CHAPTER XXXIII.

Balaam prepares to announce the divine oracle a second time. Erection of the seven altars. The septenary sacrifices repeated. The field of Zophim. Some observations on animal sacrifice.

I SHALL now proceed to the consideration of Balaam's second prophecy. No sooner had the bard of Pethor, after the erection of the seven' altars, and the holocausts offered upon them, according no doubt to the pagan formularies, delivered the oracle which had been communicated, than Balak expressed his disappointment in terms of petulant reproach, taxing the unrighteous prophet with having run counter to his injunctions, and implying that he had wantonly done this in direct violation of an express covenant ratified by princely donations and vast promises of future aggrandizement; for it is clear by the surprise expressed, that the sovereign of Moab had no idea of the divine compulsion under which the mercenary diviner acted, against his own express determination. Balaam, unwilling to lose the rewards depending upon his execrating the posterity of Jacob, although he stated his inability to declare anything but what the Lord should "put into his mouth," signified nevertheless his readiness to make another at

tempt to render him favourable to the king's desire, probably persuading himself that as he had received the divine permission to accompany the Moabitish princes, God might still allow him to accomplish that object for which he had undertaken the journey to Balak's capital. Though the prophet had been disappointed in the revelation which he received after his first appeal to the Divinity, he no doubt hoped that the second would be attended with a result more favourable to the wish of his employer.

It is utterly impossible to interpret correctly the feelings of a man so well practised in the wiles of hypocrisy, and so hedged round by the arts and mysteries of that craft by which, as I take it, his reputation as a diviner had been chiefly gained; for though a true prophet, there can be little doubt that he was deeply skilled in the arcana of magic, since it is in the character of a magician that he was applied to by the emissaries of Balak, it being the province of such persons alone to imprecate maledictions upon an invading enemy. Still, however impossible to ascertain precisely the sentiments of this unrighteous man, there can be no question as to his anxious desire to obtain the rewards of divination, which he could only secure by obeying the king's commands; and this, I feel assured, he expected God would eventually permit him to do. Under this impression, or rather, perhaps, actuated by this hope, he accompanied the sovereign of Moab to the field of Zophim, which was on the summit of Pisgah, the highest part of the chain of mountains opposite to Jericho, on the road

from Betharan to Heshbon. Pisgah is the celebrated mount to which Moses retired immediately before his death, in order to take a view of the promised land, which extended beneath so far as the eye could reach. Here, having for a while contemplated those fertile plains, of which the numerous hosts whom he had led for upwards of forty years through the wilderness were about to take possession, he resigned his soul into the hands of him who gave it, and was buried in the valley over against Beth-Peor, but in so secret a manner, that his grave could never be discovered, lest his relics should become objects of superstitious veneration among the posterities of those whom he had so often led to conquest, and finally to that land of promise of which they ultimately obtained the inheritance, and became one of the most distinguished communities among the nations of the earth.

The field of Zophim, whither Balaam was conducted by Balak after his failure upon the high places of Baal, is said to have been a small plain near the summit of Mount Pisgah. It was supposed to be a place where sentinels were stationed in time of war to give notice of an enemy's approach. Of Pisgah, Calmet says, in in his dictionary, on the word, it “is a mountain beyond Jordan in Moab. The mountains Nebo, Pisgah, and Abarim, make but one chain near mount Peor, over against Jericho, on the road from Sinai to Heshbon. See Eusebius and Jerome on Nebo and Abarim." In the additions the following passage occurs:-" In the Hebrew

text (Deut. xxxiv. 1-3), the prospect enjoyed by Moses from Pisgah reaches from Dan north, to Zoar south; but in the Samaritan Pentateuch it is much more extensive: all the land from the river of Egypt to the river, the great river Euphrates, to the utmost sea.' This was the extent of Solomon's dominions, and the utmost bounds of the royal power of the kings of the Israelites. But another use may be made of this passage, not without its importance. Could this whole district be seen from any other mountain than Pisgah? Was this the same extent as was shown by the tempter to our Lord when exciting his ambition? All this, the utmost bounds that ever were enjoyed by the ancient kings of thy nation, from whom thou art descended; all the whole kingdom and dominion of thine ancestors will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.' This may account for the term used by St. Luke (iv. 5) rendered in our version, all the world.'

"We have had formerly occasion to regret that we have no views from the tops of mountains described to us by travellers. Such a circumstance might determine on what mountain this temptation was presented to our Lord; and perhaps, also, the order of the temptations, which is now subject to different opinions."

Balak, supposing that the prophet of Pethor, terrified at beholding the formidable array of the Israelites in the plains beneath, had blessed them under the influence of apprehension of personal consequences, conducted him to a spot in the plain of Zophim, whence he could only see a

comparatively small portion of the hostile camp. Here the seven altars were erected, and the sacrifices offered upon them as before. So solemn a preparation was excellently well calculated to give great effect to the whole transaction; and the gentile monarch appears to have had such confidence in its efficacy, that, in spite of his late disappointment, he looked forward to the realization of his wishes as a result of which there could be no reasonable question. So bent was he upon the accomplishment of the destruction of those dreaded enemies, whom he imagined would be unable to resist the potent enchantments which had been prepared to overwhelm them, that he assisted at the sacrifices with the promptest alacrity, and calmly awaited the return of the reputed magician, who had retired, as on the previous occasion, to meet the Lord Jehovah, the God of Israel, at a distance from the altars of burnt-offering.

Before we proceed, perhaps a few words will not be out of place here upon the subject of animal sacrifice. In the instance before us it was evidently made in accordance with the peculiar rites of heathen superstition; still we cannot fail to observe that it was practised through the whole term of the Jewish economy, up to the period when our blessed Lord came upon earth, to abrogate the ceremonial law and to establish a better covenant than that which had hitherto, since the fall, been imposed upon his creatures, and called, by way of eminence, the everlasting covenant, because the fruits of it were not confined to time, but were to continue throughout