Balaam and his evil doings are brought before us in eight books of Holy Scripture—five in the Old Testament and three in the New. This fact is sufficient to prove the seriousness of his activities. The last mention of Balaam (and Balak) is in the epistle to the assembly in Pergamos (Rev. 2:14). We learn from this that the wickedness of Balaam and Balak has been reproduced in the Christian circle. It is important therefore that every believer in the Lord Jesus should seek to understand what is involved therein.
Balaam appeared upon the scene in the closing days of Israel's forty years journeyings in the wilderness. Aaron died at the age of 123 on the first day of the fifth month in the fortieth year. The people had reached their eighth encampment after Aaron's death when Balak and Baleen conspired against them (Num. 33:38-48). The question therefore arises, how did Moses get to know all that he has recorded in Numbers 22:24? It is the story of things which took place behind the scenes as far as the people of God were concerned. No one in the camp could know of the negotiations between Moab and Amalek concerning an alliance against them; nor could anyone know what was said and done in Balaam's house in distant Mesopotamia, and of the strange journey when even the ass rebuked its master for his folly. Also, seeing that Balsam's parables were all uttered from heights looking down upon the camp of Israel, none in the camp could be aware that anything was transpiring at all. Alas, the people were too much occupied with their murmurings to think of anything else. How then did the inspired historian get the story of Balaam's doings and sayings, which he has recorded with so much detail? Moses must have got it very quickly, for these things occurred during the last few weeks of his life. The answer to the question is simple; Moses received the whole story by direct revelation from God. He knew, if His people did not, all that wicked men, urged on by Satan, were scheming against the people of His choice, and in His changeless love to them, notwithstanding their unfaithfulness from the beginning, He intervened and frustrated all the designs of the enemy. He even constrained the mercenary soothsayer to say the very opposite of all that he wished to say! What a God is ours!
How little did the malicious conspirators think that God was taking note of everything, and that the story of their doings would be recorded by divine authority to be read by men in all succeeding ages! As little did the Roman officer Claudius Lysias imagine that his lying letter to the governor Felix concerning Paul was noted and preserved by God for insertion in His sacred Word! (Acts 23:25-30). Let us never forget that all that we say and do concerning persons we dislike, and which we hope they will never hear of, are all observed and recorded by the all-seeing God. Every malicious word and deed will have to be accounted for “in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ” (Rom. 2:16). Listen to the words of Him who will sit upon the judgment-seat: “I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment” (Matt. 12:36).
Direct divine revelation is the only explanation of other chapters than Numbers 22:24. Take, for example, the first two chapters of the book of Genesis. There we are told of what God said and did day after day during His great work of preparing the earth for the habitation of man, and when the moment came for the man to be created God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion.” There was most certainly no scribe standing by to record all that the Creator did and said during those wonderful days; and we must have remained in eternal ignorance of it all had not God been pleased to make the whole matter a subject of divine revelation to the historian. Thus we learn to trace everything to its true source—God. He who questions either the possibility or the reality of divine revelation has no claim whatever to be regarded as a Christian.
When Jehovah told Moses of the diabolical conspiracy against Israel he might well have said in the language of the Psalmist: “Thou hast seen it; for Thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with Thy hand ... .Break Thou the arm of the wicked; and as for the evil man, seek out his wickedness till Thou find none” (Psa. 10:14-15). When he told the people of the danger which had threatened them, Moses said: “They hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor of Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse thee. Nevertheless Jehovah thy God would not hearken unto Balsam; but Jehovah thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because Jehovah thy God loved thee” (Deut. 23:4-5). Precious words — “because Jehovah thy God loved thee!” But how poor the response from faithless human hearts!