Number 25 to 32
Balaam….
Moab’s very own Moses figure.
Talking of Israel
Her Kings and her kingdoms
With words God put in his mouth
An unwitting messenger.
Just shows that God sometimes uses unconventional means
to get the job done.
But that’s not the last we see of Balaam.
His name pops up again.
It seems that Israel is easily led.
Easily led astray and distracted
But certainly not easily led toward obedience.
As soon as they see something shiny
They take their eyes off the cloud pillar.
On the plains of Moab
Israel transitions
From travelling
Toward conquest.
The old guard
Has come and gone
And the next generation is on the verge of taking
possession of the land.
And while they are on the very edge of the Promised Land,
they are fall into idol worship and engage in fertility rites with the Moabite
women. It puts them in breach of
covenant.
The NIV notes talk about Balaam being the principal
instigator of Israel’s apostasy (abandoning/renouncing their religion). Failing to destroy Israel by pronouncing
curses on her, Balaam seduced Israel by the Canaanite fertile rites of
Baal.
It’s very possible that we underestimate the power of the
shiny things in our lives. Things that
stream into our hearts and minds through our eyes, the windows to our
souls.
Subtle distractions that takes our focus off the path
to the scenery
and inevitably
our feet and our mind follow.
Sigh.
God shows the land to Moses from a high place and I
wonder how bittersweet that must have been and if Moses was disappointed or
just utterly exhausted.
Moses
Even in this threshold moment
Lifts Israel up
And asks the LORD for a fitting and strong shepherd.
Joshua
Israel would need an entirely different type of
leadership for this next phase of God’s Promise. Moses asked for a shepherd for this
flock. A shepherd that would tend this
people and protect her from attack in the dessert and the fields and the
meadows.
And yet so much of saving Israel is saving Israel from
herself.
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