Balaam


Balaam, son of Beor, was, according to the Bible, a non-Israelite prophet and diviner who lived in Pethor, a place identified with the ancient city of Pitru, thought to have been located between the region of Iraq and northern Syria in what is now southeastern Turkey. According to chapters 22-24 of the Book of Numbers, he was hired by King Balak of Moab to curse Israel, but instead he blessed the Israelites, as dictated by God. Subsequently, the plan to entice the Israelites into idol worship and sexual immorality is attributed to him.
Balaam is also mentioned in the Book of Micah, the Second Epistle of Peter, the Book of Jude, and the Book of Revelation.
In rabbinic literature, Balaam is portrayed as a non-Israelite prophet with powers comparable to Moses but is often depicted negatively for his attempts to curse Israel, his role in leading them to sin, and his eventual execution. The Talmud emphasizes his importance by stating that Moses authored not only the Torah but also the section relating to Balaam.
In Josephus, Philo, and Christian sources, Balaam is recognized for his exceptional divinatory abilities but is criticized for his moral failings, including greed and corruption. The New Testament portrays Balaam as a symbol of greed, particularly in Revelation 2:14, which accuses him of instructing Balak to lead the Israelites into sin by encouraging idolatry and sexual immorality. Islamic tradition does not mention Balaam by name in the Quran but identifies him with the figure in Surah Al-A’raf 7:175–176, who received divine knowledge but succumbed to worldly desires, leading to his downfall and depiction as a panting dog.
The Deir Alla inscription, dating to around 840–760 BC, describes visions of Balaam, son of Beor, and portrays him as receiving messages from multiple deities rather than Yahweh, making it potentially the earliest extra-biblical reference to a biblical figure and the oldest known West Semitic alphabetic text.

Hebrew Tanakh

The main story of Balaam occurs during the sojourn of the Israelites in the plains of Moab, east of the Jordan River, at the close of forty years of wandering, shortly before the death of Moses and the crossing of the Jordan. The Israelites have already defeated two kings in Transjordan: Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan. Balak, king of Moab, consequently becomes alarmed and sends elders of Midian and his Moabite messengers, to Balaam, son of Beor, to induce him to come and curse Israel. Balaam's location, Pethor, which is now located in the region of northern Syria and southeastern Turkey is simply given as "which is by the river of the land of the children of his people" in the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint. The Samaritan Pentateuch, Vulgate, and Peshitta all identify his land as Ammon.
Balaam sends back word that he can only do what YHWH commands, and God has, via a nocturnal dream, told him not to go. Balak consequently sends higher-ranking priests and offers Balaam honours; Balaam continues to press God, and God finally permits him to go but with instructions to say only what He commands. Balaam then sets out in the morning with the princes of Moab. God becomes angry that he went and sends the Angel of the Lord to prevent him. At first, the angel is seen only by the donkey Balaam is riding, which tries to avoid the angel. After Balaam starts punishing the donkey for refusing to move, it is miraculously given the power to speak to Balaam and says, "What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?" At this point, Balaam is allowed to see the angel, who informs him that the donkey's turning away from the messenger is the only reason the angel did not kill Balaam. Balaam immediately repents, but is told to go on.
Balak meets with Balaam at Kirjat Huzoth, and they go to Bamoth-Baal, and offer sacrifices on seven altars, leading to Balaam being given a prophecy by Yahweh, which He speaks to Balak. However, the prophecy blesses Israel; Balak remonstrates, but Balaam reminds him that he can only speak the words put in his mouth, so Balak takes him to another "high place" at Pisgah, to try again. Building another seven altars here, and making sacrifices on each, Balaam provides another prophecy blessing Israel.
Balaam finally gets taken by a now very frustrated Balak to Peor, and, after the seven sacrifices there, decides not to "seek enchantments" but instead looks upon the Israelites from the peak. The Spirit of God comes upon Balaam and he delivers a third positive prophecy concerning Israel. Balak's anger rises to the point where he threatens Balaam, but Balaam merely offers a prediction of fate. Balaam then looks upon the Kenites, and Amalekites and offers two more predictions of their fates. Balak and Balaam then go to their respective homes.
Later, Numbers 25:1–9 describes how Israel engaged in the Heresy of Peor. Numbers 31:16 blames this on Balaam's advice and because of his culpability in the incident, which resulted in deadly divine judgements against the Israelites who participated, he was eventually killed in a retaliatory battle against Midian in Numbers 31:8.
Deuteronomy 23:3–6 summarises these incidents, and further states that the Ammonites were associated with the Moabites. Joshua, in his farewell speech, also makes reference to it. With God's protection taken from him, Balaam is later listed among the Midianites who were killed in revenge for the "matter of Peor". Joshua 13:22 records that Balaam died "by the sword" during a battle for the Reubenite occupation of Midianite land.
File:P1150002 Cognacq-Jay Rembrandt anesse de Balaam rwk.jpg|thumb|290px|Balaam and the Ass, by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1626
In total, Balaam's prophecies consist of seven poems:
  • The first, Numbers 23:7–10, prophesies the unique exaltation of the Kingdom of Israel, and its countless numbers.
  • The second, Numbers 23:18–24, celebrates the moral virtue of Israel, its monarchy, and its military conquests.
  • The third, Numbers 24:3–9, celebrates the glory and conquests of Israel's monarchy.
  • The fourth, Numbers 24:14–19, prophesies the coming of a king who will conquer Edom and Moab.
  • The fifth, Numbers 24:20, concerns the ruins of Amalek.
  • The sixth, Numbers 24:21–22, concerns the destruction of the Kenites by Assyria.
  • The seventh, Numbers 24:23–24, concerns "ships of Kittim" coming from the west to attack Assyria and Eber.
The poems fall into three groups. The first group consists of two poems which characteristically start immediately. The third group of three poems also start immediately, but are much shorter. The second group, however, consists of two poems which both start:
Balaam the son of Beor hath said, and the man whose eyes are open hath said: He hath said, which heard the words of God, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open ...

