themselves, and were very eager for fighting. Moses then, after
he had offered for a few days sacrifices of thanksgiving to God,
and feasted the people, sent a party of armed men to lay waste
the country of the Midianites, and to take their cities. Now the
occasion which he took for making war upon them was this that
follows :--

2. When Balak, the king of the Moabites, who had from his
ancestors a friendship and league with the Midianites, saw how
great the Israelites were grown, he was much affrighted on
account of his own and his kingdom's danger; for he was not
acquainted with this, that the Hebrews would not meddle with any
other country, but were to be contented with the possession of
the land of Canaan, God having forbidden them to go any farther
(7) So he, with more haste than wisdom, resolved to make an
attempt upon them by words; but he did not judge it prudent to
fight against them, after they had such prosperous successes, and
even became out of ill successes more happy than before, but he
thought to hinder them, if he could, from growing greater, and so
he resolved to send ambassadors to the Midianites about them. Now
these Midianites knowing there was one Balaam, who lived by
Euphrates, and was the greatest of the prophets at that time, and
one that was in friendship with them, sent some of their
honorable princes along with the ambassadors of Balak, to entreat
the prophet to come to them, that he might imprecate curses to
the destruction of the Israelites. So Balsam received the
ambassadors, and treated them very kindly; and when he had
supped, he inquired what was God's will, and what this matter was
for which the Midianites entreated him to come to them. But when
God opposed his going, he came to the ambassadors, and told them