In Numbers, chapter twenty-two, verse five, Balaam was not an Israelite but an internationally known priest-diviner. Balak believed that this man could place a curse on others, as described in verse six. He believes Balaam was able to do this by influencing the will of the gods and spirits through his secret knowledge of sorcery, incantations, and mysterious manipulations. Balaam may at one time have been a follower of God who later departed from the faith and became a sorcerer. In verse eighteen, he mentions God to the servants of Balak, responding to their suggestion.
Balaam was the son of Beor, the son of Laban, and so was the grandson of Laban: and with as little probability is he said to be Elihu, that answered Job according to a tradition of the Jews. Nor is there any reason to believe that he was a good man and a true prophet of the Lord, for he is a diviner or a soothsayer. A sort of man abhorrent of God, not to be suffered to be among his people, but were of great credit and esteem among the Heathens. For their pretensions to foretell things to come or to discover lost goods and the like; and their enchantments to drive away evils or bring on curses, for which Balaam was famous.
Like all false prophets, he had no genuine concern for the honor of God or the holiness of God’s people. Unable to curse the people, Balaam led them to sin and immorality. Numbers twenty-five, verses one through six, the children of Israel abode in a place in the plains of Moab, and some of the people begin to sin with the daughters of Moab. They sacrificed to their gods, and eat, and bowed down to them. Some Israelites joined themselves to Baalpeor, which angered the Lord.
The result of these choices some Israelites made cost them their life. They broke the first two commandments in the Bible. Those Israelites did not love the Lord their God but instead betrayed Him to serve another image. How could someone leave the living God who brought them out of Egypt to honor something that did nothing? Balaam was responsible for this and later killed for this activity, as revealed in chapter thirty-one, verse eight.