Weird Stuff in the Bible

Did Balaam try to create portals to hell?
Numbers 23-25

Introduction
When Balaam was asked to curse Israel, God gave a pretty clear NOPE
If you don’t remember the story, King Balak of the Moabites comes to Balaam and says, “I want you to climb up on this mountain above the camp of the Israelites and curse them for me so that they aren’t a threat to my people.” And he offers Balaam a lot of money to do this.
And Balaam prays about it repeatedly and begs God for permission to do this. And like I said, God shot it down. At least at first.
When He actually allowed Balaam to go up on that mountain, it was with the stipulation that he could only say what God allowed him to say.
Now, what was the big deal with Balaam going up on this mountain? If some guy wants to climb up on a big hill and yell his head off saying mean things about you, what’s the harm in that? I mean, we might kind of scoff at him and say, “what an idiot,” but we probably aren’t that worried about it. Cory Booker got up and yelled his head off for 25 hours straight. Didn’t have any effect on my life and probably not anybody else’s either. As the old saying goes, sticks and stones could break my bones, but words can never hurt me. So why should we care about Balaam doing the same thing?
Well obviously, Balak thinks it would be pretty significant; he’s willing to shell out a lot of money only to have Balaam curse the Israelites.
And God clearly didn’t treat Balaam’s attempted curse on the people of Israel as empty words or hokey superstition.
Was there something deeper going on behind Balaam’s actions?
I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why it’s in the Bible.
Turn to Numbers 23, and let’s get weird.
[theme music]

Failed Curses
Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and today we’re going to be talking about what exactly happened when Balaam went up on a mountain to curse Israel.
What was so significant about speaking negative or mean words over a bunch of people encamped in a valley?
And why Balaam? If speaking a curse is all it takes to make someone’s military collapse, why didn’t Balak himself or one of his men just hop up there and say it?
I think a big clue comes up in the verses that describe the first thing that happened as Balaam got up on this mountain.
Numbers 23:1-2
And Balaam said to Balak, “Build for me here seven altars, and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams.” 2 Balak did as Balaam had said. And Balak and Balaam offered on each altar a bull and a ram.
Seven altars and sacrifices for each one of them.
Now, we spent a few episodes a month or two ago talking about the significance of altars in the Old Testament and what they did spiritually. Now, some of this could be considered conjecture but I think I established a pretty clear link across the Bible between altars and spiritual gates.
Now, if you did not listen to any of those episodes, they were episodes 61-64. They are probably a little “out there” for some people. What is a spiritual gate? A spiritual gate is a point of connection or portal between the physical realm and the spiritual realm. In fact, these are the main points I tried to establish in those episodes.
1- for spiritual beings to pass between our realm and the spiritual realm, they can’t just pop in anywhere they want to. There has to be a way made through; a gate.
2- there are gates of heaven and gates of hell, and these are for the angels/good spiritual beings and the demons/bad spiritual beings
3- the gates are tied to physical locations on planet earth
4- once the gates open, they stay open until they are closed.
5- the gates are opened by activating an altar and their continued existence is tied to that altar.
And so to demonstrate this, we looked at how Abraham went to a placed called Bethel and established an altar to the Lord there. Years later, Jacob his grandson is passing through this spot and has a vision of a gate of heaven right here with angels ascending and descending on this spot. This becomes a holy site in Israel for hundreds of years, until King Jeroboam pollutes the altar by offering unauthorized pagan sacrifices on it, and from then on, this part of Israel is cursed, and God says through the prophets that this altar must be destroyed. And again, we went through that whole history of Bethel in that series of episodes.
So how are the altars activated? We see them activated through sacrifice, anointing or worship of God. That’s how the good altars are activated, anyway. This creates a gate of heaven.
But there can also be gates of hell opened by altars to false or evil gods. So bad altars can be activated by- again- sacrifice, or sexual immorality, broken covenants or idolatrous worship. Sin. This opens gates of hell.
I want to take that philosophy now and apply it to what’s going on with Balaam. So let me read
Numbers 23:1-2 again
And Balaam said to Balak, “Build for me here seven altars, and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams.” 2 Balak did as Balaam had said. And Balak and Balaam offered on each altar a bull and a ram.
