from it a sanction or permission previously denied, who, with some
half assurance that the way is open, set out on a desired course,
are practically in the same mad mood, have equal reason to dread
the issue. Is this understood? It may be safely asserted that half
the wrong things men do--taking an average of human action, half at
least--are done not in despite of conscience, but with its dubious
consent, when the first clear decision has been set aside. No doubt
the urgency is often very great, as it was in Balaam's case, and
frequently of a less questionable kind. Not the desire of envious
persons to have others cursed or evil intreated, but possibly the
desire of some to have the shadow of adverse judgment taken away,
may be the plea, and be supported by the promise of large reward.
The first word of conscience is distinct--Have nothing whatever to
do with the matter: the shadow has fallen on the wrongdoer; he has
not repented; let him suffer still. But his agents come with gold
and silver, with plausible words, with seeming Christian arguments.
Then the appeal to conscience is renewed, and he who should be firm
in judgment finds a false permission. Or the case may be of one in
business, tempted to some practice, common enough, but dishonest,
vile. His first feeling has been that of disgust. He could not for
a moment contemplate a thing so base. But under the pressure of
what appears to be necessity, plausible arguments and pretexts gain
ground. The fact that reputable men find no difficulty about the
matter, the notion that a custom is excusable because it is followed
by most if not by all, along with other considerations of a personal
kind, are allowed to have some weight, and then to overbalance
the sense of duty. And the result is that the moral atmosphere is
confused. The man sets out on a way which appears to be opened for
him; but he goes under the shadow of a haunting fear.
Like Balaam, one who thus extorts from conscience, that is from God,
permission to go where he himself desires, knowing it to be a wrong
way, is quite aware, may indeed be eager to acknowledge to himself,
that he is still held by a Divine command extending over a part of his
conduct. He will not speak a word that shall be against truth. He will
resume friendship with the rich transgressor; but he will not in words
excuse or palliate his crime. He will adulterate certain commodities in
which he deals, but he will never assert that they are genuine. This
is the tribute to religion and to conscience that sustains decaying
self-respect. By this the man who passes for a Christian endeavours to
keep himself separate from those who have no conscience. The most is
made of the difference. As compared with those who unblushingly defend
the wrong, this man may think himself a saint. He would on no account
speak a falsehood. Does he not fear God? Is he a dog that he should do
this thing? Nevertheless, the way leads into a bottomless quagmire. For
a time the waning light of religion may shine. It may even burst before
it dies into a bright flame of indignation against sin--the crimes
others commit--or of loud protestation against what are called false
charges. But the man dies a Balaam, with a perverted conscience, and
must face the dreadful result.
Well has it been said that no virtue is safe without enthusiasm. A
man cannot be true to the highest law unless he has the motive within
him of pure devotion to God as his personal Redeemer, unless he
recognises that his joy in God and his salvation are bound up with
fidelity to the moral ideal which is presented to him. Faith, hope,
love must inspire and keep the soul in fervour of desire to reach the
heights to which it is called by the Divine voice. But the most of
men come far short of this enthusiasm. It is rather with reluctance,
after a kind of struggle with themselves, that they look duty in the
face. And even when they do they find no pleasure in resolving to
press on where the absolutely right is seen. Their pleasure lies in
doing less than that. They seek accordingly some way of observing the
letter of duty while they avoid its spirit. But the sense of having
come short in a matter that involves their highest wellbeing, their
standing before God, their very right to hope and to live, remains
with them. Marriage, for example, is often entered upon after a
struggle with conscience in which a clear mandate has been set aside.
The desire to please self is allowed to overcome the conviction
that the new bond will keep life on the low worldly ground, or drag
it back from spirituality. The merely expedient is chosen rather
than the ideal of moral independence and power. And of this come
fretfulness, dissatisfaction with self, with others, with Providence.
All the sophistries that can be used fail to set the mind at rest.
Events continually occur which throw flashes of light on the past and
reveal the lost hope, the forfeited vision.
God does not make the wrong way smooth for one who has extorted
permission to follow it. A man desiring to enter on a course which
he sees to be dishonourable or at least dubious may be absolutely
prevented at first. His appeal is to Providence. If circumstances
allowed his plan he would reckon the Divine will favourable to it.
But they do not. Every door he tries in the direction he wishes to
take is barred against him. Afterwards one yields to pressure, or is
thrown wide because he knocks at it persistently. Then he advances,
taking for granted that he has obtained permission from God. But he
does not go far till he is undeceived. So, Balaam sets out on his
adventure, riding on his ass and attended by his two servants. Yet
he does not get clear of the vineyards of Pethor without hindrance.
