Transcript
A (0:00)
Foreign. Hey, Bible readers, welcome to TBR Deep Dive. I'm Emma Daughter.
B (0:12)
I'm Kirsten McCloskey.
A (0:13)
And we are so excited to answer some great questions from this week's reading. The first comes from day 64, specifically from numbers 23 3, which reads, and Balaam said to Balak, and stand beside your burnt offering, and I will go. Perhaps the Lord will come to meet me. And whatever he shows me, I will tell you. And he went to a bare height. So the question, does Balaam actually know Yahweh? Why are there so many chapters about his cursing and blessing Israel?
B (0:46)
Yeah. So, short answer to the first part of the question. Balaam probably doesn't know Yahweh the way that we think about knowing Yahweh, but we can't say for sure. So it's not overtly clear within the text. But what we do know is that Balaam is interacting with Yahweh. Balaam has some idea about Yahweh as a God. Whether he thinks of him as the Lord of lords and the God of all gods, you know, that is probably not how he's thinking of Yahweh, but he's interacting with Yahweh and he, the Lord tells him these oracles and gives him the words to speak. So there is definitely some sort of interaction happening between.
A (1:33)
Sure, yeah. He knows about Yahweh, but he doesn't belong to him. He uses God's name, he hears God's word and even prophesies accurately.
B (1:44)
Right.
A (1:45)
But scripture consistently over and over again presents him as corrupt. Other books that reference him call him a sorcerer. Joshua 13, greedy, second Peter 2, immoral revelation to and someone who leads Israel into sin. Numbers 31. So he's spiritually gifted in one sense, but also spiritually lost. So it's. This is not the same. When we talk about knowing God or being gifted today as believers. That's very different than what we're seeing here with Balaam.
B (2:17)
Yes, exactly. And Balaam was only ever allowed to bless Israel. So we see that he was being paid to curse Israel, but he's only allowed to bless Israel by Yahweh. And that is exactly what he ended up doing. So overall, in this whole situation, God is the one who is in control. Even though it seems like Balaam is kind of trying to use God in some way, but God is definitely the one that's in control with this idea of kind of Balaam maybe is considered a wicked prophet. So you were saying other places where he's not spoken of so highly. So he's a wicked prophet in the sense that he heard from God and he spoke God's words of blessing. So he is a prophet, but his heart wasn't right before.
