As a rather ancillary character, we also have King Balak. He was a very powerful man who ruled the Moabite kingdom east of the Jordan. Historically, Moab was an enemy to Israel so King Balak’s desire to curse a people whom he saw as competition for the resources under his control is quite understandable.
Our setting finds the Israelites just coming out of Egypt and planning on passing through Moab on their way to Canaan (the Promised Land). As the story goes, King Balak, in an attempt to weaken the approaching Israelites, tried to hire Prophet Balaam. He was willing to pay Balaam handsomely to curse Israel. Balaam was apparently willing to do this but said he needed God’s permission.*
When Balaam inquired of the Lord if he could accept this lucrative job offer, the Lord told Balaam that he must refuse to go to King Balak. Neither Balaam nor Balak were satisfied with this answer, so Balaam asked the question of the Lord again. This time the Lord seems to have changed His mind but stipulates that Balaam would speak only His words. So, Balaam saddled his ass and accompanied the princes of Moab back to King Balak. Looking pretty good for Balaam financially!
But knowing Balaam’s heart, Scripture tells us that “God was incensed that Balaam was going.”* Getting God incensed at you is never a good thing as we will see as the story unfolds in the three potentially unpleasant encounters with an angel of the Lord.
In the first encounter, the Angel of the Lord stood before Balaam and his donkey with a drawn sword. Balaam couldn’t see the angel, but the donkey did. Can we assume that this donkey had better spiritual eyes than a ‘seer’? The donkey turned aside into a field, to which behavior Balaam responded by striking her.
In the second encounter, the Angel stood blocking a narrow path. The donkey responded by hugging one of the walls alongside this path, catching Balaam’s foot between the donkey and the wall. Again, Balaam responds by striking her.
The third encounter was in a ‘very narrow place’. This time, there was no place for the donkey to maneuver. So, the donkey did a very donkey-like thing and lay down under Balaam. Balaam was angry and again struck the donkey.
At this point the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth. Not only was she able to speak words in a language that Balaam understood, but she reasoned pretty intelligently, she answered questions put to her by Balaam, and generated some questions of her own. Or, it is entirely conceivable that the donkey wasn’t doing any of this with her own mind but that God opened her mouth and spoke through her. In the Book of Second Peter, we read his description of a donkey as “a beast without speech” yet who “spoke with a man’s voice.”* However this transpired, the donkey was able to speak and win the verbal spar!
I have two questions at this point:
Did the donkey think that Balaam could see the same things that she could see? In which case the donkey might be very surprised that a seemingly intelligent human would not react in exactly the same way, by trying to get the heck out of the way of the armed and potentially dangerous angel.
Also, isn’t it curious that Balaam didn’t seem at all shocked at a talking donkey? The feeling I get from the story is that Balaam seems to have owned the donkey for a long time, and this had apparently never happened before. Balaam just seems to take this newfound donkey talent in stride.
Continuing with the story, we read that the Lord then opened Balaam’s eyes to see the angel. It doesn’t say that the Lord opened the donkey’s eyes (just her mouth). It was just the seer’s eyes that needed opening. And guess what! After the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, he responded the exact same way as the donkey had. He got on the ground. If I had been the donkey, I might have said something like, “Sure, now you do the exact same thing that you beat me for doing! I saved your life, buddy!” But in the end this donkey held her temper better than Balaam.
* So you don’t think I am using a cuss word, you will find that Weymouth New Testament, Bible in Basic English, American Standard Version, Darby Bible, Young’s Literal Translation, and Revised Standard Version also use ass for a donkey in several verses. See also factslegend.org.
* 2 Peter 2:15 –16; Jude 1:11
* 30 Interesting Donkey Facts (factslegend.org)
* Numbers 22:8
* Numbers 22:22
* 2 Peter 2:16
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Reverend Debbie Hunt-Scribner is a graduate of Alliance Theological Seminary (MDiv) and has been an active member of Simchat Yisrael Messianic Congregation in West Haven, Connecticut for over 20 years. She lives in Florida (when it isn’t too hot!) with her husband, Ken, and their Golden Retriever, Toby, and their Orange Tabby, Sushe. She loves to read and be physically active outdoors (tennis, pickle ball, cycling, hiking, roller blading, paddle boarding, kayaking...). She has served in both the People’s Republic of China and in Thailand. Her spiritual gifts are teaching and administration.