Numbers 23:1-30
1 Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build seven altars for me here, and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams.”
2 And Balak did just as Balaam had spoken, and Balak and Balaam offered a bull and a ram on each altar. 3 Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stand by your burnt offering, and I will go; perhaps the LORD will come to meet me, and whatever He shows me I will tell you.” So he went to a desolate height. 4 And God met Balaam, and he said to Him, “I have prepared the seven altars, and I have offered on each altar a bull and a ram.”
5 Then the LORD put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.” 6 So he returned to him, and there he was, standing by his burnt offering, he and all the princes of Moab.
7 And he took up his oracle and said:
“Balak the king of Moab has brought me from Aram,
From the mountains of the east.
‘Come, curse Jacob for me,
And come, denounce Israel!’
8 “How shall I curse whom God has not cursed?
And how shall I denounce whom the LORD has not denounced?
9 For from the top of the rocks I see him,
And from the hills I behold him;
There! A people dwelling alone,
Not reckoning itself among the nations.
10 “Who can count the dust of Jacob,
Or number one-fourth of Israel?
Let me die the death of the righteous,
And let my end be like his!”
11 Then Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, and look, you have blessed them bountifully!”
12 So he answered and said, “Must I not take heed to speak what the LORD has put in my mouth?”
Balaam’s Second Prophecy
13 Then Balak said to him, “Please come with me to another place from which you may see them; you shall see only the outer part of them, and shall not see them all; curse them for me from there.” 14 So he brought him to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and built seven altars, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
15 And he said to Balak, “Stand here by your burnt offering while I meet the LORD over there.”
16 Then the LORD met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, “Go back to Balak, and thus you shall speak.” 17 So he came to him, and there he was, standing by his burnt offering, and the princes of Moab were with him. And Balak said to him, “What has the LORD spoken?”
18 Then he took up his oracle and said:
“Rise up, Balak, and hear!
Listen to me, son of Zippor!
19 “God is not a man, that He should lie,
Nor a son of man, that He should repent.
Has He said, and will He not do?
Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
20 Behold, I have received a command to bless;
He has blessed, and I cannot reverse it.
21 “He has not observed iniquity in Jacob,
Nor has He seen wickedness in Israel.
The LORD his God is with him,
And the shout of a King is among them.
22 God brings them out of Egypt;
He has strength like a wild ox.
23 “For there is no sorcery against Jacob,
Nor any divination against Israel.
It now must be said of Jacob
And of Israel, ‘Oh, what God has done!’
24 Look, a people rises like a lioness,
And lifts itself up like a lion;
It shall not lie down until it devours the prey,
And drinks the blood of the slain.”
25 Then Balak said to Balaam, “Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all!”
26 So Balaam answered and said to Balak, “Did I not tell you, saying, All that the LORD speaks, that I must do’?”
Balaam’s Third Prophecy
27 Then Balak said to Balaam, “Please come, I will take you to another place; perhaps it will please God that you may curse them for me from there.” 28 So Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, that overlooks the wasteland. 29 Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build for me here seven altars, and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams.” 30 And Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on every altar.
After Balaam made it to the battlefield of Balak with Moab set against God’s people, he made sacrifices to the LORD and began to prophesy, but not as asked or expected by the earthly king. He had to be true to his heavenly King of kings. God met Balaam and gave him the words to proclaim. He spoke out loudly how he had been summoned to curse and denounce whom God had not cursed and denounced. He proclaimed how Jacob’s children sat alone among the nations before them and how prosperous they were destined by promise to become. This angered the king who hired him to curse and not bless, but Balaam blessed them bountifully as God had put the words in his mouth to speak truthfully. The king then tried to take him where only part of the army of Israel was visible, as if that would change the prophecy by ignoring the better part of them. The result was the same. God had the seer proclaim what He had again instructed him, uttering those famous words of His character in Numbers 23:19 that He was not a liar like men and did not go back on His word of promise as mortals often do. The command to bless God’s chosen stood firm and resolute to bless His people as an irreversible promise of the Almighty. God had seen them as righteous in Him who brought them out of the bon of Egypt with a strong and outstretched arm (Jeremiah 32:17, 21) as a demonstration of what God had done for all to witness. What He promised He made good! The people would arise and conquer as a hunting lioness until the prey was overtaken and devoured, a prophetic statement of the victory over the ungodly nations being judged in the promised land to be given to God’s people by the force of His might enabling them to conquer the nations there such as Moab before them then. When Balak was distraught at the prophecy of God’s word by Balaam, he tried to tell him not to say anything good or bad In his utter frustration, yet the seer replied again that he could only speak (1 Thessalonians 2:4) what God had told him. He and we cannot but speak what God says according His word (Acts 4:19-20) that we now have solidified for us in the scriptures. He then went to a third location for a third proclamation with another seven altars with their respective offerings. That follows in the next chapter of this book.
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