from WL Worcester (H Blackmer, ed.), 
The Sower.  Helps to the Study of the Bible in Home and Sunday School
 
(Boston: Massachusetts New-Church Union, n.d.)

Table of Contents
 

 

Lesson 55

Topical and Doctrinal Notes

Leading Thought: Balaam's Prophecy

As you well know, the most important thing that ever happened was the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ into the world. Ages before He came, He told people that He was going to come. The first time that this was foretold was when people began to be wicked, as related in the story of the serpent in the Garden of Eden. It was then prophesied, that "The seed of the woman shall crush the head of the serpent." (Gen. 3:15) "The seed of the woman" meant the Lord. "The head of the serpent" meant the chief evil love in people.

The people of the Ancient Church, who had the Ancient Word, knew very well about the future coming of the Lord, for the Ancient Word was full of teaching respecting this great event.

As Balaam belonged to the "sons of the East" who belonged to the Ancient Church, he also knew about the Lord's Coming.

When he saw the children of Israel in the wilderness, encamping in regular order according to their tribes and families, each tribe by their banner, and all around the holy tabernacle, he realized that this beautiful orderly arrangement of their tents and dwelling-places was in correspondence with the beautiful order according to which the societies of the angels in heaven are arranged. He saw heaven spiritually, while his natural eyes saw the encampment, and this made his mind to be filled with the spirit of heaven, so that he uttered another beautiful prophecy about the children of Israel.

He said, "How good are thy tabernacles, O Jacob, thy habitations, O Israel: as the valleys are they spread out, as gardens by the river," etc. By this are meant homes of the angels in the heavens, the "tabernacles" meaning those angelic homes where angels live who more especially love what is good, and the "habitations" meaning those angelic homes where angels live who more especially love what is true.

And while Balaam was full of the vision of heavenly things, the Lord revealed to him what would happen at the close of the history of the Israelitish people –"in the latter days" - namely, that then the Lord would come into the world: "I see Him, but not now: I behold Him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Scepter shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the sons of Sheth."

So Balaam was led, by the prophetic spirit, to foretell the Lord's Coming about 1450 years before it actually took place.

The wise men of the East who followed the star when the Lord was born were from the same country as Balaam, -- so long did these Syrian people preserve their knowledge about the Lord.

But while the star of which Balaam told, reminds us of the star that went before the wise men, until it came and stood over the place in Bethlehem, where the young child Jesus was, it really meant the Lord. So also did the "Scepter." The Lord is called a "Star" because He was the Light or the Divine Truth that was to give spiritual light to people who were in the darkness of ignorance regarding God and heaven. And He was called a "Scepter" because He was to be King, since a scepter is the symbol of kingship. Balaam's saying that this Star and Scepter was to smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the sons of Sheth meant that the Lord would fight against the hells and overcome them, and that this was the reason for His coming into the world.

Balaam's prophecy therefore tells the same truth as that first prophecy in the Garden of Eden, about the seed of the woman crushing the head of the serpent, only that it tells it in a different way. "Moab" means the evil that is in hell, and the "sons of Sheth" means the falsities that are there. A "corner" stands for power, for the power of a building, or of a chest, or an ark, etc., is in the corners, which must be especially firm. To "break the corners of Moab" therefore means to destroy the power of evil, which, at the time when the Lord came into the world, had become greater than the power of good.

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