Pethor

So Moab said to the elders of Midian, "Now this company will lick up everything around us, as an ox licks up the grass of the field." And Balak, the son of Zippor, was king of the Moabites at that time.

Then he sent messengers to Balaam, the son of Beor at Pethor, which is near the river, in the land of the sons of his people, to call him, saying, "Look, a people has come from Egypt.

See, they cover the face of the earth and are settling next to me.

Therefore, please come at once.

And Balak, the son of Zippor, was king of Moab at the time.

So he sent messengers to Balaam, the son of Peor at Pethor, which is near the river.

Are y'all with me? In the land of the sons of his people to call him, saying, Come, Balaam, behold, the people came out of Egypt.

And behold, they cover the surface of the land, and they are living opposite me.

So we'll let people listen to verses four through six, and then we'll come back and talk a little bit more about the context.

So Balak's son of Zippor, who was king of Moab at that time, sent messengers to summon Balaam's son of Beor, who was at Pethor near the Euphrates River, in his native land.

Balak said, A people has come out of Egypt.

They cover the face of the land and have settled next to me.

Okay, so in those verses we just listened to, we're introduced to who Balaam is.

And we know a couple of things about Balaam.

First of all, it's interesting that it says he was at Pethor, I think, by the Euphrates.

So not only is he not Israelite, he's not even a Midianite, right? Or Moabite, sorry.

So he says, okay.

From verse five, Numbers twenty-two, "He sent messengers to Balaam, the son of Beor at Pethor." Balaam was a Syrian prophet.

He wasn't Jew.

He was one of those prophets that were not Jewish or Israelite.