Page:Whole works of joseph butler.djvu/98

67 In order to engage the reader's attention to this passage, the sacred historian has enumerated the preparatoiy circumstances, which are these. Balaam requires the king of Moab to build him seven altars, and to prepare him the same number of oxen and of rams. The sacrifice being over, he retires alone to a solitude sacred to these occasions, there to wait the Divine inspiration or answer, for which the foregoing rites were the preparation. "And God met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth," Num. xxiii. 4, 5; upon receiving which, he returns back to the altars, where was the king, who had all this while attended the sacrifice, as appointed, he and all the princes of Moab standing, big with expectation of the prophet's reply. "And he took up his parable, and said, Balak the king of Moab hath brought me from Aram, out of the mountains of the east, saying, Come, curse me Jacob, and come, defy Israel. How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? Or how shall I defy, whom the Lord hath not defied? For from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him: lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations. Who can count the dust of Jacob, and the number of the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his," Num. xxiii. 7—10.

It is necessary, as you will see in the progress of this discourse, particularly to observe what he understood by righteous. And he himself is introduced in the book of Micah, chap, vi., explaining it; if by righteous is meant good, as to be sure it is. "O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal." From the mention of Shittim, it is manifest that it is this very story which is here referred to, though another part of it, the account of which is not now extant; as there are many quotations in Scripture out of books which are not come down to us. "Remember what Balaam answered,