Balaam and the Talking Donkey Bible story for kids

A donkey once saw something her master couldn't.

And before this story is over, she is going to talk to him. Out loud.

Let me tell you how it happened.

Down on the plain beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho, God's people had set up camp. Tents, and tents, and more tents. They were waiting to cross into the land God had promised them.

The king of Moab, a man named Balak, was afraid of them, because they were so many. His people said, "This multitude will lick up all that is around us, as the ox licks up the grass of the field."

Can you picture that? One enormous ox, licking up a whole country. Slurp.

So the king had an idea. He would get someone to curse them.

A curse is the opposite of a blessing. It is words that wish bad things on someone.

Far away, by the great River, lived a man named Balaam. People paid Balaam to say blessings and curses. So the king sent important men all that long way, carrying gifts to pay for a curse.

That night, God spoke to Balaam.

"You shall not go with them. You shall not curse the people; for they are blessed."

They were already blessed. God had said so. So Balaam sent the men home.

But the king sent more men, even more important, with promises of very great honor. And Balaam said, "If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God."

But he asked them to stay the night all the same, to see what else God would say.

And God told him: "rise up, go with them; but only the word which I speak to you, that you shall do."

So in the morning Balaam saddled his donkey and rode off with the king's men, and two servants beside him. She was a she-donkey, and she had carried Balaam for a long, long time.

God had said Balaam could go, but only to say God's words. And God knew what was in Balaam's heart. So the angel of the Lord came and stood in the road, right in Balaam's way.

Balaam could not see him. But his donkey could.

The first time, the donkey saw the angel and turned off the road into a field. Balaam hit her, to get her back on the road.

The second time, the angel stood on a narrow path between the vineyards, with a wall on this side and a wall on that side. The donkey pressed herself against the wall... and squashed Balaam's foot. Ow! And Balaam hit her again.

The third time, the angel went on ahead and stood in a narrow place. No room to turn. Not to the right. Not to the left.

So the donkey lay down. Right there in the road, with Balaam still on her back.

Balaam was angry, and he hit her with his staff.

Then the Lord opened the donkey's mouth.

And she said to Balaam, "What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?"

And Balaam answered her! Just as if donkeys talked to him every day.

"Because you have mocked me," he said. Which means: you made me look silly.

And the donkey said, "Am I not your donkey, on which you have ridden all your life long until today? Was I ever in the habit of doing so to you?"

And Balaam said, "No."

One little word. A famous man, and he lost an argument with his own donkey.

Then the Lord opened Balaam's eyes. And he saw the angel of the Lord, standing in the road.

Balaam bowed down, with his face to the ground.

And the angel said, "Why have you struck your donkey these three times?"

Three times she had seen the angel and turned away. And all three times, she had kept Balaam safe.

"I have sinned," Balaam said, "for I didn't know that you stood in the way against me."

And the angel said, "Go with the men; but only the word that I shall speak to you, that you shall speak."

So Balaam went on to meet the king. And he told him plainly, "The word that God puts in my mouth, that shall I speak."

The king took him up a high hill, to look down at part of the camp. Balaam went off by himself, and God met him there. Then he came back and spoke.

"How shall I curse whom God has not cursed?"

And, "Who can count the dust of Jacob?" Jacob was another name for God's people, Jacob's great big family. Do you remember? God once promised Abraham a family as many as the specks of dust on the ground.

The king was not pleased. "I took you to curse my enemies, and behold, you have blessed them altogether."

So he tried another hill, with a view of just part of the camp. As if fewer tents would be easier to curse!

Again, Balaam spoke God's words: "He has blessed, and I can't reverse it."

Then the king said, "Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all."

In other words: just say nothing!

So they went up a third hilltop, looking out over the desert. Balaam saw God's people below, tribe by tribe, tent by tent. And the Spirit of God came on him.

"How goodly are your tents, Jacob, and your tents, Israel! As valleys they are spread out, as gardens by the riverside."

Goodly means good and lovely. A camp of tents out in the wilderness... and God spoke of it like a garden beside a river.

Then the king struck his hands together. "I called you to curse my enemies, and, behold, you have altogether blessed them these three times."

Three times the donkey turned away. Three times Balaam blessed.

In the end, Balaam got up and went home. And the king went his way.

Much later, the Bible tells us Balaam loved being paid more than doing right. But on those three hills, he could only say what God said.

God had blessed His people. And no king's money, and no hired words, could ever take that blessing back.

And God was with him. God was with her. God is with you, too.

Lay your head down, little one. May the same God who looked at a camp of tents out in the wilderness and called it gardens by the riverside... call you lovely, too, whatever anybody else may say.