"I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel… He will crush the foreheads of Moab…" (Numbers 24:17)   These are the words of the fabled prophet, Balaam.  The guy with the talking donkey.  He had been hired by King Balak of the Moabites to curse Israel.  Moab, of course, had heard the story of Israel and its God—how Israel's God had defeated the Egyptians and set his people free, how God had provided for that people in the desert.  And now that people was knocking on his own doorstep.  So Balak wanted them cursed. But Balaam was unable to curse them.  In fact, God increasingly opened Balaam's eyes to see that this people was blessed by God.  In fact, God so opened Balaam's eyes that Balaam began to see even greater things than these.  In words that resonate deeply with Jacob's blessing for his son Judah in Genesis 49, Balaam begins to see—ever so faintly—a ruler to come.  Not now, and not near—but definitely from this people.  A ruler who would, much to Balak's terror and dismay, crush Moab.   The Israelites would eventually come to see this prophecy as a looking forward to King David, even as the blessing of Jacob over Judah in Genesis was.  Indeed David did subject the Moabites to Israel.  But slowly the hopes of another king in this same line of David also grew—hopes of a Messiah and saviour of Israel who would rule with the kind of perfect justice and righteousness that the scriptures had always envisioned, but which no king had ever yet lived—fallen, sinful, and human as they were.  So Balaam's distant vision took on more weight.  Some other pagan magicians from foreign nations, like Balaam was, would eventually see the star of this king rise.  Because—as Balaam saw already back in the book of Numbers—the rising star and scepter of this Messianic king from Israel was always about more than just Israel.  This rising ruler would be visible to the nations.  But just how would he crush his enemies?  Just how would he rule?  From the book of Numbers—while we begin to see and behold him—the vision remains too distant and future to really tell.  For that, we journey further on into the scriptures that prepare the way of the Lord.  

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