There’s this curious story tucked away in the book of Numbers (Chs. 22-24) in the Bible, about a recalcitrant Prophet and his articulate ass. Let’s synopsize the account.
The children of Israel are nearing the Promised Land and are encamped in the plains of Moab, after decimating the armies of Sihon, king of Amorites and of Og, king of Bashan. They must perforce pass through the land of Moab next, on their way to the river Jordan. King Balak (of Moab) starts shivering in his breaches and thinks up a plan to avoid being swamped by the marauding Israelites. Calculating correctly that a direct military engagement with them is not a bright idea given their recent victories, he decides to appeal to the divine. Learning that it is the hand of the Lord God that is on the side of the children of Israel, he figures it would be best to propitiate the same God and swing His favour to his side by enlisting the services of one of the Lord’s prophets.
Here is a man with gumption enough to recognize the Lord of lords but sadly he lacks knowledge of the purposes of God. History is important; inadequate and incomplete grasp of it however, will lead one to incorrect conclusions.In this context, our man seems to be only aware of the recent military exploits of Israel over Amorites and Bashan and he fails to fathom the full history of God’s people and the step by step unfolding of God’s plan to bring His people back from the land of Egypt to the Promised land. And so he ends up making the wrong kind of prayer. All he wants is Israel to be cursed of God, so he can prevail over them in war.
There are so many things he could have sought; for instance a peace treaty with Israel affording them unhindered passage through Moab, in return for safety of his land and protection of her people. No, he regards the Israelites straightaway as his enemies and the first thing that comes to his mind is “curse”. He would have serious difficulty coming to terms with something like the lofty teachings of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:44). True these are different ages, but the God is the same -yesterday, today and and forever (Hebrews 13:8) and His purposes, eternal. Balak’s perspicacity in zeroing in on the Lord of lords sadly does not extend to understanding of the way He works. Knowledge about God (of a sort), Yes, but wisdom and true understanding, No.(How often does this description fit us, we might ponder)
The result? Rather than setting himself to pleading with God in earnest prayer, He does something similar to a google search and zeroes in on Balaam of Peor. Now Balaam was indeed a prophet of the Lord God. Prophets of the Lord those days were like highly paid consultants today but like consultants, they were engaged mostly on assignment basis and there was nothing definite about the timing of the next assignment. So in general they were well disposed to welcome royal commissions but there were some who first consulted with the Lord before saying “yes”. Balaam apparently belonged to the latter category but he had one major weakness: a puffed up sense of self importance arising from his close communication with God.
So when the emissaries come from king Balak, he sends them back according to guidance from the Lord. But Balak would not be dissuaded. He sent another team of higher ranking emissaries the second time, who virtually gave Balaam a carte blanch of reward if only Balaam would go with them. Though he says no this time as well, Balaam appears to begin to secretly nurse a desire to grand stand in the company of king Balak. This of course was no secret to the Lord of lords. Annoyed with his attitude, God grants permission to Balaam to go with the emissaries while cautioning him that he should only speak only what the Lord puts in his heart. It is clear from the biblical account that this was not God’s perfect will. It falls in the domain of God’s permissive will but even in this spectrum, this seems to be an extreme case. Without using so many words, God seems to be really saying, “Since you are so bent on going and doing your stuff, go get lost”. The prophet that he was, Balaam should have discerned the heart of God in the matter, but taking God’s permission at face value and driven by his personal desire to hog the lime light, the fool, prepares to go and saddles his ass.
How very often does this happen to us. In many an instance the Lord’s will in a matter, may be as plain as the nose on your face, but obstinately we persist in our own way and end up earning God’s annoyance and displeasure. In such cases we might be limiting God’s options to physically disabling us from pursuing the path of self will.
Now, disablement can be achieved totally by death in a variety of ways, but God’s mercy has not run its course. So, though he sends the angel of death to block the wayward prophet’s blustering progress, His mercy opens the ass’s mouth when the animal is struck by Balaam thrice – somewhat akin to flogging your old Ford car when it exhibits a distinct reluctance to continuing a journey, especially when you are smacking your lips with some secret anticipation in getting urgently to your destination – the main difference being that the Ford does not feel, the pain whereas the donkey is hurt.
