Chapter III

_CONQUEST OF THE EAST OF JORDAN――BALAAM AND BALAK._
NUM. XXI.–XXIV. B.C. 1451.

THE country north of the present encampment of the Israelites from the Arnon to the Jabbok was at this time possessed by the Amorites. We have already met with this tribe on the western side of the Jordan (Gen. xiv. 7, 13; xiii. 18; Num. xiii. 29[124]). Tempted by the rich pasture lands east of this river a colony of them appears to have crossed, and having driven the Moabites with great slaughter and the loss of many captives from the country south of the Jabbok (Num. xxi. 26–29), to have made the wide chasm of the Arnon henceforth the boundary between them.

The Amorite king at this time was SIHON, and his capital was Heshbon, twenty miles east of the Jordan, on the parallel of the northern end of the Dead Sea. Thither the Israelitish leader sent messengers requesting a peaceful passage through his territory, and promising the same respect for his land and possessions, which had already been proposed to the Edomites. But their request was rudely rejected. Sihon would not allow them even to pass through his borders, but assembled his forces, and prepared for battle. The Israelites did not decline the engagement, which took place at Jahaz, probably a short distance south of Heshbon, and resulted in the total defeat of the Amorites; Sihon himself, his sons, and all his people were smitten with the sword, his walled towns Ar and Heshbon, Nophah and Medeba were captured, and his numerous flocks and herds fell into the hands of the victors, who thus became masters of the entire country between the Arnon and the Jabbok (Num. xxi. 27–30).

Apparently about the same time that Sihon had expelled the Moabites from the rich territory south of the Jabbok, another Amorite chief seized the country extending from that river to the foot of Hermon, and known as the land of Bashan. His name was OG, one of the last of the giant-race of Rephaim. He ruled over sixty cities, and his stronghold was a remarkable oval district, about 22 miles from north to south by 14 from west to east, called by the Hebrews _Argob_, or the _stony_, afterwards by the Greeks _Trachonitis_, and now _Lejah_. This extraordinary region has been described as “an ocean of basaltic rocks and boulders, tossed about in the wildest confusion, and intermingled with fissures and crevices in every direction, and yet in spite of its ungainly and forbidding features thickly studded even now with deserted cities and villages, in all of which the dwellings are solidly built and of remote antiquity[125].” On a rocky promontory south-west of this marvellous region, “without water, without access, save over rocks and through defiles almost impracticable[126],” was the city of Edrei (_strength_). Here, “as if in the Thermopylæ of his kingdom,” the giant king of Bashan and all his people resolved to encounter the advancing hosts of the Israelites, led, it seems probable, by two eminent chiefs of the tribe of Manasseh, Jair and Nobah. (Comp. Num. xxxii. 41, 42; Deut. iii. 14.) Like the Amorite chief of Heshbon, Og could not withstand the valour of the Israelites. He was utterly routed, and _his threescore cities fenced with high walls, gates and bars_, besides _unwalled towns a great many_, fell into their hands. A trophy of this victory, long preserved by the children of Ammon in the city of ♦Rabbah, was the huge iron bedstead[127] of the Amorite king, nine cubits long, by four wide; and long afterwards the subjugation of _Sihon king of the Amorites_, and _Og the king of Bashan, great kings, famous kings, mighty kings_, was deemed worthy of being ranked with the tokens and wonders wrought in the land of Egypt, and the overthrow of Pharaoh in the Red Sea (Ps. cxxxv. 10–12; cxxxvi. 15–21).

