Deuteronomy 23

That sounds like harsh punishment for someone who did nothing wrong. The child was a victim. But the background to this statement is unclear. One Hebrew word describes the illegal marriage: mamzer. It can mean “bastard,” or an incestuous marriage of close relatives, or a child born to a temple prostitute after sex with a worshiper. Some rituals of Canaanite religions reportedly involved sex. A priestess and a worshiper would have sex to entertain the gods with what amounts to eye candy, to supplement the sacrifices of meat and grain as food for the gods. The idea of a child born under those circumstances and walking into God’s sacred worship center doesn’t sound compatible with the laws Moses delivered to his people as they began forming a nation devoted to God. The teachings of Jesus began to expand the range of tolerance and forgiveness among people of faith.

Balaam’s story begins in Numbers 22. His name also showed up on an ancient inscription found in what is now Jordan’s city of Deir Alla. The inscription is a fragment of a collection of visions by “a divine seer” called “Balaam, son of Beor”—just as the Bible writers identified him. The Deir Alla Inscription said, “the gods came to him at night.” The inscription, painted in ink on a plastered wall, dates to roughly 800 BC, several centuries after Balaam and Moses.

Many scholars say Pethor was likely an ancient city also called Pitru, a name that shows up in Egyptian and Assyrian documents. Pitru is less than a mile from the Euphrates River, about a kilometer. It was also about 400 miles (about 640 km) north of Moab’s capital city of Dibon. At 20 miles (32 km) a day, that’s a 40-day roundtrip.

Literally Mesopotamia, land between and around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in what is now Iraq, and parts of Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Kuwait.

“If a man ejaculates semen, he will remain ritually unclean until evening. He needs to bathe his entire body in water” (Leviticus 15:16). One unclean person can make another person unclean by simply touching that person.

People of Israel sometimes made vows to the LORD to do something good for someone or to donate money for some purpose—a “vow of dedication” (Leviticus 27:8; Numbers 6:2).

The Hebrew word is keleb. It means “dead dog,” “dog,” or a person with no status or not worthy of respect. In this context, it seems to work as a demeaning nickname for a male temple prostitute. There was not generally a high regard for dogs in that part of the world at that time. Knife scars on dog bones in Philistine ruins suggest some Philistines ate dogs. Israelites considered dogs unfit to eat: “Don’t touch any animal that walks on four paws. If you do, you’re unclean until evening” (Leviticus 11:27).