Difficult Bible Passages: Revelation 2:14

What are we to make of Balaam?

Most believers know at least something about the story of Balaam as found in Numbers 22-24. It seems like he was a good guy, refusing to curse Israel and all that. So why does he get rebuked, by Jesus no less, in the book of Revelation? As we read in Rev. 2:12-16:

“And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: ‘The words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword. “‘I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth.”

I recently posted on the social media a small part of the Balaam story. In Numbers 22:18 we have these words: “But Balaam answered and said to the servants of Balak, ‘Though Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the command of the Lord my God to do less or more’.”

That taken by itself seems to show that Balaam was a God-fearing man, and someone to be praised. Indeed, someone sent in a reply to my post asking why Balaam is rebuked in Rev. 2:14 if he was a good man doing God’s work. Well, as always, we must compare Scripture with Scripture.

When we do that we see why God was not too thrilled with Balaam. The truth is, he was a pagan prophet for hire, doing a pagan king’s bidding, until God intervened and turned the curse into a blessing. But worse than that, he incited God’s people to grievously sin. In Numbers 25:1-9 we read about Baal worship at Peor:

While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. And the Lord said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people and hang them in the sun before the Lord, that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.” And Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor.” And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping in the entrance of the tent of meeting. When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. Thus the plague on the people of Israel was stopped. Nevertheless, those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.

OK, so what does that have to do with Balaam, you might ask. Well, to answer that question, we need to turn to Numbers 31. There we learn about how God tells Moses to “avenge the people of Israel on the Midianites” (v. 1). And in Num. 31:13-16 we find this:

Moses and Eleazar the priest and all the chiefs of the congregation went to meet them outside the camp. And Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who had come from service in the war. Moses said to them, “Have you let all the women live? Behold, these, on Balaam’s advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the Lord in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the Lord.

So there we see that it was Balaam who was behind this sin. And it is not just in Revelation that we see him being discussed – and rebuked. There is other New Testament commentary about Balaam. In 2 Peter 2:14-16 we read:

They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

And a similar passage is found in Jude 10-12:

But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion. These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted;

So all up, he was not a man after God’s heart, but an ungodly rascal who earned God’s rebuke and censure. Many expert commentators can be made use of here, but let me draw upon just one Old Testament scholar. In his 2006 expository commentary on Numbers, Iain Duguid says this early on about the Balaam story:

Numbers 22 has a lot in common with … political debates. The superficial reader, whose attention is focused on sound bites and the surprising appearance of a talking donkey, may easily miss the point and end up confused by this narrative. Is Balaam the hero or villain in this story? Is he a sinner or a saint? Why did God tell Balaam to go with Balak’s envoys (v. 20) and then get angry with him when he did just that (v. 22)? Did God suddenly and inexplicably change his mind? Or were there valid reasons for his anger? The key to understanding this story is to recognize that Balaam was a politician as well as a prophet, a man who made a living from his words. Such people do not always say what they mean or mean what they say. The speeches of people like Balaam need to be analyzed closely to hear what they do not say as well as what they do say. When you do that, the narrative springs to life with a whole new level of clarity.

As to the issue of the cursing of Israel, he comments: “By summoning Balaam to curse Israel, Balak had set himself against the Lord and the Lord’s people, and therefore he was under a curse of his own. Which curse would win out — the pagan prophet’s or the Lord’s?”

Concerning the conversation God and Balaam had he writes:

Balaam responded to the Lord’s inquiry with a carefully edited version of Balak’s message (compare v. 11 with vv. 5, 6). What he left out in his presentation to the Lord was profoundly significant. Balaam omitted the fact that Israel had settled next to Balak but had not attacked him and that Balak’s action therefore could not be construed as justified self-defense. He also left out Balak’s flattering assertion that Balaam had the power to bless and to curse effectively. In contrast to this dissimulation on Balaam’s part, the Lord’s answer was definitive and clear: “You shall not go with them. You shall not curse the people, for they are blessed” (v. 12). The promise of Genesis 12 was explicitly still in force. The Lord had declared his will clearly and unequivocally to Balaam.

As to Balaam withholding key information to Balak’s servants, Duguid says:

Once that key omission is observed, it is simple to explain why, having given Balaam permission to go to Moab in verse 20, the Lord was so angry with him in verse 22. The Lord was angry not simply because Balaam had gone with Balak’s messengers but rather because he had gone in a way that evidenced a lack of submission to the Lord. He acted as if he were a free agent, able to control his own destiny as well as that of other nations. The Lord therefore determined that it was necessary to teach Balaam a lesson about who was in control of his life, whether he liked it or not. He needed to learn that though man may propose, God is still the one who disposes.

And then we also have Balaam’s wicked counsel resulting in Israel’s apostasy. Duguid offers some lessons from Baal-Peor:

What can we learn from this sorry episode in Israel’s history? In the first place, it shows us that sin is never a private thing. In our society we have elevated privacy into a fundamental human right, and most people regard consenting sexual relationships between otherwise uncommitted adults either as normal and appropriate or at least as no one’s business except those personally involved. Yet, in this case the sins of these particular individuals had ramifications for their whole families, and indeed for the whole covenant community. Sin is never a private matter: our sin affects other people, directly and indirectly.

 

Having said that, though, we also need to be clear that the primary issue in this story is not sex but idolatry. The sex may lead to the idolatry, which is why intermarriage with the nations around them was forbidden to Israelites. However, the sin that resulted in the death penalty for so many people in Israel was not sexual immorality — it was idolatry. Israel’s abandonment of the true and living God was the crime that merited their death….

 

Third, this passage reminds us that discipline pursued out of a passionate zeal for God’s honor is vital to the spiritual health of the community. When Moses and the other leaders in the community failed to act, the judgment on the people of God was profound. Only when one young man stood up and acted to do what the Lord had said and to remove the blight from the community was there a change in the people’s fortunes. It is important to note that Phinehas was not acting as a private citizen in executing God’s judgment. There is no support here for independent action against anyone we may believe to have offended God. There is no warrant in this passage for bombing abortion clinics or shooting evil men. As the son of Eleazar, Phinehas was in charge of the Levites who were responsible for guarding the sanctuary against defilement (1 Chronicles 9:20; Numbers 3:32). Taking action to defend the sanctity of the camp was thus part of his job description, and he fulfilled his duties faithfully as an officer of the people of God in dealing with this particular abomination.

In sum, Balaam was not quite the good guy we might first think with a quick reading of the story. And Christians today can learn much from this entire episode.

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