Prophet, Sorcerer, or Saint? Who Was Balaam and Why Was God Angry with Him?

Prophet, Sorcerer, or Saint? Who Was Balaam and Why Was God Angry with Him?

A pagan king named Balak feared the people of Israel. A huge army was encamped on the borders of his kingdom, and he did not have the strength to win this war by the sword alone. So he decided to try another weapon. He summoned a prophet known throughout the region, a man named Balaam, famous for his blessings and curses. The mission was simple: to curse Israel and weaken that people before any battle even began. Before accepting, Balaam did something unexpected for a pagan prophet. He consulted the God of Israel directly to find out if he could go. And the Lord said yes. Up to this point, the story follows a predictable path. The strange thing is what happens next. Midway through the journey, the same God who had authorized the departure sent an angel with a sword in hand to stop her from continuing. And the one who saw this angel first was not the prophet, but the animal he was riding. Because God allowed the journey and then tried to stop it. And what did this donkey see that even God’s own prophet couldn’t see? This is the story of Balaam, one of the most contradictory and least understood episodes in the entire Old Testament. To understand the magnitude of Balak’s fear, one must first look at the plain, where everything happens. Israel had endured decades of wandering through the desert, decades marked by hunger, thirst, battles, and a succession of generations who were born and died among tents. And now, at last, he was encamped on the plains of Moab, on the other side of the Jordan River, right across from Jericho. The distance is far too short for the comfort of any neighboring king. It wasn’t a small group of tired nomads. It was a crowd that stretched as far as the eye could see. Tents lined up in rows that seemed endless.

Herds of cattle, carts, bonfires lit at dusk, forming a sea of points of light on the plain. A spectacle that, seen from the top of any nearby hill, looked more like an entire nation on the march than a simple band of desert refugees. The Moabites would climb small mounds of earth just to try and measure the size of that people and they would always return with the same story, repeated from mouth to mouth until it reached the ears of the king himself. There is no visible end to the camp. Balak, son of Zippor, king of Moab, heard these reports one after another and felt their weight in his stomach. He already knew what Israel had done to the Amorites shortly before. Sihon, king of the Amorites, had been defeated, his territory taken, his cities occupied. Balak knew the power of Sihon. He knew that his armies were feared in the region and now he saw the remnants of that power being administered by a people who had not even fought as a conventional army would. There was something more than just the sword there. There was something Balak couldn’t name, but he felt an invisible favor hovering over that camp, as if each tent were under the protection of a hand he couldn’t see or measure. It was this fear, more than any military calculation, that led Balak to summon the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian to a war council that, in reality, wasn’t about war at all. Moab and Midian had not formed a natural alliance up to that point. They were peoples with their own histories and interests, which were not always aligned. But the shared fear in the face of that growing encampment on the frontier brought two thrones together around a single table. Now this crowd licks everything around us, like an ox licks the grass of the field, said Balak. And the image remained etched in the minds of those present. A people who consume everything in their path, not through brute violence, but through a kind of relentless appetite for expansion. The Midianites agreed and together decided that if weapons were not enough, it was time to resort to another kind of force. This decision, in itself, reveals something about the mentality of that ancient world.