After these two decisive engagements, which made them masters of the entire country east of the Jordan, from the wide chasm of the Arnon to the foot of the snow-capped Hermon, the Israelites encamped in the plains of Shittim, or _the Meadow of the Acacias_, amidst “the long belt of acacia-groves, which, on its eastern as well as its western side, line the upper terraces of the Jordan over against Jericho[128].” South of the Arnon was the little corner of territory occupied by Moab, who viewed with no little alarm the successes of the Israelites against such _mighty kings_ as Sihon and Og. _This people_, said BALAK the king of Moab to the elders of Midian, _lick up all that are round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field_. Sensible of the uselessness of attacking a nation so manifestly under the protection of an Invisible Power, the two confederate tribes resolved before falling upon them to place them under an awful curse, which might have the effect of paralysing their arms[129]. At this time no man was supposed to have greater power in this way than a famous Prophet named BALAAM, the son of Beor. He lived far away from the present encampment of the Israelites at Pethor, beyond the Euphrates, in Aram among _the mountains of the East_, but his fame had spread across the Assyrian desert even to the shores of the Dead Sea. His gifts he exercised as a Prophet of the same God, who had wrought so many miracles in behalf of the Israelites. If, therefore, he could be persuaded to lay upon them his powerful ban, their further success the Moabites thought might be checked, and the children of Lot might not only recover the land of which they had been deprived by the Amorites, but possibly add to them the fertile territory the Israelites had so lately won from Sihon and Og.

Accordingly, elders both of Moab and Midian, with the rewards of divination in their hands, were despatched eastward across the Assyrian desert to intreat the aid of the powerful Prophet. On reaching their destination and announcing the purport of their errand, Balaam, uncertain of the lawfulness of complying with it, requested them to lodge there that night, while he ascertained the will of Jehovah. The answer he obtained was unfavourable. _Thou shalt not go with them_; said God, _thou shalt not curse the people: for they are blessed_. On the morrow, therefore, he sent the messengers away, bidding them announce to their master that Jehovah forbade his accompanying them.

Undeterred by this failure, and possibly informed by his messengers that the Prophet _himself_ did not seem unwilling to come, the king of Moab sent a second embassy consisting of princes _more and more honourable than the last_, to inform him that he would advance him to very great honour, and do whatever he commanded, if only he would come. Again, therefore, the toilsome Syrian desert was traversed, and the messengers preferred their request. But again they seemed to have come in vain. _If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold_, said the Prophet, _I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord to do less or more_. But instead of at once sending the messengers away, he bade them lodge with him that night, while he consulted the Lord a second time. On this occasion the word of the Lord came to him, and bade him go, but authorized him to speak nothing more and nothing less than the very words that should be put into his mouth. Balaam accordingly set out on his journey, but he was not to accomplish it without receiving another and a more terrible warning against it and its object. As he rode upon his ass, the _Angel of the Lord_ stood in the way, with his sword drawn in his hand. As if in derision of his claims to be a powerful Seer, the beast alone discerned the celestial Adversary, and started aside out of the way into a field. On this, Balaam smote it, and turned it into a path running through some vineyards. But again the Angel confronted the wilful Prophet, and the frightened ass in its efforts to avoid him crushed his foot against the wall. Therefore Balaam struck it a second time, and now, as if in still deeper derision of one, who claimed to be able to reveal to kings and princes the will of the Invisible, the dumb beast, in the accents of a man _forbad the madness of the Prophet_ (2 Pet. ii. 16). On this, Balaam’s eyes were at length opened, and as he bowed himself down before the Angel, he was sternly rebuked for his wilfulness, and proposed to turn back rather than displease the Lord. But since his mind was wholly bent on that course, he was a second time bidden to proceed, but a second time also warned against uttering any other words than those which a Divine Power should put into his mouth.

The journey was now resumed, and at length the watchmen of Balak announced to their master that the mighty Prophet was approaching. Therefore Balak went forth to meet him, and after a brief rebuke of his delay, conducted his visitor to Kirjath-Huzoth, _the Town of Streets_, a place in the furthest borders of his kingdom, and possibly of sacred or oracular reputation[130], where he entertained him at a great feast. On the next day he conducted him to the high places dedicated to Baal (Num. xxii. 41) that rose above the encampment of the Israelites, whence he might gain a view of the utmost part of the people he had desired him to curse. There by the Prophet’s direction the king erected seven altars, and on each they offered together a bullock and a ram, and while Balak with his attendant princes stood by his burnt-offering, Balaam went forth to _a high place_ (Num. xxiii. 3) to learn the Divine will. _And God met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth_, and returning to the expectant king, he declared that it was impossible for him to curse Jacob and defy Israel, that he could not _curse him whom God had not cursed, or defy him whom Jehovah had not defied_.

