Micah’s Reference to Balaam in Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Rabbinic Perspective

• In Event: Inner-biblical Relationships and Interpretation

Abstract

The non-Israelite seer Balaam son of Beor is central in two groups of ancient texts: Numbers 22–24, where he is the hapless antagonist who tries and fails to curse Israel; and the West Semitic inscriptions at Deir ‘Alla, where he is an apocalyptic visionary. However, he also appears in the oracles of the eighth-century prophet Micah, who references him while polemicizing against foreign divination, idolatry, and vain cultic worship (Mic. 5:9–6:8). The creators of the rabbinic liturgy seized upon this connection, excerpting Micah’s words as the prophetic lectionary corresponding to the Balaam story in Numbers 22–24. In this paper, I situate Micah’s reference to Balaam in relation to these ancient Near Eastern, biblical, and rabbinic contexts. I argue that Micah is constructing authentic prophetic speech, using Balaam as a literary cipher for the non-Israelite prophecy that is to be rejected. This is remarkable in light of the formal and lexical similarities that scholars have noted between biblical prophecy and ancient Near Eastern divinatory and oracular texts, such as those from Old Babylonian Mari and Neo-Assyrian Nineveh. However, Micah mobilizes these similarities precisely in order to underscore a more fundamental divergence: whereas non-Israelite prophecy (according to Micah) attempts to influence deities to create favorable earthly circumstances, Israelite prophecy attempts to influence human beings to build a just society in genuine service to YHWH. Micah encapsulates this message in a lofty call to ethical and judicial integrity: “to do justice, to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God” (Mic. 6:8). Presented by Micah as the essence of authentic prophecy, this verse became the dramatic conclusion of the rabbinically orchestrated prophetic lectionary for Numbers 22–24. Indeed, Micah’s harsh assessment of Balaam as the paradigmatic false prophet seems to have had a broad influence on the rabbis, for whom Balaam is far more of a villain than the Pentateuch alone would suggest. I argue that in pairing Micah’s sinister presentation of Balaam with its somewhat satirical pentateuchal counterpart, the rabbis liturgically affirm Micah’s literary construction of authentic prophetic speech.

Author

• Ethan Schwartz, Harvard University