Parshat Shoftim5 min read

Balaam Was a King Before He Was a Prophet

Before Balaam cursed or blessed anyone, he was a king who used sorcery to escape a siege, then abandoned his kingdom to serve Pharaoh.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. Before the Donkey
  2. The Kingdom He Escaped
  3. What He Did Before Pharaoh
  4. The King of Ethiopia
  5. The Prophet and the Laban Problem
  6. The End He Earned

Before the Donkey

Everyone who knows Balaam knows him from Numbers 22: the prophet hired to curse Israel, whose donkey saw the angel before he did, who was forced by God to speak blessings instead of curses. The Torah introduces him as the son of Beor, a diviner of considerable reputation, and says almost nothing about where he came from or what he was before Balak's messengers arrived at his door.

The midrash does not accept this lacuna. It fills in a career that makes the prophet with the talking donkey look almost respectable by comparison.

The Kingdom He Escaped

Before Balaam was a prophet for hire, he was a king. His land was besieged, and by ordinary military calculation he had lost. The walls were going to fall. His treasury, his court, his life, everything was about to be taken. Balaam chose a different outcome.

He gathered the tools of his power, the instruments of sorcery that had elevated him to kingship in the first place, and he flew. Not metaphorically. He used his sorcery to rise above the siege and the army and the fallen walls and the captured city below him, and he left. He abandoned his kingdom to save himself. The tradition reads this as the first clear indication of his character: a man who would use supernatural power to escape the consequences of a military failure rather than stand with his people.

What He Did Before Pharaoh

He arrived in Egypt with his reputation intact and his power undiminished. Pharaoh's court received men of this kind. He was given an appointment. He rose in the administration.

When Pharaoh's advisors debated what to do about the growing population of Israelites in Goshen, Balaam was in the room. The tradition records three men present at the deliberations: Jethro, who argued against the plan to oppress and kill; Job, who said nothing; and Balaam, who argued for drowning the male children in the Nile. The counsel Pharaoh followed was Balaam's. The decree that sent Egyptian soldiers to the riverbanks with orders to throw in every newborn Israelite boy came from the man who had already abandoned his own people under siege.

Jethro fled. Job was punished with suffering for his silence. Balaam prospered at Pharaoh's court.

The King of Ethiopia

Balaam's career took another turn. He advised the king of Ethiopia during a military campaign. When the Ethiopian army marched out to war and the king left his capital under the supervision of his ministers, Balaam spent the years of the campaign cultivating the loyalty of the capital's population. By the time the army returned victorious, Balaam had engineered a situation in which the king found himself locked out of his own city. The citizens refused to readmit him.

Balaam's price for the betrayal was political: a position, influence, the kind of access that suited a man who had been a king and was comfortable near the center of power. The tradition identifies Balaam as the architect of Moses's long imprisonment in Ethiopia during the years between Egypt and Midian, the episode that explains the gap in Moses's biography between his flight from Pharaoh and his meeting with God at the burning bush.

The Prophet and the Laban Problem

The mystical tradition adds another layer. Some of the texts identify Balaam with Laban the Aramean, Jacob's father-in-law, the man who tried through twenty years of manipulation to acquire Jacob's wealth and labor. The identification is not literal genealogy but something more like reincarnation: the same soul, the same quality of opposition to Israel's destiny, appearing in different bodies at different historical moments.

Laban chased Jacob with the explicit intention of harm and was stopped by God's warning in a night dream. Balaam was hired to curse Israel and was stopped by God's intervention through a speaking donkey and a visible angel. The method changes; the pattern stays the same. The tradition sees a continuity of opposition, a persistent attempt to undo what God has set in motion, and it names that attempt by a single soul's multiple appearances.

The End He Earned

Balaam died in the war between Israel and Midian, killed by the sword in Numbers 31:8. He is listed alongside five Midianite kings as one of those slain. The death is undistinguished, a soldier's death in a war he had provoked by advising the Midianites to send their women to corrupt Israel after his blessings failed. He could not curse directly, so he found an indirect method, and Israel paid for it, and then Israel killed him.

The Tikkunei Zohar sees in Balaam's repeated failures against Israel a demonstration of the limits of opposing a divine process: the sorcery that worked against earthly armies and Ethiopian capitals ran into something it could not penetrate. His power was real and well-documented. It simply had a ceiling, and Israel was above the ceiling.

