“Balaam smites his ass” by Philip De Vere
The story of Balaam’s donkey in Numbers 22:21-39 has fascinated me for some time. This and the story of the serpent in Genesis are the only places in the Bible where an animal speaks.
There are many Christians who don’t know the story at all. And some Christian thinkers are quick to dismiss the idea that the donkey actually spoke with its own volition. They write that God put words into the donkey’s mouth. Which is, of course, not what the Bible says.
I plan to write a future post that explores a number of overlooked nuances in this story further, like I did about the story of Jesus and the possessed pigs here and here. Today, however, I wanted to share one question my mind has been ruminating over.
Why didn’t the donkey just stop?
What the Donkey Was Trying to Do
If you aren’t familiar with the story, please do take a minute to read it now. The first thing that will surprise you is that the main character Balaam is not an Israelite and yet God speaks to him. You’ll also find that, even before it speaks, Balaam’s long-time donkey can see the angel standing on the road, but Balaam can’t. And the donkey takes evasive action in three different ways to avoid bringing Balaam into contact with the angel.
But the donkey never just stops.
My starting assumption about this story is that it has depth to it. So I’ve been reading books about donkeys and becoming more and more fascinated by them. Pertinent to my question, however, is this section from the book The Wisdom of Donkeys by Andy Merrifield in which Merrifield compares horses to donkeys:
Horses are faster, yet have much less endurance than donkeys, and are nowhere near as agile. They’re edgier, too, especially in tight situations. They bolt whereas a donkey freezes. You can usually cajole an anxious horse to do things against its better interests, frighten them into gallopig along hazardous, unsafe routes. Not so with donkeys who have a highly developed sense of self-preservation. Thus a donkey’s perceived stubbornness.
This theme of donkeys’ stop-in-their-tracks stubbornness is a common theme in what I’ve read. Yet, Balaam’s donkey doesn’t just stop in its tracks. In three different instances, it does something odd. It moves off of the road the first time. It squeezes along the wall to avoid the angel the second time. And it finally lays down.
If a donkey’s default in a dangerous situation is to stop, what do the donkey’s unusual actions tell us?
I believe the donkey was trying to get across to Balaam that there was something unusual going on.
This fits with what I’ve read about donkeys. They have excellent observation skills. They can hear exceptionally well.
And they are intelligent.
If the donkey had just stopped, we could easily assume the donkey was just being stubborn for some odd reason. One of the donkeys I read about, for example, was initially afraid of running water and would just stop dead when the donkey was led near to a stream.
Instead the donkey did three three unusual things in a row. And readers of the time, when agriculture was something almost everyone was involved in, would have understood those to be unusual behaviors.
In other words, the donkey was communicating to Balaam. It was doing so even before the angel revealed itself to Balaam and enabled the donkey to speak.
If Balaam had been someone who paid attention to the life of God’s earth and to his own donkey’s character, he would have quickly picked up that something strange was going on. But that’s not who Balaam was. For some reason, God has chosen to use and communicate with Balaam. The story of his interaction with his own loyal donkey makes clear he’s not been chosen because he is a wise, good, or spiritually perceptive man.
Deeper Meaning
And I believe we can take this situation a step further and say this – God was, in a way, testing both Balaam and the donkey.
Balaam failed his test. He didn’t pay attention to the signals his donkey was sending through its behavior. When asked by the donkey why he had beaten it three times, Balaam responds, “You have made a fool of me! If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.” He clearly cares most about how he is perceived by the Moabite officials and perhaps even by his own two servants. And the reader would guess that wealth was a close second.
The donkey, on the other hand, passed his test. But at a cost.
The donkey had to choose what it would do, especially after it was clear that Balaam didn’t see the angel. And not only did Balaam not see the angel, he was going to beat the donkey for not walking straight ahead into danger. Being beaten by Balaam was probably not something new.
In the end, Balaam beat his donkey three times for the sacrificial choices the donkey made to protect Balaam. From the donkey’s plaintive words, we also understand the donkey’s heart suffered as much as its body did.
There is much more to explore in this story. But I will stop here for now and encourage you and I to meditate on these questions going forward:
Are we, like Balaam, ignoring what the living things of God’s earth are telling us about ourselves and God?
If we, for example, have land and water under our care and they are sick and ailing, are we paying attention?
Are we, like Balaam, most concerned about our wealth and how we are regarded in the culture around us?
Do those concerns matter more to us than how closely our hearts are aligned with Jesus?