Biblical criticism

Of Balaam's three groups of poems, the documentary hypothesis argued that the first and third groups originated within the Elohist text, whereas the second group belonged to the Jahwist. Thus the Elohist describes Balaam giving two blessings, making sacrifices on seven altars, at the high places of Baal, before each, then deciding not to "seek enchantments" after the third set of sacrifices, but to "set his face upon the wilderness," which Balak views as a third blessing, and so Balaam then gives the three final predictions of fate. Conversely, in the Jahwist source, Balaam arrives, the spirit of God comes upon him, and he delivers a blessing and a prophecy in succession.
Agag, mentioned in the third poem, is described as a great king, which does not correspond to the king of the Amalekites who was named Agag, and described in 1 Samuel 15, since that description considers Amalek to be small and obscure. While the Masoretic Text of the poem uses the word Agag, the Septuagint, other Greek versions, and the Samaritan Pentateuch all have Gog. These names are consequently considered textual corruptions, and Og has been suggested as the original.
The final three poems do not refer to Israel or Moab and are thus considered unusual since they seem to have little relevance to the narrative. It is thought that they may have been added to bring the number of poems up to five if inserted into the Elohist source or up to seven if only inserted once JE was constructed. While the sixth poem refers to Assyria, it is uncertain whether it is a historical reference to ancient Nineveh or a prophecy, which some religious commentators consider refers to the Seleucid Empire, which also took the name "Assyria". The seventh is also ambiguous and may either be a reference to the Sea Peoples or, in the view of some religious commentators, to the conquest of the Achaemenid Empire by Alexander the Great.
In the view of some schools of textual criticism, the narrative, excepting the episode involving the donkey, is simply a framework invented to be able to insert much older poems.

Deir Alla inscription

In 1967, at Deir Alla, Jordan, archaeologists found an inscription with a story relating visions of the seer of the gods Bala'am, son of Be'or, the same name appearing as that of a prophet in the Bible. In both the inscription and the Bible, Balaam is a prophet whose utterances determine the fate of nations. However, other details of the stories are different. According to the inscription, Balaam wakes up weeping and tells his people that the gods appeared to him in the night telling him about a goddess threatening to destroy the land. She is to cover the sky and reduce the world to complete darkness. In contrast with the biblical account where Balaam receives prophecies from Yahweh, the inscription associates Balaam with multiple deities. If this inscription refers to Balaam mentioned in the Book of Numbers, Balaam is the earliest biblical figure identified in extra-biblical source.
The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies describes it as "the oldest example of a book in a West Semitic language written with the alphabet, and the oldest piece of Aramaic literature." The inscription is datable to ca. 840–760 BCE; it was painted in red and black inks, apparently to emphasize the text, on fragments of a plastered wall: 119 pieces of inked plaster were recovered. Meindert Dijkstra suggests that "the reticence of OT scholarship to take account of the text may be attributable to its damaged state, the difficulty of reconstructing and reading it, and the many questions it raises of script, language, literary form and religious content."