Kings and advisors measured power not only in soldiers and chariots, but in blessings and curses pronounced by men believed to have direct access to the spiritual world. If an army could be stopped by spears and shields, it was thought, a nation under divine favor could only be weakened by another divine word spoken by someone with recognized authority to do so. It was this reasoning, common at the time, that led Balak to look beyond his own borders in search of the right man for the job, via the other side of the Euphrates, in a place called Pethor, a man whose reputation crossed borders and languages. His name was Balaam, son of Beor. He wasn’t a street fortune teller, one of those who read animal entrails for coins in small-town markets. He was a name known to kings, a prophet whose word carried recognized weight among the peoples of that region. It was said that those he blessed prospered and those he cursed withered. And messengers from distant lands had previously made the same long journey to his home, seeking a word that would change the fate of their own disputes and wars. Pethor’s name might mean nothing to an ordinary traveler, but to those who knew the craft of divination in that ancient world, it was like pointing to the address of one of the few men whose word truly seemed to pierce the veil between the visible and the invisible. Balak had known this for years, and now, cornered by fear, he decided that this was the man he would turn to. He assembled a delegation with all the care that the gravity of the mission demanded. He chose the elders from Moab and the elders of Midian to represent him. Men of recognized political weight in both nations, whose very presence should have served as a sign that this request was not an isolated whim, but a decision made jointly by the two threatened peoples. He ordered them to take with them the payment for the divination, silver, gold, the customary instruments with which one bought the word of a seer at that time, packed with the care of someone who did not want to risk appearing stingy before such a coveted prophet. The message they carried was direct.

Behold, a people has come out of Egypt. They cover the face of the earth and are standing opposite me. Come now, I pray you, curse this people for me, for they are more powerful than I. Perhaps I may be able to strike them down and drive them out of the land. For I know that he whom you bless will be blessed, and he whom you curse will be cursed. The caravan departed, taking with them silver, gold, and the weight of the urgency of two kingdoms. He crossed foreign territories, traversed the great Euphrates River, and after days of travel, finally arrived in Pethor, carrying not only the request but the authority of two thrones behind him. Balaam received them with the courtesy due to messengers of kings. He listened to the request in its entirety and then did something that may have surprised even the elders present, accustomed to seers who accepted any commission for the right payment. He did not answer immediately. He did not negotiate the price. He simply said, Come here tonight, and I will bring you the answer according to what the Lord speaks to me. It is necessary to pause at this point because it is stranger than it usually seems on a first reading. Balaam was not an Israelite, he did not belong to the covenant people, he had no blood or historical connection with the God who had brought Israel out of Egypt, nor had he grown up hearing accounts of the plagues of Egypt or the crossing of the sea. And yet, there he was, a prophet of foreign nations, addressing that specific god and not just any god. Of the many gods his own culture worshipped, he considered God the ultimate authority over his own mouth. He knew that name, he knew whom to turn to when it came to blessing or cursing a people who somehow belonged to that same God, even though he himself remained outside that covenant. That night, in the darkness of the tent, while the elders of Moab and Midian slept outside, unsure of what to expect in the morning, the answer came:

You shall not go with them, nor shall you curse this people, for they are blessed. The phrase was short, but it left no room for negotiation. It was not advice, nor a prudent suggestion that could be weighed against the value of the reward offered. It was a clear, closed order, leaving no room for insistence. In the morning, Balaam got up and went to Balak’s princes. There was something on his face that mixed firmness with a certain discomfort. Whoever refuses the offer of two kings knows that he is also refusing part of the prestige and reward that proposal carried weight. Return to your land, he said, for the Lord refuses to let me go with you. He offered no theological explanations, no attempt to soften the answer, only repeated with his own words what he had heard the previous night. The elders returned to Moab empty-handed, and the answer they brought to Balak was not well received. A king accustomed to commanding armies and receiving tribute was not used to hearing a message not delivered by a foreign prophet through the mouth of a god who was not even his own. But the fear Balak felt was greater than his pride. And so, he did what desperate kings often do: he persisted. This time, Balak sent princes in greater number and of even higher honor than the first, men chosen precisely for the weight of their titles, as if the very composition of the entourage should serve as a persuasive argument even before a single word was spoken. The messengers they carried also carried a more generous promise. Thus says Balak, son of Zippor, I beg you, let nothing hinder you from coming to me, for I will greatly honor you and do all that you tell me. Come, therefore, I beg you, curse this people for me. It was no longer just a request for paid divination. It was an open offer, a blank check of honors and riches for whoever could do what the force of arms could not, presented by men of sufficient status to make clear that the king himself was willing to pay any reasonable price for that curse. Balaam received these new messengers, more noble and more numerous than the first, with a response that sounds at first glance like absolute integrity. Even if Balak gave me his house full of silver and gold, I could do nothing, neither small nor great, against the command of the Lord my God. The phrase impresses with its firmness, almost a manifesto of fidelity that any listener of that time would recognize as worthy of a true man of God. And yet, what comes next is the first real sign of the crack that runs beneath the character of this prophet. Now therefore,

