Numbers 24

24 : 3-9. The third blessing is the finest of all. Its central ideas are prosperity and victory. To appreciate its imagery, we must remember the exceeding value of water in the East, so that abundance of it is the best poetical image of prosperity and national welfare—also that Agag was the dynastic name of Amalekite kings, and that accordingly, inasmuch as Amalek was at that time “the first of the nations” (verse 20) with which Israel had to deal, Agag was the great representative of the power of the enemies of God’s people. J. M. G.

5. Tabernacles.** The sight of the actual tents in the camp of the Israelites transports his view to the dwellings of Israel, crowned with all manner of blessing from the fulness of the Lord. Their whole earthly well-being has its source in the unfailing streams which flow from God to his people. Gerl.—By an inner sense he beholds the tribes in the promised land, that region which, in comparison with the desert abodes of Moab, Midian, and Edom, was a very garden. There stretch like brooks the long lines of Israel’s tents, planted in fact by fresh waters. The thirsty eye of the Oriental rejoices in nothing so much as in water. Where this is there is life, growth, wealth, joy. Hence this blessing of God is promised in fullest measure to Israel, which will therefore grow up like stately trees. From this peaceful prosperity (verse 7) then passes to the power of military expansion dwelling in the people, by which it will be raised above the mightiest nations. Orelli.

9. Blessed is he that blesseth thee.** Whatever good offices are performed toward the Church are conferred upon God himself, who will recompense them faithfully; and believers cannot be injured without his avenging them; even as he says: “He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of my eye” (Zech. 2 : 8). And assuredly, whosoever have contributed their labors for the Church’s welfare and have been her faithful helpers, shall be sure partakers of the blessing which is here promised. Cule.

11. The Lord hath kept you back from honor.** These words clearly exemplify the seductive impious spirit of the world. Surely Balaam now has found in serving Balak what the world really is; and the world itself fully deserves to bear the name borne by that king—Balak, destroyer. On every hand, the world looks out for allies, servants, friends; as Balak did to Balaam, she promises to bestow her favors and her wealth if you but follow her behests, and make her will your own. If you refuse, as he did at the first, the world will not believe that you act but from principle—rather, she thinks that you regard self-interest; but she will give you large rewards when you but sell yourself to her. “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me:” so spake the prince of this world to Jesus; and at every turn he modifies his voice, but still to say the same thing, in the softest tone, to all Christ’s followers—nay, even to every one of his redeemed. This Balak also, like a true destroyer, rests not for an instant till he brings you where he will; and if the first attempt does not succeed, he makes a second and a third. The world knows very well, like Balak, how to suit herself to circumstances when they change and to attract some friends from every side. Nay, she can even in her own time and way be quite religious—from mere policy and ill-concealed self-interest; and she shows all possible respect for—forms. Obey God rather than any man! The world will forgive you everything but this—that you earnestly believe God’s Word, and give obedience to what he requires. If you show, like Balaam, that you hesitate because the truth is much too strong for you, like Balaam, you are roughly pushed aside, and told, “The Lord hath kept thee back from honor.” To such a world—so selfish, false, malicious, just like Balak—should you make your heart a slave? Van O.

14. Balaam was ready enough to go. But the Spirit constrained him to finish his prophecy; and before his departure he announced to the Moabitish king what glory awaited Israel, and what destruction was in reserve for their heathen foes. K.

The fourth parable is more strictly prophetic, setting forth what is to happen in the end of the days. It is not given at Balak’s solicitation; but is, as it were, forced upon his unwilling ear as a wonderful appendix to the three-fold benediction pronounced upon Israel. J. M. G.

