Numbers 24:15-19

Before Balaam departed he gave Balak four more revelations from God. They dealt with the future of Israel, Moab, and Israel’s other neighbors. They were entirely futuristic in their prophecies. Each one began with the phrase "took up his discourse and said." In all, Balaam made seven discourses that Moses recorded in the text.

The fourth oracle dealt with Israel, Moab, and Edom. Balaam seemed to sense that what he predicted would take place in the distant future: "I see him, but not now, . . ." (Numbers 24:17). Saul and David partially fulfilled these prophecies. However Jewish and Christian interpreters have seen them as looking beyond the early monarchy to Messiah at His first and second advents.

The "star" (Numbers 24:17) was a common symbol for a king in biblical and non-biblical ancient Near Eastern literature (cf. Isaiah 14:12; Ezekiel 32:7; Revelation 22:16). [Note: See Riggans, p. 186; and Merrill, "Numbers," in The Bible . . ., p. 244.] This identification finds support in the reference to the "scepter" in the next line (cf. Genesis 49:10; Amos 1:5; Amos 1:8; Psalms 45:6). One wonders if it might have been this prophecy that was in the minds of the three wise men who came from Balaam’s country to Bethlehem to look for the promised King of the Jews (Matthew 2:1-2).

"If . . . we compare Balaam’s prophesy of the star . . . and the sceptre . . . with the prediction of the patriarch Jacob, of the sceptre that should not depart from Judah, till the Shiloh came whom the nations would obey (Gen. xlix. 10), it is easy to observe that Balaam not only foretold more clearly the attitude of Israel to the nations of the world, and the victory of the kingdom of God over every hostile kingdom of the world; but that he also proclaimed the Bringer of Peace expected by Jacob at the end of the days to be a mighty ruler, whose sceptre would break in pieces and destroy all the enemies of the nation of God." [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, 3:201.]

"An interesting implication of the parallels presented here between the account of the birth of Moses in Exodus 2 and the announcement of the ’star’ to arise from the family of Jacob in Numbers 24 is that Moses thus appears to be portrayed in these narratives as a prototype of the ’star of Jacob.’ Such a view of Moses is consistent with the fact that elsewhere in the Pentateuch Moses is cast as a figure of the coming king (Deuteronomy 33:5) and prophet (Deuteronomy 18, 34). This is also consistent with the fact that later biblical writers often saw in Moses a picture of the future Messiah (e.g., Hosea 2:2[?])." [Note: Sailhamer, The Pentateuch . . ., pp. 406-7.]

"Seir" (Numbers 24:18) is another name for Edom. Mt. Seir was the principle geographical feature of Edom. God at first commanded Israel not to wage war with Edom because the Edomites were her kinsmen. As time passed, the Edomites became bitter antagonists of the Israelites. God punished them for this enmity beginning in David’s reign and after that (2 Samuel 8:14; 1 Kings 11:15-16; 1 Chronicles 18:12-13). In the years following David’s reign Edom was alternately subject to Israel’s kings and free. Edom attacked Israel several times, but John Hyrcanus eventually conquered her in 129 B.C. Thereafter Edom ceased to exist as a nation. Edomites lived among the Jews until Titus the Roman destroyed the Jewish nation in A.D. 70. The Greeks called the Edomites Idumeans. Herod the Great was an Idumean. He tried to kill the infant Messiah as Pharaoh had tried to slay baby Moses (Matthew 2:1-12). [Note: See The New Bible Dictionary, 1962 ed., s.v. "Edom, Edomites," by J. A. Thompson.]