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\u201cI see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel\u2026 He will crush the foreheads of Moab\u2026\u201d (Numbers 24:17)

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These are the words of the fabled prophet, Balaam.\xa0 The guy with the talking donkey.\xa0 He had been hired by King Balak of the Moabites to curse Israel.\xa0 Moab, of course, had heard the story of Israel and its God\u2014how Israel\u2019s God had defeated the Egyptians and set his people free, how God had provided for that people in the desert.\xa0 And now that people was knocking on his own doorstep.\xa0 So Balak wanted them cursed.

But Balaam was unable to curse them.\xa0 In fact, God increasingly opened Balaam\u2019s eyes to see that this people was blessed by God.\xa0 In fact, God so opened Balaam\u2019s eyes that Balaam began to see even greater things than these.\xa0 In words that resonate deeply with Jacob\u2019s blessing for his son Judah in Genesis 49, Balaam begins to see\u2014ever so faintly\u2014a ruler to come.\xa0 Not now, and not near\u2014but definitely from this people.\xa0 A ruler who would, much to Balak\u2019s terror and dismay, crush Moab. \xa0

The Israelites would eventually come to see this prophecy as a looking forward to King David, even as the blessing of Jacob over Judah in Genesis was.\xa0 Indeed David did subject the Moabites to Israel.\xa0 But slowly the hopes of another king in this same line of David also grew\u2014hopes of a Messiah and saviour of Israel who would rule with the kind of perfect justice and righteousness that the scriptures had always envisioned, but which no king had ever yet lived\u2014fallen, sinful, and human as they were.\xa0 So Balaam\u2019s distant vision took on more weight.\xa0

Some other pagan magicians from foreign nations, like Balaam was, would eventually see the star of this king rise.\xa0 Because\u2014as Balaam saw already back in the book of Numbers\u2014the rising star and scepter of this Messianic king from Israel was always about more than just Israel.\xa0 This rising ruler would be visible to the nations.\xa0 But just how would he crush his enemies?\xa0 Just how would he rule?\xa0 From the book of Numbers\u2014while we begin to see and behold him\u2014the vision remains too distant and future to really tell.\xa0 For that, we journey further on into the scriptures that prepare the way of the Lord.

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