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From the tradition

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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Legends of the Jews 4:110Legends of the Jews

Balaam is often remembered as the sorcerer hired to curse the Israelites, and Jannes and Jambres as the magicians who opposed Moses in Pharaoh’s court, but they had lives, families, and reputations before their infamous roles.

The Ginzberg's says Legends of the Jews, Balaam wasn't always just a wandering sorcerer. He was once a king! The story goes that he ruled over a city. But when that city fell under siege, Balaam, not one to stick around for a lost cause, used his magic to escape. It's almost like a scene from a fantasy movie. He didn't just save himself, though. He grabbed his two sons, Jannes and Jambres, his eight brothers, and they all fled to. Egypt.

Why Egypt? Well, according to the legend, they sought refuge there. And, wouldn't you know it, Balaam's counsel proved invaluable to the Egyptian king. He was, after all, a powerful sorcerer and, apparently, a pretty good strategist. So, what happened? "Seeing that they had been saved by the king, and the city had been taken by his good counsel," Ginzberg writes, "the people became more than ever attached to him."

They were so grateful, in fact, that they did something pretty extraordinary. "They set the royal crown upon his head," and gave him Adoniah, the widow of Kikanos, as a wife.

Now, this Adoniah detail is interesting because it brings us to another figure in the story: Moses himself. See, Moses was living in Egypt at this time, and the story suggests that Moses, too, was offered Adoniah as a wife. What did he do?

The text says, "But Moses feared the stern God of his fathers, and he went not in unto Adoniah, nor did he turn his eyes toward her." Why? Because, as Ginzberg tells us, Moses remembered the oaths that Abraham and Isaac made regarding their sons' marriages: "Thou shalt not take a wife for my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell." Moses also remembered what Isaac said to Jacob when he fled before his brother Esau: "Thou shalt not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan, nor ally thyself by marriage with any of the children of Ham, for the Lord our God gave Ham the son of Noah and all his seed as slaves to the children of Shem and Japheth forever."

So, Moses, mindful of these ancestral commands, refused the offer. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the values and beliefs that shaped Moses, even before his encounter with the burning bush. It shows us that even when surrounded by power and temptation, he remained true to his heritage.

What's the takeaway here? Perhaps it's a reminder that even the most infamous figures in our stories have complex backstories. And that even amidst power and influence, staying true to one's values can be a defining act.

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Legends of the Jews 6:2Legends of the Jews

Jewish tradition certainly hints at that possibility!

Take Balaam, for example. You know, the one hired to curse the Israelites? The Moabites and Midianites thought he was Moses' equal, a powerhouse of spiritual force. But according to the Legends of the Jews, as retold by Ginzberg, this Balaam was none other than Laban himself! Yes, that Laban – the tricky father-in-law of Jacob, who tried to wipe out Jacob and his entire family way back when. And not only that, he also stirred up Pharaoh and Amalek against the Israelites, hoping to destroy them.

It’s a pretty wild idea, isn’t it? That this ancient enemy keeps reappearing to threaten the Jewish people.

His very name, Balaam, is telling. It’s interpreted as "Devourer of Nations," because, well, he was really determined to devour the nation of Israel. And at this particular moment in the story, Balaam was at the PEAK of his influence. His curse had brought the Moabites defeat at the hands of Sihon, and his prophecy that Balak, his countryman, would become king had just come true. So, naturally, all the kings were sending ambassadors to him, seeking his wise… or not-so-wise… counsel.

But how did he get so powerful? Well, he started as an interpreter of dreams. Think Joseph in Egypt, but…darker. He gradually became a sorcerer, a master of the occult. And then, he achieved the even greater status of prophet. In fact, he even surpassed his own father, who was also a prophet, but not quite as famous (or infamous) as his son. The Zohar, that foundational text of Jewish mysticism, speaks often of the dark side mirroring the light. And here, we see that very clearly.

So, what does this all mean? Is it just a colorful story, a way to connect different threats to the Jewish people under one ultimate villain? Or is there something deeper here? A suggestion that evil, like good, can take many forms, but its essence remains the same? Perhaps it’s a reminder that the battles we face are not always new, but echoes of ancient struggles, requiring us to be ever vigilant. Whatever the interpretation, the story of Balaam, the "Devourer of Nations," gives us plenty to think about.