Balaam has 7 altars and 7 sacrifices prepared. So what we see here is that Balaam is preparing to open up some spiritual gates.
Now, you may have noticed that there is one thing that can activate both good altars and bad altars, and that is sacrifices. Sacrifices can be offered both to God and to false gods in the Scriptures.
So what Balaam is essentially doing here is preparing to summon spirits. But good spirits or bad spirits? It all depends on what he says as he activates these altars. Will he dedicate these to God, or will he dedicate them to a god of the Moabites?
If he dedicates them to God, he will probably open gates of heaven and bring angels to bless Israel. If he dedicate these altars to a bad purpose, he will probably summon evil spirits who will go down to curse Israel.
Remember: this is not just superstition. God knows that when Balaam speaks, something is going to happen. That’s why God was prepared to literally kill Balaam as balaam came up the mountain. (I’m assuming you have some familiarity with this story, but if not, go back to episodes 16-18. God was literally going to kill Balaam rather than let him go up there, and finally, God says he can only go up, but to only say what God allows him to say.)
This is why Balaam was chosen and hired to do this curse. Balak didn’t know what to do. He didn’t understand the mechanics of opening spiritual gates. It said in verse 1, “And Balaam said to Balak, ‘Build for me here seven altars…’” See, Balaam had the knowledge of how the spiritual realm works.
And so by the time we get to the end of verse 2, we are somewhat in suspense: what is Balaam going to decide to say?
Numbers 23:3-12
3 And Balaam said to Balak, “Stand beside your burnt offering, and I will go. Perhaps the Lord will come to meet me, and whatever he shows me I will tell you.” And he went to a bare height, 4 and God met Balaam. And Balaam said to him, “I have arranged the seven altars and I have offered on each altar a bull and a ram.” 5 And the Lord put a word in Balaam's mouth and said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.” 6 And he returned to him, and behold, he and all the princes of Moab were standing beside his burnt offering. 7 And Balaam took up his discourse and said,
“From Aram Balak has brought me,
    the king of Moab from the eastern mountains:
‘Come, curse Jacob for me,
    and come, denounce Israel!’
8 How can I curse whom God has not cursed?
    How can I denounce whom the Lord has not denounced?
9 For from the top of the crags I see him,
    from the hills I behold him;
behold, a people dwelling alone,
    and not counting itself among the nations!
10 Who can count the dust of Jacob
    or number the fourth part of Israel?
Let me die the death of the upright,
    and let my end be like his!”
11 And Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, and behold, you have done nothing but bless them.” 12 And he answered and said, “Must I not take care to speak what the Lord puts in my mouth?”
So Balaam passed the test. Balaam spoke the exact words that God wanted him to say.
And in fact, Balaam passes the test two more times. Because it follows right after this in
Numbers 23:13-14
13 And Balak said to him, “Please come with me to another place, from which you may see them. You shall see only a fraction of them and shall not see them all. Then curse them for me from there.” 14 And he took him to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
And they repeat the process again, and balaam blesses Israel again. And Balak tries it one more time, and then Balaam blesses Israel two more times. Finally, it says in
Numbers 24:10
10 And Balak's anger was kindled against Balaam, and he struck his hands together. And Balak said to Balaam, “I called you to curse my enemies, and behold, you have blessed them these three times.
So God had put such a hedge of protection around Israel that they were now more unstoppable than ever.
Now, Balak had the right idea if he wanted to stunt Israel’s progress as they were marching through the wilderness, conquering their enemies left and right. Balak was right to look at this as a spiritual battle, and if he wanted to change the outcome, he was right to seek a spiritual answer. Spiritual problems require spiritual solutions. So I give Balak some credit for knowing that.
But now Israel’s spiritual hedge of protection is more impervious than ever. I call it a “hedge of protection” because that’s a callback to Job 1, where Satan could not attack Job because Job had God’s hedge of protection around him. Job was safe.
