Make An Ass of Yourself: A Queer Reading of Numbers 22:21-35
Mary Kyner
Introduction
I chose this text for my exegetical essay and queer interpretation for a number of reasons. The most significant one is that this story was one of the first ones that I encountered in college that allowed me to challenge the conservative white Christianity that I was indoctrinated in while growing up. Balaam’s entire narrative, which spans chapters 22-24, shows a very personal relationship that God has with a non-Israelite, to the point that Balaam is described in similar ways to various Hebrew prophets. Balaam was described as “having “the word” of God put in his mouth (22:38) and ‘the spirit of God [coming] upon him’ before he utters his oracle (24:2).”[i] The existence of Balaam’s story in Numbers queers the conservative Christian narrative that surrounds the conquest narratives. Beyond that, Balaam’s blessings to Israel are some of the most “lavish words of blessing and promise in the entire Pentateuch,” which are given through a foreign prophet, a seer, an outsider.[ii] How fascinating that these blessings are given by Balaam, not to the people of Israel but to a foreign king, with the Israelites being completely passive actors in the narrative, unaware of the situation.
But that is all about the entirety of Balaam’s narrative. This paper does not focus on all of this text, just on one of the narratives within it. The story of Balaam’s ass is one of my favorites. My queer interpretation of this text comes from my own queer identity as a queer person, approaching “the Bible as a text to be interrogated for the ways in which it is read to support the heteronormative-regulating regime.”[iii] As a theologian, as a scholar, as a Christian, I approach the Bible as a conversation partner. The Bible converses and debates with itself, why should that conversation and debate end simply because the pages did? The Bible the story of God’s love for creation, and it offers understanding of who God is and who we can be in response. However, the Bible is not infallible and not to be read without question or suspicion. It has long been used to justify murder, genocide, oppression, slavery, white supremacy, and more. The Bible contains such a diverse array of texts, authors, and perspectives that one can read anything that they want to out of it through prooftexting.
As a result, my criteria for approaching Scripture is that of suspicion and grace; questioning the perspectives that have led to harm (of people, creation, and community), but open to understanding different approaches to the texts as my perspective is limited to my own experience as a white, American, middle-class, educated, queer, mainly female-identifying person. It is important to bring your own experience to interpretation, as it is impossible to separate it from yourself and trying to do so will only lead to false claims of universality and assumptions based on privilege and continued upholding of the status quo.[iv] Yet, it is also important to read other interpretations and perspectives on Scripture, as God speaks in a number of ways to a number of people (as evidenced by the diversity of perspectives within Scripture itself), and one passage of Scripture can provide a wealth of varied interpretations and understandings. A major part of my personal hermeneutic is to question whether the interpretation silences or oppresses any person or community. My understanding of God’s story with creation is that of a Queer God, in that God queers the narrative; choosing the underdog, using tricksters rather than warriors, bringing the Messiah on the back of a donkey rather than a stallion. God queers; God flips the script and does the unexpected thing, breaking down the categories and systems upon which the oppressive binary status quo is founded, reaches out and sides with those on the margins, those oppressed, marginalized, silenced. Balaam is an interesting character to me because it could be read in a number of queer interpretations, but my focus is on Balaam’s ass for this paper, and the queer interpretation I find within this text.
Text: Numbers 22:21-35
[v] So Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey, and went with the officials of Moab. God’s anger was kindled because he was going, and the angel of the Lord took his stand in the road as his adversary. Now he was riding on the donkey, and his two servants were with him. The donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road, with a drawn sword in his hand; so the donkey turned off the road, and went into the field; and Balaam struck the donkey, to turn it back onto the road. Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path between the vineyards, with a wall on either side. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it scraped against the wall, and scraped Balaam’s foot against the wall; so he struck it again. Then the angel of the Lord went ahead, and stood in a narrow place, where there was no way to turn either to the right or to the left. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it lay down under Balaam; and Balaam’s anger was kindled, and he struck the donkey with his staff. Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and it said to Balaam, “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?”[vi] Balaam said to the donkey, “Because you have made a fool of me! I wish I had a sword in my hand! I would kill you right now!” But the donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your donkey, which you have ridden all your life to this day? Have I been in the habit of treating you this way?” And he said, “No.” Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road, with his drawn sword in his hand; and he bowed down, falling on his face. The angel of the Lord said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? I have come out as an adversary, because your way is perverse before me. The donkey saw me, and turned away from me these three times. If it had not turned away from me, surely just now I would have killed you and let it live.”
