The children of Israel have been touring through the land of Midian for the past 40 years and now the children of Israel are preparing to emigrate to the Promised Land. Edom (which located in the southern region of the modern country of Jordan) has no interest in engaging with Israel in any way because they were scared of them.

The children of Israel would have preferred to have permission from the Edomite and the Moabites to go through their territories, as they could traverse in comfortable valleys, but since they said no, the children of Israel traveled through the Great Rift Valley, skirting the territories of Edom, Moab, Ammon, through mountains.

Once they reached the border between the country of Moab and the land of the Amorites, they weren’t able to skirt about anymore because at this point, they would have had to continue on by boat through the Dead Sea and that was not an option. They had no choice but to go through the territory of the Amorite king Sihon.

God instructed the children of Israel to respect the territorial borders of Edom and Moab, but when the Amorite kings Sihon and Og threatened to kill the children of Israel, God gave the children of Israel permission to defend themselves in war and wipe them out, because the Amorites were under God’s ban. They were not under God’s protection as Edom, Moab and Ammon were.

The Moabites had no idea that God respected their territorial boundaries. The Moabites worshipped pagan gods by this point and had no idea that God had given that land to them and was not going to allow the children of Israel to take their land war. The Moabites were scared to lose their territory to the Israelites so you can understand why they were so defensive.

When the Israelites utterly wiped out the kings Sihon and Og, this scared the nation of Moab even more as they recalled how this rag-tag group of escapes from Egypt, were able to defeat the Amorite kings Sihon and Og in battle where they had failed.

This is why Balak, the king of Moab went looking for a spiritual way to defeat the Israelites as he knew he could not beat them militarily. He sought out the most famous prophet he could find, who was Balaam, the son of Beor.

Balak sent emissaries to Balaam to hire him, but Balaam declined with a half truth. He told them that God said no, but Balaam didn’t say why God said no, which was that God had already said that He will not allow Balaam to cruse Israel. If Balaam had disclosed to the emissaries from the beginning that God would not curse Israel, that would have been the end of the conversation. But by only giving the emissaries half of the reason, Balaam was dragging them along because he wanted something from them. He was scheming on how to get his cake and eat it too. 

God is not dumb, He knows who Balaam is and what Balaam wanted. Balaam’s job was to bless and curse people for money. He knows that Balaam withheld information from the emissaries of Moab, because He knew that Balaam coveted money, fame and fortune. Balaam’s refusal to be forthright with anyone was his downfall. 

God told Balaam not to go, but then later permits him to continue his trip. Why is God appearing to be inconsistent? Because He knows that Balaam wants to curse Israel because he wants the generous payout from Moab for the job.

God also knew that Balaam will have to pay a lot of his own money up front to travel all the way from Aram to Moab, because Balak will not pay him until he successfully curses Israel but Balaam already knows that God has prohibited him from cursing Israel. Balaam knows that if he doesn’t curse, he won’t get paid, but he has deceived himself and decided to go to Moab anywa...