Balak sacrificed oxen and sheep and sent some to Balaam and to the officials who were with him — the feast on the eve of the first oracle establishes the social and political context of what follows: Balaam is being hosted as a diplomatic asset, the sacrifices a formal welcome honoring the foreign diviner brought at great expense from the Euphrates region. The gesture of sending portions to Balaam and the officials is the ancient Near Eastern idiom for forming a covenant meal — Balak is binding Balaam to his cause through hospitality before the formal work begins the next morning. The irony of Balak's generosity is that it will not produce the purchased result: no amount of sacrifice or hospitality can redirect the word that the LORD has determined to put in Balaam's mouth. The scene communicates that the coming oracles will not be produced by ritual or social obligation but by the divine compulsion that has overridden Balaam's own will since the donkey incident.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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