I beg you to stay here also tonight, so that I may know what the Lord will still say to me. He already had the answer. It had been given clearly in the first consultation. You shall not go. But Balaam consults again, as one who expects that the second question, asked with more people at the door and more wealth on the table, will produce a different answer from the first. It is a small gesture, almost imperceptible, but it is there that the story begins to reveal what is really at stake. Not only what God wants, but what Balaam’s heart wants God to want. That night, the answer came, but in a different way than the first time. If these men have come to call you, get up and go with them. However, you shall do only what I tell you, he said. It was permission, but permission that carried within it a sharp warning. God does not change his position on what Balaam will do. The prophet will not curse Israel. That was already decided, but he allows him to travel, knowing, it seems, exactly what is going on in the heart of this man, who insists on asking again what already had an answer. In the morning, Balaam got up, saddled his donkey, and set off with the princes of Moab. And it is here, right at the beginning of this journey that he himself had received permission to make, that the narrative takes a turn that no one, reading up to this point, would expect. That night, before the departure, it is reasonable to imagine what was happening in Balaam’s tent, while the princes of Moab slept outside, awaiting the answer that had finally come accompanied by permission. He had received what he wanted. There is no certainty that he would curse Israel. That remained out of the question, but at least the authorization to continue the journey, to approach the reward that two kings offered him. It is hard not to see at that moment a man divided between two currents pulling in opposite directions. On one side, genuine obedience to a god whose authority he recognized without hesitation. On the other, the appetite for honor, silver, and recognition that Balak’s messengers had poured before him on two consecutive occasions. Balaam saddled the donkey in the morning, with the clear conscience of one who had obtained permission. What he didn’t know was that the same journey that had been authorized continued, in God’s eyes, to carry an intention that needed to be confronted before reaching its destination.

The road that descended towards the plains of Moab cut through a narrow stretch between two low stone walls. Vineyards stretched on either side, the kind of path where there was no room to deviate without bumping into something. Balaam rode his donkey, an animal he had known for years, docile, accustomed to the weight and pace of its owner, the kind of animal that had no history of sudden movements or stubbornness. What Balaam couldn’t see, and this is the first of the inversions in this story, was that in the middle of that narrow path, amidst the dust raised by the hooves and the sweet smell of the grapes ripening in the surrounding vineyards, stood, with his sword drawn and raised, an angel of the Lord, a messenger with a clear mission: to prevent passage. And the text makes a point of recording this with a phrase that sounds almost ironic, read aloud. The Lord had kindled his anger because Balaam was going. The same God who the night before had said, Go with them, now opposed the journey with an armed angel in the middle of the road. These are not contradictory positions in the sense of a narrative error. They are different layers of the same truth. The permission given did not negate the disapproval of the intention that moved Balaam’s steps with each league traveled. The donkey saw the angel first. It stopped abruptly, veered off the road, stepping between the stones and low vegetation of the open field. Balaam, irritated by the sudden break in rhythm, struck the animal to bring it back to the path. In his eyes, there was no reason for that deviation. The road was clear, the day was bright, and the donkey had simply decided, without apparent explanation, to leave the course. The angel, however, had not moved, only changed position, moving further ahead, now on a narrow path between two vineyards, flanked on both sides by stone walls, which left no room to deviate. It was there that the donkey, seeing again what its owner did not see, pressed itself against the wall on one side, perhaps attempting the only movement left to it, to move away from what threatened it, even if it meant crushing the foot of its own rider against the stone. And that is exactly what happened.

