02.29.2016 Old Testament: Num 24.5–6

To read the Bible in a year, read Numbers 23–25 on February 29, In the year of our Lord 2016

By Don Ruhl

The children of Israel may have rebelled repeatedly against the Lord, but they were His people, and He led hundreds of thousands of them into a wilderness and provided food and water for them daily. Yet, the king of Moab attempted to hire a prophet to curse the Lord’s people, and when the prophet, after many attempts, finally saw that the Lord refused to curse Israel, the prophet spoke poetically of the dwellings of the children of Israel,

“How lovely are your tents, O Jacob!
Your dwellings, O Israel!
Like valleys that stretch out,
Like gardens by the riverside,
Like aloes planted by the LORD,
Like cedars beside the waters.
(Numbers 24.5–6)

Balaam the prophet did not see a people ruining the land, but a people well-ordered with everything clean, and all that they needed. Therefore, to him it was like a garden or a cedar by water that grows beautifully.

Spiritual Israel also has its enemies, and spiritual Israel also often rebels against the Lord, but we are still His people and He provides for us abundantly, and His goodness brings us back to him. Eventually our enemies will see it, even as Balaam eventually saw it.

Questions:

• Do you have a Bible?
• Do you have more than one Bible?
• Do you know who has provided it for you?