Scripture Daily

Context No. 1053 of 4322 · Numbers

Context · Reflection

Numbers 23:11-15: in context

11Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, and behold, you have blessed them altogether.” 12He answered and said, “Must I not take heed to speak that which the LORD puts in my mouth?” 13Balak said to him, “Please come with me to another place, where you may see them. You shall see just part of them, and shall not see them all. Curse them from there for me.” 14He 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. 15He said to Balak, “Stand here by your burnt offering, while I meet God over there.”

Balak brought Balaam to curse Israel, and instead Balaam has blessed them. Balak is furious: what have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, and you have done nothing but bless them. Balaam answers with a line that sums up the whole story: must I not take care to speak what the LORD puts in my mouth? Undeterred, Balak tries again, taking Balaam to a different vantage point, hoping that from another angle, seeing only part of Israel, the curse might work. They build seven more altars and offer sacrifices, and Balaam goes off to meet God.

Balak's response to failure is telling: he assumes the problem is the vantage point. If cursing them did not work from here, maybe it will work from over there, from a hill where you can see only the edge of the camp. He keeps changing locations, rebuilding altars, trying different angles, as though God's blessing were a matter of finding the right spot from which to attack it. But the obstacle is not geography; it is that God has blessed this people, and no change of viewpoint can alter what God has decided. Balaam, for all his own compromised heart, states the fixed truth plainly: I can only speak what the LORD puts in my mouth. There is a stubborn comfort here for anyone who feels an enemy circling, trying this angle and that to bring them down. The person determined to curse what God has blessed will keep moving to new positions, but from every hill the word that comes out is still blessing, because the blessing was never about the hill. God's favor is not vulnerable to being outflanked.

When opposition keeps shifting its angle to find a way to bring me down, can I rest in the fact that from every vantage God's blessing stands, and no change of position can turn it into a curse?

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