Numbers: Faith, Law, and History

The Star Out of Jacob

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Start Out of Jacob

Genre:

Track: 45

Dictation Name: RR181Y45

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. Give unto the Lord O ye kindreds of the people. Give unto the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name. Bring an offering, and come into his courts. O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, fear before Him all the earth. It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High, to show forth thy loving kindness in the morning and thy faithfulness every night. Let us pray.

O Lord, our God, we give thanks unto thee that as we face all these evils and burdens of this world, we have the assurance that thy government, thy purpose prevailing in and through and over all. We come therefore to commit ourselves afresh into thine omnipotent and thy loving hands. Guide us, we beseech thee, day by day. Watch over our loved ones and deliver them from evil. Make them thine and set thy seal upon them. Bless us now as we give ourselves to the worship of thee, to the study of thy word and to the joy of thy spirit. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is Numbers 24:1-19. Numbers 24:1-19. Our subject: The Star Out of Jacob. “And when Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, he went not, as at other times, to seek for enchantments, but he set his face toward the wilderness. And Balaam lifted up his eyes, and he saw Israel abiding in his tents according to their tribes; and the spirit of God came upon him. And he took up his parable, and said, Balaam the son of Beor hath said, and the man whose eyes are open hath said: He hath said, which heard the words of God, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open: How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river's side, as the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters. He shall pour the water out of his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters, and his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted. God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn: he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows. He couched, he lay down as a lion, and as a great lion: who shall stir him up? Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee.

And Balak's anger was kindled against Balaam, and he smote his hands together: and Balak said unto Balaam, I called thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast altogether blessed them these three times. Therefore now flee thou to thy place: I thought to promote thee unto great honour; but, lo, the Lord hath kept thee back from honour. And Balaam said unto Balak, Spake I not also to thy messengers which thou sentest unto me, saying, If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the commandment of the Lord, to do either good or bad of mine own mind; but what the Lord saith, that will I speak? And now, behold, I go unto my people: come therefore, and I will advertise thee what this people shall do to thy people in the latter days. And he took up his parable, and said, Balaam the son of Beor hath said, and the man whose eyes are open hath said: He hath said, which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the most High, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open: I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth. And Edom shall be a possession, Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies; and Israel shall do valiantly. Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remaineth of the city.”

We come now to the third and fourth prophesies of Balaam. He had come to see that God was not permitting him to compromise, and so now he determined to go through with all that God required of him, at least for the moment.

The third prophesy is in verses 5-9 and it is prefixed by the statement, in verses 1-4, that Balaam now discarded all the occult rites whereby he had previously sought to control God. Now, until this point, we had not been openly told that he made such attempts, but all men in every age who seek to control God result to some kind of method where they hope to twist God’s arm. Now with his eyes fully opened, in the religious sense, Balaam for the moment realized that God controlled him, not he God. All false religions, whatever names they bear, are marked by this hope somehow to control God. Some have, in the Christian era, repeatedly formulated doctrines of the church which, in effect have as their purpose to channel God through their institutions, and this is a form of idolatry, and they seek to control the people and to control God. They are idol worshippers.

Balaam’s words begin with a glowing description of Israel. The encampment is viewed from a high place. The lovely trees and waters within and around Israel’s location are described. This is taken as a sign of its future, a blessed one. Then Balaam speaks of Israel’s posterity or seed, as pouring out by the bucketful. “His king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalter.” Abraham had been told that his posterity, meaning those sharing his faith, would be as the stars, innumerable. Both predictions look at God’s faithful people in every age; past, present, and future. The strength of God’s people will be like that of a unicorn, that is, a wild ox or a buffalo. He shall totally destroy his enemies, crushing them, as though they were nothing before him. He is also compared, once again, to a great lion who no one in their right mind, no one will arouse.

Then Balaam says of the Israel of God, the true kingdom of God in every age, “Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee.” God’s kingdom is that by which men and nations stand or fall. We are given the key to the theology of blessing and cursing in Genesis 12:1-3. “Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Now, the first premise of God’s statement is the requirement of obedience. A break must be made with one’s family and past in terms of doing the will of God. God’s calling of Abraham was an act of sovereign grace. Abraham’s response must be obedience.

