N22-6: As A Pagan Sorcerer, Balaam Was Used To Bargaining With The ‘Gods’ In The Spiritual Realm

“But Balaam answered them, ‘Even if Balak gave me all the silver and gold in his palace, I could not do anything great or small to go beyond the command of the Lord my God. Now spend the night here so that I can find out what else the Lord will tell me.'”-Numbers 22:18-19

After his encounter with the God of Israel, Balaam returns to Balak and his men and reports the following.

“YHVH will not permit me to go with you”.

That’s right.

God gave out his personal name, the tetragrammaton, to a pagan prophet.

Okay, here’s what we need to understand at this point.

The God of Israel was NOT Balaam’s only God.

Balaam didn’t consider the God of Israel as the only god in existence nor that his loyalty was to be dedicated to HASHEM alone.

No, to a pagan sorcerer like Balaam, the God of Israel was just one god out of many (albeit a very powerful god) whose existence he believed in.

It was just that at this particular point in time, this god had spoken to Balaam on behalf of the Hebrews and had made it clear to him that he was not to curse Israel.

How did Balak and his men respond?

They treated Balaam’s response according to exactly what it was.

In other words, a negotiation ploy.

Balak responds by sending out personal representatives of even higher rank and tempts Balaam with even more money.

However, Balaam rebuffs them and makes it clear that it isn’t a matter of money.

And then he says,  “I could not do anything great or small to go beyond the command of the Lord my God“.

Now what the original Hebrew really says is I cannot do anything against YAHWEH my ELOHIM.

Okay, it’s at this point that rookies with only an amateur understanding of Scripture will conclude that Balaam was a God-fearer who held some of sort of loyalty or allegiance towards YHVH.

Turns out no such thing.

Later on we’re going to find out that Balaam was simply a spiritualist.

He was a polytheist who believed in the God of Israel along with a bunch of other gods.

See, what’s going on here was a whole Middle Eastern kabuki dance of negotiation.

Balaam was just making himself look good in front of the high-ranking government officials that Balak had sent out.

He was a shrewd salesmen with a keen understanding of what it would take to impress these men from Moab.

In boasting to the men that he had an intimate relationship with the God of Israel, it would convince them of the power he was capable of wielding in the invisible spiritual realm of the gods.

As a sorcerer for hire, Balaam was used to bargaining not just with his customers but also with the gods.

Next, notice verse 19 where Balaam says “Now spend the night here so that I can find out what else the Lord will tell me”.

Again, as far as Balaam is concerned, bargaining with BOTH his customers and the particular god or gods he was dealing with was all part and parcel of his job.

In his mind, dealing with this Hebrew deity shouldn’t be any different.

Actually, in the polytheistic pagan world of the ancient Middle East, that’s basically what “divining” was.

“Divining” was basically just negotiating and bargaining with the gods.

And if the particular god you were dealing with at a given time didn’t meet your request, well you asked again.

That’s precisely what Balaam was going to try to do in his second encounter with this God of Israel.

But this time, Balaam was going to attempt to call up this god via the conventional method of sorcerers:

In other words, through a dream or an unconscious vision.

How will HASHEM respond?

Stay tuned to find out.