The Donkey That Talked

Not everything that happened in those forty years was quiet. Once a man named Korah, with two brothers called Dathan and Abiram and two hundred and fifty of the leaders behind him, stood up against Moses and Aaron and said, “You take too much on yourselves! Everyone in this whole gathering is holy, and the Lord is among all of us. Why do you set yourselves above the people of the Lord?” And Moses fell on his face, and said: in the morning the Lord will show who belongs to him. And in the morning God did show them, and it was terrible: the ground itself opened under Korah and Dathan and Abiram, and they went down, and the earth closed over them, and fire came out and burned up the two hundred and fifty men with their censers. And all Israel ran, crying out. Afterwards God said to Moses: bring a wooden staff from every tribe and lay them up in the tent overnight. And in the morning eleven staffs were plain dead wood, just as they had been — and Aaron’s staff had sprouted. It had put out buds, and blossomed, and grown ripe almonds, all in one night. And that was the end of the arguing about who God had chosen.

The years went by in the wilderness. Miriam, who had watched her baby brother in the basket long ago, and who had sung and danced by the sea, died at a place called Kadesh, and they buried her there. And once again there was no water, and once again the people came to Moses angry and afraid, saying, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt into this dreadful place? There are no figs here, and no grapes, and nothing to drink!” So Moses and Aaron went and fell on their faces at the door of the tent, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. And the Lord said, “Take your staff, and gather the people together, you and Aaron your brother, and speak to the rock in front of them — and it will give its water.” So Moses gathered everyone in front of the rock. But Moses was tired and angry with them, and he said, “Listen to me, you rebels! Are we to bring you water out of this rock?” And he lifted his hand and struck the rock with his staff — twice. And the water came gushing out, and everybody drank, and all their animals drank. But God had told him to speak to the rock, and he had struck it instead. And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust me, and did not treat me as holy in front of the children of Israel, you will not be the ones to bring this people into the land I have given them.” And later, on a mountain called Hor, Aaron died, and his son Eleazar took his place; and all the people wept for Aaron for thirty days.

They set out again by a long, hot road around the edge of Edom, and the people lost heart. They spoke against God and against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread, and no water, and we are sick of this worthless food.” And snakes came among them, snakes whose bite was deadly, and many people died. So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we spoke against the Lord and against you. Please pray to the Lord to take the snakes away.” And Moses prayed for them, and the Lord said to him, “Make a snake and put it up high on a pole. And anyone who is bitten, if he looks at it, will live.” So Moses made a snake out of bronze and lifted it up on a pole in the middle of the camp. And after that, whenever anyone was bitten, he looked up at the bronze snake — and he lived.

At last they came out onto the flat plains of Moab, right across the river from a city called Jericho, and there they camped — a great sea of tents. And the king of Moab, whose name was Balak, looked out at all those tents and was terrified. He said, “This crowd will lick up everything around us, the way a calf licks the grass out of a field.” So he sent messengers far away to a man named Balaam, a man people paid to say powerful words. And the messengers said to him, “This is what Balak says: a people has come out of Egypt, and they have covered the whole face of the land, and they are camped right next to me. Come and curse them for me — for I know that whoever you bless is blessed, and whoever you curse is cursed.” And Balaam said, ‘Stay here tonight, and I will tell you whatever the Lord says to me.’ And that night God came to Balaam and said, “You are not to go with them, and you are not to curse that people — because they are blessed.” So Balaam sent them home. But Balak sent finer messengers, and more of them, and promised Balaam money and honor. And Balaam said, “If Balak gave me his whole house full of silver and gold, I could not go past the word of the Lord my God.” But he wanted to go. And that night God said to him, ‘If these men have come to call you, then get up and go with them — but you will say only the word I give you.’

So in the morning Balaam saddled his donkey and set off with the leaders of Moab. And a messenger of the Lord came and stood in the road in front of him with a sword in his hand. Balaam did not see him. But the donkey did. She turned right off the road into the field — and Balaam beat her and pushed her back onto the road. Then the messenger stood in a narrow lane between two vineyards, with a stone wall on this side and a stone wall on that. The donkey saw him and squeezed herself against the wall, and squashed Balaam’s foot — and he beat her again. Then the messenger went on ahead and stood in a place so narrow there was no turning left and no turning right. And the donkey saw him, and simply lay down flat under Balaam. And Balaam lost his temper and hit her with his staff. And then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and the donkey said to Balaam, “What have I done to you, that you have beaten me these three times?” And Balaam — who did not even stop to be surprised — said, “Because you have made a fool of me! If I had a sword in my hand I would have killed you.” And the donkey said, “Am I not your own donkey, the one you have ridden all your life until today? Have I ever once done anything like this to you?” And Balaam said, ‘No.’

Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes — and he saw him: the messenger of the Lord, standing in the road with a drawn sword. And Balaam got down and bowed his face to the ground. And the messenger said to him, “Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? Look — I came out to stand in your way. And when the donkey saw me, she turned aside three times. If she had not turned aside, I would have killed you by now, and let her live.” And Balaam said, “I have sinned. I did not know you were standing in the road against me. If it does not please you for me to go on, I will go home again.” And the messenger said, “Go with the men — but be careful to say only the word I give you.” So Balaam went. And King Balak came out to meet him, full of hope, and took him up a high place where he could look down and see the camp of Israel spread out below. And Balaam said to the king, “Here I am, I have come. But am I able to say anything at all of my own? Only the word God puts in my mouth — that is what I will speak.” And that is exactly what happened. Three times the king brought him out to curse Israel, and three times the words that came out of Balaam’s mouth were words of blessing instead. Nobody could curse the people God had blessed — not for all the silver and gold in Moab.