Obstacles to his journey which do not appear in the narrative may
have at first stood in his way, certain political complications, we
may suppose. Now they are removed. But he is met by others. The angel
of the Lord opposes him, one who stands with a drawn sword in hand in
a hollow way between the vineyards, a path closely fenced on the one
side and the other. Balaam fails to see the adversary; he is absorbed
in his own thoughts. But the ass sees, and will not go forward, and
as Balaam becomes aware of resistance his anger is kindled.
The narrative here is confessedly difficult. One of the most reverent
commentators on the passage declares that he feels too deeply the
essential veracity of the story to be troubled with minute questions
about its details. "I would not," he says, "force them upon any one's
belief merely by uttering the coarse sentence, that they are in
the Bible and therefore must be received. One is afraid of leading
people to fancy that they do believe what they do not believe, and
so of propagating hypocrisy under the name of faith." To some the
narrative may present no serious difficulty. They accept it literally
at every point. Others again are not so easily satisfied that the
occasion called for miracles like those which appear on the face
of the history. It seems to them of no great moment whether Balaam
went or did not go to Moab, whether he cursed Israel or blessed it.
Neither the curse nor the blessing of a man of Balaam's sort could
make the least difference to Israel. These readers accordingly would
find a parabolical or pictorial explanation of the incidents. Literal
belief, in any case, need not be made a test of reverence; the spirit
is surely more than the letter. The point of greatest importance
is to believe that God dealt with this man, opposed his perverse
will by gracious influences and unexpected protests. To Balaam, no
doubt, the angel's appearance and the ass's rebuke were real, as
real and impressive as any experiences he ever had. He was humbled;
he acknowledged his sin and offered to return. When he reached the
land of Moab, the recollection of what befell him by the way had a
salutary influence on all he said and did.
In many unforeseen, singular, and often homely ways, men are checked
in the endeavour to carry out the schemes which ambition and avarice
prompt. The angel of the Lord who opposes one bent on a bad enterprise
often appears in familiar guise. To some men their wives stand in
the way, some are challenged by their children. What in voluntary
blindness they have declined to see--the madness of the wrong course,
the intrinsic baseness of the thing undertaken--those who look with
pure eyes perceive clearly and are brave enough to condemn. At other
times obstacles are placed in the way by the simple ordinary duties
which claim attention, occupy thought and time, and tend to bring back
the mind to humility and saneness. Yet covetousness can make men very
blind. Under the influence of it they suppose themselves to be acting
cleverly, while all the time those whom they think they are outwitting
see them posting on the way to bankruptcy and shame.
Even a good man may lose his spiritual discrimination occasionally
when he fancies himself called to curse not Israel but Moab, and
sets out in heat upon the errand. He fails to see that the case
of Balaam is so far parallel to his own that he ought to expect
an angel to oppose him. The critical Balaam who feels it his high
duty to pronounce maledictions on some theological opponent, not
for silver and gold, but for the cause of God, is resisted by many
an angel bearing the sharp sword of the Word, set to declare the
great tolerance of Christ, and to vindicate the liberty that is in
Him. That men fail to see these angels, or else ride past them,
is abundantly evident, for the altars smoke on many a height, and
scrolls of futile condemnation are flung upon the breeze.
Balaam smites the ass even when she falls down under him in her
abject terror. He endeavours to force her on till at last he is put
to shame by her rebuke. We are pointed to the irrational way in which
those act whose moral judgment is blinded. Their course being wrong,
they do not turn against themselves, but rise in passion against
every person or thing that hinders. The husband who is resolved to
take a wrong path thrusts away his faithful wife; the son bent on
what will be his ruin pushes off his weeping mother when she pleads
before him. Often an apparently inexplicable fit of temper in public
or in private means that a man is in the wrong and is aware of a
mistake, from the consequences of which he would fain escape. One's
heart bleeds for none more than for those victims of selfish anger
who suffer under the abuse of the Balaams of society. They have seen
the angel in the way. They have sought by a gesture or a warning word
to arrest the friend who would go on to evil. Then the cruel strokes
fall on them, curses, foul abuse, taunts often directed against their
religion. They are charged with setting themselves up as holier and
better than other people. They are denounced as meddlers and fools.
They protest without effect often, and suffer apparently to no
purpose. Yet shall we suppose their endeavours altogether lost? Good
is surely stronger than evil. Every right act and word is germinal.
After long years it bears fruit.
