The Talking Ass, and What it Taught Balaam
S. Cox, D. D. Numbers 22:15-35 And Balak sent yet again princes, more, and more honorable than they.… The real difficulty of the incident to those who feel a special difficulty in it consists, I suppose, in the alleged fact that the ass spoke, spoke in apparently human words and with a human voice. And this difficulty has, to say the least of it, been very neatly turned by many of our ablest critics and commentators, some of whom have as little love for miracles as the veriest sceptic. They say, Balaam, the soothsayer and diviner, was trained to observe and interpret the motions and cries of beasts and birds, and especially anything that was exceptional in them; to draw auguries and portents from them, to see in them the workings of a Divine power, to infer from them indications of the Divine will. Here was a portent indeed, and he must interpret it. And to him it seemed that the ass was striving and remonstrating with him; that, conscious of a presence of which he himself was unaware, it was seeking to save him from a doom which he was heedlessly provoking. And so, with the dramatic instinct of an Oriental poet, either Balaam himself or the original writer of the chronicle translated these subjective impressions into external facts, and made the ass "speak" the meaning which he read in its motions and groans. For myself, indeed, I care very little what interpretation may be placed on this singular passage in Balaam's story, and would as soon believe that the mouth of the dumb ass was really opened to utter articulate human words as that Balaam's sensitive and practised ear heard these words into his groans and cries. Put what construction on the talking ass you will; call it fact, call it fable, or say that Balaam read an ominous rebuke into the natural cries of the beast on which he rode — whatever the construction you put upon it, you will be little the wiser for it, little the better, unless you listen to the appeal, to the rebuke, which Balaam heard from the mouth of the ass or put into it. That lesson may be, and is, a very simple one; but its very simplicity at once makes it the more valuable, and renders it the more probable that, much as we need to learn it, we may have overlooked it. What, then, was this lesson or rebuke? The ass said, or Balaam took her to say, "Wherefore smite me? Have I not served you faithfully ever since I was thine? Am I wont to rebel against you?" How could Balaam fail to look for an ethical meaning in this appeal, or fail either to find it, or to find how heavy a rebuke it carried for himself? He too had a Master, a Master in heaven, and was loud and frequent in his protestations of loyalty to Him. Yet could he look up to heaven and say to his Master, "Why hast Thou checked and rebuked me? Have not I served Thee faithfully ever since I was Thine unto this day? Am I wont to disobey Thy word?" Why, at that very moment he was untrue, disloyal, to his Master; he was plotting how he might speak other words than those which God had put into his mouth, and serve his own will rather than the Divine will! Might he not, then, well hear in the rebuke of the ass some such appeal as this: "Have you been as true to your Master as I to mine? Have you been as mindful of the heavenly vision as I of the heavenly apparition which I have seen? Has your service been as faithful, as patient, as disinterested as mine?" The lesson is simple enough, I admit; but is it not also most necessary and valuable? He is convicted — 1. Of having cruelly wronged the innocent creature who had saved him from the sword. 2. Of having failed at his strongest point and lost the "open eye " of which he was wont to boast; and — 3. Of not being as true to his Master in heaven, despite his loud professions of loyalty and obedience, as she had been to her master on earth. If no rebuke could be more severe and humbling, none surely could have been more kind and merciful. For if men are not to be held back from evil by an angel, is it not well that they should be held back even by an ass? If the gentler strokes of correction fail, is it not well that they should be followed by severer and more effectual strokes? If appeals to our higher nature do not suffice to arrest us, is it not well that we should be arrested by appeals to our lower nature? (S. Cox, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Balak sent yet again princes, more, and more honourable than they. WEB: Balak sent yet again princes, more, and more honorable than they.