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Context No. 1040 of 4322 · Numbers

Context · Reflection

Numbers 22:1-6: in context

1The children of Israel traveled, and encamped in the plains of Moab beyond the Jordan at Jericho. 2Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. 3Moab was very afraid of the people, because they were many. Moab was distressed because of the children of Israel. 4Moab said to the elders of Midian, “Now this multitude will lick up all that is around us, as the ox licks up the grass of the field.” Balak the son of Zippor was king of Moab at that time. 5He sent messengers to Balaam the son of Beor, to Pethor, which is by the River, to the land of the children of his people, to call him, saying, “Behold, there is a people who came out of Egypt. Behold, they cover the surface of the earth, and they are staying opposite me. 6Please come now therefore, and curse this people for me; for they are too mighty for me. Perhaps I shall prevail, that we may strike them, and that I may drive them out of the land; for I know that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed.”

Israel is camped on the plains of Moab, and Balak, the king of Moab, is terrified. He has watched Israel defeat the Amorites, and now this vast people is spread out at his border like an ox about to lick up the grass of a field. Fear drives him to a plan. He sends messengers to Balaam, a well-known diviner, with a request and a fee: come and curse this people for me, for they are too strong for me. Balak believes Balaam has real power, whomever you bless is blessed and whomever you curse is cursed, and he wants to hire that power against Israel.

The whole scheme rests on a fear and a false hope. Balak is afraid of a people he cannot defeat in battle, so he tries to defeat them by supernatural means instead, paying a professional curse-maker to do what his army cannot. And there is something almost pitiable in his theology: he imagines God's blessing on Israel is a force that can be canceled by hiring the right religious specialist, that a curse for a fee can undo what God has decreed. The rest of the story will demolish that idea completely, as Balaam opens his mouth again and again and only blessing comes out, because no one can curse whom God has blessed. That is the deep comfort buried in this opening scene of fear and hired curses: the blessing of God on his people is not for sale and cannot be reversed by any amount of money or any hired power. Balak's fear leads him to spend a fortune trying to buy a curse that God will simply turn into blessing. What God has blessed, no enemy can curse.

When someone or something seems arrayed against me, do I fear it as though it could cancel God's blessing, when scripture insists what God has blessed no hired power can curse?

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