Numbers 23:21

Israel is camped on the plains of Moab at the end of the wilderness years, ready to enter the promised land (Numbers 22:1). They have just defeated the Amorite kings Sihon and Og (Numbers 21:21–35), and Balak, the king of Moab, is afraid of their numbers. Moab descended from Lot (Genesis 19:37) and had already refused to help Israel on their way (Deuteronomy 23:3–4). Kings of that time hired seers to curse an enemy, believing that the spoken word of such a man had real power in war. So Balak sent to Pethor, by the Euphrates, for Balaam (Numbers 22:5), a diviner whose blessings and curses were known to take effect, as Balak himself said (Numbers 22:6).

The whole account runs through Numbers 22–24. When Balaam arrived he warned Balak that he could speak only the word God put in his mouth (Numbers 22:38). Balak took him up to Bamoth-baal (Numbers 22:41), and the first oracle came out as a blessing on a people who dwell apart (Numbers 23:7–10). Balaam reminded him again of his limit (Numbers 23:12). Balak then moved him to the field of Zophim on the top of Pisgah, hoping that a different view of the camp would bring a different word (Numbers 23:13–14). Our passage is what Balaam said there. After it Balak will try once more, from Peor (Numbers 23:27).

The oracle opens with a summons. “And he took up his parable” marks a formal beginning, and the word for parable, mâshâl, means a saying, a proverb, a parable or an oracle. People ask whether this is like the parables Jesus told. Balaam’s parable is an oracle, a solemn poem that declares what God has decided, while the parables of Jesus are stories told to make a point plain. What follows is God’s word in Balaam’s mouth, and Peter teaches that true prophecy has its origin in God and comes apart from the will of man (2 Peter 1:20–21).

Three commands follow. “Rise up” is qûwm, the ordinary verb for rising, and it calls the king to his feet, ready and respectful, because a weighty word is coming. “Hear” is shâmaʻ, which means to hear with understanding and, by implication, to obey. “Hearken” is ʼâzan, to give ear, to listen. The two verbs for listening say one thing twice, as Hebrew poetry does, and they press the demand for Balak’s full attention. “Thou son of Zippor” addresses the king formally by his father’s name. It singles him out as the one this message is for, and it shows that a king stands under the word of God like anyone else.

This verse is the heart of the oracle, and it is one of the plainest statements in Scripture of who God is. Balak has been acting as if God could be moved by a new hilltop and a fresh set of altars, the way a man can be worked on until he gives way. Balaam is made to tell him that God stands apart from men at exactly the two points Balak is counting on. Men lie, and men change their minds, while God’s word is true and his purpose holds.

“Man” here is ʼîysh, the common word for a man, an individual person, and “son of man” is the Hebrew way of saying a human being. “Repent” is nâcham, a verb that at root means to sigh or breathe strongly, and so to be sorry, to grieve or to have compassion. Said of a man, it means changing his mind and ruing what he did or planned. People repent in that sense because they learn something new, or grow weak, or find they were wrong. God knows all things perfectly and his will is eternal, so what he purposes is purposed in full wisdom and stands.

Two questions drive the point home: “hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” The second says the first again in other words, and the answer to both is that he will. “Make it good” is qûwm once more, the verb Balaam has just used to bring Balak to his feet, now in the form that means to cause to stand, to raise up or establish. What God has spoken, he establishes. With him, saying and doing belong together.

The rest of Scripture says the same. Samuel says it of him (1 Samuel 15:29), the LORD declares through Malachi that he is unchanging (Malachi 3:6), and Paul calls him the God who cannot lie (Titus 1:2). His word accomplishes what he sends it to do (Isaiah 55:11). He declares the end from the beginning and says that his counsel shall stand (Isaiah 46:10). A man’s heart holds many plans, and it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails (Proverbs 19:21).

The word God had spoken about Israel was a word of blessing. He had called Abraham and promised to bless him and his descendants (Genesis 12:1–3) and to give them the land (Genesis 12:7). Balak is asking God to take that back, and verse 19 is God’s answer. The wilderness years had shown again and again how unreliable people are, and God’s reliability stands out against that record. Paul, looking at Israel long afterwards, still says that the word of God has taken effect (Romans 9:6).

