Bad Prophets Hear God Too

15 December 2025  Numbers 24:2-7, 15-17

The Third Tuesday in Advent

“The oracle of one who hears what God says...” Numbers 24:4

Why isn’t there a Book of Balaam? Balaam was a prophet, too. He made it his calling card: “The oracle of Balaam, son of Beor, the oracle of the man whose eye is true, the oracle  of one who hears what God says, and knows what the Most High knows, of one who sees what the Almighty sees, in rapture and with eyes unveiled” (Numbers 24:3-4).  Good prophets hear what God says.

Of course, bad prophets do, too.

Balaam was a bad prophet. He heard what God said, alright. He reported it accurately to the people, too. But he was still a bad prophet because he didn’t walk it like he talked it. For three chapters Balak, king of Moab kept coming to Balaam, asking him to curse the Israelites who were passing through Moabite territory, and instead of telling Balak to go pound sand, Balaam kept going back to Balak, listening to his propositions, wondering if God would perhaps change His mind about what He meant to do about the Moabites. Balaam’s vacillation was encouragement to Balak to keep on asking for a curse on the Israelites. It may be one of the reasons also that the Israelites got mixed up in idolatry and cultic prostitution…again (see Numbers 25). If Balaam hadn’t waffled but done his job, maybe the Israelites would have stayed on the straight and narrow.

But Balaam heard God, right? He reported what God said accurately, right? Why wasn’t that enough? Why was Balaam a bad prophet?

It wasn’t enough because people don’t look just at the words to make up their minds whether something is true. We all look at a whole range of things, and even then we never arrive at absolute certainty. It is impossible to prove with absolute certainty that things as basic as numbers exist. We take the word of teachers and mathematicians that they do, we have our own experience and the experience of others that if we assume that numbers exist, then we can do a great many useful things, but none of these things prove beyond all doubt that there really are numbers. The same goes for moral and theological propositions. They don’t become true for us just because of the words. We look at who is speaking those words, what effect those words have had on her/him, what we can reasonably predict would happen to us, our homes, our culture if we adopted the same words. It is never enough for a prophet just to get the words right. The lives of prophets are just as much a witness as their words are.

The chief priests and the elders wanted to know who gave Jesus the authority to say the things that He said. The chief priests and the elders always got the words right – even Jesus acknowledged that (cf. Matthew 23:2-3). But when questioned by Jesus, they were unwilling to say that John the Baptist was a prophet sent by God. They waffled – they were afraid of what the people would say if they affirmed John’s witness, or if they didn’t, so they said, “We do not know” (cf. Matthew 21:27). The chief priests and the elders always got the words right, but words alone are never enough. People need to see the right words inside the right life before they are willing to say, “This is true,” and then follow.

"Balaam also, the son of Beor, the one who practiced divination, was killed with the sword by the people of Israel among the rest of their slain" (Joshua 13:22). Of course, the people of Israel killed Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, too. But there are Books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. They got more than just the words right.