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Numbers 23:1-10 Balaam's First Attempt to Curse Israel
Balaam instructed the Moabites to build seven altars and to offer two sacrifices on each altar. Seven was a number of significance for all the various peoples of Canaan and the Transjordan.
In the earlier sacrifices and the sacred meal shared with the Moabite delegation, Balaam clearly accepted the contract to curse the Israelites-but he warned them it was a contract he may not be able to fulfill. The second series of sacrifices were meant to bless the oracle he was prepared to give. Since he was not an Israelite, he was not part of the Sinai covenant law and was not restricted from building other altars.
Question: What was the law concerning the practice of witchcraft/sorcery for members of the Sinai Covenant? See Ex 22:17; Lev 20:6, 27, Dt 18:10-12.
Answer: Seeking to determine the will of God was permitted, but sorcery, seeking to predict the future apart from the will of God, was forbidden and punishable by death.
Keshafim (sorcery) was a practice that was forbidden under the Law of the Sinai Covenant. Balaam heard the voice of Yahweh, but he also practiced divination through observing omens (Num 24:1).
Question: Why didn't Balaam curse the Israelites?
Answer: As Balaam told Balak in 22:38, Yahweh used him as an instrument for conveying God's divine will and he could not speak on his own contrary to God's will.
In Balaam's first attempt, God put words of praise in his mouth. The content of the first oracle:
- He began his poem by alluding to his Aramean heritage. The first line of verse 7 can mean that he was destined to answer Balak's invitation to come from his homeland to this region for this very event or that he recently made the journey.
- He praised Israel for being God's chosen people out of all the nations of the earth. Verse 10 is an allusion to great numbers of the Israelites and the dust clouds the people raised on the march.
- The oracle concluded with a petition that Balaam's destiny may be linked to the blessings of Israel.
The third part of the oracle can be seen as God's second warning to Balaam.
Numbers 23:11-15 Balak's Response to the First Oracle
Sedeh-zophim in verse 14 is literally translated "mountain of the watchmen". It was probably a lookout post for the seers/astronomers who were "watchers of the skies" to observe omens like the movement of celestial bodies or the flight of birds.
Question: What was the Moabite king's reaction to the first oracle and what is Balaam's defense?
Answer: Balak was shocked that Balaam had not only failed to curse the Israelites but that he blessed them! Balaam reminded the king that he can only speak the words that Yahweh gives him.
Balak wasn't about to give up and concluded that perhaps the problem wasn't with the renown seer but with the site chose for the oracle. Perhaps a better vantage point could produce better results. The building of altars and offering of sacrifices was repeated to enhance the second attempt to curse the Israelites.
Numbers 23:16-24 Balaam's Second Oracle
The content of the second oracle:
- The oracle begins by addressing Balak and commanding him to understand that it is Yahweh's will to bless Israel (verses 18-20).
- The second part recalls Israel's liberation from Egypt (verses 21-22).
- The third part prophesies Israel's future success in her conquest of the region (verses 23-24).
Notice in verse 17 that Balak uses Yahweh's divine name. He now acknowledges that it is Israel's God and Israel's God alone who determines the fate of His people. Balak changed the site of the second round of sacrifices and the location of Balaam's oracle hoping that he could favorably influence Israel's God.
Question: What was God's response to Balak's maneuverings? See Num 23:18-19.
Answer: God answered that he is not like human beings. God is faithful and keeps His promises, unlike human kings like Balak who lie and change their minds according to the circumstances.
Numbers 23:25-30: Balak's Response to the Second Oracle
After the second failure to curse Israel and God's direct message to him, Balak was not prepared to give up his plan to curse the Israelites. Again he changed the location of the sacrifice hoping the win Yahweh's favor.
Chapter 24: Divorce and Daily Life
The next section has twelve laws dealing with divorce and righteous living within the community of Israel. Verses 22:6, 10, 14, 17, 19-21 are addressed to ethical treatment of the poor. Laws prescribing the conditions that are acceptable for divorce are not found in the Torah or in any other of the Bible books. There are sexual and marital prohibitions listed in Leviticus 18:1-22 and 21:7, 14 (for the marriage of priests), and laws concerning marriage to and divorce from captive Gentile women (21:10-14). The only part of the Law that speaks of a reason for divorce is found in the case law in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 in which a man has found some "impropriety" for which he wants to divorce his wife, which might be assumed to be a violation of one of the laws given in the Holiness Code forbidding certain kinds of sexual unions (Lev 18:1-22).
Deuteronomy 24:1-4
Laws Regulating Divorce and Remarriage
When Jesus spoke of divorce in the New Testament, His teaching was unambiguous. In the Sermon on the Mount, after speaking of the commandment forbidding adultery in the Decalogue and coupling the breaking of that commandment with the promised of eternal destruction in Gehenna/Hell of the damned (Mt 5:27-30), Jesus quoted from this passage in Deuteronomy, saying 'It has also been said, Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a writ of dismissal. But I say this to you, everyone who divorces his wife, except for the case of an illicit marriage, makes her an adulteress; and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery (Mt 5:31-32 quoting Dt 24:1; emphasis added).
