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We'll make Little Muddy Crossing by sundown, and Sunk Creek to-morrow, and the next day'll see us through. Can a wagon get through Sunk Creek Canyon?" The Virginian smiled. "I reckon it can't, seh, and stay resembling a wagon." Balaam told them to saddle Pedro and one packhorse, and drive the bunch of horses into a corral, roping the Judge's two, who proved extremely wild.
That was what was wrong with him self-seeking; and the Bible story brings out that self-seeking with a delicacy, a keenness, and a perfect knowledge of human nature, which ought to teach us some of the secrets of our own hearts. Watch how Balaam, as a matter of course, inquires of the Lord whether he may go, and refuses, seemingly at first honestly.
Jannes and Jambres, the sons of Balaam, derided Moses, saying, "Ye carry straw to Ephrain!" whereto Moses answered, "To the place of many vegetables, thither carry vegetables." To show the Egyptians that Aaron could do something with his rod that their magicians could not imitate, God caused the serpent into which His rod had been changed to swallow up all the rods of the magicians.
This was Senator Balaam's paper or rather, "Brother" Balaam, as he was popularly called, for he had been a clergyman, in his day; and he himself and all that he did still emitted an odor of sanctity now that he had diverged into journalism and politics. He was a power in the Congressional prayer meeting, and in all movements that looked to the spread of religion and temperance.
Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and he bowed down his head, and fell flat on his face.
And Balaam rose up in the morning, and said unto the princes of Balak, Get you into your land: for the LORD refuseth to give me leave to go with you. And the princes of Moab rose up, and they went unto Balak, and said, Balaam refuseth to come with us. And Balak sent yet again princes, more, and more honourable than they.
The Israelites told him all that had befallen, told him of the cruel edict Pharaoh had issued shortly before his birth, and told him of the wicked counsels given by Balaam against themselves as well as against his person when he was but a little boy and had set Pharaoh's crown upon his head.
If any are disposed to inquire with Balak, Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Let them attend to the answer given by Balaam if we add, reliance on divine grace in Christ no better answer can be given. How far those of old were let into the gospel way of salvation we know not. Balaam expressed the temper of a child of God.
Now Balsam did not imagine that God gave this injunction in order to deceive him, so he went along with the ambassadors; but when the divine angel met him in the way, when he was in a narrow passage, and hedged in with a wall on both sides, the ass on which Balaam rode understood that it was a divine spirit that met him, and thrust Balaam to one of the walls, without regard to the stripes which Balaam, when he was hurt by the wall, gave her; but when the ass, upon the angel's continuing to distress her, and upon the stripes which were given her, fell down, by the will of God, she made use of the voice of a man, and complained of Balaam as acting unjustly to her; that whereas he had no fault find with her in her former service to him, he now inflicted stripes upon her, as not understanding that she was hindered from serving him in what he was now going about, by the providence of God.
Hieronymus afterwards engraved six round plates with the history of Susannah, and twenty-three other stories from the Old Testament, similar to those of Abraham already mentioned namely, six plates with the story of David, eight plates with that of Solomon, four with that of Balaam, and five with those of Judith and Susannah.
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