Behind Balaam lay the vast expanse of desert extending to the shores of his native Assyrian river. On his left were the red mountains of Edom and Seir: further still was the dim outline of the Arabian wilderness, where ruled the then powerful tribe of Amalek; immediately below him lay the vast encampment of Israel, among the acacia groves of Abel-Shittim—like the water-courses of the mountains, like the hanging gardens beside his own river Euphrates, with their aromatic shrubs, and their widespread cedars. Beyond them, on the western side of Jordan, rose the hills of Palestine, with glimpses through their valleys of ancient cities towering on their crested heights. And beyond all, though he could not see it with his bodily vision, he knew well that there rolled the deep waters of the great sea, with the Isles of Greece, the Isle of Chittim—a world of which the first beginnings of life were just stirring, of which the very name here first breaks upon our ears. These are the points indicated in the view which lay before the prophet as he stood on the Watchers’ Field, on the top of Peor. What was the vision which unrolled itself as he heard the words of God, as he saw the vision of the Almighty, “falling” prostrate in the prophetic trance, “but having the eyes” of his mind and his spirit “open”? The outward forms still remained. He still saw the tents below, goodly in their array; he still saw the rocks, and hills, and distant desert; but as his thought glanced from height to height, and from valley to mountain, the future fortunes of the nations who dwelt there unfolded themselves in dim succession, revolving round and from the same central object. As he watched the course of the surrounding nations, he saw how, one by one, they would fall, as fall they did, before the conquering sceptre of David, before the steady advance of that star which then, for the first time, rose out of Bethlehem. And, as he gazed, the vision became wider and wider still. He saw a time when a new tempest would break over all these countries alike, from the remote east—from Asshur, from his own native land of Assyria. “Asshur shall carry thee away captive.” But at that word another scene opened before him, and a cry of horror burst from his lips: “Alas! who shall live when God doeth this!” For his own nation, too, was to be at last overtaken—“For ships shall come from the coast of Chittim”—from the island of Cyprus, which, as the only one visible from the heights of Palestine, was the one familiar link with the western world, “and shall crush Asshur, and shall crush Eber, ’the people beyond the Euphrates,’ and he also shall perish forever.” So it came to pass, when the ships of Cyprus, of Greece, of Europe, then just seen in the horizon of human hopes and fears, did at last, under the great Macedonian conqueror, turn the tide of eastern invasion backward; and Asshur and Babylon, Assyria and Chaldæa, and Persia, no less than the wild hordes of the desert, “perished forever” from the earth. Stanley.

17. I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh:** the future tense in Hebrew being often used for the present. He saw with the eyes of prophecy; and prophets are emphatically called seers. There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre. The “star” and “sceptre” are probably metaphors borrowed from the ancient hieroglyphics, which much influenced the language of the East; and they evidently denote some eminent and illustrious king or ruler, particularized in the following words. Bp. Newton.—The star and the sceptre are symbols of royalty, the one of royal splendor, the other of royal power. The prophecy then heralds the coming of a king, who shall rise out of Israel. J. M. G.

Who is “the star” and “the sceptre” of this prophecy? The leading thought of the passage (verses 17-19) and indeed of the entire prophecy to the end of verse 24 is the supremacy of Israel, and the fall of all powers hostile to Israel and to Israel’s God. The key-note is in the words: “Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion.” The prophetic future (as usual) is built upon the visible present, or perhaps more precisely, springs out of it—is suggested by it, and takes its phraseology and costume from it. The Lord forces the truth upon Balaam’s soul that this Israel whom he was called out from his Eastern home to curse could not be cursed to any purpose by any earthly divination or power because they were God’s own people, and it was his fixed purpose to bless them. To impress this great truth the more deeply, the Lord reveals to him in prophetic vision that this present fact is not transient but destined to reach into the remote future; that it is indeed only a beginning of their supremacy—a pledge of a far more sovereign ascendancy, to be manifested in future ages. With this view of the spirit of the prophecy, we must find here, not merely David in whom as the first conqueror of Moab and of Edom (2 Sam. 8:2, 12, 14) these words receive the first palpable instalment of their meaning; but yet more surely that greater Son of David whose sceptre is to rule the nations with a rod of iron.

That this broad construction is the true one will appear yet more fully when we compare the use of the word “sceptre” here with Jacob’s use of it (Gen. 49:10); the “star” here with the “star in the East” (Matt. 2:1) seen by other wise men [magicians] from Balaam’s own country; and not least, the fact that Edom and Seir became in the usage of later prophets symbolic names for the declared and malign enemies of Christ’s kingdom (see Is. 34). “He shall smite the corners;” better the two sides of Moab—i.e., Moab from side to side, through and through, laying waste her whole country. Edom and Seir—two names for one and the same kingdom, often affiliated with Moab, shall become the possession of their enemies and Israel shall outmaster them through her valor, and yet more through the might of her God—first fulfilled by David (2 Sam. 8:14). H. C.

