J.J. Blunt's Undesigned Scriptural Coincidences
AN ARGUMENT FOR THE VERACITY OF THE HOLY BIBLE
Introduction
Part One:
The Books of Moses
Part Two:
The Historical Scriptures
Part Three:
The Prophetical Scripture
Part Four:
The Gospels and Acts
Appendix:
The Gospels, Acts
and Josephus

XIV. THE ELDERS OF MOAB AND OF MIDIAN

Through some or other of the channels of information enumerated in the last paragraph, Balak, King of Moab, is aware of the existence of a Prophet at Pethor, and sends for him. It is not unlikely, indeed, that the Moabites, who were the children of Lot, should have still maintained a communication with the original stock of all which continued to dwell in Aram or Mesopotamia. Neither is it unlikely that Pethor, which was in that country [Num. 23:7.] , the country whence Abraham emigrated, and where Nahor and that branch of Terah’s family remained, should possess a Prophet of the true God. Nor is it unlikely again, that, living in the midst of idolaters, Balaam should in a degree partake of the infection, as Laban had done before him in the same country; and that whilst he acknowledged the Lord for his God, and offered his victims by sevens (as some patriarchal tradition perhaps directed him [See Job 42:8.] ), he should have had recourse to enchantments also—mixing the profane and sacred, as Laban did the worship of his images with the worship of his Maker. All this is in character. Now it was not Balak alone who sent the embassy to Balaam. He was but King of the Moabites, and had nothing to do with Midian. With the elders of Midian, however, he consulted, they being as much interested as himself in putting a stop to the triumphant march of Israel. Accordingly we find that the mission to the Prophet came from the two people conjointly;—“the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed, with the rewards of divination in their hand.” [Num. 22:7.] In the remainder of this interview, and in the one which succeeded it, all mention of Midian is dropped, and the “princes of Balak,” and the servants of Balak,” are the titles given to the messengers. And when Balaam at length consents to accept their invitation, it is to Moab, the kingdom of Balak, that he comes, and he is received by the King at one of his own border-cities near the river of Arnon. Then follows the Prophet’s fruitless struggle to curse the people whom God had blessed, and the consequent disappointment of the King, who bids him “flee to his place, the Lord having kept him back from honour;” “and Balaam rose up,” the history concludes, “and went and returned to his place, and Balak also went his way.” [Num. 24:25.] So they parted in mutual dissatisfaction.

Hitherto, then, although the elders of Midian were concerned in inviting the Prophet from Mesopotamia, it does not appear that they had any intercourse whatever with him on their own account—Balak and the Moabites had engrossed all his attention. The subject is now discontinued: Balaam disappears, gone, as we may suppose, to his own country again, to Pethor, in Mesopotamia, for he had expressly said on parting, “Behold, I go unto my people.” [Num. 24:14.] Meanwhile the historian pursues his onward course, and details, through several long chapters, the abandoned profligacy of the Israelites, the numbering of them according to their families, the method by which their portions were to be assigned in the land of promise, the laws of inheritance, the choice and appointment of a successor, a series of offerings and festivals of various kinds, more or less important, the nature and obligation of vows, and the different complexion they assumed under different circumstances enumerated, and then (as it often happens in the history of Moses, where a battle or a rebellion perhaps interrupts a catalogue of rites and ceremonies)—then, I say, comes an account of an attack made upon the Midianites in revenge for their having seduced the people of Israel by the wiles of their women. So “they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain, viz. Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian;” and lastly, there is added, what we might not perhaps have been prepared for, “Balaam also, the son of Beor, they slew with the sword.” [Num. 31:8.]

It seems then, but how incidentally, that the Prophet did not, after all, return to Mesopotamia, as we had supposed. Now this coincides in a very satisfactory manner with the circumstances under which, we have seen, Balaam was invited from Pethor. For the deputation, which then waited on him, did not consist of Moabites exclusively, but of Midianites also. When dismissed, therefore, in disgust by the Moabites, he would not return to Mesopotamia until he had paid his visit to the Midianites, who were equally concerned in bringing him where he was. Had the details of his achievements in Midian been given, as those in Moab are given, they might have been as numerous, as important, and as interesting. One thing only, however, we are told, that by the counsel which he suggested during this visit concerning the matter of Peor, and which he probably thought was the most likely counsel to alienate the Israelites from God, and to make Him curse instead of blessing them, he caused the children of Israel to commit the trespass he anticipated, and to fall into the trap which he had provided for them. Unhappily for him, however, his stay amongst the Midianites was unseasonably protracted, and Moses coming upon them, as we have seen, by command of God, slew them and him together. The undesigned coincidence lies in the Elders of Moab and the Elders of Midian going to Balaam; in Midian being then mentioned no more, till Balaam, having been sent away from Moab, apparently that he might go home, is subsequently found a corpse amongst the slaughtered Midianites.