Balak, the hidden meaning of the Bilam story.

Many questions have rightly been asked about the story of Balak and Bilam,

and the would-be curses that turned into blessings.

Was Bilam a true man of God, or was he a fraud, a magician, a sorcerer, a practitioner of dark arts?

Did he have genuine powers? Was he really, as some of the

sages said, the equal of Moses? Was he driven by the prospect of reward and honour from

Moabites and Midianites? Or was he motivated by animosity toward the Israelites and their

seeming closeness to God? Why did God first tell him not to go, then seemingly change

his mind and tell him to go? What's the meaning of the episode of the Talking Donkey? Did it really

happen or was it, as Maimonides argued, a vision in Bilum's mind? These are real questions,

they're much debated, but they're much more fundamental ones.

What is the story doing here at all? The entire episode occurred away from the Israelites. No one from

their side, not even Moses, was there to witness it. The only witnesses were Balak Bilam and Samoabite princes.

Had the Israelites known the danger they were in and how they were saved from it,

it would have given them pause for thought before engaging in immorality and idol worship

with the Moabite women in the episode that follows on immediately from the story of Bilam.

They would have known that the Moabites were not their friends.

Even Moses wouldn't have known what happened had God not told him.

In short, the Israelites were rescued from a danger they knew nothing about, by a deliverance they knew nothing

about. How then did it or could it affect them? Besides which, why did God need Bilum to go at all?

He said no the first time. He could have said no the second time also. The curses would have been

avoided. Israel would have been protected and there would have been no need for the angel, the talking

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