This prophecy was fulfilled in the person and actions of David; but most Jewish as well as Christian writers apply it ultimately to the Messiah, as the person chiefly intended, in whom it was to receive its full and entire completion. Onkelos, the most ancient and valuable of the Chaldee paraphrasts, interprets it of the Messiah: “When a prince,” says he, “shall arise of the house of Jacob, and Christ shall be anointed of the house of Israel, he shall both slay the princes of Moab, and rule over all the sons of men:” and with him agree the other Targums or paraphrases. It appears to have been generally understood by the Jews as a prophecy of the Messiah, because the false Christ, who appeared in the reign of the Roman Emperor Adrian, assumed the title of Barchochebas, or the son of the star, in allusion to this prophecy, and in order to have it believed that he was the star whom Balaam had seen afar off. The Christian fathers are unanimous in applying this prophecy to our Saviour, and to the star which appeared at his nativity. Both Origen and Eusebius affirm that it was in consequence of Balaam’s prophecies, which were known and believed in the East, that the Magi, upon the appearance of a new star, came to Jerusalem to worship him who was born king of the Jews. The stream of modern divines and commentators runs the same way—that is, they apply the prophecy principally to our Saviour, and by Moab and Edom understand the enemies and persecutors of the Church. A star did really appear at our Saviour’s nativity; and in Scripture he is styled “the day star” (2 Pet. 1:19), “the morning star” (Rev. 2:28), “the bright and morning star” (22:16), perhaps in allusion to this very prophecy. Bp. Newton.

The expression, “in the latter days,” always denotes the period of the ultimate completion of the kingdom of God, in other words, the Messianic age. The “star out of Jacob” evidently denotes the Israelitish monarchy in its highest personal culmination, which was in the person of the Messiah. If Balaam’s prophecy centred in David, as fulfilling its announcements, it centred in the Messiah also. From the fulfilment we know that what Balaam predicted of this one king was certainly fulfilled in David, but only in a provisional, imperfect, and not exhaustive manner. It was not till the coming of Christ that the fulfilment was complete and final. The conclusion therefore is that the prophecy refers first of all to David, and that it really was fulfilled in David, who as king was a type of Christ, the everlasting King. But it also refers to Christ; and the fulness of the completion in Christ exceeded that in David, to the same extent to which the sovereignty of Christ, the antitype, exceeded that of David, the type. When David had appeared, and had accomplished all that was given him to do, the believing Israelite could perceive that David was the star of which Balaam had prophesied. But when upon closer examination he found that, notwithstanding the relative completeness of the victories of David, the heathen foes of the kingdom of God were not absolutely defeated and destroyed, and therefore that Balaam’s prophecy was only provisionally and not finally fulfilled in David—the examination might have led him to false conclusions as to the prophecy itself, if this had not been prevented by a continued course of prophecy. But just at the time when the want of harmony between Balaam’s prophecy and the fulfilment forced itself upon the mind, the course of prophecy entered upon a fresh stage of its historical development, and the announcement was made that a second David would arise from David’s seed, in whom the typical attitude of David to the heathen would find its most complete and antitypical realization. The star above the manger merely announced the Coming of Christ; it served as a guide to the place of his birth. But the star which was seen in the future by Balaam’s prophetic eye was Christ himself. Balaam’s star, therefore, was not a prediction of the star of the wise men, but they were both witnesses of the coming of Christ—the former as a prophecy of the future, the latter as a symbol for the time then present. K.

18. Edom shall be a possession.** This was fulfilled by David, who in two of his Psalms hath mentioned together his conquest of Moab and Edom, as they are also joined together in this prophecy (Ps. 60 : 8 ; 108 : 9). Seir also. “Seir” is the name of the mountains of Edom; so that even their mountains and fastnesses could not defend the Idumeans from David and his captains. Israel shall do valiantly. As they did particularly under the command of David, several of whose victories are recorded in 2 Sam. 8 together with his conquest of Moab and Edom. Bp. Newton.

