Ba

But be this as it will, the ambassadors came a second time and renewed their solicitations to Balaam: they tempted him with all the wealth and honors which Balak had to bestow, and bid up to the extent of their commission. And Balaam answered and said, if Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God, to do more or less." All this sounds well, had it been as religiously observed as it was solemnly professed. And God came unto Balaam at night, and said unto him, if the men come tò call thee, rise up and go with them, but yet the word which I shall say unto thee, that shalt thou do. And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab. And God's anger was kindled because he went.' There is something very extraordinary in this passage. laam has permission from God to go with the princes of Moab, and yet God's anger was kindled because he went.' God is not a capricious, but a just and unchangeable Being. To suppose him capable of giving orders, and then of being angry because those orders were obeyed, is impious and wicked; it is what the lowest heathen would not suppose even of the lowest of his gods. Moses, it is very certain, had better notions of the supreme God: he speaks of him at all times as a Being of wisdom, goodness, justice, and truth. To go about to prove this to any man that has ever looked into the Pentateuch, would be altogether impertinent. It is most evident from every part of it, and even from this very history, of which the story referred to is a part. This being a clear point, is it possible for this passage, as it stands in the English Bible, and in its obvious and literal sense, to come from Moses? Is it possible for him, in the compass of two or three verses, to charge such a contradiction on God as he could not have charged on the most capricious and arbitrary of his creatures? Let the reader turn this over in his thoughts, and I doubt not but it will be as evident to him as it is to me, that either the original or the translation must be faulty.

The commentators were sensible of the difficulty, and have endeavored to account for it. The general solution is, that the words in verse 20, which seem to imply a permission, are not

* Numb. xxii. 20. 21. 22.

serious, but ironical; and some think they were spoken in anger; sunt verba indignantis, says Lyra. If the reader is satisfied with this solution, I shall not dispute it with him; only let him remember that the irony, if it be an irony, is again repeated ver. 35. and is still misunderstood by Balaam, for he continued his journey notwithstanding.

6

But suppose the words importing a permission to be serious and not ironical, and see whether the words in ver. 22. that seem to contradict them, may not be reconciled with this supposition. These last words in our English version stand thus; ' and God's anger was kindled against Balaam because he went.' Other versions too give the same sense; but there is one word in the original that is not rendered in any translation, which may signify of himself,' or of his own head:' and the whole sentence, fully translated, would run thus: and God's anger was kindled against Balaam because he went of himself.' Look back to ver. 20. and you will see the permission is not absolute, but has a condition annexed. It is not absolutely, 'rise up and go;' but rise up and go, if the men come to call thee.' It should seem then that Balaam's crime was, not fulfilling the condition which God had injoined him; he was not guilty in going, but in going of himself without being called. This, I think, is a very learned author's* sense of the passage; and the construction and force he gives to the word that has been overlooked by the translators, seems to be well supported. But there is yet a material circumstance in which his interpretation of the text seems to fail; and that is, he has found out a condition where there is really none. It is not, go, if they shall come to call thee;' but if they are,' or, 'since they are come;' quandoquidem venerunt. Thus it is in the original, and the several translations agree in giving this sense to it.

The question then will still return; if God gave him leave to go, why was his anger kindled because he went? That God was angry merely because he went, as has been already observed, is absurd and impossible; and it was impossible for Moses to represent him as displeased without some better reason. The angel's rebuke to Balaam shows clearly that this was not in fact the ground of God's displeasure; and it intimates at the

* Dr. Shuckford's Connection, vol. iii. p. 133. and 314.

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same time what the real ground was. And the angel of the Lord said unto him, behold I went out to withstand thee.' But why? Not because thou art going with the princes of Moab; but because thy way is perverse before me,' because thou goest with a perverse and corrupted heart. Had God's anger and the angel's opposition to him been occasioned by the mere act of going with the princes of Moab, his defence would have been a very obvious and a very just one, that he had express leave from God for what he was doing. Instead of this, he confesses his guilt, and submits himself to the angel's pleasure; I have sinned, I knew not that thou stoodest in the way against me.'

