Balak is a king, and the people Israel come in a swarm to camp out near his land. He fears the ravening masses. They are wanderers. As far as Balak is concerned, these people are the barbarian hordes, come to topple Rome, come to destroy all he has built up, lay waste to his peoples’ land, his beloved home, the cities and temples of his world. And rape, and slaughter, and pillage, and destroy.
Balak feels helpless to stop it, so he calls on Balaam, a prophet. Balaam is a prophet of the One God, it appears, even though he is not an Israelite. Balak sends some men to convince Balaam to come and curse the Israelites for Balak, so that he can save his people and his land. Balaam says “I can only do what God tells me to do. Let me dream and ask God and give you my answer in the morning.” And God tells Balaam not to go with the men that Balak sent, and so he does not.
And Balak sends men again, more this time, with more offers of money. And Balaam says “I can only do what God tells me to do, but I will ask God again.” And God says to Balaam that this time, he can go with the men, but he must say only what God tells him to say. And so Balaam gets up in the morning and says “I will come, but I can only say what God tells me, and no matter how much money Balak offers me that will not change.” And he saddles his ass, and starts off down the road.
Even though God told him to go this time, He now sends an Angel of the Lord to bar Balaam’s way. So the Angel of the Lord stands there in front of the donkey, and the donkey turns off the road to avoid smashing into the Angel of the Lord. But Balaam does not see the Angel of the Lord, so he beats his donkey with a stick. Again they are on the road to Balak, and again the Angel of the Lord (let’s call it AOTL for short) blocks the way, and the donkey tries to squeeze past and scrapes Balaam’s leg up against a wall, and Balaam gets mad and beats the donkey again. And on they go, again. ( Maybe the AOTL went to lunch? I don’t know why it let them past...) Third time, AOTL blocks the way, donkey lies down in the road completely, Balaam beats it.
Now God makes the donkey speak. “Why are you beating me?” asks the donkey. “Duh, because you keep not doing what I want you to do, and for no good reason! If I had a sword I’d kill you!” “Haven’t I been your donkey for a long time now, and have I ever behaved like this before?” asks the donkey.
Balaam admits that no, the donkey has not behaved like that before. (One might ask why the donkey had to do anything more than START TALKING for Balaam to recognize that something kinda freaky was going on, but maybe Balaam was so pissed off at this point that he didn’t notice that particular weirdness.) And then God makes Balaam see that actually, there is a big ole shining terrifying AOTL blocking the way. “Oh!” says Balaam, “I didn’t see you there! I’m sorry! If you don’t want me to go to Balak, I won’t. I’ll turn around right now.”
Strangely, even though the AOTL has been repeatedly blocking the way, it now says, “No, no, go on ahead. Just remember: don’t say anything except what God tells you to say.”
So after this pretty weird experience, Balaam finally gets to Balak, who says “You’re late! What took you so long? C’mon, I’m taking you up on a hill where you’ll be able to see the Israelites and curse them.”
“Fine,” says Balaam, “but I can only say what God tells me to say.” But Balak is really desperate. His entire nation is on the brink of disaster, and he knows it, and all he can think to do is ask a reluctant holy man if there’s any hope at all, if he can curse the Israelites and save Balak’s own people from destruction.
Up they go to the top of the hill, and there they build seven altars, and sacrifice 7 bulls and 7 rams, and Balaam goes off to have his vision or whatever, and God comes and puts something in his mouth. Some of the translations call it a ‘Word’. Some of them call it a “parable”. Some of them just say that God told Balaam what to say to Balak. Anyway, when Balaam goes back down and tells Balak the words God put in his mouth, they are definitely not a curse on Israel.
“Dammit, Balaam, that’s no good,” says Balak. “I can only say what God tells me to say,” says Balaam, implacably. “Maybe from a different hill?” says Balak. And they all troop off to a different hill, with a different view of the Israelites camping below, and they make the same 7 altars with the same sacrifices and Balaam goes off again and God gives him a Word in his mouth and he goes back to Balak and blesses Israel again. “Arggh!” says Balak. “If God won’t let you curse them, could you at least not bless them?!” “I can only say what God tells me to say,” says Balaam, again, which really makes you want to kick him in the teeth, honestly.
Third time’s the charm, thinks Balak, and really, what has he got to lose? Another hill, another round of sacrifices, another blessing for Israel from Balaam. And also, for good measure, Balaam prophecies the downfall of not only Balak’s kingdom but of everyone else around them. Blessings for Israel, curses for everyone else, and that’s what God told him to say, says Balaam, and off he goes, home again.
***
Meanwhile the Israelites were, as usual, off getting themselves into trouble. A bunch of them start having ritual sex with some Moabite women and worshipping Baal-Peor, the god in those parts. Kill everyone involved, yells God, and also apparently sends a plague. Some poor schlub hasn’t seemed to notice the wailing and hubbub, and actually brings a Moabite woman back to his tent in the middle of this and starts screwing her. So Eleazar the priest’s son, Phinehas, grabs a spear, follows them into the tent, and spears them both through the groin as they are doing it. God likes the righteous anger he sees there and stops the plague, and only 24,000 Israelites died.
** And there you have this week’s parsha, Balak Paneer. **
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