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Legends of the Jews 4:31Legends of the Jews

There was a twisted logic to it, a chilling calculation based on their understanding of divine justice.

Pharaoh, swayed by the wicked Balaam, believed he'd found a loophole. We learn in Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews that Balaam's counsel was accepted by Pharaoh and the Egyptians. They operated under the principle of middah k'neged middah, measure for measure – the idea that divine retribution mirrors the sin.

So, they reasoned, drowning the baby boys was the "safest" way to wipe out the Hebrews, as it wouldn't bring harm to themselves. Why? Because God had sworn to Noah never again to destroy the world with a flood. (Genesis 9:11-17). They thought they were cleverly avoiding divine punishment, but they were tragically wrong.

Here's where their logic faltered. First, as the sages pointed out, God swore not to bring a flood upon humankind. Nothing, however, prevented them from bringing humankind into a flood. Big difference. It was a loophole alright, but not in the way they thought.

And perhaps more importantly, God's oath was a universal promise to all of humanity, not a guarantee of impunity for a single nation, especially one committing atrocities.

The end, as we know, was catastrophic for the Egyptians. They met their doom in the churning waters of the Red Sea. The irony, as the tradition emphasizes, is biting: middah k'neged middah – measure for measure. As they had drowned the male children of the Israelites, so too were they drowned. (Exodus 15:4-5). A perfect, terrifying, and ultimately just reversal. It’s a stark reminder that attempts to outsmart divine justice are, well, a fool's errand. The universe, it seems, has a way of balancing the scales, even when we try to tip them with the most horrifying acts.

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Legends of the Jews 4:139Legends of the Jews

The familiar story centers on the Exodus, but some of the details… well, they're chilling.

In Legends of the Jews, which draws from various Midrashic (rabbinic interpretive commentary) sources, the suffering inflicted upon the Israelites wasn't just about forced labor. Remember Balaam, the prophet hired to curse Israel? Apparently, he gave Pharaoh some truly awful advice. That Pharaoh, in his paranoia, ordered the slaughter of Israelite babies. Can you imagine the horror?

Why? Because he was suffering from a terrible disease. The Midrash says he bathed in the blood of these innocents, hoping for a cure. For ten long years, this went on. Ginzberg, in Legends of the Jews, makes it clear: it was all in vain. The leprosy, instead of disappearing, morphed into something even worse – agonizing boils.

Pharaoh, in his hubris, couldn’t see the connection. He hears that the Israelites in Goshen, despite their forced labor, are being "careless and idle." The nerve! This news, naturally, only fueled his rage and intensified his suffering. "Now that I am ill, they turn and scoff at me," he reportedly said. He demands his chariot be prepared so he can personally oversee their oppression and witness their supposed mockery.

The scene that follows is almost biblical in its poetic justice. He's so weak he can't even mount a horse himself. They hoist him up, and he sets off toward Goshen. But as they approach the border, the king's steed enters a narrow pass. The other horses, rushing, press in, and the king's horse stumbles. It falls, the chariot overturns, and Pharaoh is thrown to the ground, crushed beneath the horse and the wreckage.

The Legends of the Jews is explicit: "The king's flesh was torn from him, for this thing was from the Lord." He had heard the cries of His people. God intervened.

His servants, horrified, carry what's left of him back to Egypt and place him on his bed.

It's a brutal end, isn't it? A stark reminder that even the most powerful rulers are ultimately subject to forces beyond their control. And that, sometimes, justice, however harsh, does prevail. It also reminds us of the incredible power and resilience of the Israelite people even in the face of such unimaginable suffering. A story worth remembering, isn't it?

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Legends of the Jews 4:98Legends of the Jews

He has no clue that destiny has something truly unexpected in store. At this precise moment, war erupts between Ethiopia and its former eastern territories. King Kikanos, leading his massive army, leaves behind a trio of figures to watch over his capital: Balaam – yes, that Balaam – and his two sons, Jannes and Jambres (names you might recognize from other parts of Jewish tradition!).

Big mistake, Kikanos.

