Balak

Numbers 22:2−25:9

 

Spirit Strength

Balak intuited an important truth about the Israelites: Their strength was spiritual, not military.

By Rabbi Ismar Schorsch. Reprinted with permission of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

After two impressive victories against the Canaanites of the Negeb and the Amorites in Transjordan, the looming military might of Israel throws the leaders of Moab into a panic.

Only the land of the Moabites separates Israel from the Jordan River and the conquest of Canaan. Balak ben Zippor, King of Moab, knows that he is next.

In desperation, he takes recourse in an unconventional pre-emptive measure. He summons Balaam son of Beor, a sorcerer from Mesopotamia to curse Israel, making it susceptible to defeat on the battlefield. Though Balaam comes, God frustrates the plan. Within the monotheistic framework of the Torah, Balaam can utter only what God imparts to him. Hence he ends up in rapturous praise of Israel, to the consternation of Balak.

In an imaginative midrash, the Rabbis expatiate on what brought Balak to seize on this particular tactic. Awestruck by Moses, he inquired of the Midianites, among whom Moses had once found refuge when fleeing Pharoah's wrath, as to the man's strength. They responded that Moses' strength resided in his mouth, that is, his prayers were able to move God to act in his behalf. To neutralize that weapon, Balak turns to sorcery. Balaam's strength also resides in his mouth. His curse will trump Moses' prayers. Without divine assistance, Israel is eminently beatable (Rashi on 22:4).

As so often, the midrashic genre yields rich insight. Words are weapons when they carry conviction. As long as the prayers of Israel embody deep faith, a sense of chosenness and real dialogue, they have the capacity to keep chaos at bay. With the information at hand, Balak intuited that the ultimate source of Israel's dominance was spiritual and not military.

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