I believe the devil wants to do things to you and I. In fact, I believe if you’re a born again saved believer, the devil would literally kill you if he could. You are such a threat to the Kingdom of Darkness, you carry so much authority to conquer the enemy, that if he could, he would outright murder each and every last one of us.
But he can’t, because we have a hedge of protection.

A Successful Curse
And that’s why Balak needed a Plan B. Plan A didn’t work. Plan A blew up in his face. But Balak was not out of plans. Balak has some of the Midianite women of his kingdom infiltrate the camp of the Israelites. He couldn’t attack them from the mountain. But he gets the best-looking Moabite supermodels to go down there and strut their stuff and infiltrate from within. Let’s pick up the story in the next chapter at
Numbers 25:1-3
While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. 2 These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. 3 So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.
The men see these beautiful women walking around their camp and they lose all self-control. They totally forget about their mission, they totally forget about right and wrong, and they immediately go after the women and neglect everything else. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on them, I guess James Bond falls for this same trick in like half his movies. However, God’s not gonna give them a pass on this.
Numbers 25:4-5
4 And the Lord said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people and hang them in the sun before the Lord, that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.” 5 And Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor.”
Wow. God says to kill every last one of these men. Slaughter them. Sword first, ask questions later. No tolerance. They have “yoked themselves to Baal of Peor.”
This incident becomes known as the Baal of Peor incident throughout the rest of the Bible, or the time that Israel “joined” themselves to Baal of Peor. If you’re familiar with this podcast, you probably know by now that Baal is a name for Satan. And in mixing themselves with this idolatrous pagan worship, they have joined themselves to Satan.
A note on pagan worship in the ancient times. In both of the Testaments, it was common practice for the pagan people to have sexual relations with each other in the temples of their gods. There were often the "cult shrine prostitutes,” male and female, who engaged in sexual activity at the high places or the temples of false gods.
In the city of Corinth, there was a Temple of Aphrodite. Paul was warning the people in his letter not to visit the prostitutes of Aphrodite’s Temple because your body is a Temple of the Holy Spirit, and you don’t want to join the Holy Spirit with sin and idolatry and sexual immorality. Keep the Temple of your body pure.
Now, remember what else we’ve discussed about spiritual gates and altars. One of the ways that pagans try to activate their altars is with sexual immorality. It literally pollutes the land according to Leviticus 18, which is language associated with altars that are activated in worship of false gods.
So at this time in Numbers 25, where is the Holy Spirit residing? This is Old Testament; He did not reside within each believer the way He does today. At this time, the Holy Spirit dwelt in the Tabernacle, in the center of Israel’s camp, where the altar of sacrifice to God was. Where, based on what we’ve studied, there must be a spiritual portal to heaven because God constantly dwells in this place of the Holy of Holies. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that this is probably the most important location on planet earth at this time- probably the holiest site on planet earth.
And in what I find to be a terrifying moment of Israel’s history, one of these Israelite men tries to take a Moabite woman into God’s Tabernacle and have sexual relations there. She probably said, “Hey, we’ve been having sex in my god’s temple so many times; let’s go do it in your gods tabernacle.” And I call this terrifying moment because I believe this came very close to defiling the tabernacle and corrupting a gate of heaven, just like what happened at Bethel in I Kings 13.
Numbers 25:6
6 And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping in the entrance of the tent of meeting.
It’s hard for me to even imagine the audacity right here. Perhaps the man doesn’t quite understand what he’s doing but he’s totally caught up in lust, and I think this whole thing was a plot of Satan.
Numbers 25:7-9
7 When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand 8 and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. Thus the plague on the people of Israel was stopped. 9 Nevertheless, those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.
Would that we had more men like Phinehas. Would that your pastor would be a man as bold as Phinehas to put a stop to sin before it gets any more out of control. (It said he thrust both of them through with one stab of the spear, so it’s not that hard to figure out what they were doing.) Oh that God would raise up more Phinehases in our world. Phineai? I’m not sure what the plural of Phinehas is. But I hope you’ll be a Phinehas. Or at least a Ferb.
Phinehas saw a problem, and he dealt with it. And yet, even by this point, 24,000 Israelites got themselves killed because of this grievous sin of what they did with the women of Moab.

