Difference between revisions of "Balaam" - New World Encyclopedia
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==The stories== | ==The stories== | ||
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===Balaam and Balak=== | ===Balaam and Balak=== | ||
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===Balaam and the Midianites=== | ===Balaam and the Midianites=== | ||
| − | While one might expect Balaam to be viewed positively by the biblical writers for his brave and prophetic deed, such is not the case. Encamped at Shittim, the Israelites commit sexual sin with the women of Moab and join them in worshiping the Baal of Peor. God commands Moses to execute all the participants in this episode. The priest Phinehas, takes a spear and gruesomely slays both an Israelite leader and his | + | While one might expect Balaam to be viewed positively by the biblical writers for his brave and prophetic deed, such is not the case. Encamped at Shittim, the [[Israelites]] commit sexual sin with the women of [[Moab]] and join them in worshiping the [[Baal]] of Peor, named for one of the [[high place]]s from which Balaam had blessed Israel. God commands [[Moses]] to execute all the participants in this episode. The priest Phinehas, takes a spear and gruesomely slays both an Israelite leader and his [[Midian]]ite wife, a local princess. |
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| + | [[Image:Midianite-women.jpg|thumb|300px|Israelite soldiers capture Midianite women.]] | ||
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| + | Later, God commands a war of "vengeance" against Midian. An Israelite force of 12,000 carries out the task with Phinehas as their standard-bearer. They kill "every man," of the opposition, including five Midianite kings and the unfortunate Balaam, whom Moses blamed for the sin of Israel at Peor. When Midianite women taken captive instead of slaughter, Moses demands: | ||
<blockquote>Have you allowed all the women to live? They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the Lord in what happened at Peor.. Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. (Numbers 31:15-18)</blockquote> | <blockquote>Have you allowed all the women to live? They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the Lord in what happened at Peor.. Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. (Numbers 31:15-18)</blockquote> | ||
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Some critics view the Balaam narratives, excepting the episode involving the ass, to be simply a framework invented in order to insert the earlier poems. Scholars debate whether the poems themselves constitute actual prophecies, or poems created after the events they appear as prophecies. | Some critics view the Balaam narratives, excepting the episode involving the ass, to be simply a framework invented in order to insert the earlier poems. Scholars debate whether the poems themselves constitute actual prophecies, or poems created after the events they appear as prophecies. | ||
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| + | Finally, social critics ask question the moral standards of the biblical account. Balaam had blessed Israel at the riske of his life, but was later killed by the Israelites. Even if it is true that Balaam led the Moabites and Midianites to seduce Israel into worshiping Baal, shouldn't he have been spare for saving Israel for refusing the curse Israel and thus dissuading Balak from attacking them? Even more troubling is the idea of Moses demanding that Midianite women and boys be slaughtered, sparing only virgin girls to be forced into become the "wives" of Israelite solidiers. | ||
==Etymology== | ==Etymology== | ||
Revision as of 04:12, 5 June 2007
Balaam (Hebrew: בִּלְעָם, Standard Bilʻam Tiberian Bilʻām) is a prophet in the Torah, his story occurring towards the end of the Book of Numbers. The etymology of his name is uncertain, and discussed below. Every ancient reference to Balaam considers him a non-Israelite, a prophet, and the son of Beor, though Beor is not so clearly identified. Though other sources describe the apparently positive blessings he delivers upon the Israelites, he is reviled as a "wicked man" in the major story concerning him.
The stories
Balaam and Balak
The main story of Balaam occurs during the sojourn of the Israelites in the plains of Moab, east of the Jordan River. The events take place at the close of 40 years of wandering, shortly before the death of Moses, and the crossing of the Jordan into Canaan proper. The Israelites have already defeated two kings on this side of the Jordan: Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan. Balak, king of Moab, consequently becomes alarmed, and sends elders of Moab and of Midian, to Balaam son of Beor, in order to induce him to come and curse Israel. [1]
Balaam sends back word that he can only do what Yahweh commands, and God has, via a nocturnal dream, told him not to go. Moab consequently sends higher ranking official and offers Balaam honors. He resists on the grounds that he must not disobey "Yahweh my God." But this time, God tells Balaam to go with them.
Balaam thus sets out with two servants to go to Balak, but an angel tries to prevent him. At first the angel is seen only by the ass Balaam is riding, which tries to avoid the otherwise invisible angel. After Balaam starts punishing the ass for refusing to move, it is miraculously—and possibly comically—given the power to speak to Balaam. It complains about Balaam's treatment, saying: "What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?" At this point, Balaam is allowed to see the angel, who informs him that the ass is the only reason the angel did not kill Balaam. Balaam immediately repents, but is told to go on.
