The Donkey Who Saw the Angel

After the bronze snake, God's people walked on until their tents filled the plains of Moab, beside the Jordan River.

King Balak of Moab looked at all those tents and shook. "That crowd will lick up everything around us," he said, "the way an ox licks up grass!"

So he sent princes with money to Balaam, a famous man far to the east. (In those days kings really did hire men to curse their enemies, the way you might hire someone to fix a roof, only nastier.)

God told Balaam, "Do not go with them. You must not curse those people, because they are blessed."

Balak sent grander princes and promised more. "Not even for a palace full of silver and gold could I go beyond the word of the LORD," said Balaam. Still, he asked God again, and God said, "Go with them, but do only what I tell you."

In the morning Balaam saddled his donkey, still dreaming of silver, and God was angry that he went. The angel of the LORD stood in the road with a sword. Balaam saw nothing. The donkey saw everything.

She swerved into a field. WHACK! Between two vineyard walls the angel stood again, and the donkey squeezed against a wall and crushed Balaam's foot. WHACK! Where the path grew too narrow to turn, the donkey lay down with Balaam on top, and he beat her with his stick.

Then the LORD opened the donkey's mouth. "What have I done to you, that you have beaten me three times?"

"You made a fool of me!" Balaam shouted. "If I had a sword, I would kill you right now!"

"Aren't I your own donkey?" she said. "You have ridden me all your life. Have I ever done this before?"

"No," said Balaam.

Then the LORD opened Balaam's eyes, and he saw the angel and fell flat on his face.

"If your donkey had not turned away," said the angel, "I would have killed you and let her live. Go on, but say only my words."

On a high hill Balak built seven altars and waited, rubbing his hands. Balaam opened his mouth. "How can I curse those God has not cursed?"

"What have you done to me?" cried Balak. "I brought you to curse my enemies, and you have blessed them!"

They tried another hill. "God is not a man, that he should lie," said Balaam. "He has blessed, and I cannot change it."

"Then don't curse them at all, and don't bless them at all!" Balak wailed. But on a third hill Balaam sang, "How beautiful are your tents, Jacob!" and Balak clapped his hands in a rage. "Go home!"

Last of all, Balaam said, "I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob."

Balaam went home without his silver. A blessing from a hilltop could keep Balak's curse away, but God's people had a worse trouble: the curse that comes from doing wrong.

Hundreds of years of kings and prophets went by.

Then a new star shone, and wise men from the east, the same part of the world Balaam came from, followed it to a child. Nobody had paid them to curse anyone. They knelt down and gave him gifts. The child grew up, took that curse on himself, and died on a cross, so that God's blessing could reach every family on earth.

That child was Jesus, the star Balaam saw from far away, and no one can curse the people he has blessed.