A Lesson from a Speechless Donkey
A famous seer struck his donkey three times for refusing to go forward. All the while she was saving his life and seeing what he did not notice.
The road to Moab winds between vineyards. On both sides stretch stone walls, and behind them the vines ripen. The place is narrow: two people could not pass each other, and a cart could not turn around. Along this road rides a man named Balaam on a donkey. He is known far beyond his native lands. The Moabite king himself believes that whomever Balaam blesses is blessed, and whomever he curses is cursed.
He is not traveling without reason. He was summoned by Balak, king of Moab. A huge people who had come out of Egypt had camped at the borders of his land, and the king was afraid. He needed a man who would curse Israel. For such work he was ready to pay well.
Incidentally, Balaam is known not only from the Bible. In 1967 in Jordan, at Deir Alla, archaeologists found an inscription on the plaster of an ancient sanctuary mentioning “Balaam, son of Beor, a seer of the gods.” It is dated to approximately the 9th–8th centuries BC. It turns out that neighboring peoples also remembered the seer.
The Right Words and the Wrong Road
It all begins quite piously. The elders of Moab come to Balaam “with the fees for divination in their hand” (Num. 22:7). The prophet is in no hurry and asks God. God forbids it, and Balaam refuses the envoys.
The king does not give up and sends new envoys, more distinguished than the first. Balaam answers them sternly: “Though Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the command of the Lord” (Num. 22:18).
Beautifully said, isn’t it? Yet after these words, for some reason, he asks the envoys to stay overnight – in case the Lord says something more. But the answer has already been given. Why ask again?
This time God, surprisingly, permits it: “Go with them” (Num. 22:20). And two verses later we read: “God’s anger was kindled because he went” (Num. 22:22). How can that be? He permitted it himself – and is angry himself?
Interpreters answer in different ways. Some see here a warning: remember the main condition and say only what the Lord tells you. Others believe that Balaam’s words diverged from his real intentions.
The Book of Numbers does not speak directly of the prophet’s greed. But the Apostle Peter, many centuries later, calls things by their names: Balaam “loved gain from wrongdoing” (2 Pet. 2:15).
Three Blows with a Stick
And then begins a scene that is at once funny and sorrowful. The Angel of the Lord stands in the road with a drawn sword. The donkey sees him, but the famous seer does not.
First the donkey turns aside into the field. Balaam strikes her to bring her back onto the road. Then the Angel stands “in a narrow path between the vineyards, with a wall on this side and a wall on that side” (Num. 22:24). The donkey presses against the wall and crushes her master’s foot against the stone. Another blow. The third time the Angel stands “in a narrow place, where there was no way to turn either to the right or to the left” (Num. 22:26). There is nowhere to go, and the donkey simply lies down under her rider. Balaam, in a rage, seizes his stick.
Three times she saw the danger. Three times she was beaten for it. And her master, who was famed for his ability to see the invisible, noticed nothing at all.
A Sword in Another’s Hand
And then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth. She asks her master why he has struck her these three times. What does Balaam do? Is he frightened? Does he fall to his knees? Nothing of the kind. He argues with the donkey as with a neighbor at the market, and shouts: “If I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now” (Num. 22:29).
The sword was indeed nearby. Only it was in someone else’s hand. Only after this conversation does the Lord open Balaam’s eyes, and he sees the Angel with the drawn sword. The Angel explains: “If she had not turned away from Me, surely just now I would have killed you and let her live” (Num. 22:33).
The prophet was ready to kill the animal that had just saved his life three times.
Why Does God Need a Talking Donkey?
One can, of course, treat this story as an amusing biblical curiosity. But the holy fathers saw in it a serious lesson. Blessed Theodoret of Cyrus explained that God “frightens him with the supernatural speech of the donkey and the vision of the Angel, so that Balaam might know what care God takes of the people of Israel.”
The Lord sent the seer neither a prophet nor a king. He spoke through the simplest and speechless creature that happened to be nearby. And the great sage had to listen to a lesson from his own donkey.
Who Is Stopping Us?
We, too, sometimes badly want to keep going along the road we have chosen – especially if a reward is promised ahead. We speak the right words about faithfulness to God, while in our minds we are already calculating the profit. And we ask the Lord again and again, hoping to finally hear a convenient answer.
And then something starts to get in the way. Circumstances turn us off our path, press us against the wall, or simply lay us down on the ground. Or a loved one digs in their heels and will not let us take a step. We grow irritated and are ready to “beat” the one who stopped us.
But perhaps we should first look around? What if our opponent sees what we do not? God knows how to speak through the simplest and least noticeable people. The main thing is to realize it in time, before His sword flashes on the road.
