Context No. 2378 of 4322 · Numbers

Numbers 23:16-24: in context

16The LORD met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and say this.” 17He came to him, and behold, he was standing by his burnt offering, and the princes of Moab with him. Balak said to him, “What has the LORD spoken?” 18He took up his parable, and said, “Rise up, Balak, and hear! Listen to me, you son of Zippor. 19God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and he won’t do it? Or has he spoken, and he won’t make it good? 20Behold, I have received a command to bless. He has blessed, and I can’t reverse it. 21He has not seen iniquity in Jacob. Neither has he seen perverseness in Israel. The LORD his God is with him. The shout of a king is among them. 22God brings them out of Egypt. He has as it were the strength of the wild ox. 23Surely there is no enchantment with Jacob; neither is there any divination with Israel. Now it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, ‘What has God done!’ 24Behold, a people rises up as a lioness. As a lion he lifts himself up. He shall not lie down until he eats of the prey, and drinks the blood of the slain.”

Balak has hired Balaam to curse Israel, and this is the second time God turns the curse into a blessing. Balaam tells the king plainly: God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. I received a command to bless, he says, and he has blessed, and I cannot reverse it.

The scene is almost comic. A king pays for a curse and keeps getting blessings, because the one hired to speak has run into a wall he cannot move: the settled word of God. What God has said, he will do; what he has blessed stays blessed, and no fee or altar can turn it. For Israel, unaware of the bargaining going on over their heads, the protection is total and invisible. The reliability is not in Balaam's mood but in God's character. He does not say a thing and then fail to make it good.

What promise of God am I treating as fragile, when it rests on a character that does not lie or change?

Sources

Numbers 23:19: God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and he won't do it?
Numbers 23:20: Behold, I have received a command to bless. He has blessed, and I can't reverse it.
Titus 1:2: in hope of eternal life, which God, who can't lie, promised before time began.