The 2 talking animals in the Bible.

Do you know that there are 2 animal species who were able to speak in the bible? Ha this interesting information was 1st mentioned by my friend Jackie. Subsequently, i have been entertaining my friends with this piece of information. All right, if you have guessed, the 1st animal species was the Serpent and the second one was the Donkey!!! ;p

Refer to Numbers chapter 22. Balaam lived in Babylon and was believed to have the ability to bless or curse people. During that time, the Israelites were being led into the promised land by God and were commanded by God to destroy all of the current residents of that land. The Amorites were exterminated and the Moabites were next to be targetted. Balak, the king of Moab was worried sick. He devised a plan to engage Baalam to curse the Isrealites.

Balak sent the 1st batch of messngers to Baalam and Baalam's reply to them was that he would need time to think about this assignment. That night, God warned Baalam not to accept Balak's assignment because the Israelites were blessed by God. So Baalam declined Balak's messengers.

Balak, the king of the Moabites sent a 2nd batch of messengers to Balaam; this time he promised Baalam great fortunes and wealth for cursing the Israelites. The great riches were too much for Balaam to resist. Balaam prayed to God once again to see if God would change his mind. God had already told Balaam what to do so this prayer was an insult to God. When dawn came, Balaam left with Balek's messengers. God is furious and decides to kill Balaam for his disobedience using an angel to carry out the death sentence.

Numbers 22: 22-35 contains the entire episode of what transpired. In summary, Balaam was riding on this donkey on the road and then the Donkey saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way with a drawn sword. The Donkey then detoured from the Angel 3 times. Balaam was way pissed and he whipped the Donkey. God then opened the mouth of the Donkey and an interesting quarrel occured between Balaam and the donkey. Eventually Balaam realized his mistake. Nonetheless, he was still commanded by God to go to Balak. (See Numbers 22:35)

35 Then the Angel of the Lord said to Balaam, "Go with the men, but only the word that I speak to you, that you shall speak." So Balaam went with the princes of Balak.

What became of Balaam? When he tried to curse the Israelites, all he could do was utter blessings. This was very frustrating to a man who was only interested in getting his money. Balaam should have given up trying to curse the Israelites and just accepted God's will. Instead, his greed caused him to come up with a new plan: he told Balak to tempt the children of Israel to sin. Rev. 2:14 But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.

This plan worked because it was Israel's continuation in sin that finally led to their captivity by the Babylonians and ultimately to their being dispersed among the nations starting in 70 A.D. God was not pleased at all with Balaam. So what happened to the man who thought a talking donkey was nothing extraordinary? He was killed by the Israelites with sword when they were destroying the Midianites. (See Numbers. 31:8)