Omitting, for the present, the incident on the road," in which, besides the angel, no one was concerned except Balaam and his beast, since his servants and the ambassadors are not noticed in the transaction; there remain the questions to be answered: Did Balaam write down. the speeches after their delivery, since they were not prepared by him, but are represented as Divine suggestions of the moment, almost independent of the prophet's spontaneity? Or were they transcribed by some Moabite or Midianite present, having retained them in his memory with all but miraculous fidelity? Again, in which language were they delivered? In the classical Hebrew in which we possess them, or in some Mesopotamian or Aramaic dialect? And how did one who was not a Hebrew attempt and contrive to write in a spirit so thoroughly and so distinctively Hebrew ?

Some of these questions engaged even Jewish writers in early times, without, however, being by them advanced towards an acceptable conclusion. Thus Josephus characteristically praises Moses for his impartiality and truthfulness in not appropriating to himself this beautiful composition, as he might easily have done without fear of detection, but setting it down in the name of Israel's enemy, and thus securing for Balaam eternal fame. But then the historian dismisses the matter with the wavering remark: 'Let everyone think of these points as he pleases.' Philo, likewise touching hardly more than the outskirts of the subject, evidently supposes that Balaam pronounced his speeches in Hebrew, for he believes and this view has been gravely repeated by later writers in a hundred forms-that 'Balaam, without at all understanding the words which he uttered-spoke

'b

a xxii. 22-35.

b Josephus, Antiq., IV. vi. 13.

'b

everything that was put into his mouth;' for 'God throughout guided his speech and governed his tongue, so that his own words were unintelligible to him.'" This expedient is still more clearly insisted upon in the Talmud and the Midrashim by maintaining that God directed Balaam's language ‘as a man directs animals by attaching an iron bit to the bridle, and forces them to go wherever he pleases; it has been repeated by many modern writers, who pointedly observe that God controlled Balaam's articulation of speech not otherwise than He managed those of his ass;' and it has been eloquently developed by high-minded critics and scholars into such doctrines as these: The prophet, even if humanly intent upon a perversity, is compelled by God to say the very opposite, so that God, after His own will, turns the word in his mouth; 'd or expressed with more subtle delicacy: 'The Divine message, irresistibly overpowering Balaam's baser spirit, and struggling within him, was delivered in spite of his own sordid resistance.' Leaving this matter to the verdict of reason and common sense, we must further ask: Who, in the time of Moses, furnished a copy of Balaam's speeches to the Hebrews, from whom, it might be supposed, they would have been kept with the most scrupulous care, as nothing could so powerfully stimulate their courage in the warfare supposed to be imminent? The same difficulty applies to the suggestion, that Moses borrowed the whole piece from the 'Annals of the Moabites.' How were these documents accessible to

Moses? and were they written in Hebrew? for no one will seriously contend that Balaam's oracles, in which every shade of expression is important, are translations. A great divine" has endeavoured to answer the question, 'How did Israel hear of the prophecy?' by the counterquestions, ' Was it not heard in Moab, and was not Israel encamped before Moab? Did not Balaam live in the eastern mountain? And did he not perish by the hands of Israel?' But all this does not touch the difficulty. No Moabite would have communicated those oracles to the Hebrews, and these had no intercourse with Balaam. Yet even this has been confidently asserted and speciously supported, and conjecture has reared the following structure. When Balaam, it is urged, found his ambition and avarice unsatisfied among the Moabites, he tried his chances with the Hebrews, to whose gratitude he believed he had acquired a right. He made his way into their camp, but was coldly received by Moses, who thoroughly understood his impiousness. He gave, however, to the elders of the Hebrews, every information necessary for the composition of the whole of this section. Or combining several anterior hints, some surmise, as an alternative, that Balaam, filled with intense hatred against the Hebrews, who had caused him to lose signal honours and rewards, repaired at once into the camp of their enemies, the Midianites, and fell fighting on their side thus his prophecies came into the possession of the Israelites, and were, from the foreign tongue in which they were written, rendered by Moses into Hebrew. It is indeed admitted that these circumstances are nowhere alluded to in the Bible, but they are maintained to possess the highest moral or psychological probability,' since Balaam would surely not have allowed an oppor

tunity, apparently so promising, to pass without profit to his selfishness. Is it necessary to assail aërial fabrics, which a breath suffices to demolish? It is enough to point out, that they rest upon the imaginary foundation of Balaam's wicked ambition and avarice. Why should Moses have coldly received a man who had spoken of Israel with such sincere enthusiasm, had, for their sake, renounced rewards and distinctions, and had braved the fretful king's vexation and anger? And would not the Hebrews, in acknowledgment of his services, have taken every care to shield him from injury?

