Balak

Balak (rendered Balac in Greek and Latin forms of the name, the spelling used in the King James rendering of Revelation 2:14) is the son of Zippor and the king of Moab who, in the biblical narrative, hired the prophet Balaam to curse Israel as the people approached the land of Canaan after the exodus.

The text says that Balak sent messengers to Pethor, "which is by the River," to summon Balaam son of Beor, on the grounds that a people come out of Egypt covered the face of the earth and had settled opposite him (Numbers 22:5). The elders of Moab and Midian went with "the rewards of divination" in their hand and spoke Balak's words (Numbers 22:7), and Balak's own offer was honor and whatever Balaam named (Numbers 22:17). Balaam's answer fixes the terms of the whole episode: if Balak gave him his house full of silver and gold, he could not go beyond the word of Yahweh his God (Numbers 22:18). Balak had Balaam build seven altars and prepare seven bulls and seven rams (Numbers 23:1), and Balaam's opening oracle identifies the setting — "From Aram has Balak brought me, the king of Moab from the mountains of the East. Come, curse Jacob for me" (Numbers 23:7). Three times the attempt is made and three times it issues in blessing, until Balak's anger burns, he strikes his hands together, and protests, "I called you to curse my enemies, and, behold, you have altogether blessed them these three times" (Numbers 24:10). Balaam repeats the same limit: "If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I can't go beyond Yahweh's word" (Numbers 24:13).

Historically and geographically, Moab lay east of the Dead Sea, and the narrative places the encounters at a series of overlooks in that region, from Bamoth-baal (Numbers 22:41) to the field of Zophim on Pisgah (Numbers 23:14) to Peor (Numbers 23:28); Micah 6:5 remembers the episode by the route "from Shittim to Gilgal," the Jordan crossing opposite Jericho. Later scriptural references remember Balak in different registers. Joshua 24:9 says that Balak "arose and fought against Israel" and sent for Balaam to curse them, which is more than the Numbers narrative itself narrates. Numbers 31:16 and Revelation 2:14 connect the sequel at Peor with Balaam's counsel, though they distribute the blame differently: Revelation 2:14 says it was Balaam "who taught Balak to throw a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality," while Micah 6:5 holds the whole event up as a memorial of "the righteous acts of Yahweh."

Christian traditions read the figure differently. One common line, following Micah 6:5, treats Balak as a case study in God's sovereignty over human intent: the hired curse becomes blessing, and the king's money and altars accomplish nothing. Another, following Revelation 2:14, reads Balak and Balaam together as a type of the pressure and compromise that seduce God's people into idolatry, with Balak as the hostile power and Balaam as the corrupt teacher — a reading especially at home in churches that treat Revelation's letters as warnings to the present. Readers attentive to the Joshua 24:9 wording also note a canonical tension between a king who fought and a king who only hired a curse, and explain it variously as compression, as warfare by other means, or as separate memories of the same enmity.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.