Numbers 22:36

Israel had come through the wilderness and defeated Sihon king of the Amorites and Og king of Bashan (Numbers 21:21–35). Now the whole camp lay in the plains of Moab across the Jordan from Jericho (Numbers 22:1), and Balak and his people were terrified of their numbers (Numbers 22:3–4). So the king sent to Balaam at Pethor, far away in Mesopotamia, asking him to come and curse this people (Numbers 22:5–7). Among the nations a famous diviner was believed to hold real power to bless or curse, and kings hired such men to weaken an enemy before a battle. Between that first summons and this verse come Balaam’s refusals, God’s word to him, his journey and the angel of the LORD in the road (Numbers 22:7–35).

The moment Balak hears that Balaam has come, he goes out to meet him in person, and he travels all the way to his frontier to do it. The place is “a city of Moab, which is in the border of Arnon”. The Arnon, the river known today as Wadi Mujib, marked the border of Moab (Numbers 21:13). The word for border, gᵉbûwl, means a boundary and, by extension, the territory it encloses, and Strong’s traces it to a twisted cord, the line that marks a boundary. The same word stands behind “coast” at the end of the verse, and qâtseh, a word for an end or edge, stands behind “utmost”. So the meeting place lies at the very edge of Balak’s land. A king who goes out that far honours his guest and shows how heavily the matter weighs on him. Balak wants this man at work the moment he sets foot in Moab.

The two names belong to the two men. Strong’s explains Balak’s name, Bâlâq, as “waster”. Balaam’s name, Bilʻâm, probably means “not of the people”, that is, a foreigner, and Balaam was one: a diviner from Mesopotamia, outside Israel, through whom God was about to speak.

Balak greets his guest with three questions. The first is “Did I not earnestly send unto thee to call thee?” In Hebrew the verb shâlach, “to send”, is doubled, which is why the KJV says “earnestly send”. Balak is reminding Balaam how hard he has pressed him. He had sent once, and then sent again with more princes of higher rank and a greater promise (Numbers 22:15–17). The second, “wherefore camest thou not unto me?”, treats the delay as a slight to a king who is used to being obeyed at once.

Balak is unaware of what held Balaam back. On the road the angel of the LORD had stood in the way, the donkey had seen him and spoken, and Balaam had been told again that he must speak only what God gave him (Numbers 22:22–35). God had set the same terms before he ever left home (Numbers 22:20). Balak measures everything by pay and status, and the whole time it is the LORD who is directing Balaam’s road and Balaam’s words.

The third question carries the offer: “am I not able indeed to promote thee to honour?” “Able” is yâkôl, to be able or to have power to do something. “To promote to honour” is kâbad, whose root meaning is “to be heavy”, and in a good sense it means to be rich, numerous or honoured. To be made heavy in that sense is to be made a man of weight, with wealth, rank, public standing and influence at a king’s court. Balak takes it for granted that any man has his price, and that Balaam was slow only because he doubted the size of the reward.

Was Balaam tempted by it? The New Testament says he was. Peter speaks of “the way of Balaam” and his love of gain (2 Peter 2:15), and Jude warns against those who run after the error of Balaam for reward (Jude 1:11). God had at first forbidden him to go at all (Numbers 22:12), yet Balaam asked again when richer offers came. Later he gave Balak the counsel that drew Israel into idolatry and immorality with the women of Midian (Numbers 31:16), the teaching of Balaam that the risen Lord condemns in Revelation 2:14. He also knew the LORD’s power, and he says again and again that he can speak only what God gives him (Numbers 22:18, 23:12, 23:26). He was a divided man, drawn by the reward and held fast by the word of God.

Balaam begins, “Lo, I am come unto thee”. He has done what Balak asked in coming, and now he tells the king plainly what he will get. “Have I now any power at all to say any thing?” expects the answer that he has none of his own. In Hebrew the verb behind both “power” and “at all” is yâkôl, the same verb Balak has just used for his own ability to promote him. The king boasts of what he is able to do, and the prophet answers that he is able to say only what God allows.

“The word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak.” The verb sûwm means to put or place, and God is the one who places the word. The verb behind “say” is the same one behind “speak”, dâbar, to speak or tell. Balaam is bound to say what he is given, exactly as it is given, and the words that follow are God’s own. This is how God’s word has always come through his prophets. He told Jeremiah, “Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth” (Jeremiah 1:9). The word God puts in Balaam’s mouth will soon declare to Balak, “God is not a man, that he should lie” (Numbers 23:19), and his purpose to bless Israel stands.

Balak hears only a hired man’s caution and goes on expecting a curse. We know what he does not, because the angel’s terms were given on the road: Balaam may go with the men, but he is to speak only the word God speaks to him (Numbers 22:35). From this first exchange it is settled whose words will be heard on the hills of Moab. “There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand” (Proverbs 19:21). The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD (Proverbs 21:1), and so is the prophet’s mouth. God’s word accomplishes what he sends it to do (Isaiah 55:11).

“And Balaam went with Balak, and they came unto Kirjathhuzoth.” The town’s name is Qiryath Chutsôwth, which Strong’s gives as “city of streets”, a town in Moab. The second half of the name comes from chûwts, a word for what lies outside. The journey that began at Pethor ends here, and the man Balak sent for twice is now in his city.