The priests and scribes interpreted Deuteronomy 24:1, deciding for what reasons a man could divorce his wife beyond the law prescribed in the Holiness Code forbidding marriages within the prohibited degrees (Lev 18:1-22). Some scholars list adultery as one of the reasons, but this was unnecessary. If a man could prove adultery with witnesses, the wife was stoned to death, freeing him from the marriage; or if he only suspected adultery, there was the ordeal by bitter water that could settle the issue for the family and the community (Num 5:13-31). The problem with the ambiguous nature of the passage in Deuteronomy 24:1 was that evidently any excuse came to be accepted for a "writ of dismissal." However, when asked about the subject of divorce Jesus gave a very clear teaching on marriage and divorce to some Pharisees who were testing Him in front of a large Jewish crowd. Please read Matthew 19:1-9 or Mark 10:1-12.
Question: What was Jesus' answer to the Pharisees who asked him if it was against the Law for a man to divorce his wife on any pretext? See Mt 19:3-9 and Mk 10:2-12.
Answer: First, Jesus rejected polygamy by saying it was God's plan from Creation that one man should be married to one woman (Mt 19:4-6). Then, when the Pharisees brought up Moses' legislation on divorce (Mk 10:4), Jesus replied that Moses' legislation was based on the hard-hearts of the Israelite men and affirmed for a second time that this was not God's plan from the beginning (Mt 19:8; Mk 10:5). He further clarified His statement when questioned by His disciples by saying that anyone who divorced and then married someone else was committing adultery (Mt 19:9; Mk 10:11-12).
Question: What was the one exception that Jesus gave for divorce?
Answer: In the case of "unfitness" (probably illicit marriage), one could divorce.
Question: What is the obligation of a newly married man?
Answer: To make his wife happy.
Love was usually not a factor in the selection of a bride. Most marriages were arranged by the parents, and the betrothal period was intended to give the prospective bride and groom a chance to become acquainted under the supervision of the bride's family. Still, the couple remained relative strangers (unless they grew up in the same village) until the marriage. This law gave the husband the opportunity to win his bride's love and to produce an heir before he risked his life fighting for Israel.
Question: Why was it forbidden to take a millstone as collateral in exchange for a loan?
Answer: A millstone was necessary to grind the grain to produce flour that could be baked into bread. Bread was the basic necessity of life for ancient people. To take one's millstone as collateral for a loan would be an unreasonable hardship on a person or a family and was an act of cruelty that the law forbade-it would be a threat to the life of the person, hence the phrase that would be to take life itself in pledge.
Law 6: This law is a repeat of the law in Exodus 22:25-26. A standard of Israelite righteousness is established in this law. One does not force exact payment of a loan that would be a hardship for the debtor, but instead one allows a poor person to retain his pledge overnight if the item pledged is necessity for daily life, like a handmill or a cloak (also see Job 22:6; Am 2:8).
Law 7: Exploitation of the poor is expressly forbidden in the Law, including foreigners living in the land; also see Dt 24:17-18; Jer 22:13; Mal 3:5; Jm 5:4. Any wages due to a worker must be paid before sunset (Lev 19:13).
Law 8: Punishment for a crime was to be the responsibility of the perpetrator. Members of the person's family could not be held accountable for a family member's criminal act. This Law establishes the doctrine of individual responsibility. It is a doctrine that is applied in 2 Kings 14:6 where this passage is quoted, and it is affirmed in Jeremiah 31:29-30, in Ezekiel 14:12-20, and in 18:10-20.
Law 9: The Law is to be applied with justice for all member of society. This law is a repeat, with slight variation, from Exodus 22:20-23. Like Exodus 22:20, the command is that Israel's historical experience of slavery and poverty in Egypt should make them more sensitive to the rights of foreigners living in their land and to the plight of the poor. It is a command that will be repeated at the end of this section of laws in 24:22.
Law 10: Commands providing for feeding the poor are found in each of the codified laws (see Ex 23:11; Lev 19:9ff).
Question: How did the widow Ruth's knowledge of this law help her to provide food for herself and her widowed mother-in-law? How did this convert to the faith's knowledge of the law become an additional blessing? See Rt 2:2-4; 4:9-10.
Answer: Ruth's knowledge of the law led her to ask Naomi to let her go into the fields to glean. It was in gleaning the fields that she met her future husband.
Law 11: Olives were harvested by beating the branches with long poles to dislodge the ripe fruit (see Is 17:6). Owners of olive trees were to only beat the branches once; leaving the remaining immature fruit that had not yet ripened at the time of harvest to be collected later by the poor.
Law 12: Owners of vineyards were to only have the harvesters go through the field once, leaving the remaining immature clusters to ripe for the poor.
Chapter 25: Miscellaneous Laws
Deuteronomy 25:1-4
Limited punishment and the ethical treatment of animals/laborers
Flogging was generally used as a punishment for workers and children. The law limited the number of blows a man could receive in a flogging to prevent serious injury or the possibility of flogging someone to death. A man was to be appointed by the court to count the number of blows so the person doing the flogging did not loose count.