(Credit:www.touchoffire.com)
Many years later B.C, King Solomon would utter his insightful saying which today will warm the cockles of the hearts of PETA activists, about the godly caring for their animals (Proverbs 12:10) but our man comes up short. Let’s read the narrative as the Bible puts it: “ So the next morning Balaam got up, saddled his donkey, and started off with the Moabite officials. But God was angry that Balaam was going, so he sent the angel of the Lord to stand in the road to block his way. As Balaam and two servants were riding along, Balaam’s donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand. The donkey bolted off the road into a field, but Balaam beat it and turned it back onto the road. Then the angel of the Lord stood at a place where the road narrowed between two vineyard walls. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it tried to squeeze by and crushed Balaam’s foot against the wall. So Balaam beat the donkey again. Then the angel of the Lord moved farther down the road and stood in a place too narrow for the donkey to get by at all. This time when the donkey saw the angel, it lay down under Balaam. In a fit of rage Balaam beat the animal again with his staff.”
Fitof rage? Exhibited by the Prophet of the Lord? Not quite becoming, what?
Then the Lord gave the donkey the ability to speak. “What have I done to you that deserves your beating me three times” asks the ass in more than a hint of pique.
The Prophet doesn’t bat an eyelid. This is amazin, considering that the last time a non human earthly creature spoke was way back in the garden of Eden, several centuries ago. But so sozzled with his personal motivation that Balaam was, he doesn’t express the slightest surprise at his ass remonstrating verbally with him, and joins issue as though they had such difficult conversations on a daily basis! “You’ve made me look like a fool” shouts the prophet with a rather correct assessment of how he appeared to the outside world; his personal beast of burden had started acting strangely, undermined his grand march in the company of the king’s ambassadors and punctured his pride!
What wonderful words to emanate from the Lord’s prophet! You might think that the first thing such a person would do is to pray and seek guidance from the Lord in dealing with this most extraordinary phenomenon. But our man was up to his ears with “my self, my agenda, my glory, my reward”, so much so that God may have something to do with this fantastic impediment doesn’t seem to cross his mind.
Are we like that some times? Not taking time to reflect what the message is and where the message is coming from but instead beating the messenger – the carrier of the message –especially when we suspect in the depth of our hearts that the message might be honest and most inconvenient.But this is foolish indeed; you cannot change the message by assaulting the messenger.
There is a great deal of irony here that Balaam should have captured. The whole purpose of his mission was to try and change the message of God to the Israelites from one of blessing to one of curse as Balak intended, for the consideration of multiple sacrifices to the Lord and abundant remuneration to the prophet. It is as if God reveals to the prophet in a sort of play acting, the larger picture he has so far failed to fully grasp.
The angel of the Lord ends this most unusual dialogue when he opens Balaam’s eyes and makes him realize that he would have been finished off but for his ass’s defensive maneuvers.
This opens up a number of possibilities. You get up in the morning and pick up the newspaper of the day “Modi visits China again” the headline screams at you. “Ahem” you hear a mild clearing of throat. Just as you are wondering how many times the PM made that trip, you hear “Did you read your Bible this morning ?” It is the Daily asking the critical question.
Let’s picture another scenario: you are sitting in the church, quietly texting a message on your mobile phone. And your phone begins to talk, “eh, are you listening to the sermon?” and you are mortified.
Or it could be a case where you are heading towards some place you shouldn’t go. And your car suddenly develops a mechanical malfunction; it is not difficult to imagine that the engine is actively blocking your progress towards your desired destination. But what if it actually starts speaking to you (now, that is not fanciful; the GPS is telling you where and how to go all the time, these days!)
So on and so forth. If only we sensitize our heart to hear what our (biblically sharpened) conscience is telling us, we will begin to hear all kinds of good advice emanating from the most unlikely places . And no wonder. According to the Bible, it is not only the living but even inanimate things can make an interlocutory interjection. Check out Joshua 24:26,27: “Joshua recorded these things in the Book of God’s Instructions. As a reminder of their agreement, he took a huge stone and rolled it beneath the terebinth tree beside the Tabernacle of the Lord.
Joshua said to all the people, “This stone has heard everything the Lord said to us. It will be a witness to testify against you if you go back on your word to God.” And again in Luke 19:37-40 we read,” When he reached the place where the road started down the Mount of Olives, all of his followers began to shout and sing as they walked along, praising God for all the wonderful miracles they had seen.
“Blessings on the King who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven, and glory in highest heaven!”
But some of the Pharisees among the crowd said, “Teacher, rebuke your followers for saying things like that!”
He replied, “If they kept quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers!”
Yes, it is not only the stones. God can speak to us in a number of ways: the winds and the waves, the flashing lightning and the driving rain and so on. He is not limited to human beings for communication though sometimes He does speak through men and women.
He that has ears, let him hear (Matthew 11:15). Can we hear the message wherever it comes from? Whose will are we hurrying to carry out? Are our spiritual eyes open?
Oh, Master Balaam! Don’t you see what I see?