GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
NUMBERS 24:17-19
17 I see him, but not now.
I behold him, but not near.
A star will come out of Jacob.
A scepter will rise up out of Israel.
It will smash the foreheads of Moab
and the skulls of all the people of Sheth.
These words echo Jacob’s own prophecy about his son Judah: “The scepter will not depart from Judah until he comes, the one it belongs to, and the obedience of the nations is his” (Genesis 49:10). In fact, Balaam’s prophecy adds nothing at all to Jacob’s prophecy apart from naming Moab and “the people of Sheth” among the conquered. Since Balaam does not mention Judah, the proclamation is not a step forward in identifying who the coming Christ will be, but it is a remarkable support passage to Israel’s Genesis 49 prophecy.
Balaam’s fourth oracle is most famous for these words, a prophecy of Christ, the Messiah to come in the distant future, “not now, not near.” “Not now” is right; there were 1400 years to go before the Savior would come. He is described as a royal son, a king, in two ways. First, there is the mention of the star. The rising of stars and the sudden appearance of novas (exploding stars) or comets were associated with the births of kings throughout the world in ancient times. Christ is later called “the bright morning star” (Revelation 22:16), and of course the appearance of the nativity star (Matthew 2:2) brought the wise men to visit the baby Jesus. Those wise men came from the same country as Balaam himself. Whether they were guided by his prophecy or something delivered by the chief of the wise men in a later time is not certain, but Daniel was called “chief of the magicians, enchanters, astrologers and diviners” in his later years (Daniel 5:8). And Daniel had a great deal to say about the coming of the Christ (Daniel 9:25-27; 12:2-3) and the Antichrist who will oppose him (Daniel 7:23-25; 11:37-40).
Balaam associates the Moabites with another people, “the people of Sheth.” This group may have been the Shutu people, a family of nomads led by a chief in the area east of the Jordan around Moab and sometimes migrating with their herds to the lowlands along the Philistine coast. Some Egyptians inscriptions depict the people of Sheth or Shutu among groups of Canaanite prisoners. Balaam’s prophecy predicts the overthrow, therefore, of the very kingdom he was being paid to support. We will tuck this away in our minds for a little while and bring it back out when we look at Numbers 24:20.
While Balaam’s “not now, not near” set the coming of the Savior into the distant future, Jeremiah recorded the same promise as being much closer in time: “I will fulfill the gracious promise I made (i.e., the return from exile after 70 years, Jeremiah 29:10)… at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line” (Jeremiah 33:15). But the promise did not remain indefinite or unfulfilled. Finally, angels announced an even closer time frame: “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). This is why our great confession of faith, the Apostles’ Creed, is not some vague rambling promise about things that might never take place. No, it has a definite history in mind: “He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate.” Among other things, Balaam’s oracle reminds us that ours is the religion based on actual historical events and not on vague maybes. Christ has died; Christ has risen; Christ shall come again!
18 Edom will lose its territory to others.
Seir, Israel’s enemy, also will become a possession,
but Israel will display its power.
19 One who comes from Jacob will rule,
and he will destroy the survivors of the city.
These two verses conclude the fourth oracle, and here we see the neighboring country of Edom being reduced to a mere possession. But look carefully: Edom is not destroyed; its people are not annihilated. The territory is lost, so that the people will learn to look to the Lord God alone for help. They become Israel’s possession so that they may be graciously absorbed into Israel’s tents. God orchestrates the fall of this people so that they can be saved, not so that they can fall into judgment and damnation. This is a muscular gospel promise.
Seir was the name of this country before the Edomites came, when it was the territory of the Horites (Genesis 14:6; 32:3; see also Isaiah 21:11). Many years later, when the people of Moab and Seir once again rebelled and attacked Israel, God would punish them in another way, dealing “with Edom in accordance with my anger and my wrath” (Ezekiel 25:14). And again: “There will be no survivors from the house of Esau. The LORD has spoken” (Obadiah 1:18)
But even in Jesus’ time there were Edomites still in contact with Israel and with the temple and the preaching of the word of God (Mark 3:8), and Herod and his sons were Idumeans (Edomites).
The destruction by the “One who comes from Jacob” is the destruction of his true enemies. This recalls the very first Gospel promise given in Eve’s hearing when God cursed the devil: “He will crush your head” (Genesis 3:15). “The city,” that is, those who will be destroyed, must be a reference to any group that has opposed God’s people. This is even more clear when we remember that the references to “Israel” and “Jacob” are not geographic, since there was no “land” of Israel yet. The cities held Israel’s enemies; Israel was nothing but a people, or at best, a collection of tents around a tabernacle. Israel’s ruler, the Sceptered Savior, destroyed his enemies: Sin, death, and the power of the devil. They are done away with, and they have no power over God’s people. Death must give up all its dead at the command of God (Revelation 20:13). Christ was crucified “so that the body of sin might be done away with” (Romans 6:6). And Christ shared our humanity “so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death– that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14).
The promise that Christ would come is always good to hear. The strange phrasing of the way he would defeat his enemies is easy to understand: who could comprehend that by dying a criminal’s death, the Star from out of Jacob would defeat the work of the devil? For that prophecy, we turn to Isaiah 53:4-12, to which Balaam’s words play second fiddle. His words are from the Holy Spirit, and they are charming and delightful– but still, second fiddle. The “Lamb to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:7), “stricken for the transgression of the people” (53:8), “his life a guilt offering” (53:10), “he bore the sins of many” (53:12), and “the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (53:6) tell the story so that we can just about see the cross, feel the darkness of that Friday afternoon, and taste the salt of our tears as the Son of God died for us.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Week 1141 (No. 6847)
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Numbers 24:17-19 Not now, not near