Numbers 24 Commentary
Forget the previous description of Balaam. Overlook verse 1 and the statement that he did resort to divination previously. Focus on verse 2. Balaam is in a good and coveted place.
The Spirit of the LORD takes over and Balaam is yet again the conduit for a series of critical prophetic utterances.
This is interesting. Check Abraham’s blessing. Then check Jacob’s blessing of his twelve children. Know the author of these blessings is the same. They have been repeated. They now apply to Israel as a nation.
The holy script boasts amazing consistency! The author doesn’t change. Of course, we heard it from Balaam, but we can also see for ourselves how the author keeps on repeating Himself.
“May those who bless you be blessed and those who curse you be cursed!”
“Like a lion they crouch and lie down, like a lioness—who dares to rouse them?”
“A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel.”
The LORD God pastes the blessings at this point in time to assure all of us of His unchanging nature. The chapter brings together generations of God’s people into focus: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the twelve sons, and the nation. The future is underlined by the following: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near.”
Balaam’s distant future is our present. A Star rose. The Star’s eternal government rests on His shoulders.
The saint is reminded of the glory of the present times under the leadership of the Son – the LORD Jesus.
But here is the catch. Look at Israel. Did they see any of Balaam’s “superlatives”? A blessed nation saw herself cursed out of Egypt’s “abundance”. They feared. They worried.
The saint must check his own environment and see the glory of the Son’s government. We have Egypt to stay away from. We have “delicacies” whose memory we must erase. We can stop fantasizing about Egypt’s false “good times”. They didn’t exist.
The reality is with the saint. We probably need a Balaam to remind us of our vantage position!
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