Then second, given this obedience, God will build His kingdom on Abraham’s faith and make of him a great nation, the kingdom of God. Faithful Abraham and his faithful seed shall be a blessing to all the world. Abraham’s seed is Christ, and in Christ, they which be on faith are blessed with faithful Abraham, Paul says{?}

Then third, all families or nations of the earth shall be blessed by Abraham’s seed, Christ, and he shall be the premise in terms which all men and nations are blessed or cursed. At this point, we have the great error of Israel, past and present, and of many churches. Rabbi Raphael Pelkovitz has written of verses 17-20, that earlier editions of Sporner’s commentary on the Torah, which he edited, dropped his statement here. He writes, “We assume that the censor removed the commentary on these verses because it was considered too hard an indictment of the Christian world treatment of the Jews, and depicts too vividly the revenge that Israel will take of them at the end of time.” Well, that assumes that Israel is God, and within recent weeks, I have heard of churches making similar condemnations.

Because the church is called the Body of Christ in the Bible, these false churches make some ungodly conclusions. First, they assume that because they bear the name of a church, this makes them the body of Christ. There can be a vast difference between the name and reality. Second, even where the church is truly Christ’s body, it is still not Jesus Christ. Third, the premise of cursing, or excommunication is not the church nor relationship to the church, but to Christ. To go beyond this is idolatry, and it begs for God’s curse and many churches are begging for God’s curse.

Well, Balak was very angry with Balaam, but afraid to touch him. He therefore ordered him to flee to thy place, before Balak’s anger led him to rash actions. He was afraid of bad luck if he moved against the seer. Balaam’s reminded him that only the words God gave could be spoken. Balaam, possessed by God, delivered now a fourth prophesy in verses 15-19. His eyes were now fully opened, Balaam said. That is, God was giving him a view of what would happen through Israel. The control of the future was not in man’s hands, and it’s center of the prediction was verses 17-19, “I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth. And Edom shall be a possession, Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies; and Israel shall do valiantly. Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remaineth of the city.”

Because out of Israel, and some time in the future, not now, a great king shall arise out of Israel, no nation shall be able to stand before him. He is called a Star, an ancient sign of kingship, and a Scepter, the sign of rule and dominion. Therefore, Moab, Edom, and all Israel’s enemies shall be destroyed and the kingdom of a great king will alone remain. This prediction clearly centers on Christ, as even the ancient Hebrews recognized. As E.W. Hengstenberg pointed out, “How widely this opinion was spread among the Jews, is sufficiently apparent from the circumstance, that the renowned pseudo-Messiah in the time of Hadrian adopted, with reference to the passage under review, the surname Barcochba, i.e., Son of the Star.—From the Jews, this interpretation very soon passed over to the Christians, who rightly found a warrant for it in the narrative of the star of the wise men from the East.”

Now it is an interesting sidelight on the history of this false messiah, Barcochba, Son of the Star, who came a half century and even more, after the Fall of Jerusalem, that his military successes were great, and his fanatical followers were fierce fighters, and for a time, they were free from Rome, but Rome then adopted a strategy to destroy Barcochba’s regime. He had minted attractive copper coins, and placed a high value on them as though they were gold and silver. Rome counterfeited Barcochba’s coins and flooded Israel with them, and thereby broke his regime economically and then militarily. I have a few of Barcochba’s coins, which are probably the Roman counterfeit. If they could be proven to be the original minting of Barcochba, they would be very valuable, but it’s impossible so to prove.

But, this is exactly our world problem today, only there is no one, except all of governments doing the counterfeiting now, and it was just through counterfeiting that Barcochba was destroyed. The country was flooded for money, which suddenly became worthless, and no one would fight for Barcochba.

{?} said with respect to the Star of Jacob, “The Messianic character of the prophesy being thus established, it will be impossible to understand the international relation between the Star of Balaam and the Star of the Wisemen from the East. The Star of Balaam is the emblem of the kingdom which will rise in Israel. The Star of the Magi is the symbol of the ruler in whom the kingly power appears {?} concentrated. The appearance of the star embodying the image of the prophet indicates that the last and highest fulfillment of its prophesies is now to take place.” We know, of course, that the wisemen came from the east to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is He that is born king of the Jews?”

