leave which on another occasion He might grant.

It was under these circumstances that a second embassy from Balak and Midian, more honorable than the

first, and with almost unlimited promises, came again to ask Balaam "to curse this people" (ver. 17). The king

had well judged. With no spiritual, only a heathen acknowledgment of Jehovah, covetousness and ambition

were the main actuating motives of Balaam. In the pithy language of the New Testament (2 Peter 2:15), he

"loved the wages of unrighteousness." But already his course was sealed. Refusing to yield himself a

willing, he would now be made the unwilling instrument of exalting Jehovah. And thus God gave him leave

to do that on which he had set his heart, with this important reservation, however: "But yet the word which I

shall say unto thee, that shalt thou do." Balaam, whose blinded self-satisfaction had already appeared in his

profession to the ambassadors, that he could "not go beyond the word of Jehovah his God," understood

not the terrible judgment upon himself implied in this "let him alone," which gave up the false prophet to his

own lusts. He had no doubt been so far honest, although he was grossly and willfully ignorant of all that

concerned Jehovah, when he proposed to consult God a second time, whether he might curse Israel. And

now it seemed as if God had indeed inclined to him. Balaam was as near reachin g the ideal of a magician, and

having "power," as was Simon Magus when he offered the apostles money to bestow on him the power of

imparting the Holy Ghost.

It was no doubt on account of this spirit of deluded self satisfaction, in which next morning he accompanied

the ambassadors of Balak, that "God's anger was kindled because he went,"  11 and that "the angel of

Jehovah stood in the way for an adversary against him" - significantly, the angel of the covenant with a

drawn sword, threatening destruction. The main object of what happened to him on the journey was, if

possible, to arouse Balaam to a sense of his utter ignorance of, and alienation from Jehovah. And so even

"the dumb ass, speaking with man's voice, forbad the madness of the prophet" (2 Peter 2:16).

We know, indeed, that animals are often more sensitive to the presence or nearness of danger than man - as

it were, perceive what escapes our senses. But in this case the humiliating lesson was, that while the self-

satisfied prophet had absolutely s een nothing, his ass had perceived the presence of the angel, and, by

going out of the way, or falling down, saved the life of his master; and that, even so, Balaam still continued

blinded, perverse, and misunderstanding, till God opened the mouth of the dumb animal, so that with man's

voice it might forbid the madness of the prophet. To show Balaam himself as he really was, and the

consequences of his conduct; and to do so in the strongest, that is, in this case, in the most humiliating

manner, such was the object of the apparition of the angel, and of the human language in which Balaam

heard the ass reproving him.  12

But even this produced no real effect - only an offer on the part of Balaam to get him back again, if it

displeased the angel of Jehovah (22:34). The proposal was as blundering, and argued as deep ignorance, as

his former readiness to go with the ambassadors. For the question was not simply one of going or not

going, but of glorifying God, and acknowledging the supremacy of His covenant-purpose. Balaam might

have gone and returned without doing this; but Jehovah would now do it Himself through Balaam. And

already the elders of Moab and Midian had hurried on along with Balaam's own servants, to announce the

arrival of the prophet. Presently from the lonely, terrible interview with the angel was he to pass into the

presence of the representative of that heathenism against which the drawn sword in the angel's hand was

really stretched out.