The king's absence gives the notoriously opportunistic Balaam the perfect opening. He begins to sway the people, planting seeds of dissent and subtly undermining Kikanos' authority. And wouldn't you know it? He succeeds. He's crowned king, seizing power while Kikanos is off fighting! And his sons? They’re appointed generals, naturally.

Balaam isn’t content with just snatching the throne. He’s determined to keep it. To completely cut off Kikanos and his army, Balaam and his sons lay siege to the city. They want to ensure no one can enter or leave without their say-so. According to Legends of the Jews, they use a multi-pronged strategy worthy of a Bond villain.

On two sides of the city, they reinforce the walls, making them virtually impenetrable. On another side, they create a complex network of canals, diverting the river that surrounds Ethiopia and turning it into a watery maze. And finally, on the fourth side, they unleash… well, let's just say they use their "magic arts" to summon a horrifying swarm of snakes and scorpions. Imagine trying to get past that security detail! It's a full-on lockdown. No one in, no one out.

So, what does this all mean? It's a fascinating glimpse into the chaotic world of ancient legends, where political intrigue, warfare, and even a bit of sorcery intertwine. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? How often do seemingly small decisions – like leaving Balaam in charge – have enormous, unforeseen consequences? And what happens to Moses in all of this? Well, that, my friends, is a story for another time...

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Tikkunei Zohar 101:24Tikkunei Zohar

Jewish mysticism often explores this very idea, the hiddenness of God, the hiddenness of ourselves. And sometimes, that hiddenness is tied to moments of judgment, moments when things feel...off. to a fascinating little snippet from the Tikkunei (spiritual repair) Zohar, a core text of Kabbalah that expands on the original Zohar. Here, we're exploring a verse from the Torah and a verse from Psalms, linking them to some pretty intense spiritual concepts.

The Tikkunei Zohar zeroes in on Balaam, that ambiguous prophet in the Book of Numbers. Remember him? The one hired to curse the Israelites, but who ends up blessing them instead? He says, "He has not seen sin in Jacob, nor has He seen perversity in Israel" (Num. 23:21). Seems straightforward. God doesn't see the Israelites' flaws. But the Tikkunei Zohar takes a sharp turn. It equates "perversity and sin" with Samael (the angel of death) and the snake.

Whoa. Samael is often considered the angel of death or a powerful, adversarial force. And the snake? Well, that brings us right back to the Garden of Eden and the whole story of temptation and the introduction of evil into the world. So, what's the Tikkunei Zohar trying to tell us?

It suggests that even when things look rosy The first reading – when Balaam is proclaiming Israel's innocence – these darker forces are still present, lurking beneath. They are the "sin" and "perversity" that God, in a sense, chooses not to see.

But the passage doesn't stop there. It goes on to say that when these forces "oppress Her so-as-to look upon Her, She is self-concealed from everything." Who is "Her"? In Kabbalah, this often refers to the Shekhinah, the Divine Presence, the feminine aspect of God that dwells in the world. When negativity and judgment are rampant, the Shekhinah withdraws. The Divine Presence becomes hidden.

And when does this happen? “In the seventh month.” The text then quotes (Psalm 81:4): "Blow the ram’s horn on the New Moon, on the appointed time for the day of our festival." Now, here's where it gets really interesting. The Tikkunei Zohar asks, "What is… 'on the appointed time' (keseh)?" And it answers: "In the month in which the moon is self-concealed (it-kasya)." The seventh month, Tishrei, is when we celebrate Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur, the High Holy Days. Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, is literally timed with the new moon – when the moon is at its darkest, most "self-concealed." Yom Kippur follows soon after, a day of intense introspection and atonement.

So, the Tikkunei Zohar is connecting the dots: the presence of negative forces, the hiding of the Divine Presence, and the time of year when we are called to look inward, to confront our own shortcomings and strive for renewal. The "self-concealment" of the moon mirrors the self-concealment of the Divine.

What does it all mean? Maybe it's a reminder that even in times of celebration and apparent blessings, we need to be aware of the shadows. That spiritual work isn't just about basking in the light, but also about confronting the darkness within ourselves and in the world. Perhaps, by acknowledging the "perversity and sin," by recognizing the forces that obscure the Divine, we can actually draw closer to the Shekhinah, to the hidden God. By blowing the shofar, by making noise, we can pierce the veil.

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