Balaam's talking donkey

What the text records

In Numbers 22, the prophet Balaam is travelling to meet the Moabite king Balak, who has hired him to curse Israel. Three times in succession, his donkey refuses to continue:

• First, she turns off the path into a field
• Second, she presses against a wall and crushes Balaam’s foot
• Third, she lies down beneath him

Each time, Balaam beats her. After the third beating, the text records that “the LORD opened the donkey’s mouth,” and the donkey speaks to Balaam in human language. The conversation is brief — three exchanges between Balaam and the donkey — before God opens Balaam’s eyes to see what the donkey has been seeing the entire time: an angel of the LORD standing in the road with a drawn sword.

One of only two non-human speakers in the Bible

The Balaam narrative is one of two episodes in the entire Bible in which a non-human creature is recorded as speaking in human language. The other is the serpent in Genesis 3, which converses with the woman in the garden of Eden. No other animals — and no other non-human creatures aside from angels (who are typically not classed as “non-human creatures” in the same sense) — are recorded as speaking.

Who is Balaam?

Balaam is one of the more unusual figures in the Hebrew Bible. He is a non-Israelite prophet (Numbers 22:5 places him at Pethor, “by the river” — likely the Euphrates) who is hired by King Balak of Moab to curse Israel. The narrative across Numbers 22–24 is structured around this commission and Balaam’s repeated failure to deliver the curse: each time he prepares to speak against Israel, he speaks a blessing instead. The cycle ends with three oracles in which Balaam blesses Israel and predicts a future ruler (Numbers 24:17 — “a star will come forth from Jacob, a scepter will arise from Israel”).

Balaam is referenced multiple times in later biblical texts, almost always as a negative figure — Numbers 31:16, Deuteronomy 23:4–5, Joshua 13:22, 24:9–10, Nehemiah 13:2, Micah 6:5, 2 Peter 2:15–16, Jude 1:11, Revelation 2:14. Despite his oracles of blessing, the canonical tradition treats him as an example of a prophet motivated by financial gain.

A possible historical reference

A Deir Alla inscription, discovered in 1967 in Jordan and dated to roughly the 8th century BC, mentions “Balaam son of Beor, a seer of the gods.” This is the same patronymic given for Balaam in Numbers 22:5. The inscription preserves a fragmentary text of an oracle. Scholarly opinion on the relationship between this extra-biblical reference and the biblical Balaam varies.

The reference in 2 Peter

The episode is referenced in the New Testament once. 2 Peter 2:15–16 (BSB):

They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness. But he was rebuked for his transgression by a donkey — otherwise without speech — that spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.