THE LESSON
And so here is what I think the lesson here is. Balak couldn’t curse Israel up on the mountain. They had that divine protection. But he figured out a way to get Israel to curse themselves.
When Balak’s Plan A didn’t work, how did he get this idea for Plan B?
In Numbers 31:15-16, Moses spoke about this incident, saying:
Look, these women caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the Lord in the incident of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.
He got it from Balaam. This is why Balaam was hired. Balaam wanted that money. He said to Balak when they got done up on that mountain, “I’m sorry, I can’t directly attack them for you. Their spiritual protection was too great.”
But Balaam didn’t miss his chance to stab them in the back- and probably collected a payday out of it as well. He told Balak: we can’t curse them directly. But if you can get some of your women into their camp and seduce the men and get them to whore after other gods, then you don’t have to curse them. God will curse them Himself.
Again, this is why balaam was hired and not some random Joe. Balaam knew how the spiritual realm operated. He knew about how to curse Israel indirectly. And if Balaam knows this little trick, don’t you think the devil knows it too and could use it against you.
Even if the devil can’t curse you, if he can tempt you into sin, then God will curse you.
The devil might not always be able to hurt you directly, but through sin he can cause you to hurt yourself.
Balak and Balaam couldn’t cause even one Israelite to fall. But they knew how to get them to sin, to step out of God’s protection, and then they got 24,000 Israelites killed.

NEXT TIME AND MAILBAG
The New Testament warns us about this as well in Revelation 2, the letter to the church at Pergamum, in which it warns us about those who follow the Doctrine of Balaam.
Because I want to keep these podcast episodes as short as I can, I will not discuss the doctrine of Balaam here, but I’m going to send out a teaching on it in this week’s newsletter. If you haven’t signed up for the newsletter yet, go to the show notes and you can find a link to sign yourself up. All you have to put in is your email address. I don’t need your name. I’m not trying to sell you any products. I have no products to sell. Not yet, anyway.
And if you find this episode later on, you can use that same link to revisit past newsletters so you can find the post about the doctrine of Balaam. It’s set to go out on Sunday afternoon.
Next time on this podcast, it’s actually going to be released during Holy Week. I had a plan to talk about prayers of binding and loosing again, but I’m going to hold off on that a week or two because I’d like to speak about something more Christ-focused during that significant week on the Christian calendar. So please, make sure you’re subscribed so you can get it!
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Closing Thoughts
So again, Balaam’s advice to Balak was this: we can’t curse the Israelites directly. But if you can get some of your women into their camp and seduce the men and get them to whore after other gods, then you don’t have to curse them. God will curse them Himself. In fact, they came pretty close, I believe, to corrupting the Tabernacle and cutting off God’s presence within the camp of Israel itself.
If they had been successful, if not for Phinehas’ quick thinking, I wouldn’t be surprised if every last Israelite got wiped out in that desert. I think they came that close. I think they almost had a situation like what happened at Bethel, where the gate of heaven was corrupted and became a hotspot of evil and wickedness.
This will not be the last time we speak on portals, I’m sure, because we’ll see this concept come up again in more stories of the Bible. But I think we understand now why Balaam was hired in the first place.
He understood how the spiritual realm worked. He understood about creating portals for demons and how to corrupt a gate of heaven. He was a spiritual terrorist; I think I called him the Osama Bin Laden of the Old Testament in a past episode. He was a terrorist mastermind with a deep understanding of spiritual warfare. And again, I’m sure the devil himself uses these same tactics against us.
But we also learn about the limitations of the enemy’s power in this story. The devil cannot curse us directly. He cannot do everything to us that he’d like to. What we learn from Israel encamped there in the valley is that when we stay near God’s presence and hang with each other, we have a spiritual protection over our lives. God has protected us from things that we didn’t even know about.
The vulnerability to attack comes in when we allow Satan that access to our lives. Satan can’t derail God’s plan for your life, and neither can anyone else. Only you can do that. So stay faithful. Stay away from sin. And stay weird.
Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time on Weird Stuff in the Bible.