Having wandered 38 years after leaving Sinai, the children of Israel were ready to enter the promised land. They were gathered in great numbers in the land of the Moabites, and there they were prepared with teaching from God. This came through Moses before he died. The entire book of Deuteronomy is devoted to recording this.
But there was, at the same time, other teaching in Moab too --God’s oracles to the Moabites and Midianites through one of their diviners, Balaam. He was a prophet of the one true God. This story, about what Balaam said to Balak king of Moab, is recorded in Numbers chapters 22-24.
The Israelites were God’s chosen people. They were going to drive others out of the land of Canaan. However God was not being a respector of persons. The people in those territories were being conquered because they sought what they wanted to hear, instead of seeking God’s truth. The Moabites' attitude to what God was saying to them is a perfect example.
The Main Point
God never fails to tell people the truth. God has always had his prophets and teachers among the gentiles as well as among the people of Israel. Even today God raises up people to communicate his truth wherever people seek it or need it. God always makes himself known clearly to those who try to understand, and he never leaves people in ignorance --people create their own darkness (Rom 1:16-25 2Th 2:7-12). Thus Moses told the people, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. And these words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart"(Deuteronomy 6:4-9).
Bible Summary (Deuteronomy 1-34)
Moses teaches in Moab:Leaving Sinai (1)
Spying out Canaan (1)
The rebellion (1)
Wanderings (2-3)
Tribes east of Jordan (3)
Moses cannot cross Jordan (3)
Neither add nor subtract (4)
Make yourself no idol (4)
Cities of refuge (4)
The ten commandments (5)
Love and fear God (6)
Conquest promised (7)
Do not live by bread alone (8)
If you ever forget... (8)
Not your own righteousness (9)
Remember the golden calf (9)
The two new stone tablets (10)
Serve God (10)
The new land unlike Egypt (11)
A blessing and a curse (11)
A place of God’s choosing (12)
Laws for the new land (12)
Condemnation of idols (13)
Suitable foods (14)
The poor and the servants (15)
Give your firstborn to God (15)
Festivals (16)
Appoint judges (16)
Miscellaneous laws (17-26)
The end of Moses’s life:
The stones on Mount Ebal (27)
The blessings and the curses (27-30)
Joshua to succeed Moses (31)
Provisions for remembering the law (31)
The song of Moses (32)
Moses told to go to Mount Nebo and die (32)
Moses’s blessing on the tribes (33)
The death of Moses (32,34)
The Story of Balaam
The story of Balaam is one of the strange yet true stories of the Bible. It is found in Numbers 22, 23, 24. It happened to the Moabites while the Israelite multitude was camped in Moab listening to Moses. The Moabite leaders, alarmed at the intrusion of the Israelites, called upon the services of one of their diviners, the prophet Balaam, who got his powers from God.
Balaam refused to make any pronouncement other than what God says. Even though the king pressed Balaam for another message, Balaam would give him none but God’s.
Balaam, however, went along with the strategy of pressing the Lord to give godless men the message they wanted. God used Balaam’s donkey to convince Balaam that God was not going to bend, and so Balaam apologised to God’s angel.
Balaam, for the sake of money, was too easily led astray from God’s truth as we see from Num 31:8,16, 2Pe 2:15-16, and Rev 2:14. On the above occasion, however, Balaam kept to God’s message. Every time the leaders of Moab asked Balaam to have another go at divining the message they wanted, the Lord gave him a stronger version of the truth. Balaam repeated it faithfully. His attitude was, "I must be careful to speak what the Lord puts in my mouth."
Perhaps the most remarkable part of this story is that God was prepared to kill Balaam for being too ready to pander to the king of Moab. However, God used the mistreated donkey to save Balaam’s life on this occasion. This reminds us that God’s own Son was a "lamb" mistreated so that we who have sinned might live and not die.