It is apparent that Edom and Moab are named by Balaam, as they are also by the prophets, not for their own sake merely, but as representatives of the heathen nations who were hostile to the Theocracy. As Jacob then figures as a constant type of the kingdom of Messiah in the prophets, so too do Edom and Moab of the enemies of that kingdom; and in the threatened ruin of Edom and Moab is indicated the eventual destruction of all that resist the kingdom of God in its power. Espin.—Nothing less than the entire and permanent conquest of all the enemies of the kingdom of God could be regarded as consummating the fulfilment of the prophecy. Where there are enemies, there are Moabites, and the words spoken by Balaam are still in process of fulfilment. Hengs—We have, in fact, in this last prophecy of Balaam concerning “the latter days” another form of the earlier assurance, “As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord,” and an anticipation of many that are to follow, some of which combine both forms of presenting ing the truth; as, for example, in the second Psalm. J. M. G.

20. Amalek, first of the nations.** The most asciend and most powerful of all the nations or States then within the view of Balaam; but his latter end shall be that he perish forever. This oracle began to be fulfilled by Saul (1 Sam. 15 : 7, 8), who overthrew the Amalekites, and took their King Agag prisoner. Afterward they were nearly destroyed by David (1 Sam. 27 : 8), and they were finally exterminated by the sons of Simeon in the days of Hezekiah (1 Ch. 4 : 41-43); since that time they have ceased to exist as a people, and now no vestige of them remains on the face of the earth; so completely is their posterity cut off according to this prophecy. A. C.

21. The Kenites.** Not one of the Canaanitish nations, mentioned in Gen. 15 : 19, but probably a tribe of the Midianites. Bp. Newton.—Since the name of the Kenites unquestionably occurs among the Midianites, and a curse directed against this nation, which was now allied with the Moabites for the purpose of compassing the destruction of Israel, would be perfectly in place here, we have no hesitation in regarding the curse directed against the Kenites as intended for the Midianites. How the name of Kenites came to be applied to the Midianites must be left undetermined. K.

22. The Amalekites were to be utterly destroyed, but the Kenites were to be carried captive. And accordingly when Saul was sent to destroy the Amalekites, he ordered the Kenites to depart from among them (1 Sam. 15 : 6). This shows that they were “wasted” and reduced to a low and weak condition. And as the kings of Assyria carried captive not only the Jews, but also the Syrians (2 Kings 16 : 9) and several other nations (2 Kings 19 : 12, 13), it is highly probable that the Kenites shared the same fate with their neighbors; especially as some Kenites are mentioned among the Jews after their return from captivity.

24. Ships from the coast of Kittim.** Kittim was one of the sons of Javan, who was one of the sons of Japhet, by whose posterity “the isles of the Gentiles were divided” and peopled—that is, Europe, and the countries to which the Asiatics passed by sea. The land of Kittim was a general name for the countries and islands in the Mediterranean. And Balaam might here mean either Greece, or Italy, or both; the particular names of those countries being at that time perhaps unknown in the East. And the passage may be the better understood of both, because Greece and Italy were alike the scourges of Asia. Shall afflict Asshur. Asshur properly means the descendants of Asshur, the Assyrians; but the Syrians and Assyrians are often confounded together, and mentioned as the same people. The Greeks under Alexander the Great subdued all those countries. The Romans afterward extended their empire into the same regions; and Assyria, properly so called, was conquered by the Emperor Trajan. And shall afflict Eber. By Eber is meant either the people bordering on the Euphrates, or the Hebrews, the posterity of Eber. If the former, they as well as the Assyrians were subdued both by the Greeks and Romans; if the latter, as is most probable, they were afflicted, though not much by Alexander himself, yet by his successors the Seleucidæ and particularly by Antiochus Epiphanes, who spoiled Jerusalem, defiled the temple, and slew all those who adhered to the Law of Moses (1 Macc. 1). They were worse afflicted by the Romans, who not only subdued and oppressed them and made their country a province of the empire, but at last took away their place and nation, and sold and dispersed them over the face of the earth.

