Who is Balak?
A king from Moab – a land in Jordan today.
Who is Balaam?
A prophet , a non-Israelite.
I am going to share a real story which has been written 1450-1410 B.C by Moses. This long time story help us today to realise that the same God , Still do the same act in our life. He is the same yesterday , today and tomorrow . Now we are the chosen people of God by faith in Christ Jesus. There is no need to sacrifice the blood of animals for forgiveness of the sin. Now we have Jesus. God today can brought us out of our Egypt life. He promised today give us eternal life with him. Lets together go through the story of the king Balak and Balaam.
All happened at the east of the Jorden- the nation of God already defeated 2 kings -Sihon, king of the Amorites , and Og , king of Bashan. They need to cross the highway of the King Balak and He is not pleased to let people pass through their lands even they received officially a letter from Israelite . As Moses is old and his right hand Aaron is dead. The number of israleite seems to be huge as the king of Moab, Balak and his people terrified and was filled with dread. Who is going to stop them? We need to turn their blessings to a curse as the King Balak and his older councel was thinking about this.
It seems Israelites are in Good position now. They are proud to defeat their enemies. Their Head held high. The King Balak smells this smoke of defeatness and now he is going to do soething about it. He heard how misrebly 2 kings bowed down in front of them.
In this mid-time he had one choice p; to curse them. He prepared his messanger to bring the one and only one of his time prophet ; Balaam son of Beor.
They brought him this message from Balak:(1) “I want you to know that a whole nation has come from Egypt; its people are spreading out everywhere and threatening to take over our land. They outnumber us, so please come and put a curse on them for me. Then perhaps we will be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land. I know that when you pronounce a blessing, people are blessed, and when you pronounce a curse, they are placed under a curse.”
Balak knew about Balaam, He completely was aware of the ability of the God of Balaam. In his short letter to Balaam , we obviously see the fear of the King and seeking to come and put a curse on Israelites. He already searched about their army and had a check from top of the mountain that how huge they are in number. He sent his elder and princes with the messenger to Balaam.
Balaam went to presence of God to find out. Interestingly ,God came to Balaam and asked , ” Who are these men with you? ”
That’s a really good question , although God knew who are they, But He is asking Balaam who are they? God wanted to hear from the mouth of Balaam. And we see Balaam is telling all story to God. ( God knows what is going on in our life , But we need to tell Him and expect to have an answer from Him) . So God answered to Balaam : ” Do no go with them …” .
In the first time , Balaam rejected to go with the messenger.
In the second time, Balak sent more princes to Balaam and more money to him. But he rejected all. Balaam was sure about the answer of God and knows how his God is faithful always.
Although Balaam knew about his God, again he went to presence of God to ask Him, ” Can I go with them?” God already answered Balaam, instead of this he has doubt about it , He said to the Messenger that” let me find out what else the Lord will tell me ” . Balaam went to The Lord and ask Him again . It is like this Balaam pushing the Lord to do what is needed to be done from human prospective . The Lord said ” hmm, seems this child of mine wants to go , since these men have come to summon you, go with them, but do only what I tell you.”
In the next part I will tell you about Balaam’s donkey and how God stop Balaam going with the messenger.
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Dariush Youkhaneh
You are awesome 
