Donkey:
What have I done to you
to make you beat me these three times?
Balaam:
You have made a fool of
me! (Numbers 22:28,29).
I love this story. We have the Israelites camping on the
Plains of Moab (north end of the Dead Sea – east side of the Jordan opposite
Jericho), which is where they will stay until Joshua leads them across the
river. While they are camped there, Balak king of Moab sees their large numbers
(he no doubt saw this as a strategic threat) and decides on a preemptive
strike, enlisting the help of an internationally renowned diviner named Balaam.
When Balaam gives in to Balak’s demands, he protests that he
cannot do anything counter to what God tells him. However, that doesn’t mean
Balaam served Yahweh, God of the Israelites. To Balaam, Yahweh was just another
tribal god who could be manipulated by magic arts.
Even though Balaam was warned not to curse the people of Israel,
he still didn’t take seriously the power of Yahweh. The image of his donkey
reading him the riot act always makes me smile. Say it with me: Wil – il –
il – bur – ur – ur! I think the
conversation should have gone more like this:
Donkey: What have I done to you to make you beat me
these three times?
Balaam: You made me look like a fool!
Donkey: You look like a fool all right, but I didn’t
make you look that way!
TODAY’S MEDITATION
Think about a time when
you, like Balaam, misunderestimated God. How did that turn out?
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