Numbers 23 – Balaam tells King
Balak of Moab to build seven altars and to prepare seven bulls and seven rams
for sacrifice on the altars. Then he
goes off to consult the Lord.
When
he returns, he delivers the following oracle: King Balak has called him to come
and curse Israel, but “How can I curse whom God has not cursed?” (23:8) “Let me
die the death of the upright, and let my end be like his!” (23:10) He can’t do
it.
King
Balak takes him to where he can see only part of them, and asks him to curse
“part of them” (23:13). Again they do the altars and sacrifices, and again
Balaam goes off to consult God. God tells him to tell Balak that the people of
Israel are “rising up like a lioness, and rousing itself like a lion! It does
not lie down until it has eaten the prey and drunk the blood of the slain”
(23:24).
This seems like what
God is saying is that the people of Israel, a new nation, is full of energy and
vigor and will not be stopped until it has established itself—even if such
establishment requires the blood of the slain. Balak asks him not to curse them or bless
them, but again Balaam tells him only the Lord can tell him what to say
(23:26). Again they move, this time to the top of Peor, overlooking the
wasteland. Again they set up altars and
again Balaam goes to consult God.
Numbers 24 – This time, Balaam
does not go somewhere away to seek an oracle.
He looks out over the camp of the Israelites and sees through the Spirit
of God that the people of Israel are blessed of the Lord. Balaam
is described as “the man whose eye is true, . . . one who hears what God says,
and knows what the Most High knows” (24:3-4).
This
man gives the following oracle: “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob; your
encampments, O Israel! They are like gardens beside a stream, like the cedars
planted by the Lord. His wills shall yield free-flowing waters, he shall have
the sea within reach; His king shall rise higher than [illegible] and his royalty
shall be exalted. It is God who brought
him out of Egypt, a wild bull of towering might. He shall devour the nations like grass, their
bones he shall strip bare. He lies
crouching like a lion, or like a lioness; who shall arouse him? Blessed is he
who blesses you, and cursed is he who curses you.”
Balaam is
testimony to the generosity of the Lord to bless all those who are attentive
and obedient to the will of the Most High.
He will give them the spirit of wisdom and open himself to him.
The next
oracle Balaam delivers, some of the church fathers have seen as prophetic. Balaam’s
words include the following: “I see him though not now; I behold him, though
not near: a star shall advance from Jacob, and a staff shall rise from Israel” (24:17). He recounts
all the peoples who have inhabited the lands Israel will take—Amalekites,
Kenites, Ishmaelites—and then Balaam leaves as does Balak.
Origen (185-254 AD)
De Principiis (First
Principles)
Preface
7 – The Church believes
that “the world was made and took its beginning at a certain time, and is to be
destroyed on account of its wickedness. But what existed before this world, or
what will exist after it, has not become certainly known.” There is no clear
teaching about this.
8 – As for the Scriptures,
the Church teaches that they “were written by the Spirit of God, and have a
meaning, not such only as is apparent at first sight, but also another, which
escapes the notice of most. For those (words), which are written are the forms
of certain mysteries [sacramentorum], and the images of divine things.
Respecting which there is one opinion throughout the whole Church, that the
whole law is indeed spiritual; but that the spiritual meaning which the law
conveys is not known to all, but to those only on whom the grace of the Holy
Spirit is bestowed in the word of wisdom and knowledge.”
The
term “incorporeal” is not well used in many writings, and even in our
Scriptures. He makes reference to its having come from a text called The Doctrine of Peter. He reminds us
that this is not a work included with the authoritative books Christians use.
We do not know for sure who wrote it.
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