In Balaam's case there was a happier issue than is often seen. The
protest against his cruelty opened his eyes to the truth that a
messenger of God stood in his way. The rebuke came home to him. So
might a hard, self-willed man who rode rough-shod over the feelings
and rights of others be brought suddenly to a sense of his cruelty by
the look on the face of a dog. Bad as men and women may be, violent
and abusive as they may become in times of anger and impatience,
there are ways of softening their hearts. They go on for years
attempting to justify themselves in a rough and selfish course. But
who shall say that even the seeming worst are beyond recovery? When
there appears to be no redeeming feature left in the character, the
crisis may be at hand, the transgressor may be so taught by the
piteous look of a dumb animal that his infatuation will come to an
end. Recoiling from himself he will acknowledge his perversity and
turn to better thoughts.
How far did Balaam's repentance go? There can be little doubt the
motive of it was the sudden discovery that the God of Israel was
mightier and more observant than he had imagined; in short, that
Jehovah was his master. Balaam yields, changes his mind, not because
he is in the least degree more disposed to do what is right, but
because he finds the antagonism of God falling suddenly upon his
life. To the angel he says: "I have sinned: for I knew not that thou
stoodest in the way against me: now therefore, if it displease thee,
I will get me back again." This is an acknowledgment of authority,
but not of an obligation into which any sense of God's goodness
enters. It is the sullen acquiescence of a foiled adventurer, who at
the very outset is made to understand the terms and narrow limits
of his power. He has his knowledge, his vision. When he set out he
intended to use them, if possible, under such conditions as would
secure his own liberty. He is now made to understand that he is not
free. The angel with the drawn sword will be in Moab before him,
ready to cut him down if he should do or say anything opposed to the
mind of the God of Israel. He is cowed, not converted.
And so it often is with men who find their schemes counteracted, and
are made to feel their weakness in presence of the forces of human
government, or of the natural world. Their confession of sin is really
a sullen acknowledgment of impotence. Sift their feelings and you
discover no sense of guilt. They miscalculated, and they regret having
done so, because it is to their shame. They will go back to make
other plans, to lay the foundations deeper with greater subtlety, and
by-and-by, if they can, to carry out their ideas and gratify their
covetousness and ambition in other ways. Sometimes indeed it may become
clear to a man that his efforts to advance himself, such as he is,
cannot prosper because Omnipotence is against him. Then acknowledgment
of defeat is confession of despair. Of this we see an example in the
first Napoleon after his final capture when he was on the voyage to
St. Helena. He had forced his way over obstacles enough, leaving
blood and ruin behind him. But at length the stronger power came down
to meet him, and he knew that the game was lost. Beneath the seeming
acquiescence there lurked rebellion. He often spoke as a believer in
God; but the God he knew was one he could have wished to foil. In the
island to which he was confined he schemed desperately to regain his
freedom that he might renew the vain conflict with Providence for his
own glory and the glory of France. "I have sinned: I will get me back
again." Yes. But will it be to lay other and more cunning plots for
self-aggrandisement, and recover the lost ground by some daring stroke?
Then it will be also to meet other angels, and at the last the minister
who bears the sword of doom.
Balaam will return, confessing himself defeated for the time. But
he learns that he may not. He has come so far with designs of his
own; he must now go on to Moab to serve the purposes of God. The
permission he wrested, so to speak, from Providence, was not wrested
after all. There are deeper schemes than Balaam can form, the great
far-reaching plans of the God of Israel, and by these, however
unwillingly, the soothsayer of Pethor is now bound. This journey has
been of his own perverse choosing; now he must finish it, feeling
himself at every point a servant, an instrument; and if danger and
even death await him, still he must proceed. Easy it is to begin in
the craftiness of human purpose and the foolishness of earthly hope;
but the end is not under the control of him who begins. There is One
who orders all things so that the gifts of men and their perversity
and their wrath shall all praise Him, shall all be woven into the web
of His evolving purpose, universal, holy, sure.
It is a startling thought that in a sense whatever we begin in pride
or self-will, playing, as it were, the first act of the drama on some
stage we ourselves select, the movement cannot be arrested when we
choose. In one way or another, act after act must proceed to the very
end which God foreordains. Many human purposes appear to be sharply
and completely broken off. In the midst of his days man hears the call
he cannot disobey. His tools, his hopes, his declared intentions must
be laid aside. But the end is not yet. The curtain has fallen here.
It will be raised again. And in many unfoldings of Divine purpose we
witness scene after scene, in scene after scene have to play our part.
One who has begun ill may sincerely repent, and then the development
takes a direction which will be to the glory of Divine grace. That act
of repentance over, another comes, in which the humble thought of the
penitent reveals itself. He is seen a new man, timorous where he was
bold, bold where he was timorous. Beyond there are other scenes, in
which he shall be found endeavouring to repair the evil he has done,
to gather the poisoned arrows he has strewed about the world. And the
consummation shall be reached when the task at which he has vainly
laboured is completed for him by Christ, and his recovery and the
restitution he toiled for shall be complete.