Then Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, “I have sinned, for I did not know that you were standing in the road to oppose me. Now therefore, if it is displeasing to you, I will return home.” The angel of the Lord said to Balaam, “Go with the men; but speak only what I tell you to speak.” So Balaam went on with the officials of Balak.[vii]
Sermon
This passage is known as the story of Balaam’s ass. I had actually never heard this story growing up, which was weird because Sunday School was pretty serious about being biblically literate. So when I encountered this passage in college, I loved it.[viii]
I don’t know about y’all, but I’m not very familiar with the experience of riding a donkey. And by not very familiar, I mean I have never ridden a donkey. I’m much more familiar with riding things with wheels. Specifically cars. My parents would take our family on long roadtrips when we were younger, and it always made me fall asleep. Yet, sometimes I would be jerked awake by Dad slamming on the brakes or Mom swerving sharply. I don’t wake up gracefully, I’m more like a bear coming out of hibernation, so I would inevitably get really mad that this jolt woke me up or slowed us down. I’m sure all of us have similar experiences of frustration and anger with car rides. And eventually we realize that these stops and swerves aren’t just to sling us around in the car, but that the driver is trying to protect us, to avoid obstacles and dangers in the road which we do not see.
Likewise, the donkey in this passage can see the danger that Balaam is blind to. She, and yes the donkey is a she, swerves to avoid the obvious danger, and finally stops because there is no way to go around. Rather than being grateful towards his donkey for saving his life multiple times, Balaam gets mad because she inconvenienced him. He does not realize the danger that she avoided and merely knows the jolt of the maneuver.
Yet, the story of Balaam does not start or end with this passage. It starts earlier in Numbers, when a king asks Balaam to come and curse the Israelites so that he can defeat them in battle. Balaam at first refuses because God tells him to, but the second time God tells him to go. So Balaam goes. And God’s anger is kindled against him! This may seem like God is being a little unreasonable to Balaam since God did just tell him to go, but it actually makes sense in context. Kings who requested the services of seers or advisors often want to hear a certain message, they think that their money should purchase unlimited access to manipulate the divine power however they want. If they didn’t get what they wanted, the kings would often fire those who displeased them, or had them killed. So Balaam is caught between a rock and a hard place in this passage. He wants to obey God, but he risks unemployment or, more likely, death if he doesn’t give King Balak what he wants. God knows that this conflict is within Balaam, and God encounters Balaam on the road with the angel as a result.[ix]
Ironically, Balaam the seer is blind to God’s messenger, and he obstinately continues on, powering through despite the odd reactions of his reliable donkey. In fact, he blames the donkey for acting weird and starts hitting her to get her to obey him. Just like an athlete pushes their bodies past their limits into injury, Balaam ignores the signs of danger.
It is not until the donkey lays down in the road that Balaam finally erupts and is rebuked by the animal. She calls him out on hitting her and reminds him that she doesn’t act this way normally, so something must be the matter. Only after the donkey rebukes the seer does God open his eyes and allow Balaam to see the danger that his donkey had protected him from. Then, the angel starts rebuking him for hitting the donkey! Balaam recognizes his own ignorance and repents, offering to return home if that was God’s will for him.
However, God does not just send Balaam home, and Balaam’s story does not end here. God re-ups Balaam’s call by telling him to “speak only what I tell you to speak.” Balaam continues on to meet with the King and to speak the most elaborate blessings upon Israel found within the entire Pentateuch. God does not reject Balaam because of his struggle and obstinance, God uses Balaam to promise blessings upon God’s people, to thwart the ill intentions of Balak, and to accomplish God’s will in the world. Rather than King Balak manipulating God through Balaam and cursing Israel, God uses kings and prophets and seers to accomplish God’s will.
