Numbers 24:15

FOURTH ORACLE

"Balaam the son of Beor saith,

And the man whose eye was closed saith;

He saith, who heareth the words of God,

And knoweth the knowledge of the Most High,

Who seeth the vision of the Almighty,

Falling down, and having his eyes open:

I see him, but not now;

I behold him, but not nigh:

There shall come forth a star out of Jacob,

And a sceptre shall rise out of Israel,

And shall smite through the corners of Moab,

And bring down all the sons of tumult.

And Edom shall be a possession,

Seir also shall be a possession, who were his enemies;

While Israel doeth valiantly.

And out of Jacob shall one have dominion,

And shall destroy the remnant from the city.

And he looked on Amalek, and took up his parable, and said,

FIFTH ORACLE

Amalek was the first of the nations;

But his latter end shall come to destruction

And he looked on the Kenite, and took up his parable, and said,

SIXTH ORACLE

Strong is thy dwelling-place,

And thy nest is set in the rock.

Nevertheless Kain shall be wasted,

Until Asshur shall carry thee away captive.

And he took up his parable and said,

SEVENTH ORACLE

Alas, who shall live when God doeth this?

But ships shall come from the coast of Kittim,

And they shall afflict Asshur, and shall afflict Eber;

And he also shall come to destruction.

And Balaam rose up and went and returned to his place; and Balak also went his way."

Numbers 24:15-16 are an introduction to the fourth oracle almost the same as that which is given for the third (Numbers 24:3,4). (See under those verses for comment.)

The fourth oracle, of course, is the outstanding prophecy of the whole Balaam narrative. The focal point is that mysterious person who rises out of Jacob/Israel, called a Star, then a Sceptre, and in Numbers 24:19, "One who shall have dominion." Interpreters of all ages, races, and persuasions of mankind have invariably found in these verses a prophecy of the Messiah. "Even the men of the Dead Sea Scrolls community regarded this passage as Messianic."[17] The whole Jewish people also so received it. Even a pretended Messiah built up his claims by assuming a name (Bar Kochba) which means "son of a star."[18] Efforts of critical writers to restrict the prophecy to a partial fulfillment of it in the times of David the king, and then to deny the prophetic element completely by alleging a date subsequent to the events prophesied, making the whole narrative a pretended prophecy must be rejected. Such postulations of arrogant ignorance can deceive no one who receives the Bible as the Word of God.

As for the times when this remarkable Person was to be expected, the answer is given in Numbers 24:14, "in the latter days," an expression always associated with the times of the Messiah and the New Israel in the prophecies. It has the same meaning here. Wade also observed that the expressions "not now ... not nigh" (Numbers 24:17) have the meaning of, "in the distant future."[19] The same writer also affirmed that "This prophecy possibly influenced the belief that the birth of the Messiah would be heralded by a star (Matthew 2:2)."[20] However that might have been, "Christ himself and not the star that was seen at his birth is the true fulfillment of the prophecy."[21]

We must not limit the scope of this remarkable prophecy to the history of Israel as recorded in the O.T. To do so is to misunderstand it. Gray, who accepted such limitations of it, stated the meaning thus: "It contemplates the worldwide dominion of Israel and the violent destruction of all who oppose it."[22] The Scriptures never taught any such thing as that. The glories of the worldwide dominion of "Israel" which surely occur in the O.T. do not refer to physical, secular Israel at all, but to the New Israel in Christ Jesus, and the "violent destruction" mentioned by Gray as applicable to all who oppose the historical secular Israel actually applies to all the sons of Adam who at last refuse to accept salvation in Christ and shall be violently overthrown by God Himself in the final judgment. Thus, we have the certain and unmistakable emergence of the final judgment in these verses, making them also a positive and absolutely certain reference to the Christ in his incarnation, kingdom, and Second Advent!

This view is further corroborated by a glance at the KJV where we have in Numbers 24:17, "And destroy all the children of Sheth ..." Most current commentators have missed the meaning of this altogether by following more recent translations which give "sons of tumult," or "sons of pride," neither of which renditions has any essential meaning. "Children of Sheth" here means "children of Seth," that is, "children of men," "sons of Adam," "the race of mankind," all of them!"[23] (see the margin in the ASV). Plaut's full explanation for this meaning is as follows:

Children of Seth. This means "children of men." Seth was Adam's third son (Genesis 4:25), from whom all men are descended. Noah was of his line.[24]

This view of the passage reveals it to be in absolute harmony with all that the Holy Scriptures reveal with reference to the final judgment, the occasion when God "will wipe this Adam off the face of the earth," the sole exceptions being the redeemed of God.

