Beginning of the End - Ellen G. White

to get the reward. Taking the donkey he usually rode, he started out
and pressed eagerly forward to catch up with the messengers,
impatient to gain the coveted reward.
But "the Angel of the Lord took His stand in the way as an
adversary against him." Balaam did not see the divine messenger,
but the animal did and turned aside from the highway into a field.
With cruel blows, Balaam brought the beast back into the path. But
again, in a narrow place shut in by walls, the angel appeared. The
donkey, trying to avoid the frightening figure, crushed her master's
foot against the wall. Balaam did not know that God was obstructing
his path. He became exasperated, and beating his donkey
unmercifully, forced it to move forward.
Again, "in a narrow place where there was no way to turn
either to the right hand or to the left," the angel appeared, and the
poor donkey, trembling with terror, fell to the earth under its rider.
Balaam's rage was out of control, and with his staff he struck the
animal more cruelly than before. God now opened the animal's
mouth, and by "a dumb donkey speaking with man's voice" He
"restrained the madness of the prophet" (2 Peter 2:16). "What have I
done to you," it said, "that you have struck me these three times?"
Furious, Balaam answered the beast as he would have spoken
to an intelligent being: "Because you have abused me. I wish there
were a sword in my hand, for now I would kill you."
The eyes of Balaam were now opened, and he saw the angel of
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