"This was the man, this Balaam, I say, was the man, who desired to die the death of the righteous, and that his last end might be like his; and this was the state of his mind when he pronounced these words"
About this Quote
The context matters. In the biblical story, Balaam can speak blessings with a straight face while angling for profit and status; his mouth is intermittently “right” even as his will is bent. Butler, an Anglican moralist worried about a culture fluent in religious language, turns Balaam into a type: the person who longs for the aesthetic of righteousness (a clean death, an admired legacy) without submitting to the disciplines that would make that ending coherent.
The subtext is a rebuke aimed at the listener’s favorite loophole: outsourcing morality to future sentiment. “Desired to die the death of the righteous” is aspiration without conversion, a craving for the benefits of virtue at the moment they’re cashed out, not the slow cost of living virtuously now. Butler’s sting is in the final line: “this was the state of his mind when he pronounced these words.” The problem isn’t ignorance; it’s compartmentalization. You can say the holy thing and still mean, underneath it, the unholy deal.
It works because Butler refuses the comforting misread that eloquent moral speech equals moral alignment. He treats language as evidence, not absolution.
Quote Details
| Topic | Bible |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Butler, Joseph. (2026, January 18). This was the man, this Balaam, I say, was the man, who desired to die the death of the righteous, and that his last end might be like his; and this was the state of his mind when he pronounced these words. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/this-was-the-man-this-balaam-i-say-was-the-man-13259/
Chicago Style
Butler, Joseph. "This was the man, this Balaam, I say, was the man, who desired to die the death of the righteous, and that his last end might be like his; and this was the state of his mind when he pronounced these words." FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/this-was-the-man-this-balaam-i-say-was-the-man-13259/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"This was the man, this Balaam, I say, was the man, who desired to die the death of the righteous, and that his last end might be like his; and this was the state of his mind when he pronounced these words." FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/this-was-the-man-this-balaam-i-say-was-the-man-13259/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