On hearing this response so entirely opposite to what he had expected, Balak was highly incensed, but thinking a change of view might have a different influence on the Prophet’s spirit, he brought him to Zophim[131], a _cultivated field of the Watchmen_ high up on the range of Pisgah. Again the altars were built, and the victims slain; again the king stood by his burnt-sacrifice, and again Balaam went forth _to meet the Lord_. But still the answer was unfavourable. The steam of sacrifice could not bend the will of Jehovah; _He was not a man that He should lie_, or repent of His fixed purpose; what He had said He would do, what He had spoken He would perform; _in Jacob He had not beheld iniquity, neither had He seen perverseness in Israel; He had brought them out of Egypt_, and neither augury nor divination could prevail against them.

More incensed than before, the king of Moab burst forth into bitter complaints against the Prophet, and though the latter reminded him that he could speak nothing but the word of Jehovah, yet he determined from one more point to show him the people, that peradventure he might thence effect the potent curse. He led him up, therefore, to a peak, where stood the sanctuary of Peor (Num. xxiii. 28), looking toward Jeshimon or _the waste_, “probably the dreary barren waste of the hills lying immediately on the east of the Dead Sea.” There the seven altars were for the third time built, and the victims for the third time slain. But Balaam was now convinced that Jehovah was pleased only to bless the people. Without resorting, therefore, any more to useless divinations, he lifted up his eyes, and looked down upon the tribes encamped in the acacia groves below him, with their _goodly tents spread out like the valleys_, or watercourses of the mountains, like the hanging gardens beside his own great river Euphrates, as _lign-aloes which the Lord had planted, as cedar trees beside the waters_ (Num. xxiv. 6). And as he stood, “with tranced yet open gaze” he saw the Vision of the Almighty, and “in outline dim and vast” beheld the future of the “desert-wearied tribes” that lay encamped before him “in sight of Canaan[132].” He beheld them _pouring water from their buckets, their seed in many waters, their king higher than any Amalekite Agag_ ruling in the Arabian wilderness south of where he stood. He knew that God had _brought them forth out of Egypt_, and that their _strength was like that of the unicorn_. He foresaw them _couched as a lion, and lying down as a great lion, eating up the nations their enemies, breaking their bones, and piercing them through with the arrows_ of their archers. _Blessed was he that blessed them, and cursed was he that cursed them_ (Num. xxiv. 1–9).

Balak’s vexation was now increased tenfold. Smiting his hands together he upbraided the Prophet for his deceit, and in place of advancing him, as he had intended, to high honour, bade him flee for his life to his native land. Nor was the other loath to go. But before he went, for he felt himself still moved by the prophetic spirit, he would _advertise_ the king of what this mysterious people _would do to his people in the latter days_ (Num. xxiv. 14). Again, therefore, he took up his parable, _and saw, but not now,――he beheld but not nigh, a Star_, bright as any that spangled the Eastern sky, _coming out of Jacob, and a sceptre rising out of Israel, smiting through the princes of Moab[133], and destroying_ all their wild warriors _the sons of tumult_[134]. One by one he saw “the giant forms of empires on their way to ruin;” Edom and Seir becoming a possession for their enemies; Amalek, then _the first of the nations, in his latter end perishing for ever_; the Kenites, then _strong in their dwelling-place, and putting their nest in the_ neighbouring _rocks_ of En-gedi _wasted and made a prey_; nay even Israel _carried away captive by Asshur_. And yet once more he saw woe in store even for Asshur, even for his own native land. Far in the distant future he saw _ships_ coming _from Chittim_, the island of Cyprus, _to afflict Asshur and to afflict Eber_, till the proud kingdoms of the Eastern world, and he who should _afflict_ them _perished for ever_[135]. And then the Vision closed. The “true Prophetic light died away,” and the king of Moab, baffled and disappointed, returned to his people.