ISB ~ Revelation 2 v14

teaching of Balaam:Certain troublemakers were permitting what the Jerusalem Council had prohibited: the consumption of idol food and the practice of sexual immorality (Acts 15:29). On the relation between this prohibition and Paul’s teaching in 1 Cor 8-10, see essay: Paul, Idol Food, and the Jerusalem Council at 1 Cor 9.

• Balaam appears in Num 22-24 as a Mesopotamian magician who counseled Moabite women to seduce the men of Israel into sexual and idolatrous sin (Num 25:1-3; 31:16). The warning that perpetrators of sin will face Christ’s word of judgment, symbolized as a sword (Rev 2:16), recalls how Balaam was eventually slain with the sword (Num 31:8).