“Behold” calls for attention, and then Balaam explains his position in three short statements. “I have received commandment to bless” uses the verb laqach, to take, accept or receive. The word of blessing was handed to him, and he speaks it as something given, apart from his own wishes and Balak’s. “He hath blessed” is bârak, a verb whose root idea is kneeling, used both of man blessing God in adoration and of God blessing man with good. Here it is God’s finished act. He has already set his favour, fruitfulness and protection on this people, in keeping with his promise to Abraham.

“I cannot reverse it” is shûwb, to turn back or return, here in the causative form ashivennah, “cause it to return”. Balaam is speaking of his power, and his wishes have nothing to do with it. The man hired and paid to curse Israel says that undoing the blessing is beyond him, and so it is beyond every king, sorcerer and spirit as well. Israel’s security rested on the character of the God who blessed them. Paul says the same of God’s gifts and calling, that they are irrevocable (Romans 11:29).

“He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel.” The one who looks is God, and Jacob and Israel are two names for one people, so the second line repeats the first. “Iniquity” is ʼâven, a word that covers trouble, vanity and wickedness and at its narrowest means nothingness. It is used of moral evil, of idolatry, and of the misery sin brings. “Perverseness” is ʻâmâl, which means toil, wearing effort, grievance, mischief and wickedness.

Balaam points to the proof of God’s power that every nation in the region already knew. “God” in this verse is ʼêl, a name that carries the sense of strength and might and is used chiefly of the true God. “Brought them out” is yâtsâʼ, to go out, here in the sense of bringing out. God had promised to bring Israel out from under the burdens of Egypt (Exodus 6:6), and he did it on the night of the Passover (Exodus 12), overcoming the greatest empire of the day. A people whom God himself carried out of Egypt will hardly be stopped by the king of Moab. Isaiah later gives God’s promise of deliverance and protection to the people he has redeemed (Isaiah 43:1–3).

“He hath as it were the strength of an unicorn” is a comparison, as the words “as it were” show. No creature can measure God’s power, and Balaam reaches for the strongest untamed animal his hearers knew.

Balak had hired a diviner, and now the diviner announces that his whole trade is useless here. “Enchantment” is nachash, the seeking of omens and the practice of sorcery, and “divination” is qeçem, the wider word for fortune-telling and for seeking hidden knowledge or power by forbidden means. Named together, they cover every art by which the nations tried to bend spiritual powers to their purposes. God forbade all such practices to Israel as abominations (Deuteronomy 18:10–12), and here he shows that they are powerless against the people he protects. The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing, while his own counsel stands for ever (Psalm 33:10–11).

“According to this time” places the promise in the present and the days that follow. From now on Israel’s history will show God’s hand so clearly that people will say of Jacob and of Israel, “What hath God wrought!” The verb is pâʻal, to do, make or work, and God is again ʼêl. It is a cry of wonder at things only God could have done, and it gives him the glory for Israel’s victories. The nations did come to say it. Rahab of Jericho confessed to the spies what her people had heard of the LORD’s power (Joshua 2:9–11).

Verse 24 turns from what God has done to what Israel will do. “The people” is ʻam, a people as a gathered body, and they “rise up”, which is qûwm again. “Great lion” is lâbîyʼ, a lion in its full strength, and “young lion” translates ʼărîy, another Hebrew word for lion. “Lift up himself” is nâsâʼ, to lift. The two lions set side by side give one picture of a nation roused and on the move.

The lion was the emblem of kings and conquest, as Proverbs says: “The fear of a king is as the roaring of a lion.” Jacob had already spoken of Judah as a lion (Genesis 49:9), and the image points on to the throne of David, who came from that tribe. Moses closes his final blessing with Israel’s happiness and triumph as a people saved by the LORD (Deuteronomy 33:29), and Micah pictures the remnant of Jacob among the nations as a lion (Micah 5:8).