The foot of Balaam was pressed against the wall. The pain was immediate, and so was his response. He struck the donkey a second time, now with genuine anger, not understanding anything that was happening before the animal’s eyes and the blindness of his own. The angel moved a third time, now going to an even tighter spot, a stretch so narrow that there wasn’t even room to veer to the right or to the left. Cornered there, with no possible escape route, the donkey simply lay down on the ground, under Balaam. There was no direction left to run, no way to escape what he saw standing before him with his sword raised, and the animal’s body yielded to the only gesture left to it. That was the last straw. Balaam, now out of patience, his face red with anger and shame, feeling ridiculed before the princes of Moab, who rode right behind him, whispering amongst themselves about that animal that seemed to have lost its mind, precisely at the point in the journey that mattered most, he raised his staff and struck the donkey a third time, harder than before, the dry sound of the blow echoing between the two stone walls that closed the path. And then something happened that none of those princes of Moab, riding right behind, could ever have imagined witnessing. The Lord opened the donkey’s mouth and the animal spoke: What have I done to you that you have struck me these three times? The question hung in the dry air of that road, and even today it is difficult to mention the magnitude of the shock it must have caused. A recognized prophet, capable of hearing the voice of God himself, capable of knowing the destiny of nations through his blessings and curses. There he was, being rebuked by his own mount and answering the question as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Why have you mocked me? If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now! There was no sign of astonishment in Balaam’s response at the extraordinary fact that the animal he was riding, the donkey, had just spoken to him. He responded to the provocation as one responds to any insult, overcome by anger, blind not only to the angel the donkey had been, but also, in a way, to the strangeness of the very moment he was experiencing. The donkey insisted: Am I not your donkey that you have always ridden since you became my owner until today? Do I usually treat you like this? And the short, dry answer was simply no. There was no habit of rebellion in that animal. A lifetime of docile service was being put there as a witness that something, in fact, out of the ordinary had happened on that road. It was only then, in the midst of this improbable exchange between a prophet and his own mount, with the princes of Moab watching it all in astonished silence, that the Lord also opened Balaam’s eyes, and what he saw made him fall to his knees right there on the ground of the road. The angel stood occupying the entire width of the road, his sword still raised in his hand, exactly where the donkey had seen him from the first moment. Balaam prostrated himself with his face to the ground, and it was in this position, humiliated and powerless, that he heard the rebuke that until that moment only the donkey had received up close. Why did you strike your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out to oppose you, because your way is perverse before me. The donkey saw me and turned aside from me these three times. If she had not turned aside from me, I would surely have killed you and spared her life.

There is no doubt in these words about what was at stake. The angel is not speaking of a mistake or a diplomatic misunderstanding that could be resolved with an apology. He is speaking of a perverse path, of an intention that God himself considered deserving of death. These words are too harsh to be spoken to a man who until then believed he was simply fulfilling with all due care the permission he had received the previous night. And the most striking detail is what comes next. Balaam’s life had been spared by the reaction of an animal that he himself had beaten three times because of it. The creature he had treated with contempt, calling her rebellious and stubborn, without any proof beyond his own irritation, had been, unbeknownst to him, the only obstacle between him and the raised sword. Balaam, still with his face to the ground, his body trembling before the sword that he could finally see, responded with a confession that sounded sincere, at least at that moment: I have sinned because I did not know that you were standing in the way against me. Now then, if this displeases you, I will return. It was the easiest, most obvious way out. The response of a man who, suddenly confronted with the very real proximity of his own death, immediately offers to surrender completely. If the problem was the trip, then they could simply cancel it. But the angel doesn’t ask him to come back. Go with these men, but speak only the word that I tell you. The original permission given the night before remains intact, as if that terrible encounter halfway through had not existed to change the destination of the journey, only to change the man who was undertaking it. Balaam can continue. But now he carries with him, in a way he didn’t before that encounter on the road, the absolute certainty that his mouth no longer belongs to him in that mission. Every word that comes out of this point will no longer be your choice. Before we continue, a quick pause. Where are you watching this video from right now? Leave a comment telling us the city or region you’re from. And take this opportunity to also tell us which character or story from the Bible you would like to see told here on the channel in a future video. Now, back to Balaam’s journey. The entourage continued their journey, and news of the prophet’s approach reached Balak even before he did, carried by scouts who ran ahead to announce each stage of the journey. The king of Moab, anxious, did not wait for Balaam to arrive in his capital, personally went to meet him in a town on the border of his territory by the