And he also shall come to destruction. That is “Kittim,” who is the main subject of this part of the prophecy. If by Kittim be meant the Greeks, the Grecian Empire was entirely subverted by the Romans; if the Romans, the Roman Empire was in its turn broken into pieces by the incursion of the northern nations. The name only of the Roman Empire and Cæsarean majesty is subsisting at this day, and is transferred to another country and another people. Bp. Newton.

The fact that the event which the seer here beholds, an event which shakes the world, and fills him with the greater terror and dismay, from the fact that it touches the children of his own nation, is mighty and irresistible in its character, is expressed without ambiguity in the words, “Woe, who will live, when God doeth this” (verse 23)! To an expositor who retains the least impartiality, it cannot for a moment be doubtful that the destruction of the imperial power of Asia by Greeks and Romans is predicted here (like the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, they are still classed together as one); and therefore that we have here a prophecy in the strictest sense of the word, the prediction of an event which no human wisdom or acuteness could have foreseen or calculated upon, either in the time of Moses, or David, or Malachi. K.

This may, indeed, be characterized as the most wonderful of prophecies. More than a thousand years before the event, not only the rising of the great world empire of the West is here predicted, with its conquest of Asshur and Eber (i.e., of the descendants of Eber), but far beyond this the final destruction of that world empire is foretold! In fact, we have here a series of prophecies, commencing with the appearance of the Messiah and closing with the destruction of anti-Christ. To this there is no parallel in Scripture, except in the visions of Daniel. No ingenuity of hostile criticism can take from or explain away the import of this marvellous prediction. A. E.

These oracles materially enrich the patriarchal benedictions, while also partially coinciding with them. The enrichment consists precisely in what Israel had become through the Mosaic covenant at Sinai. We see there the people countless in numbers, thanks to the covenant with Jehovah possessing a sacred nationality, an impregnable victorious power, full of blessing, unfolding into true royalty, while every worldly power and force is sinking into dust. Orelli.—What was little Israel to great Assyria, or greater Greece, or Rome, the mightiest of all? Yet where is Assyria now? Where are the Greek and Roman empires now? And where is the star and sceptre now? Is not the star brighter and the sceptre mightier than it ever was before? And in the same way shall the enemies of the truth in modern times, near and far, related and unrelated, go down at last before the rising star and the all-conquering sceptre. J. M. G.

Balaam Returns “to his Place” (verse 25).

Not to his own land, for he remained among the Midianites to plot by new means against the people of God, and to perish in his sin. The phrase, which is of frequent recurrence, is idiomatic, meaning merely that Balaam went away whither he would. Espin.—He remained among the Midianites, as the following history shows, and gave them out of revenge the advice to seduce the Israelites by means of sensual lust, and thereby secured his reward. The more glorious the prophecies which he was obliged to utter, so much the more under this compulsory office did his heart become alienated from God. He had been obliged to experience that he could not cope with God himself; but his people were as he knew a weak, fickle, sensual people, and if he could not reverse God’s promises, yet he hoped to alienate this his people from him, and thus to undermine his power. Gerl.

“The way of Balaam” and the words of Balaam are really two different subjects. His conduct was of the meanest; his words were of the noblest that ever came from mortal lips. Alas! how often do these two—noble words and ignoble conduct—run on alongside each other in the life of man, and never meet! The words abide; the man, identified not with his words, which were from him, but not of him, but with his conduct, which was the true expression of himself, perishes forever. J. M. G.—He knew what was right, and yet did what was wrong. His was not a sin of ignorance. His intellectual, nay, his moral convictions were correct. He knew what he should do, and there was in him also a feeling of obligation to do it. It was he who declared that “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent;” while, by his repeated yieldings to Balak’s entreaties, he acted just as if he supposed it to be possible to change the purpose of God in reference to Israel. And it was he who said, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his;” yet “he loved the wages of iniquity,” and died in the ranks of Jehovah’s enemies. W. M. T.

ISRAEL’S SIN WITH THE MOABITES AND MIDIANITES. PUNISHMENT. JUDGMENT EXECUTED BY PHINEHAS. DESTRUCTION OF MIDIANITES. DIVISION OF ALLOWED SPOIL.