The angel repeats God's previous instructions to Balaam, who then continues his journey and meets Balak as planned. Balak prepares seven altars at Kiriath Huzoth and they go to a high place, where they offer sacrifices on seven altars.
God inspires Balaam with the following prophetic message:
How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce those whom the Lord has not denounced?... Who can count the dust of Jacob or number the fourth part of Israel?
Let me die the death of the righteous, and may my end be like theirs! (Num. 23:8-10)
Balak remonstrates, but Balaam reminds him that he can only speak the words put in his mouth by God, 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, declaring: " "There is no sorcery against Jacob, no divination against 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:
How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel! ...May those who bless you be blessed and those who curse you be cursed!
Balak's anger rises to the point where he threatens Balaam, refusing to pay him for his services, and ordering him to leave. Balaam, however, gets the last word, as he declares a prophecy of doom against Moab:
the oracle of one who hears the words of God,
who has knowledge from the Most High, who sees a vision from the Almighty, who falls prostrate, and whose eyes are opened: I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of Moab,
the skulls of all the sons of Sheth.
Balak and Balaam then each depart to their respective homes.
Balaam and the Midianites
While one might expect Balaam to be viewed positively by the biblical writers for his brave and prophetic deed, such is not the case. Encamped at Shittim, the Israelites commit sexual sin with the women of Moab and join them in worshiping the Baal of Peor, named for one of the high places from which Balaam had blessed Israel. God commands Moses to execute all the participants in this episode. The priest Phinehas, takes a spear and gruesomely slays both an Israelite leader and his Midianite wife, a local princess.
Later, God commands a war of "vengeance" against Midian. An Israelite force of 12,000 carries out the task with Phinehas as their standard-bearer. They kill "every man," of the opposition, including five Midianite kings and the unfortunate Balaam, whom Moses blamed for the sin of Israel at Peor. When Midianite women taken captive instead of slaughter, Moses demands:
Have you allowed all the women to live? They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the Lord in what happened at Peor.. Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. (Numbers 31:15-18)
Balaam in rabbinic literature
Like the biblica story itself, rabbical tradition about Balaam is mixed. The posititve tradition gives him a place of great honor as the a type of Moses for the gentiles, the greatest prophet who ever lived came from a non-Jewish population. Balaam is represented as one of seven gentile prophets. The other six are Beor (Balaam's father), Job, and Balaam's four unnamed companions (Talmud, B. B. 15b). In this tradition, Balaam had acquired a position among the non-Jews that was as exalted as that of Moses among the Jews (Midrash Numbers Rabbah 20). At first he was a mere interpreter of dreams, later becoming a magician, and final a prophet of the true God. The Talmud also recounts that when the Law was given to Israel at Sinai, a mighty voice shook the foundations of the earth, so much so that all kings trembled. They turned to Balaam, inquiring whether this upheaval of nature portended a second deluge; the prophet assured them that what they heard was the voice of God, giving the sacred law to the Israelites (Talmud, Zeb. 116a).
Even the a negative view of Balaam in the Talmud, recognizes that he possessed an amazing talent—to ascertain the exact moment during which God is angry—a gift bestowed upon no other creature. Balaam's intention was to curse the Israelites at that very moment, and thus cause God himself to destroy them. However, God restrained His anger in order to baffle the wicked prophet and to save the nation from extermination (Talmud, Berachot 7a). Balaam is pictured as blind in one eye and lame in one foot (Sanhedrin 105a); and his disciples are distinguished by three morally corrupt qualities, supposedly the very opposite of those characterizing the disciples of Abraham (Ab. v. 19; compare Tan., Balak, 6):
- an evil eye
- a haughty bearing
- an avaricious spirit
Based on the account of Moses' war of vengeance against the Midianites, the Rabbis interpret Balaam as responsible for the behaviour during the "heresy of Peor," indirectly causing the death of 24,000 victims of the plague which God sent as punishment. When Balaam saw that he could not curse the children of Israel, he actaully advised Balak, as a last resort, to tempt the Hebrew nation to immoral acts and, through these, to the worship the Baal of Peor. (San. 106a).
The first century CE Jewish historian Josephus speaks of Balaam, as the best prophet of his time, but adds that he had a weakness in resisting temptation. Philo of Alexandria describes him in the Life of Moses as a great magician.
While speaking animals are a common feature of folklore, the only other case in the Old Testament is that of the serpent in Eden. Classical Jewish commentators, such as Saadia Gaon and Maimonides, taught that a reader should not take this part of the story literally.