Balak has now paid for two curses and heard two blessings. His reply is a cry of defeat: “Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all.” The Hebrew for cursing here draws on two verbs, nâqab, to pierce and so to single out or libel, and qâbab, to scoop out and so to malign, to stab with words. That is what Balak had wanted done to Israel. The “at all” in each half presses his request to its limit. He has understood that anything Balaam says about Israel will come out as a blessing, and every blessing strengthens the people he fears, so silence is the best he can hope for.

Balaam answers with a question of his own: “Told not I thee, saying, All that the LORD speaketh, that I must do?” He had said so when he arrived and again after the first oracle, and Balak had refused to take it in. “The LORD” is Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name of the God of Israel, here on the lips of a foreign seer. “Speaketh” is dâbar, to speak, and “do” is ʻâsâh, to do or make in the widest sense. “All that”, kol asher, takes in everything the LORD says, and that is the whole of what Balaam may deliver. Scripture later sums up these days in one line: God turned the curse into a blessing (Deuteronomy 23:5, Nehemiah 13:2).

Every promise Balaam was made to speak finds its Yes and Amen in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20), as does the blessing that will be spoken in the next oracle on those who bless Israel (Numbers 24:9). He is the Word who was with God and was God (John 1:1) and who was made flesh (John 1:14). God, who spoke in former times by the prophets, has now spoken by his Son, the radiance of his glory (Hebrews 1:1–3). Balaam spoke God’s word under compulsion and with a divided heart. Jesus came down from heaven to do the will of him who sent him (John 6:38), and he is the faithful and true witness (Revelation 3:14). He told his disciples that the Scriptures concerning him were fulfilled (Luke 24:44). Heaven and earth will pass away, and his words will stand (Matthew 24:35). Balak was told to hearken, and Christ’s sheep hear his voice (John 10:27).

The blessing Balaam was unable to reverse was the blessing of Abraham, and it reaches the nations through Christ. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). He redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us, so that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through faith (Galatians 3:13–14). In him God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3), has adopted us as his children (Romans 8:15), and keeps for us an inheritance that is incorruptible and unfading (1 Peter 1:4). The cross is where God’s faithfulness to his covenant is shown most fully, for Christ died for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8).

Verse 21 comes into its fullness here as well. God made Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21), and anyone who is in Christ is a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17). “The LORD his God is with him” becomes Emmanuel, God with us (Matthew 1:23), who promised to be with his disciples always, to the end of the world (Matthew 28:20). The king whose shout is in the camp is the King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16), to whom all power in heaven and earth has been given (Matthew 28:18).

The exodus pointed forward to a greater deliverance. God has delivered us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his Son (Colossians 1:13). The strength Balaam compared to the wild ox is seen at its greatest where God raised Christ from the dead (Ephesians 1:19–20, Acts 2:24), and “What hath God wrought!” has its fullest answer there. On the cross Christ disarmed principalities and powers and triumphed over them (Colossians 2:15), and through death he destroyed the one who had the power of death, the devil (Hebrews 2:14–15). The lion of this oracle leads at last to the Lion of the tribe of Judah, who is also the Lamb (Revelation 5:5–6). The warfare of his people now is spiritual, against the powers of darkness (Ephesians 6:12), and in it they are “more than conquerors” through him who loved them (Romans 8:37).

This passage gives us a God whose word can bear our whole weight. Promises between people fail, sometimes through weakness and sometimes through deceit, and verse 19 sets God apart from all of that. What he has said about forgiveness, about his presence and about the future of his people in Christ is as settled as the blessing Balaam found himself unable to move.

It also shows how Israel was kept. The people in the camp below were unaware of what was happening on Pisgah. While a king built altars and a seer looked for a curse, God was defending them, and he turned the curse into a blessing. Paul draws the same comfort for us when he asks who can be against us if God is for us (Romans 8:31). Isaiah says that the weapon formed against the LORD’s servants will fail (Isaiah 54:17), and the psalmist that the LORD keeps his people from all evil (Psalm 121:7–8).

And the passage teaches us where to look when God has acted. Israel’s story was meant to make people say, “What hath God wrought!” The same words fit every deliverance, every answered prayer and every changed heart we have seen, and they give God the credit that belongs to him. If you are in Christ, the God who refused every curse against Jacob looks on you through the righteousness of his Son, and that is ground for confidence when you are accused, whether by others or by your own conscience.