tents of Midian. But we meet Balaam only too soon again. One who had entered on such a course could not

stop short of the terrible end. He had sought to turn away Jehovah from His people, and failed. He would

now endeavor to turn the people from Jehovah. If he succeeded in this, the consequences to Israel would be

such as Balak had desired to obtain. By his advice (Numbers 31:16; Revelation 2:14) the children of Israel

were seduced into idolatry and all the vile abominations connected with it.43

In the judgment which ensued, not fewer than 4,000 Israelites perished, till the zeal of Phinehas stayed the

plague, when in his representative capacity he showed that Israel, as a nation, abhorred idolatry and the

sins connected with it, as the greatest crime against Jehovah. But on "the evil men and seducers" speedy

judgment came. By God's command the children of Israel were avenged of the Midianites. In the universal

slaughter of Midian, Balaam also perished. The figure of Balaam stands out alone in the history of the Old

Testament. The only counterpart to it is that of Judas, the traitor. Balaam represented the opposition of

heathenism; Judas that of Judaism. Both went some length in following the truth; Balaam honestly

acknowledged the God of Israel, and followed His directions: Judas owned the Messianic appearance in

Jesus, and joined His disciples. But in the crisis of their inner history, when that came which, in one form or

another, must be to every one the decisive question - each failed. Both had stood at the meeting and parting

of the two ways, and both chose that course which rapidly ended in their destruction. Balaam had expected

the service of Jehovah to be quite o ther from what he found it; and, trying to make it such as he imagined

and wished, he not only failed, but stumbled, fell, and was broken. Judas, also, if we may be allowed the

suggestion, had expected the Messiah to be quite other than he found Him; disappointment, perhaps failure

in the attempt to induce Him to alter His course, and an increasingly widening gulf of distance between

them, drove him, step by step, to ruin. Even the besetting sins of Balaam and of Judas - covetousness and

ambition - are the same. And as, when Balaam failed in turning Jehovah from Israel, he sought - only too

successfully - to turn Israel from the Lord; so when Judas could not turn the Christ from His purpose

towards His people, he also succeeded in turning Israel, as a nation, from their King. In both instances, also,

for a moment a light more bright than before was cast upon the scene. In the case of Balaam we have the

remarkable prophetic utterances, reaching far beyond the ordinary range of prophetic vision; at the betrayal

of Judas, we hear the prophetic saying of the High-priest going far beyond the knowledge of the time, that

Jesus should die, not only for His own people, but for a ruined world. And, lastly, in their terrible end, they

each present to us most solemn warning of the danger of missing the right answer to the great question -

that of absolute and implicit submission of mind, heart, and life to the revealed Covenant-Will of God.