A calling from God does not mean that someone has free rein to do whatever they wish.[x] Just like riding as the passenger in a car, we cannot jerk the wheel to our side of the dashboard and start driving for ourselves. Balaam could not steer the donkey or see ahead to the danger in the road. Just like the donkey lay down in the road, Balaam must lay down his own desires and allow God to use him according to God’s will. “Not my will but thine be done” is a difficult prayer to embody. It requires us to let go of the wheel, to give up control, to trust. And what does God’s will look like?
For too long, the church has obstinately powered down the path that they created, manipulated God’s word into that which it is not meant to be. The church, OUR church, has twisted the gospel to justify slavery, colonialism, racism, genocide, bigotry, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, nationalism, supremacy, and oppression. This is not God’s kingdom. This is not God’s will.[xi]
We too often will be Balaam, blindly trying to power past God’s plan for us to what we think it should be. We live in a sinful world, where we constantly face the hard choices of the rock or the hard place, where our desire to live into God’s will clashes with our instinctual desire to fall in line with the establishment’s plans, with the institutional traditions, to cling to power and privilege where we have it. Or, we may believe that what we are doing is following God’s command, but if that obedience comes with the abuse of others and the refusal to listen to different perspectives, we are the blind seers abusing our asses, barreling toward sword-drawn angels.[xii]
And yet, we must strive to be the donkey.[xiii] We can see the dangers the church and our communities face in continuing down this path of systematic oppression and injustice. We must veer our communities off the familiar path of tradition and allow God to direct our journey according to God’s will. This often will include anger and frustration, we will suffer as people chafe at being forced out of their comfort zones, off the beaten path, as they don’t get what they want or expect. And yet, this suffering is not new. People for so long have suffered for challenging the orthodoxy and the status quo of the church, for deviating from the “path,” for daring to exist outside of the accepted binaries and narratives of Christian life. This suffering has happened, and it will happen, but it does not have to be endured in silence. Just as the donkey rebukes Balaam for his abuse, we can speak out against those who abuse us when we do God’s will.[xiv] And just as the angel speaks out on behalf of the donkey, we must speak out with and advocate for those abused by the harmful theology and practices of the Church.[xv]
Like Balaam and the donkey, we must speak. We must speak the Truth of the Gospel, the Truth of God’s kingdom, the Truth of grace, justice, and love. Like Balaam, like the donkey, we must lay down our desires before God and allow ourselves to be instruments of God’s will. And like the angel, we must advocate for the care and health of those abused by the oppressive approaches and practices within our community.
Therefore, may we seek to make asses of ourselves. May we open our eyes to see and our ears to hear. May we truly embody the prayer “thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”
Amen.
Works Cited
Clark-Soles, Jaime. Engaging the Word: The New Testament and the Christian Believer. Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010.
Dozeman, Thomas B. “Numbers.” In Numbers – Samuel Vol. 2 of The New Interpreter’s Bible, edited by Leander E. Keck, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998. 3-196
Elwell, Sue Levi. “Numbers.” In The Queer Bible Commentary, edited by Deryn Guest, London: SCM. 2006. 105-117.
Kamionkowski, S. Tamar. “Queer Theory and Historical-Critical Exegesis: Queering Biblicists -- A Response.” In Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship, eds. Teresa J. Hornsby and Ken Stone, Semeia Studies, Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. 2011. 131-137.
Levine, Baruch A. Numbers 21-36. 1st Edition edition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
Lorde, Audre. “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action.”
Olson, Dennis T. “Numbers 22-24.” In Numbers from Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, Louisville: John Knox Press, 1996. 140-151.
Sakenfeld, Katherine Doob. “Numbers.” In The Women's Bible Commentary, edited by Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, and Alumni Collection, Louisville, Ky: Princeton Theological Seminary, 1992. 79-83.
Stubbs, David L. “God Blesses Israel Through Balak and Balaam.” In Numbers, Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2009. 175-196.
Notes
[i] David L. Stubbs, “God Blesses Israel Through Balak and Balaam,” In Numbers (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2009): 180.
[ii] Dennis Olson, “Numbers 22-24,” in Numbers from Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1996): 140.
[iii] S. Tamar Kamionkowski, “Queer Theory and Historical-Critical Exegesis: Queering Biblicists -- A Response,” in Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship, edited by Teresa J. Hornsby and Ken Stone, Semeia Studies, (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. 2011): 132.