Balaam in the New Testament
In Rev. 2:14 we read of false teachers at Pergamum who held the "teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication."
Balaam also figures as an example of a false teacher in both 2 Peter 2:15 and in Jude 1:11. In both of these verses, Balaam is cited as an example of a false prophet motived by greed or avarice. These references harken to the Old Testament account of Balaam in Numbers 22-24 in which King Balak hires Balaam to curse his enemies (Israel). The implication is that although God intervenes and makes Balaam deliver blessings instead of curses, Balaam was normally a prophet for hire, specializing in curses. The verses in 2 Peter and Jude are warnings to the early Christians to beware of prophets who ask for money. [2]
Textual and literary analysis
According to modern textual critics, such as the of biblical scholars who support the documentary hypothesis, the accounts of Balaam in the Book of numbers are drawn from more than one source. The "J" or "Yahwist" source is more negative toward Balaam, while the "E," or Elohist source, is more positive.
The tale of Balaam's talking donkey, for example, belongs to J and is intended to mock Balaam. It shows first that even Balaam's donkey is more spiritually perceptive than Balaam, for she see the angel before he does. And secondly, it shows that since God can make an ass talk, he can also put words in the mouth of a false prophet like Balaam. The Elohist versions of the story, on the other hand, show Balaam to be a man of integrity, who takes a great risk it confronting Balak with blessing for Israel instead of curses, and refuses to be bribed into going against the will of "Yahweh my God."
Balaam prophecies take the form of (Hebrew) poems and cover the following themes:
- The first, Numbers 23:7-10, prophesies the unique exhaltation of the Kingdom of Israel, and its countless numbers.
- The second, Numbers 23:18-24, celebrates the moral virtue of Israel, its monarchy, and military conquests.
- The third, Numbers 24:3-9, celebrates the glory and conquests of Israel's monarchy.
- The fourth, Numbers 24:14-19, announces 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 approaching from the west, to attack Assyria and Eber
While the poems themselves are presented in the context of the Elohist and Yahwist narratives, many scholars consider them to pre-date these sources. [3]
Some critics view the Balaam narratives, excepting the episode involving the ass, to be simply a framework invented in order to insert the earlier poems. Scholars debate whether the poems themselves constitute actual prophecies, or poems created after the events they appear as prophecies.
Finally, social critics ask question the moral standards of the biblical account. Balaam had blessed Israel at the riske of his life, but was later killed by the Israelites. Even if it is true that Balaam led the Moabites and Midianites to seduce Israel into worshiping Baal, shouldn't he have been spare for saving Israel for refusing the curse Israel and thus dissuading Balak from attacking them? Even more troubling is the idea of Moses demanding that Midianite women and boys be slaughtered, sparing only virgin girls to be forced into become the "wives" of Israelite solidiers.
Etymology
The etymology of the name Balaam is uncertain, and several Jewish, and Christian, sources translate it either glutton, or foreigner. The rabbis, playing on the name, call him Belo 'Am, meaning without people, more explicitly meaning that he is without a share with the people in the world to come, or call him Billa' 'Am, meaning one that ruined a people. This deconstruction of his name into B—l Am is supported by many modern biblical critics, who consider his name to simply be derived from Baal Am, a reference to Am, a Baal of Moab. It should be noted that several important Israelite figures also had names related to Baal, including Gideon (also called Jerubaal), and King Saul's sons Ish-bosheth and Mephi-bosheth (also called Ishbaal and Meribaal). [4]
Notes
- ↑ Balaam's location is simply given as his people in the masoretic text, though the Samaritan Pentateuch, Vulgate, and Syriac Peshitta all identify it as Ammon, which is consequently supported by many modern scholars.
- ↑ The Didache, or "Teaching of Twelve," similarly teachers that the way to distinguish a true prophet from a false one is that a true prophet will not ask for money.
- ↑ An archaeological discovery in 1967 uncovered references to a Book of Balaam, from which these poems may have originally been taken. (Hoftijzer, 1976.)
- ↑ The word Baal means simply "Lord" in both various semitic languages including Hebews.
External sources
- Hoftijzer, Jacob. "The Prophet Balaam in a 6th Century Aramaic Inscription," Biblical Archaeologist, Volume 39, 1976 (2001 electronic edition)
- McCarter, P. Kyle, "The Balaam Texts from Deir Allā: The First Combination," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 239. (Summer, 1980), pp. 49-60.
- Olrik, Axel (Kirsten Wolf and Jody Jensen, trs.) Principles for Oral Narrative Research. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1921 (1992 tr.).
External Links
See also
- Biblical archaeology
- Balak (parsha)
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