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Numbers 23: What the Passage Says

92 claims across 30 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Numbers 23 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Balak, the king of Moab, has brought Balaam to curse Israel. Twice Balaam has seven altars built and animals offered, twice he goes off to meet the LORD, and twice he comes back and speaks a message that blesses Israel instead of cursing it. Balak protests each time, and at the end of the chapter he takes Balaam to a third site, the top of Peor, and has the altars and offerings prepared again.

Claim by Claim

  1. 23:1
    • Balaam said to Balak, "Build me seven altars here."
    • Balaam told Balak to prepare seven bulls and seven rams here.
  2. 23:2
    • Balak did as Balaam had spoken.
    • Balak and Balaam offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
  3. 23:3
    • Balaam said to Balak, "Stand by your burnt offering."
    • Balaam said he would go.
    • Balaam said perhaps the LORD would come to meet him.
    • Balaam said he would tell Balak whatever the LORD showed him.
    • Balaam went to a bare height.
  4. 23:4
    • God met Balaam.
    • Balaam said to God, "I have set up the seven altars."
    • Balaam said he had offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
  5. 23:5
    • The LORD put a word in Balaam's mouth.
    • The LORD said, "Return to Balak."
    • The LORD said, "Thus you shall speak."
  6. 23:6
    • Balaam returned to Balak.
    • Balak was standing by his burnt offering.
    • All the princes of Moab were with Balak.
  7. 23:7
    • Balaam took up his oracle and spoke.
    • Balaam said Balak the king of Moab had brought him from Aram.
    • Balaam said Balak brought him from the mountains of the east.
    • Balaam said Balak told him to come and curse Jacob.
    • Balaam said Balak told him to come and denounce Israel.
  8. 23:8
    • Balaam asked how he could curse one whom God has not cursed.
    • Balaam asked how he could denounce one whom the LORD has not denounced.
  9. 23:9
    • Balaam said he sees him from the top of the rocks.
    • Balaam said he beholds him from the hills.
    • Balaam said the people dwell alone.
    • Balaam said the people are not reckoned among the nations.
  10. 23:10
    • Balaam asked who can count the dust of Jacob.
    • Balaam asked who can number the fourth part of Israel.
    • Balaam asked to die the death of the upright.
    • Balaam asked that his end be like his.
  11. 23:11
    • Balak said to Balaam, "What have you done to me?"
    • Balak said he took Balaam to curse his enemies.
    • Balak said Balaam had blessed them altogether instead.
  12. 23:12
    • Balaam answered and said.
    • Balaam asked whether he must not take care to speak what the LORD puts in his mouth.
  13. 23:13
    • Balak said to Balaam, "Come with me to another place."
    • Balak said Balaam would see them from there.
    • Balak said Balaam would see only the outermost part of them.
    • Balak said Balaam would not see all of them.
    • Balak told Balaam to curse them for him from there.
  14. 23:14
    • Balak took Balaam to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah.
    • Balak built seven altars there.
    • Balak offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
  15. 23:15
    • Balaam said to Balak, "Stand here by your burnt offering."
    • Balaam said he would meet the LORD over there.
  16. 23:16
    • The LORD met Balaam.
    • The LORD put a word in Balaam's mouth.
    • The LORD said, "Return to Balak."
    • The LORD said, "Thus you shall speak."
  17. 23:17
    • Balaam came to Balak.
    • Balak was standing by his burnt offering.
    • The princes of Moab were with Balak.
    • Balak asked Balaam what the LORD had spoken.
  18. 23:18
    • Balaam took up his oracle and spoke.
    • Balaam told Balak to rise up and hear.
    • Balaam told Balak to give ear to him.
    • Balaam addressed Balak as the son of Zippor.
  19. 23:19
    • God is not a man, that he should lie.
    • God is not a son of man, that he should change his mind.
    • Balaam asked whether God has said something and will not do it.
    • Balaam asked whether God has spoken and will not make it stand.
  20. 23:20
    • Balaam said he has received a charge to bless.
    • Balaam said God has blessed.
    • Balaam said he cannot reverse it.
  21. 23:21
    • God has not beheld iniquity in Jacob.
    • God has not seen trouble in Israel.
    • The LORD his God is with him.
    • The shout of a king is among them.
  22. 23:22
    • God brought them out of Egypt.
    • He has strength like that of a wild ox.
  23. 23:23
    • There is no enchantment against Jacob.
    • There is no divination against Israel.
    • At this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, "What has God done!"
  24. 23:24
    • The people rise up like a lioness.
    • The people lift themselves up like a lion.
    • The people will not lie down until they eat the prey.
    • The people will drink the blood of the slain.
  25. 23:25
    • Balak said to Balaam, "Do not curse them at all."
    • Balak said to Balaam, "Do not bless them at all."
  26. 23:26
    • