Why God Gave the Nations a Prophet to Match Moses

There is a question the nations of the world will raise at the end of days, and God took it seriously enough to answer it in advance. They will say: You gave Israel everything. Kings, prophets, sages, wealth, land. You gave us nothing comparable. The existence of Balaam is God’s preemptive answer to that accusation.

This is the argument of Midrash Tanchuma, Balak 1, one of the earliest surviving homiletical treatments of the Balaam narrative, compiled in the fifth century CE and anchored in the verse from (Deuteronomy 32:4): “The Rock, His work is perfect, because all His ways are justice.” The Tanchuma takes this as a structural principle of divine governance. Every parallel gift given to Israel was also given to the nations. Every dignity, matched. Every endowment, mirrored.

Solomon was raised up as king over all the earth. Nebuchadnezzar was raised up to rule with comparable scope, given even the wild beasts to serve him (Jeremiah 27:6). Solomon built the Temple and filled it with praise and supplication. Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it and replaced those praises with blasphemy, claiming he would “go up to the high places of the clouds and resemble the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14). David was given wealth and used it to acquire materials for God’s house. Haman was given equivalent wealth and used it to purchase a people for slaughter. What Israel received, the nations also received. What Israel did with those gifts, and what the nations did, was entirely their own choice.

And then there is the prophetic parallel: Moses was given access to God’s presence at any time he wished. Balaam was given the same. Moses was the prophet of Israel, Balaam the prophet of the nations. Even that most intimate gift, the ability to speak with the divine on demand, was distributed equitably across the boundary.

But here the parallel breaks. The Tanchuma draws a stark contrast between the two prophetic traditions. The prophets of Israel, including those sent to other nations, spoke with compassion for everyone. Isaiah mourned over Moab: “my inner parts throb like a harp for Moab” (Isaiah 16:11). Ezekiel composed a dirge over Tyre (Ezekiel 27:2). Even when pronouncing divine judgment on foreign nations, Israel’s prophets wept over what they were saying. Balaam, by contrast, rose up with the intention of uprooting an entire people “without cause, for nothing.” He weaponized his prophetic gift and aimed it at annihilation.

That difference, the Tanchuma says, is why the holy spirit was eventually removed from the nations of the world. The capacity for prophecy was withdrawn not as punishment for Balaam’s failure, but as a consequence of what he actually attempted. He was given what Moses had, chose to use it to destroy what Moses had built, and the parashah about Balaam was preserved in scripture to explain why. The gift proved what happened when it was received without the mercy that should accompany it.

The logic here is uncomfortable and deliberate. The Tanchuma is not saying the nations were denied prophecy because they were inherently inferior. They were given a prophet of extraordinary caliber. They were given every parallel advantage Israel received. What they were not given was Balaam’s conscience, and Balaam himself did not supply it.

God’s perfect work, the verse insists, does not favor Israel at the expense of the nations. It gives both sides everything they need and then watches what they do with it. The “seeing” embedded in Balak’s name, “Now Balak saw” (Numbers 22:2), is the same root the Tanchuma uses to frame its closing question: Look at what he did. The lesson of divine equity is not that God was careless with the nations. It is that the nations were careless with what they received.