A Star Out of Jacob

A man stands on a high hill, the wind tugging at his robes. Below him, spread across the plain, are the tents of Israel. A king is standing beside him, waiting impatiently. Curse them, the king says. That's what I'm paying you for. But the man opens his mouth, and something else comes out.

Israel has been wandering in the wilderness for nearly forty years. Now they are camped on the plains of Moab, east of the Jordan River, across from Jericho. Balak, king of Moab, is terrified. There are so many of them. They will lick up everything around us, he says, like an ox licking up the grass of the field. So Balak sends messengers with money to a famous seer from the north named Balaam, son of Beor. Come and curse this people for me. Whoever you curse is cursed. Balaam comes. On the way, his donkey sees an angel blocking the road, and actually speaks to him. God tells Balaam: you may go, but you will say only what I tell you to say.

Balak takes Balaam up a high place to look down on Israel's camp. Altars are built, offerings made. And Balaam speaks. But it is a blessing. Balak is furious. Try again, from another hill. Another blessing. A third hill, overlooking the wilderness. And this time, Balaam sees the tents of Israel spread out tribe by tribe, and the Spirit of God comes upon him. “How goodly are your tents, Jacob, your dwellings, Israel!” Balak claps his hands together in rage. I called you to curse my enemies, and you have blessed them three times! Go home. I was going to honour you, but the Lord has kept you from honour.

Balaam answers: didn't I tell your messengers? If you gave me your house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the word of the Lord. And before he leaves, he speaks one more time. A prophecy about the far future. He calls himself the man whose eye is open, who hears the words of God and sees a vision from the Almighty. And then: “I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob. A sceptre will rise out of Israel.” A star, rising. A sceptre, the staff of a king. Someone is coming from Jacob's family, bright and royal, who will crush Israel's enemies and rule. Not now. Not near. But surely.

Think how strange this is. The clearest picture of a coming king in the whole book of Numbers comes from the mouth of an outsider. A man hired to curse ends up announcing a star. And many centuries later, more outsiders would come looking for a star. Wise men from the east, travelling to Jerusalem and asking, Where is he who is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and have come to worship him. God's promises have a way of reaching people from far beyond Israel.

Balaam son of Beor is not only known from the Bible. In nineteen sixty-seven, archaeologists digging at Deir Alla, in the Jordan Valley in modern Jordan, found ink writing on fragments of a plastered wall. The text, from around the eighth century before Christ, tells of a vision by Balaam son of Beor, a seer of the gods. It is one of the few times a person named in the Old Testament appears in a text found outside the Bible.

A star out of Jacob. You'll find it in Numbers chapter twenty-four, verses fifteen to nineteen. A curse turned into a blessing, and a star promised for a time far away. So here is a question to carry with you. God turned Balaam's curse into a blessing. When people say unkind things about you, how does it help to know what God says about you?