6

You have then the true reason of God's anger at Balaam; not a random conjecture founded on mere possibilities, but a reason suggested by the plain text of the history, and consistent with Balaam's conduct throughout the whole transaction. The words in ver. 22. are to be understood and rendered, not because he went,' but because he went of himself,' with selfish and mercenary views: eo quod abiisset ex aviditate; as the Arabic translator renders it. If the present text will not carry this sense completely, some word must have been dropped by former copyists which has never since been restored. If you take the passage in any other light, you make God not only an arbitrary, but a trifling and whimsical being, such as Moses never did and never could represent him; and at the same time you leave some part of Balaam's conduct not to be accounted for. But consider it in this view, and the equity of God's proceeding stands clear of objections; and Balaam's character is consistent.

On the first application made to him by Balak, he concealed a part, and a material part of God's answer from the princes of Moab and Midian. When the second invitation came, backed with weightier considerations, his great forwardness to obey it was an argument that his eyes were dazzled with the golden prospect that was set before him, and that his virtue was not proof against a royal bribe. He set forward accordingly, big with the expectation of honors and riches, with a good inclination at least, if not a determined resolution of cursing' whom the Lord had not cursed.' But the angel of the Lord met him

in the way to check his ambition, and to restrain, if possible, the motions of his rebellious heart. He injoined him strictly, after a severe reprimand, not to go one tittle beyond what he should receive in command from God. God had already declared his resolutions in regard to Israel; and he knew that his counsels were immutable. When therefore he met the king on the borders of Moab, he ought like a true prophet to have declared the will of God to him. But here the prophet was silent, and the king still left with hopes of obtaining a curse against his enemies. Balaam followed him to a mountain, from whence he might view the Israelites; he sought the Lord by prayer and sacrifice, and received a confirmation of his favor to his people Israel. Willing however to gratify the king's unreasonable humor, he removed to a second eminence, and then to a third, where the same solemnities were repeated, and the event was still the same.

What now was this solemn farce but mocking God, and importuning him to reverse what he knew to be irreversible? The same mercenary views that brought him to Balak, induced him thus to trifle with God. He was sensible from the beginning that he was restrained from doing Balak the service that was expected; but he flattered himself that the zeal he had shown might supply its place, and intitle him to the reward. His whole conduct seems to be a sort of trimming between his duty to God and his zeal for the king of Moab. The menaces of the angel, and the fear of instant punishment, kept him as much as possible within the letter of his commission ; and the lust of lucre on the other hand made him flatter Balak with the hopes of obtaining impossibilities. After God had at three several times confirmed his regard to Israel, they parted, both equally disappointed; Balak in procuring a blessing for his enemies instead of a curse; and Balaam in losing the price of corruption.

Take the character of Balaam from a part of his history, (as Mr. Chubb has done,) from his own declarations of obeying God, and from the blessings given to Israel agreeably to those declarations; and there appears nothing worthy of blame in it. But take the whole of it together, as every writer ought to do, and as every honest writer will naturally do, and you see him

in a different light. There runs through the whole narration of Moses the air of a bad character. God, it is plain, was greatly displeased with him, and I have pointed out from the history. what was the true ground of his displeasure; it was a perverse inclination he had to curse the Israelites, against the decrees of Providence, on the mercenary view of a reward from Balak.

If the reader is not yet satisfied that this was his crime, all doubt will be removed by an explicit testimony of Moses himself.* 'The Lord thy God (says he to the Israelites) would not hearken unto Balaam, but turned the curse into a blessing.' And Joshua, the constant attendant on Moses, and of equal credit with him, reports the same thing in the person of God himself; I would not hearken unto Balaam; therefore he blessed you still, for I delivered you out of his hand.'† What can this imply less than a forward disposition in Balaam to curse the Israelites, in opposition to the immutable purpose of God? When therefore St. Peter says, that he loved the wages of unrighteousness;' and St. Jude,§ that he ran greedily after reward,' they are fully justified by the letter of Moses's history. Indeed had the point been left doubtful, their testimony in quality of historians would have had great weight in clearing it; and in quality of Apostles, it must needs have been decisive.

When Balaam left Balak, his history breaks off; but we find one action more incidentally recorded of him,¶ as little to his advantage as any that have been yet mentioned. The solemn and repeated declarations of God in favor of Israel made no impression on his mind. Though he could not obtain a curse from God, there was still a possibility of carrying his point by tempting the Israelites to bring a curse on themselves. He tried the experiment, as it were, in defiance of the Almighty; and though it ended in the destruction of Balak and his allies, yet a great part of the Israelites were involved in their fate. He knew very well that the prosperity of that people depended

*Deut. iii. 5. § Ver. 11.

Mr. Chubb charges both St. Peter and St. Jude with contradicting the history of Moses.

¶ Ch. xxxi. 16.