Daily Devotional • July 2
A Reading from Numbers 22:21-28
21 So Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey, and went with the officials of Moab.
22 God’s anger was kindled because he was going, and the angel of the Lord took his stand in the road as his adversary. Now he was riding on the donkey, and his two servants were with him. 23 The donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road, with a drawn sword in his hand, so the donkey turned off the road and went into the field, and Balaam struck the donkey, to turn it back onto the road. 24 Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path between the vineyards, with a wall on either side. 25 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it scraped against the wall and scraped Balaam’s foot against the wall, so he struck it again. 26 Then the angel of the Lordwent ahead and stood in a narrow place, where there was no way to turn either to the right or to the left. 27 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it lay down under Balaam, and Balaam’s anger was kindled, and he struck the donkey with his staff. 28 Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and it said to Balaam, “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?” 29 Balaam said to the donkey, “Because you have made a fool of me! I wish I had a sword in my hand! I would kill you right now!” 30 But the donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your donkey, which you have ridden all your life to this day? Have I been in the habit of treating you this way?” And he said, “No.”
31 Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road, with his drawn sword in his hand, and he bowed down, falling on his face. 32 The angel of the Lord said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? I have come out as an adversary because your way is perverse before me. 33 The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If it had not turned away from me, surely just now I would have killed you and let it live.” 34 Then Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, “I have sinned, for I did not know that you were standing in the road to oppose me. Now therefore, if it is displeasing to you, I will return home.” 35 The angel of the Lord said to Balaam, “Go with the men, but speak only what I tell you to speak.” So Balaam went on with the officials of Balak.
36 When Balak heard that Balaam had come, he went out to meet him at Ir-moab, on the boundary formed by the Arnon, at the farthest point of the boundary. 37 Balak said to Balaam, “Did I not send to summon you? Why did you not come to me? Am I not able to honor you?” 38 Balaam said to Balak, “I have come to you now, but do I have power to say just anything? The word God puts in my mouth, that is what I must say.”
Meditation
“I have come out as an adversary because your way is perverse before me.”
The curious story of Balaam and his donkey is strange to our ears in a number of ways. We would do well to remember the strangeness it must have represented for the original circulators and hearers of this story: the only thing possibly stranger than a talking donkey would be a gentile who receives a prophetic word from the Lord of Israel! The placement of this story we have just heard in its direct scriptural context doesn’t seem to make a lot of immediate sense either. Just before our pericope begins God seems to give the okay for Balaam to go with the officials of Moab, and yet we begin with a declaration of God’s anger.
Our confusion about why God would suddenly make himself the adversary of Balaam is mirrored by Balaam’s own: he does not and can not see the angel of the Lord. His donkey, however, has its eyes opened by God to see this angel and acts to save itself and its rider. Balaam acts with frustration at his way continually being diverted, his “anger is kindled” and he wishes he had a “sword in [his] hand” — he foolishly believes himself to stand over this donkey in the place of God, whose anger was righteously kindled and whose angel wields the sword against him. Balaam takes his point of view as the only point of view, unable to see God’s opposition and unwilling to think that this donkey might, in fact, be speaking a word from the Lord.
In this way, Balaam’s story provides us a scriptural grammar to think about our own individual and collective experiences of our usurpation of God’s sovereignty in refusing to acknowledge the signs that alert us to our misguided way and the violence with which we lash out at such confrontations. Balaam’s story ends (at least in this particular narrative) relatively happily, with him blessing Israel instead of cursing. We might also bless those who speak a word of the Lord to us — no matter how unlikely the source — instead of cursing.
Maxine King is a lay Episcopalian and student of theology at Virginia Theological Seminary.
♱
Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
The Diocese of Goma – Province de L’Eglise Anglicane Du Congo
Trinity Parish, St. Augustine, Florida