Scripture Daily

Context No. 1378 of 4322 · Numbers

Context · Reflection

Numbers 24:10-14: in context

10Balak’s anger burned against Balaam, and he struck his hands together. Balak said to Balaam, “I called you to curse my enemies, and, behold, you have altogether blessed them these three times. 11Therefore, flee to your place, now! I thought to promote you to great honor; but, behold, the LORD has kept you back from honor.” 12Balaam said to Balak, “Didn’t I also tell your messengers whom you sent to me, saying, 13‘If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I can’t go beyond the LORD’s word, to do either good or bad from my own mind. I will say what the LORD says’? 14Now, behold, I go to my people. Come, I will inform you what this people shall do to your people in the latter days.”

Balak's patience has run out. He had hired Balaam to curse Israel, and three times Balaam has blessed them instead. Now the king's anger burns; he strikes his hands together and rounds on the prophet: I called you to curse my enemies, and you have blessed them these three times. Flee home; I meant to reward you richly, but the LORD has kept you from honor. Balaam answers with the principle he had stated from the beginning: even if Balak gave me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the word of the LORD, to do good or evil of my own will; what the LORD says, that I will speak.

Balaam is a deeply mixed figure elsewhere in scripture, but the principle he states here stands on its own: even a house full of silver and gold could not make him say what the LORD had not said. He was under enormous pressure, a furious king, the loss of a great promised reward, every incentive to bend and give Balak the curse he was paying for; and he answers that no amount of money and no royal anger can move him to speak beyond God's word. What the LORD says, that and only that, he will speak. There is a standard here for the integrity of speech that we badly need. It is a constant temptation to shade what we say to please those who can reward or punish us, to soften a truth, to flatter those in power, to say what serves our interest rather than what is true, because there is money or advancement or safety in it. Balaam, for all his faults, would not do that with God's word; the reward could be as vast as a king's whole treasury and it would not buy a syllable God had not given. To be that kind of person, one whose speech cannot be purchased, who says what is true regardless of who is offering what or who is angry, is a rare and needed integrity. What God has said, we are to say, and no fortune and no fury should be able to make us say otherwise.

Can my speech be bought or bent by the reward those in power can offer or the anger they can threaten, or am I, at least in this, like Balaam, unable to go beyond the truth God has given, whatever fortune or fury is set against it?

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