Balaam’s First Message
Numbers 23Balaam said to Balak, “Build here seven altars for me, and prepare here seven bulls and seven rams for me.”
Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bull and a ram. Balaam said to Balak, “Stand by your burnt offering, and I will go. Perhaps YHWH will come to meet me. Whatever he shows me I will tell you.”
He went to a bare height. God met Balaam, and he said to him, “I have prepared the seven altars, and I have offered up a bull and a ram on every altar.”
YHWH put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and say what I tell you.”
He returned to him, and saw that he was standing by his burnt offering, he with all the officials of Moab. He took up his parable, and said,
“From Aram has Balak brought me, the king of Moab from the mountains of the East. Come, curse Jacob for me. Come, defy Israel. How can I curse whom God has not cursed? How can I defy whom YHWH has not defied? For from the top of the rocks I see him. From the hills I see him. Look, it is a people that dwells alone, and will not be listed among the nations. Who can count the dust of Jacob, or count the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous! Let my last end be like his!”Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, and look, you have blessed-blessed them.”
He answered and said, “Must I not take heed to speak that which YHWH puts in my mouth?”
Balaam’s Second Message
Balak said to him, “Please come with me to another place, where you may see them. You will see just part of them, not all of them. Curse them from there for me.”
He took him into the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and built seven altars, and offered up a bull and a ram on every altar. He said to Balak, “Stand here by your burnt offering, while I meet God over there.”
YHWH met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and say this.”
He came to him, and saw that he was standing by his burnt offering with the officials of Moab. Balak said to him, “What has YHWH spoken?”
He took up his parable, and said,
“Rise up, Balak, and hear! Listen to me, you son of Zippor. God is not a human, that he should lie, nor a son of a human, that he should repent. Has he said, and he won’t do it? Or has he spoken, and he won’t make it good? Indeed, I have received a command to bless. He has blessed, and I can’t reverse it. He has not seen iniquity in Jacob. Neither has he seen perverseness in Israel. YHWH his God is with him. The shout of a king is among them. God brings them out of Egypt. He has as it were the strength of the wild ox. Surely there is no enchantment with Jacob; neither is there any divination with Israel. Now it will be said of Jacob and of Israel, ‘What has God done!’ Look, a people rises up as a lioness, As a lion rouses itself. It will not lie down until it eats of the prey, and drinks the blood of the slain.”Balak said to Balaam, “Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all.”
But Balaam answered Balak, “Didn’t I tell you, saying, ‘All that YHWH speaks, that I must do?’”
Balak said to Balaam, “Come now, I will take you to another place; perhaps it will please God that you may curse them for me from there.”
Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, that looks down on the desert. Balaam said to Balak, “Build seven altars for me here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me here.”
Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered up a bull and a ram on every altar.