Numbers 22

I admit that I was never much of a fan of the Shrek films, but I do think Eddie Murphy did an admirable job voicing the ingeniously-named Donkey. In fact, I'd say that his voice work, along with the musical scores by Harry Gregson-Williams (with the score for the first film co-written with John Powell), remains the high point of the series. (The low point? Well, many of the forced pop-culture jokes, dance parties, and dated references are cringeworthy, but the abominable design and animation of the human characters make Andy from the first Toy Story look downright cuddly.) Pacific Data Images, which was since been subsumed by DreamWorks Animation, actually based Donkey's design on a trio of donkeys that resided in a park behind my high school. Every now and then, I'd bike over to take a gander at these fine creatures.

The donkey belonging to Balaam, the Biblical equivalent of a quack psychic (are there any other kind?), actually proves rather astute even before he opens his mouth. Three times the angel of the Lord blocks Balaam's way, and each time, the perceptive donkey moves out of the way, causing his oblivious owner to beat the poor beast. When the animal does start talking, Balaam responds to it as if it were perfectly natural to hold conversation with a donkey. The donkey even uses rational logic to shut down Balaam's hotheaded expostulations, saying, "Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?" (verse 30). Balaam's response is merely a terse "No." You can almost imagine him seething, trying to think of another argument to hurl but totally stumped by his steed's sound reasoning. It's safe to say that God or an angel was speaking through this donkey, but it still must be embarrassing to be outwitted by a heretofore "-dumb" animal.

Anyway, the whole reason for Balaam's little jaunt is that the comically frantic Balak, king of the Moabites, is worried that the Israelites will attack him, causing him to ask Balaam to curse the Israelites. Although Balaam is far from a role model, his attitude toward God is more complex than you'd expect from a diviner. Even before the donkey incident, he acknowledges God's authority to some extent; after God tells him not to go to Balak, he says to the king's messengers, "Even if Balak gave me all the silver and gold in his palace, I could not do anything great or small to go beyond the command of the LORD my God" (verse 18).

God does end up allowing Balaam to go, but why does He get so ticked off at Balaam for following His instructions? I suspect that Balaam saw God as just one of an innumerable number of deities--and as long as he stayed in the good graces of a particular deity, he could take advantage of the "power" of that "god." However, God, as we'll soon see, has other plans for Balaam.