There is an unspoken rule about typology that permeates Evangelical thinking. It goes something like this: “If the New Testament authors don’t use an Old Testament character as a type, we don’t either.” There is a soundness in this reasoning, at least in a preliminary sense. There is no better instructor for interpreting Scripture than Scripture. One ought not want to say more than the text says but, since the Protestant understanding of Regula Fidei doesn’t preclude us from trying to understand passages on which the New Testament is silent, we must read as much of Scripture through as much of Scripture as possible. What should emerge will be Biblical readings that are sometimes imaginatively derived, but not out of bounds. The Gramatico-Historical hermeneutic should never be pitted against the Regula Fidei; rather, it should point to the regions in which the student of Scripture is beginning to leave the land of primary importance and enter into the regions of secondary and tertiary importance. There is good fruit to be harvested in those fields, like Joseph as a kind of Christ-figure . . . or possibly even Balaam’s ass. Here is the passage from Numbers.
Numbers 22:21-32 Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey and went with the Moabite officials. But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the Lord stood in the road to oppose him. Balaam was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, it turned off the road into a field. Balaam beat it to get it back on the road. Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path through the vineyards, with walls on both sides. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it pressed close to the wall, crushing Balaam’s foot against it. So he beat the donkey again. Then the angel of the Lord moved on ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no room 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 he was angry and beat it with his staff. Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth, and it said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?” Balaam answered the donkey, “You have made a fool of me! If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.” The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?” “No,” he said. Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw then angel of the Lord standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown. The angel of the Lord asked him, “Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me. The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If it had not turned away, I would certainly have killed you by now, but I would have spared it.”
When we read this passage, one of the first questions we may ask ourselves is, “What stands out?” Immediately, we would be drawn to the uniqueness of the talking animal. This is such a unique occurrence, not only in the Bible, but anywhere. What is the cause to which a talking animal is the effect? It is the injustice of Balaam’s violence toward his donkey. God says it shows a recklessness in Balaam that needs addressing. Because Balaam agrees with the ass that he has been faithful and good thus far, God stays His own hand. God then opens Balaam’s eyes and he sees the world in a way that corresponds to the word of the animal. Now they both see the angel. In fact, there is a role reversal that Balaam did not see coming. He says that if he had a sword he would have immediately killed the donkey, but the angel of the Lord does have a sword and He shows mercy to wicked Balaam.
As students of the Bible, one of the next things to come to the fore might be the unjust smiting of another character, elsewhere in Scripture, whom God vindicated. If we are on to something, we should expect the response of this character, when smitten, to pair well with the response of the ass.
John 18:19-23 The high priest then asked Jesus about His disciples and His doctrine. Jesus answered him, “I spoke openly to the world. I always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where the Jews always meet, and in secret I have said nothing. Why do you ask Me? Ask those who have heard Me what I said to them. Indeed they know what I said.” And when He had said these things, one of the officers who stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, “Do You answer the high priest like that?” Jesus answered him, “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why do you strike Me?”
Hmm. That worked. So let’s see if there is a natural fit that exists between more of the pieces in each of the passages of Scripture. Is there correspondence that seems to orgainically take place between these two characters who are shown to be beaten despite their reputations which should have merited them favor?
The Bible notably uses the motif of a beast and its rider a couple of times throughout both testaments. Neither the rider nor the beast is inconsequential. If we were to consider the ass as a kind of Christ-figure, then who might correspond to Balaam? Let’s examine what we know about him. He is a prophet of the Most-High. He appears to be in a genuine relationship with God; but, in the end, he is clearly marked by the apostle Peter as being an enemy of God’s people. The most obvious fit would be the ruling Jews. Let’s try it and see if it works.
At first glance, Balaam is a mystery. In the opening scenes, we are told that he is in fellowship with God to the degree that if he goes aside to commune with the Lord, God makes His way known unto him. He appears to be a friend of God’s. This, at least, matches up with what we know of the Jewish leaders in Christ’s day. Weren’t they truly in covenant with the Lord? Wasn’t theirs the oracles of God and the promises? Then why would they oppose the Lord’s anointed? This is a fair question to ask of both Balaam and the Pharisees. Balam and the Pharisees who opposed Christ are the perfect blend of covenantal office holding and a state of unregeneracy. God will speak through them both, but the punishment is greater since they are not only denying the Lord but denying the reality of covenantal blessing, specifically the presence of God. The Jewish authorities, like Balaam, heard the word from the mouth which God had opened and still went aside.
In Ezekiel 3:27 God talks to the prophet as the Son of Man and a kind of Messiah character, whose mouth God will open in order to have him speak truth to the rebellious and blind covenant household. In this way, the initially suspected sins of the ass will become the literal actions of the Jewish authorities, as they have been patterned in the past. They truly did turn aside. They truly did crush the heel of Christ. They truly will lie prostrate before Him.
What is Balaam’s primary accusation against the donkey? It was that he had made a fool out of him. We might say that he made an ass of him. There is a clear correspondence to Christ and His enemies in Luke 13:17, which states that Christ, whom we are considering as being typologically signified by Balaam’s ass, made a fool of those who “ruled over” Him.
Let’s consider, once more, if the three sins of the donkey correlate with some consistency to Christ. Going aside from the main way is the path of John the Baptist that announced the Messiah. He is described as being out in the wilderness and announcing that the Lord would be coming through, but not where the Pharisees abide. In order to see this thing, like Moses, even the rulers would have to turn aside. These same men rejected this way. It is not a stretch to identify the motif of the crushed foot with Israel’s resistance to taking on the cruciform shape. The Messiah’s heel is the bruised one, foretold back in Genesis 3. It makes a cameo here in the story of Balaam. Lastly, the donkey laying down beneath the ruling Jews (Balaam) is the submission of Christ to the powers that be. No one took his life from him; he laid it down.
In all of this, let’s not forget that Balaam threatened to use his sword on the donkey, if only he had one; but the Lord did have His own sword drawn and was ready to use it on Balaam. This is His vengeance upon them in Jerusalem’s destruction. The destructive sword of God is the Word, which issues forth from the Son’s mouth. Jesus warned Jerusalem three times with beatings. The first two were the events purging the temple and driving the scoundrels out with the animals. The final time, Christ actually plunged the sword in and destroyed the leprous house.
Some of these corresponding pieces lack weight. Is it possible there is a passage of Scripture that would directly reference Christ or the Messiah as a beast of burden? That would seem to be a necessary binding agent, a unifying principle to the suggestion of Christ being typified by Balaam’s ass. In fact, there is such a passage. In Isaiah, God renders Himself as being analogous to a beast of burden, showing that He will carry Israel in ways that He has always carried them, despite their taking His service and faithfulness for granted. God would burden Himself with the task of bringing Israel into a place they couldn’t have reached on their own.
Bel bows down; Nebo stoops; their idols are on beasts and livestock; these things you carry are borne as burdens on weary beasts. They stoop; they bow down together; they cannot save the burden, but themselves go into captivity. “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save. “To whom will you liken me and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be alike? … Isaiah 46:1-13
Exercises like these need not limit the way we interpret the passage. The strength of practicing this way of reading the text will be to create a kind of hyper-awareness, an intertextual perspective. We ought never to read a portion of Scripture in isolation from the rest of Scripture. Not even Scripture reads itself this way.