Question: What was the limit on the number of blows that could be struck?
Answer: Forty.
Question: How does St. Paul use this passage as an example in his letter to the Corinthians and to St. Timothy? See 1 Cor 9:9; 1 Tim 5:17-18 and also Lk 10:7.
Answer: It is St. Paul's argument that faith communities should provide for the welfare of the apostles sent by Christ to minister to them and to plant the seeds of faith in the same way that it is commanded by God that an animal laboring in the harvest should receive its fair share for the labor it performs. In his letter to St. Timothy, he also refers to Jesus' statement in Luke 10:7 that a worker in the Lord's harvest of souls deserved his wage.
Deuteronomy 25:5-10 The Levirate Law
Question: What are the conditions under which an exception is granted?
Answer:
- The brothers were living together with their families.
- The dead man's wife has no children.*
- The brother-in-law must be willing to take up this responsibility.
Question: What story in Genesis is concerned with such a marriage and the widow's determination to assert her rights? What other Biblical heroine claimed the same right through a kinsman redeemer?
Answer: In the story of Tamar and Judah, Tamar deceived her father-in-law Judah in order to secure her right to bear a son from the tribe of Judah. Ruth made the same claim on her dead husband's kinsman, Boaz.
Question: What were the two practical reasons for such a practice?
Answer:
- A childless widow was expected to return to her father's house where she became a person with no status within the family. If she had a child in her husband's family, she may stay and if she had a son, she could expect that he would care for her in her old age.
- The son born from the brother-in-law but recognized as the heir of the woman's dead husband perpetuated the family name and added to the stability of the family inheritance rights. A daughter born to the widow and the dead man's brother could also inherit the share of the dead brother if there were no sons.
Question: How did the Sadducees use this law as an argument against the doctrine of the resurrection in a discussion with Jesus, and what was Jesus' reply? See Mt 22:23-33. The Sadducees did not believe in the Resurrection of the dead.
Answer: They suggested a hypothetical case in which a woman had been widowed repeatedly and married seven brothers, asking Jesus to which husband she would be married at the Resurrection. Jesus replied that there would be a final resurrection but that there was no marriage in heaven.
Deuteronomy 25:11-16 Unseemly Behavior in Brawls and Honesty in Using Weights and Measures
It was forbidden to deliberately attempt to damage someone's sexual organs. This is the only example of punishment by mutilation in the Pentateuch.
Dishonesty in the application of weights and measures in trade was strictly forbidden.
Deuteronomy 25:17-19 Remembering Amalekite Treachery.
Question: Who were the Amalekites? Why are the Israelite's commanded the blot out the memory of these people? See Gen 36:12; Ex 17:8-16.
Answer: The Amalekites were descendants of Esau who attacked the children of Israel on their march out of Egypt on the way to Mt. Sinai. The battle with the Amalekites was Israel's first major battle and first victory. After the battle, God told Moses to write down the events of the battle to commemorate it. God then made the promise that He would be at war with Amalek generation after generation. The new generation of Israelites is admonished to remember the treachery of the Amalekites and to fulfill God's promise.
This isn't the first reminder of the treachery of the Amalekites since Israel's victory in Exodus chapter 17. In Balaam's oracle of the future king in Israel, the oracle is followed by the reminder of the destruction of the Amalekites (see Num 24:1-20; also see 1 Chr 4:42-43). God has no mercy for those who refuse to show mercy to the weak and helpless.
CHALLENGE: “The Bible has been translated over and over again in history. That’s like making a photocopy of a photocopy—eventually, the image becomes blurry. Why should we trust the Bible, considering how many times it has been translated?”
DEFENSE: Modern Bible translations are made directly from the original languages, not other translations.
There have been many translations of the Bible, but the major translations published today are not based on other translations. The books of the Bible were originally written in three languages—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. These are not mysterious, lost languages. Each is well understood. Knowledge of them has survived down through history.
In fact, there are people today who speak dialects of these languages as their native tongues. Hebrew is commonly spoken in modern Israel, Aramaic in various Middle Eastern communities, and Greek in Greece.
Languages change over time, but scholars have access to extensive collections of ancient manuscripts—as well as modern reference works—that enable them to understand these languages and to translate the books of the Bible directly from them. These languages are not particularly difficult, and there are many introductory textbooks and courses that let anyone who wants to learn them do so. The fact that knowledge of these languages is so widely available means that the major translations serve as a check on one another.
As long as no translation has a monopoly, readers can check other translations to see how they render a passage. There will always be oddball, eccentric translations of the Bible (just as there can be for secular works written in other languages), but these are usually produced by single, eccentric individuals.
By contrast, the major translations of the Bible are made by teams of scholars who develop a consensus about how to render a text. They thus do not reflect the views of any single translator. Many Bible commentaries and other reference works discuss translation issues extensively, allowing individuals to see arguments for and against different ways of rendering a passage. Finally, modern Bible software is designed to let even an individual who does not know these languages to examine the original language text, look up the meaning of words, understand the grammar, and make an informed assessment.
Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist
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