God’s Word for You
Numbers 24:21-25 Balaam’s final oracles
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, December 1, 2021
21 He looked at the Kenites, took up his oracle, and said:
Permanent is your dwelling place.
Set in stone is your nest.
22 However, you Kenites will be destroyed,
when Ashshur takes you captive.
The Kenites were related to Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro (Judges 1:16, 4:11). One of the last mentions of this little clan comes during a compassionate act on the part of King Saul. When Saul was getting ready to attack and almost entirely destroy the Amalekites, he sent word to the Kenites to get out of the way of the battle so that they would not accidentally be killed by his zealous warriors (1 Samuel 15:5-7). This sixth oracle from Balaam is a warning to the Kenites that they will be overthrown by a distant people, “Ashshur,” that is, the Assyrians. In the days of the prophets Isaiah and Micah, the Assyrians attacked Israel and deported all of the tribes of the northern kingdom to distant lands in the far east and northeast, among them the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh who lived across the Jordan where the Kenites also lived (1 Chronicles 5:25-26). Surely this was the event that Balaam foresaw.
It was a blessing for some of the Kenites to have come into contact with Israel through Moses. The time of every human being is fleeting (Job 14:2; Psalm 39:4, 144:4), but we are blessed by our merciful God to come into contact with his word during our lives. Those who receive it with faith are brought into God’s family with the care and compassion of our Savior Jesus Christ. Those who reject it and despise it, for whatever their reasons, break the hearts of their loved ones who are already in hell (Luke 16:27-31), for no one among all humanity in heaven or hell wants anyone to be condemned except only those unbelievers who are presently living, because they don’t care. When they die, then Balaam’s oracle truly finds a new and terrible meaning: “Permanent is your dwelling place. Set in stone is your nest.”
23 He took up his oracle and said:
Ah, who will live when God does this?
24 But ships will come from the coast of Kittim.
They will oppress Ashshur.
They will oppress Eber.
But they also will come to destruction.
25 Balaam got up and left to return to his place. Balak also went on his way.
This seventh and final oracle from Balaam is about the coming of a people from across the sea. Who could it be? Three suggestions are offered about these invaders: (1) The Greeks under Alexander, who came in the fourth century BC and were foreseen by Daniel (Daniel 2:39, 7:6), (2) The Romans who arrived by ship in the first century BC. Like the Greeks, the Romans were foreseen by Daniel (Daniel 2:40-43, 7:7). Luther did not write extensively about this passage, but he clearly thought the Romans were meant and said so in his “Letter to the Christian Nobility” (LW 44:207-208). (3) Finally, could it be a much earlier people? Some commentators have proposed that the Sea Peoples who invaded Palestine and Egypt could have been meant here. On this third point, I disagree, since I think it’s been fairly well established that those Sea Peoples invaded Egypt after the death of Joseph but before the birth of Moses, and were the cause of the rise of a Pharaoh “who did not know about Joseph” (Exodus 1:8), so that if they were the ones “foreseen” by Balaam, he was about 300 years late. Therefore I am inclined to say that the first two possibilities, Greece or Rome, are meant, and that it is even possible that Balaam’s words include both. “Ashshur” means Assyria, and Eber in this case is not another name for Israel (“the sons of Eber,” Genesis 10:21) but a region close to Assyria. Eber-Nari means “Across the River,” and the “Trans-Euphrates” is mentioned many times in Ezra and Nehemiah (for example, Ezra 4:10-20; and Nehemiah 2:7,9). The prophetic point is that both the conquered and the conqueror will fall. Daniel quotes this passage in very nearly identical language where he says, “Ships of the Kittim will oppose him… Then he will turn back and vent his fury against the holy covenant” (Daniel 11:30).
After these final oracles and prophecies, Balaam and Balak parted company. Balaam left “to return to his place (home),” but we learn later on that he did not complete this trip (Numbers 31:8). This is not a contradiction, since our passage only expresses his intention “to return,” but Moses nowhere says that he got there.
Balaam did not proclaim these prophecies through faith, because he had no saving faith and he did not look to Israel’s God for salvation, but kept offering slaughtered animals to the Baals of the mountaintops besides “loving the wages of wickedness” (2 Peter 2:15). The words of Balaam in these oracles are not Balaam’s, but God’s. God spoke through other false prophets, but Balaam is the chief example. God still speaks through certain ministers and priests who have a dead faith or who preach for profit, or preach because they want to do good in society but care nothing for souls. Yet when the word of God is proclaimed, it always has an effect by virtue of its Divine source, not the one who says it. “For that reason it is effective through the power of the Holy Spirit, although in an ungodly person.”
We take a very simple message to heart with these verses: Worship the Lord, and him only. “All who worship images are put to shame, those who boast in idols” (Psalm 97:7). “Let those who love the Lord hate evil” (Psalm 97:10), and live day by day according to the holy word of our holy God. Those who oppose him will be condemned, but all who put their trust in him will live in the peace of forgiveness and joy forever.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.