[iv] Jaime Clark-Soles, Engaging the Word: The New Testament and the Christian Believer (Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010): 32.
[v] There is debate on where this pericope should begin, at verse 21 or 22 (Levine, 153). I chose verse 21 as the beginning of the periscope because it forms an inclusion with verse 35b. In addition, when this passage begins with verse 21, the Hebrew verb v’yakam reminds the reader of yet another Hebrew Bible narrative within which an animal plays a significant part. In Genesis 22, Abraham also arises early to bring Isaac to Mount Moriah (Elwell, 166).
[vi] The ass is the first animal to speak in the Hebrew Bible since the Serpent in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3 (Elwell, 116).
[vii] In terms of historicity, although that is not the focus of this paper, extrabiblical evidence of Balaam’s existence was found in 1967 with the discovery at Deir ‘Alla (Stubbs, 178).
[viii] One of the things I love most about this story is the irony within it through the reversal of roles, which is of particular appeal to queer readers, particularly myself. God uses a pack animal, an ass, to “teach Balaam a lesson,” and so the famed seer is blind and the dumb animal sees clearly the Lord’s messenger (Elwell, 117). This story queers the status quo, flips the script. This speaks to me as a queer reader.
[ix] This is only one interpretation of this passage within the Balaam narrative. Some argue that this passage was post-exilic writing added later as an attempt to negatively portray Balaam (Stubbs, 183). Yet, this is hotly debated and regardless of the dating of the passages, they have been edited into a meaningful narrative as a whole. The three encounters with the angel in this passage mirror the three times Balak is hindered by Balaam later, and Balaam’s entire narrative of this trip and the later blessings “are permeated by the theme of ‘seeing’ and ‘not seeing’” (Stubbs, 183). Furthermore, the addition of a seemingly unexpected encounter with God’s anger is not unique in the Bible. Jacob wrestled with God’s angel after being told to return to Canaan (Gen 32:22-32), Moses was almost killed by God on his way to Egypt (Exod 4:24), Joshua encountered the angelic commander (Josh 5:13) (Olson, 144). Therefore, its inclusion in Balaam’s narrative does not exclude him from being an important person in the story of Israel.
[x] Stubbs argues that Balaam is an example of “both the miracle of grace and the depths of human sin” in that even those who encounter God’s grace can turn away through rationalizations or compromises into “trying to use and manipulate the power of God for one’s own purposes” (Stubbs, 187).
[xi] Religion generally and Christianity particularly have been criticized, rightly so, as “involving the manipulation of God for one’s own purposes” (Stubbs, 188), with these purposes often being the accumulation and retention of power at the expense of those who deviate from and challenge the heteronormative, cisgender, white, patriarchal hegemony.
[xii] The entirety of Numbers is set in the wilderness, which thus becomes a place of learning, of growth. The Israelites (and we as well) ask over and over “To whose opinion should we listen about the way forward? How are we called to express our resistance to the present scene, while preparing for the right moment for change yet to come?” (Sakenfeld, 81). In order for these questions to be answered, they must not be asked in homogenous spaces, and they must continually be asked over and over as our community and the world grow, change, become ever more diverse. If not, we risk unintentionally (or even deliberately) oppressing and silencing others, as this passage shows.
[xiii] The entire narrative of Balaam, but particularly this narrative, challenges our understanding of how and where the Spirit of God works. It “pushes the boundaries for discerning the Spirit of God in the world” (Dozeman, 186).
[xiv] As Audre Lorde’s article “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” argues, speaking is an important thing in and of itself, “even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood” (Lorde, 40). Silence is not a guarantee of protection, but by speaking out, we can come into contact and form community with others who resonate with our truths and whose truths resonate with us in turn. We can find community in the diversity and vulnerability of speaking up and speaking out. And, in turn, we have a responsibility to seek out the words of those marginalized and silenced, to listen to and share those words, to reflect on them, to be transformed and impacted by them (Lorde, 43).
[xv] The first thing that the angel says in this narrative is in defense of the donkey, berating Balaam for his abuse towards her (Dozeman, 185).