12. THE AUTHOR.

THE only possible conclusion is, therefore, that the Book of Balaam is the production of some gifted Hebrew, who, availing himself of popular traditions, employed them as a basis for conveying his views regarding Israel's greatness and mission by means of prophecies skilfully interwoven with the story transmitted from earlier ages.

It is not unlikely that these chapters were composed as part of some larger conception. Like many other prophets, the author may have devoted himself to historiography, and his work may, with the exception of this precious fragment, have been lost like the histories of the prophets Nathan, Gad, and Isaiah, and the prophecies of Ahijah the Shilonite and Iddo the seer," and many other books.

But the author is not the Jahvist, nor the Elohist, nor the 'theocratic' writer, and certainly not the final compiler or redactor of the Book of Numbers, who blended

a

Hengst., Bil., 217 sqq.; Baumgart., Pentat., ii. 378; Kurtz, Gesch. des Alt. Bund., ii. 503; Vaihinger in Herzog's Real-Enc., ii. 237; Reinke, Beitraege, iv. 218, 219; Large, Bibelwerk, ii, 308, 310, 317;

Can. Cook's Holy Bible, on xxii. 28; Koehler, Lehrbuch der Bibl. Gesch. des Alt. Test., i. 326; etc.

b 1 Chron. xxix. 29; 2 Chron. ix. 29; xii. 15; xxvi. 22.

c See Comm. on Gen., p. 85.

b

and harmonised the Levitical narrative with the Levitical legislation. All the ordinary criteria fail in the present instance, and if mechanically applied, lead inevitably to erroneous inferences. This portion, which is sui generis, was by the compiler of the Book found in circulation; he saw that it admirably illustrated his own ideas concerning Israel's election and glorious destiny; and he had no difficulty in assigning to it a place in the great work of Hebrew antiquities. For as true art, free from conventional restrictions and narrow tendencies, and rising into the sphere of a common humanity, finds everywhere a ready welcome, and is enjoyed by all pure minds alike, the story of Balaam and Balak is not strange or incongruous even as a part of the specifically national and priestly Book of Numbers.

13. BALAAM'S IDENTITY.

We may pause for a moment to refer to a subject, to which some have, perhaps, attached too much importance.

a Even Knobel (1. c. p. 127) admits that, though many arguments point to the Jahvist, the latter cannot be considered as the author, since the piece abounds in peculiarities both of matter and style.'

b Thus they have given rise to the almost paradoxical opinion that the tradition concerning Balaam, upon which this section is founded, was the later one, while the more unfavourable accounts given in subsequent portions of Numbers are of earlier date (so Knobel, 1. c., pp. 125-127, and many others): we have tried to prove the contrary from the natural laws of historical development (see supra, pp. 34-38). If, indeed, the statements in Num. xxxi. 8, 16, are from the Elohist, this would, according to the most recent

results, only be an additional proof of their later date. Some (as Schultz, Alttestamentliche Theologie, i. 88, 89), seem disposed to attribute both accounts indiscriminately to the Elohist-that is, to Ewald's 'Author of the Book of Origins,' the alleged foundation of the present Pentateuch and of the Book of Joshuawhich is an abandoned view; while Ewald himself traces this section to 'the fifth narrator of the Urgeschichten,' the author of Isaac's blessing (Gesch. des Volk. Isr., ii. 219, sqq.; Jahrbuecher, viii. 3, sqq.; see notes on xxii. 5-14; comp. also Schrader in Schenkel's Bibel-Lexic., ii. 455; Kuenen, Relig. of Isr. ii. 158, 182200; etc.).