A Fearful and Deluded King
Try to put yourself in the position of Balak, king of Moab. Here was this massive horde that had come out of the great nation of Egypt, and who had survived only by miracles (what else?) in the desert for four decades. And now they were camped “in the plains of Moab” (Num. 22:1), not far from his kingdom.
Even though the nation had not made any threats against them and wasn’t intending to invade, Balak, understandably, was nervous. After all, look what they had just done to King Og of Bashan and to King Sihon of the Amorites—whose nation already had defeated Moab (see Num. 21:26). Not to mention what they had done to the Canaanites (vss. 1–3), too. No wonder he was nervous.
Read Numbers 22:1–6. What was it about the Israelites that especially made the king fearful?
In reality, if Israel had been a threat, what should Balak really have been afraid of? See Gen. 48:21, Exod. 15:1, Deut. 1:30, 20:4.
It’s kind of ironic that Balak, facing what he believed to be an insurmountable foe, would seek out a prophet of the God of the very people he wanted cursed and defeated. Whether he realized what he was doing, we don’t know; but from our perspective, it’s obvious that Balak’s plans were doomed from the start. One only could wonder, too, why he didn’t get one of his own local holy men to petition the Moabite gods to defend them against Israel. Instead, he called upon a prophet of the true God. Perhaps the key to that is found in Numbers 22:6: “ ‘Curse this people for me, for they are too mighty for me. Perhaps I shall be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land, for I know that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed’ ” (NKJV).
| Ask yourself how much you really seek to depend upon God, and how much you trust in yourself, your money, your job, your talents, whatever. How can you learn to get your eyes off these things and on the Lord? Why is that naturally hard to do? See 1 Cor. 2:14. |
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