Now, it is important in conclusion to return to the question of blessings and curses. Again, citing Hengstenberg, he very tellingly observes, “The lot of every people corresponds to the nature of their God.” The lot of every people corresponds to the nature of their God. Our present condition and that of the whole world corresponds to the nature of our humanistic god. The world crisis of our time can be traced to this fact. Men have, over the centuries, had false gods, bad religions, and warped theologies, but perhaps rarely have people been more earnestly dedicating to furthering evil as their highest good. John Roberts has observed, “Acceleration is the one obvious overriding trend in modern history.” Acceleration is the one obvious overriding trend in modern history. Because of that fact, the false gods of our time have attained a wider influenced than normally would have been the case. This will bring them all the more rapidly to the judgment of Almighty God. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee that thou art on the throne, that thy judgments prevail, and that the star out of Jacob is our Lord, our Savior, our protector. Grant that, in the evils times, we be covered by His protecting hand. Bless our loved ones, and give them traveling mercies as they journey homeward. Watch over all thy true saints everywhere. Guide, bless and prosper them in the face of all the evils we face. In Christ’s name. Amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson?

Let me remind you again of that statement I quoted by John Roberts, that one of the great facts of modern history is the rate of acceleration, when a time of judgment approaches and this has been true age after age, there is a speed-up, because as men come to epistemological self-consciousness, they move more rapidly into evil or into good. It becomes a time of polarization, and we are seeing that now, first in the way evil in our time is becoming more open, more vocal, more flagrant, and the way Christians have been waking up, Christian schools, homeschools established, and a variety of Christian efforts, so that there is a sudden acceleration that is taking place in the post World War 2 era, and which will continue because God brings about these things to their conclusion, and we are in a time of the acceleration of historical {?} Yes?

[Audience] What occurred to me when you mentioned about the way the Romans forged this spurious money to begin with, of the Jews, and the thought that came into my mind was the fact that the whole world today is using spurious forged money, what they call money, and it will be interesting to see who will defend the economy when people wake up to the fact that everything that they call money is worthless.

[Rushdoony] Yes. That’s a very important point because the Romans did it to Barcochba. Now every country is doing it to its people. When you realize that before World War 2, in almost every state in the Union, mortgages were five year mortgages, and you paid twenty-five percent down before you bought a farm or a house, and you did not get any deduction for your interest payments. People were much more conservative. Now, they have been encouraged to go into debt because they get a break on their income tax. The mortgages are twenty and thirty, and thirty-five years since World War 2. All this has been done with fraudulent money, and they have been robbed of the value. Most of the payments they make go towards interest. So, what Rome did to Barcochba, every country is doing to its own people today, and it’s destroying them.

[Audience] People will never defend such a government.

[Rushdoony] No, they will not, and just as it demoralized and destroyed the following of Barcochba, it will demoralize the people of our time, in every country. Yes>

[Audience] Who are the remnant of Israel?

[Rushdoony] The remnant of Israel.

[Audience] In a number of places . . .

[Rushdoony] Yes. The true church. In other words, the church is called the Israel of God in the New Testament, but just as in the time of our Lord, by the end of the New Testament, the estimates were that half a million people, Judeans, became Christians, which was a sizable part of Israel. So, out of the church today, there will be a remnant that will be preserved in the time of adversity, when God’s judgment falls upon the nations. So insofar as we truly believe and truly obey the word of God, we are God’s remnant that shall be delivered, and we have to prepare ourselves for the responsibilities that involves, and that was what one man in particular, but others as well, that {?} Norton at the conference told me. They said it is very important for you to go on with the work because American Christianity and the reconstruction movement represent the only hope we see on the horizon. They felt very hopeless everywhere else they looked. Any further questions or comments? Well, if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we give thanks unto thee that thou hast called us to serve thee, that in a difficult time when thy judgment is moving rapidly upon the whole earth, we have been given great responsibilities. Grant that by thy holy spirit, we are sufficient unto these challenges that in Christ Jesus we may be more than conquerors. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you now and forevermore. Amen.

End of tape.