Arnon River, the very boundary between the two kingdoms, as if the urgency no longer allowed even the time for a formal procession within the city walls. As soon as the two met, Balak didn’t hide the irritation that had accumulated during weeks of waiting. The first thing he did was a complaint disguised as a question: Didn’t I diligently send for you? Why didn’t you come to me? I cannot, in truth, honor you. There was a hint of royal impatience in those words, two invitations refused, a long wait, and now, finally, the prophet was there, but perhaps too late for the king’s liking. Balaam responded with a phrase that should have sounded like a warning to Balak, had the king been willing to listen attentively. Behold, I have now come to you. Is it possible for me to say anything at all now? The word that God puts in my mouth, that I will speak. It wasn’t a promise of cooperation, it was in practice a warning. You brought me this far, but I have no control over what will come out of my mouth when the time comes. Balak, however, seemed deaf to this warning, overwhelmed as he was by the urgency of the situation itself. Balaam was taken to Kiriath, and that night there was a feast, tables covered with roasted meat, wine served without measure, and music played to impress the distinguished guest who had finally arrived. Cattle and sheep were sacrificed as a sign of honor. And Balak made sure that Balaam saw in every gesture of that reception the magnitude of the reward that awaited him if he fulfilled what he had been hired for. There was a calm confidence in the air of that room, the kind of confidence that comes from someone who already considers the result practically guaranteed. The next day, still savoring the recent feast, Balak led the prophet to Bamoth Baal, a high place from which part of the Israelite camp on the plain below could be seen. No, only a fraction of the tents, enough for the mind to calculate the rest by extension, but not enough for the heart to be seized by the full grandeur of that which stretched beyond. Up there on that mountain, Balaam instructed Balak to build seven altars, a number he himself chose for its symbolic weight of fullness and ritual care. Balak’s servants carried stone upon stone until they formed the seven structures aligned on the crest of the mountain. And on each of them were offered a bull and a ram, fourteen animals in all, the smell of blood and burnt fat rising in columns of smoke that the wind scattered over the valley below. It was a careful, meticulous ritual, the kind one would expect from someone who took both the gods and the commission he had made seriously. And Balak followed each step with the attention of someone who knew that this expenditure of animals and time would only make sense if, in the end, the word he so longed to hear would come. While the sacrifices were burning, Balaam went away alone to a higher place, telling Balak to stand by the burnt offerings while he went to meet the Lord.

Perhaps hoping for some word that could finally fulfill the request for which he had been paid. The Lord met Balaam in that remote place. He put a word in his mouth, in the same way one usually puts something firm and definite in someone’s hands, leaving no room for adaptation. And he ordered him to return to Balak and say exactly that, no more and no less. Balaam descended the mountain with slower steps than he had ascended it and found the king still standing by the burnt offering, surrounded by the princes of Moab. Everyone waited anxiously for the curse that would finally bring relief from the fear that had consumed the kingdom for weeks. Balak, the princes of Moab, and the elders of Midian, who had accompanied all the preparation, stood by the burnt offering, their eyes fixed on Balaam, waiting for the moment when the prophet’s voice would finally pronounce against Israel what fourteen sacrificed animals should have purchased. The silence stretched on for a moment longer than necessary, as if the very air held back the answer before letting it out. And then, in front of everyone, Balaam opened his mouth, and what came out was the exact opposite of what was expected. From Aram he brought Balak, king of Moab, from the mountains of the east, saying, Come, curse Jacob for me. Come, denounce Israel. How can I curse whom God has not cursed? And how can I denounce whom the Lord has not denounced? For from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him. Behold, it is a people who shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations. Who shall count the dust of Jacob, or the number of the fourth part of Israel? Let my soul die the death of the righteous, and let my end be like his! The silence that followed these words must have been heavy, broken only by the crackling of the sacrifices that still burned on the seven altars. Balak, incredulous, felt the blood rush to his face and turned to Balaam with a question that carried as much anger as perplexity.