Now, just a word of reference to the reason why very brilliant and learned men, such as Gray, for example, miss the meaning of the passage altogether. That writer revealed the secret of his error as follows, where he applied the meaning of this prophecy to, "The final period of the future, so far as it falls within the range of the speaker's perspective!"[25] Here is the germ of that error which negates the conclusions of all scholars who have permitted themselves to be entrapped and handicapped by the "a priori" assumptions received in many theological seminaries throughout current times. The limitations underscored in Gray's quotation means that Balaam could not have prophesied anything that did not fall within the purview of Balaam's own mind, or perspective. Ridiculous! Balaam was not the author of this prophecy. If there is a word of truth in the Holy Bible, this prophecy came from GOD, not from Balaam. The shibboleth received in some seminaries to the effect that no prophecy could exceed the dimensions of the mind of the human instrument through whom God spoke is rejected here out of hand. It is a sheer falsehood! An apostle of Christ, no less than Peter, revealed the very opposite end of this seminarian booby trap as Divine truth in 1 Peter 1:10-12. (See the exegesis and comment on that passage in this series. We might refer to this as the Higher Criticism of the so-called "higher criticism.")

This glorious prophecy of Jesus Christ, coming here in the mouth of an evil man like Balaam raises the question of just why God might have done such a thing. The situation demanded it. There was no Hebrew prophet at this time in whom the pagan world would have had the slightest confidence; and, therefore, God gave them a witness after their own hearts, one whom they were prepared to pay and to trust. That witness and his message must have had an incredibly strong impact upon the people of that era, at the precise moment when God was about to send the hosts of Israel across the Jordan with a commission to destroy the Canaanites. That this was the case cannot be doubted, as witness the words of Rahab (Joshua 2:9), and the abject fear of the Amalekites (Joshua 5:1). Some commentators cannot imagine why the Balaam narrative is found just here, but anyone who discerns the total purpose of God in moving Israel into Canaan cannot fail to see the very crucial importance of these events and why the record of them belongs exactly where it is in the sacred text.

Numbers 24:19 is held to be unintelligible by some, due to alleged damage to the Hebrew text. Noth, for example, said: "The text of Numbers 24:19 has been transmitted so defectively that its original wording can no longer be determined."[26] This writer is not qualified to determine the accuracy of such a view, but the lines as they appear in our version make excellent sense when properly understood.

"Out of Jacob shall one have dominion,

And shall destroy the remnant from the city ..." (Numbers 24:19).

"City," as used here, is not any particular city, but as Leon Morris identified it, "It is urban civilization in organized rebellion against God." It is the City of Mankind, that entire organization of rebellious Adam against his God, referred to in the plural in Revelation as "the cities of the Gentiles." (Revelation 16:19). It is called "Mystery, Babylon the Great." The message of Numbers 24:19 is simple enough. Even the remnant of Adam's rebellious race shall at last perish in the final holocaust that shall terminate God's Operation Adam, that occasion being depicted frequently in Holy Writ as the Judgment. Men might wish to ponder this question: How can there be any future for any species of life in open rebellion against the Creator and launched on a collision course with disaster? The disastrous results of what Balaam prophesied were evidently discerned by him in some degree at least, for he exclaimed, "Alas, who shall live when God doeth this ...?" (Numbers 24:23).

We shall pass over the remaining three oracles with little comment. There is no evidence whatever that they were "added at a later time," there being nothing of such significance in them as to have justified such an action. The principal thrust of all three is that the destruction prophesied was to be universal and extend to all nations, not merely to Israel. The interpretation of any of these last three is uncertain, as Gray said, "Due to their brevity, and to certain defects in the text, anything approaching certainty in the interpretation is out of the question."[27] Despite this, there are a few points of very great significance.

The mention of the Kenites here as an important, independent nation marks the times of Moses as the date of the narrative. The status and importance of the Kenites surfaces in Numbers 24:21,22. W. F. Albright, commenting on this, declared that, "The only time when these people were an autonomous people was in the Mosaic age, so the oracle could not have come from the tenth century, as suggested by many."[28]

Another item of interest in these final three oracles is the mention of Amalek in Numbers 24:20, calling him the "first of the nations." Keil interpreted this to mean that Amalek was, "The first of the heathen nations to open conflict against God's people, Israel."[29] Keil is usually quite dependable, and this might indeed be the true meaning of this place; but it should be pointed out that strong opinion to the contrary has been registered. Carson called this, "A doubtful interpretation";[30] and there appears to be some Biblical support for the view that the Amalekites were indeed a formidable and mighty race of people. It will be remembered that when the Ten Spies brought back their report, the principal ground of the fears they cited was based on the fact that Amalek dwelt there (Numbers 13:28ff).

Due to the appearance of Balaam at a later time in this narrative and the account of his death indicating that he was fighting with Midian against Israel when he was killed with the sword, we supposed (in the comment on Numbers 24:11) that Balaam might indeed have stayed awhile after this in order to continue his efforts to please Balak, but Numbers 24:25 states flatly that Balaam rose up and went and returned to his place. If the meaning of this is that Balaam indeed returned to his residence in Mesopotamia, then it would indicate a somewhat longer time-lapse between the prophecy and his death, allowing long enough for such a journey and his subsequent return as an ally of Midian. If, on the other hand, "his place" refers to a temporary residence provided by the Midianites for Balaam, the time-lapse between prophecy and the death of Balaam could have been much shorter. The Bible does not enable us to know certainly whether "his place" means such a temporary dwelling in the land of Midian, or if it refers to Balaam's residence in Mesopotamia.