But if there is no penitence, still the drama must go on to its finish.
The man resenting, yet unable to resist, shall do what God requires,
what God permits. He shall attempt to curse, yet be constrained to
bless. He shall in bitterness of anger frame new devices and carry
them out. Then, when the cup of his iniquity is full, and all is done
Providence allows, retribution shall overtake him. In the thick of
battle the sword of the angel shall smite him to the ground. For each
man, under God's rule, in the midst of the forces He upholds, there
is a destiny, some stages of which we can trace. Entering on life we
of necessity become subject to great laws which our revolt cannot in
the least affect. And these are moral laws. The seeming success of the
immoral who are intellectually or brutally strong is within the narrow
limits of time and space. In the breadths of eternity and infinity
there is no strength for any but the good.
There is a purpose of God which Balaam is unwilling to subserve; and
of that the man becomes gradually aware. When he is met by Balak and
his train and upbraided with his reluctance to come where honours
and rewards are to be had, the soothsayer realises his peril and
begins at once to prepare the Moabite king for disappointment. "Lo,
I am come unto thee," he says: "have I now any power at all to speak
anything? The word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak."
What we see now is a contest between the influence of Balak, with
his power to reward and also to punish, and the consciousness of a
constraint which had entered deeply into Balaam's mind. The sense of
Jehovah's authority over him on this occasion was indeed supported
by another strong motive which the diviner never allowed to fall
into the background. He had his reputation to maintain. At whatever
hazard, he must show himself to Moabites, Midianites, Aramæans, a man
who knew the knowledge of the Most High. The ignorance of Balak is
seen in his absurd hope that for the sake of some bribe of his the
prophet of Pethor will be induced to fling away his fame.
There are things which even money cannot buy. There is a limit
beyond which even a false and avaricious man cannot venture for the
sake of honours and rewards. It is a vulgar judgment that every man
has his price. One who is not particularly conscientious on most
occasions will sometimes touch the bounds of concession and take
his stand for what is left, all the self he has in any true sense.
Neither will money buy nor threats compel his further acquiescence
in what he deems wrong. Again, as in Balaam's case, the limit of the
power of gold or of threats may be fixed by pride. There are gifts,
qualities, distinctions possessed by some, in virtue of which they
seem to themselves to occupy a place which all might covet. The
veteran has his decoration, once attached to his uniform by some
honoured commander under whom he served. No money could buy that. He
would die rather than part with it. Another is proud of his name. To
dishonour that would be treachery to his ancestors. Balaam has his
unique power of vision, and for a while at least he preserves it. A
man like Balak, measuring others by himself, regards a diviner as one
of a lower order who may be moved by menaces and promises. He finds
that Balaam has pride enough to lift him above them. Thus vanity
counteracts vanity; the comparatively base keeps the base in check.
XX
_BALAAM'S PARABLES_
NUMBERS xxii. 39-xxiv. 9
The scene is now on some mountain of Moab from which the encampment
of the Hebrew tribes in the plain of the Jordan is fully visible.
At Kiriath-huzoth, possibly the modern Shihan, about ten miles east
of the Dead Sea, and to the south of the Arnon valley, preparation
for the attempt against Israel's destiny has been made by a great
sacrifice of oxen and sheep intended to secure the good-will of
Chemosh, the Baal or Lord of Moab. On the range overhanging the
Dead Sea, somewhat to the north of the Arnon, perhaps, are the
Bamoth-Baal, or high places of Baal, and the "bare height" where
Balaam is to seek his auguries and will be met by God.
The evening of Balaam's arrival has been spent in the sacrificial
festival, and in the morning Balak and his princes escort the diviner
to the Bamoth-Baal that he may begin his experiment. After his usual
manner, Balaam pompously requires that great arrangements be made
for the trial of auguries by means of which his oracle is to be
found. Balak has offered sacrifices to Chemosh; now Jehovah must be
propitiated, and seven altars have to be built, and on each of them a
bullock and a ram offered by fire. The altars erected, the carcases
of the animals prepared, Balaam does not remain beside them to take
actual part in the sacrifice. It is, in fact, to be Balak's, not his;
and if the God of Israel should refuse His sanction to the curse,
that will be because the offering of the king of Moab has not secured
His favour. Accordingly, while the seven wreaths of smoke ascend from
the altars, and the invocations of the Divine power which usually
accompany sacrifice are chanted by the king and his princes, the
soothsayer withdraws to a peak at some distance that he may read the
omens. "Peradventure," he says, "Jehovah will come to meet me."