There Balak “offered oxen and sheep”. The verb zâbach means to slaughter an animal, usually in sacrifice, so this was a solemn, ceremonial slaughter as well as a meal. Oxen, bâqâr, are cattle of the herd, and tsôʼn is the collective word for a flock of sheep or goats. These were the best meat of the day, and both together made a lavish table for a large company. Balak then “sent to Balaam, and to the princes that were with him”, so that the whole party shared in the king’s generosity.

A feast like this honoured a guest, displayed a king’s wealth and could seal an agreement, as when Abraham gave sheep and oxen to Abimelech and the two of them made a covenant. Balak meant all of it. The meat was a welcome, and it was also an advance on the price, given to put Balaam under obligation before the work of cursing began. The princes who ate it were witnesses to how much the king had done.

Balak moves early, “on the morrow”, the word bôqer, morning. He “took” Balaam, lâqach, and “brought him up”, ʻâlâh, to go up, “into the high places of Baal”. The ordinary word for a high place is bâmâh, an elevation or height. The word here, Bâmôwth, is its plural, “heights”, and Strong’s also lists it as a place, Bamoth or Bamoth-baal, “heights of Baal”. High places were raised sites of worship, and heights given to Baal, the storm and fertility god worshipped across Canaan, were the kind of place the LORD told Israel to destroy (Deuteronomy 12:2). Balak works within the religion of his own land, and he brings his hired curse up to ground sacred to its gods, hoping their place will give the curse its strength.

The height also gave a view: “that thence he might see the utmost part of the people.” The verb is râʼâh, to see, and ʻam is a people, gathered as one body. “Utmost” is qâtseh, the same word used for Moab’s border in verse 36, meaning end or edge, and it can also carry the sense of the whole of something. Balak wants Balaam to see out to the furthest edge of Israel’s camp. Among the nations it was believed that a curse reached what the one cursing could see, so Balak wanted all this people within Balaam’s sight.

This is the first of three places from which Balak will try. Next comes the field of Zophim, and then the top of Peor, in the account that runs through Numbers 22–24. Each time he moves Balaam to new ground, hoping a new view will bring a different word.

Every step Balak takes here, the trip to the border, the promise of honour, the feast and the climb to the heights, is aimed at one curse. Moses tells Israel what came of it: “Nevertheless the LORD thy God would not hearken unto Balaam; but the LORD thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the LORD thy God loved thee” (Deuteronomy 23:4–5). The LORD says the same through Joshua: “But I would not hearken unto Balaam; therefore he blessed you still: so I delivered you out of his hand” (Joshua 24:9–10). Nehemiah remembers it too: “our God turned the curse into a blessing” (Nehemiah 13:2).

The chapters that follow show it happening. In his first oracle Balaam asks how he can curse those whom God has left uncursed, and Balak protests that he has blessed them instead (Numbers 23:8–12). Later Balaam declares that enchantment and divination are powerless against Jacob (Numbers 23:23), and he tells the furious king (Numbers 24:10) that he is unable to go beyond the commandment of the LORD, whatever Balak gives him (Numbers 24:13). The psalm puts it in one sentence: “The LORD bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought” (Psalm 33:10–11), while his own counsel stands for ever. Isaiah gives the same promise to God’s people: “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper” (Isaiah 54:17). God even works the schemes of the enemy together for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28).

Balaam spoke God’s words under constraint and with a grasping heart. Jesus speaks the Father’s words perfectly and willingly: “For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak” (John 12:49–50). He says again, “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself” (John 14:10). His words are spirit and life (John 6:63), and Peter confessed that he has the words of eternal life (John 6:68). Balak offered honour to buy a prophet, and Christ “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7). God has given him the highest honour of all (Philippians 2:9–11), and all authority in heaven and earth is his (Matthew 28:18).

Balak slaughtered oxen and sheep to win a curse. God gave his own Lamb, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). The curse of the law fell on Christ, who was made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13), and on the cross he blotted out what stood against us and triumphed over principalities and powers (Colossians 2:14–15). The world still schemes against God’s people under the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2), and Christ lives for ever to intercede for those who come to God by him (Hebrews 7:25).

The blessing Balak tried to stop was the blessing promised to Abraham, that in him all families of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:3). Paul says that this blessing comes through faith to all who believe (Galatians 3:8–9), and that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Ephesians 1:3). Balaam himself, against his will, foretold “a Star out of Jacob” and a Sceptre rising out of Israel (Numbers 24:17), and Jesus calls himself the bright and morning star (Revelation 22:16).

Balak had a king’s resources and used every one of them: his own presence at the border, the promise of honour, a feast for a whole company and the best view in his land. Against all of it stood one sentence from a reluctant prophet: “the word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak.” The LORD rules the roads people travel and the words they speak, and he had already purposed to bless his people. Israel, camped in the plain below, was unaware of what was being arranged on the heights above, and God guarded them all the same.

That same faithfulness holds for all who are in Christ, and Paul draws the conclusion: “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). Balaam’s divided heart stands in these verses as a warning beside that comfort. He could speak rightly about God’s word while his heart went after the reward, and Scripture remembers him for the reward.