What have you done to me? I called you to curse my enemies, and behold, you have utterly blessed them. It wasn’t just disappointment at the outcome; it was the feeling of having somehow been deceived by the very man who had sworn he could not go beyond the word of the Lord. Balaam’s response, however, was simple and, in a way, already echoed the warning he himself had given before even arriving. Should I not be careful to speak what the Lord has put in my mouth? Balak, still convinced that perhaps the problem was the angle, not divine intention, proposed a practical, almost mechanical solution. Perhaps from another place, seeing only a part of the camp and not its entirety, the curse would finally come out as planned. It was the reasoning of a man who still treated it as a technical problem of positioning and ritual, unable to admit that the answer was already sealed before the first altar had even been erected. He took Balaam to the camp of Zophim, on top of Pisgah, a viewpoint even higher than the previous one, from where the wind blew stronger and the view over the valley opened even wider. The same sequence was repeated there, almost like an obsessive liturgy. Seven altars erected again, seven bulls and seven rams sacrificed again, the same smell of smoke rising up the hillside, the same expectation tightening Balak’s chest as he waited again beside the burnt offerings. The result was the same, even though the path to it was traversed with the same rigor as the first time, as if repeating the procedure could by itself alter the hidden answer on the other side. Balaam went away to seek the word of the Lord. He returned and before Balak and the princes pronounced a blessing again, this time even firmer than the previous one, without even the hesitant introduction that had marked the first oracle. God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? Behold, I have received a commandment to bless, and he hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it. He hath not observed iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen wickedness in Israel.

The Lord, his God, is with him, and there is kingly joy in him. And he ended with a phrase that seemed destined to definitively close any hope Balak had of achieving what he had come for. For there is no enchantment against Jacob, nor divination against Israel. It was as if each word had been chosen to eliminate one by one all the doors that Balak still imagined open. No spell, no omen, no second attempt on another mountain would have the power to reverse what was already sealed. Balak’s frustration was bordering on controlled despair. Neither curse him nor bless him, he said in an almost pathetic attempt at neutrality, as if he could negotiate a middle ground with a god who, evidently, was not interested in half measures. Still, insisted on a third attempt, taking Balaam to a place called Peor, from where the desert could be seen. This time, something visibly changed in Balaam’s behavior. He was no longer, as on the two previous occasions, in search of omens or a secluded encounter with the Lord, far from everyone’s sight, he tried to decipher signs in sacrifices and portents. Perhaps after two identical attempts ended in the same result, something in Balaam finally yielded to the repeated evidence before him. There was no ritual, no altar, no angle of observation capable of altering what had already been decided even before he left his own land. The text records this change with a phrase that sounds almost like a surrender. Seeing that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, he did not even resort, as on other occasions, to omens, but turned his face toward the desert and there, with his eyes open, was filled with the Spirit of God. What came out of his mouth this time was longer, more visual, almost poetic in its construction. How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel, like streams that spread out, like gardens by the seashore, from the rivers, like sandalwood trees that the Lord planted, like cedars beside the waters. And in the midst of this praise, the beauty and prosperity of the people he had come to curse, also came a reaffirmation of the ancient covenant. God brought him out of Egypt. His strength is like that of the wild ox.