Balaam

Family: Africa · Role: shield-bearer; magician · First appears: Zepho King Of Kittim

Among the shield-bearers, Balaam was the fifteen-year-old son of Beor, described as “a wise youth and an adept in magic.” When his divination showed Agnias’s African army defeated by the Egyptians, Agnias abandoned the campaign. The defeat drove Balaam from Africa to Kittim, where Zepho received him with honors. After the Israelites routed Zepho and his allies, Balaam later escaped to Egypt after Zepho’s death, and Pharaoh appointed him royal counsellor.

When Moses was a child, Balaam urged Pharaoh to kill him, warning that he might take Egypt’s government. After learning of ill-feeling toward him, Balaam fled to Ethiopia with his two sons, Jannes and Jambres, and took refuge at the court of Kikanos. During the king’s absence, Balaam won over his subjects and was put on the throne; Jannes and Jambres became generals. Balaam and his sons then besieged Kikanos’s city. When it fell to the besiegers, Balaam used magic to fly to Egypt with his sons and eight brothers.

At Pharaoh’s palace, Balaam was among the Egyptian magicians before whom Aaron cast down his rod. It became a serpent and swallowed the magicians’ rods “and yet its bulk showed no increase.”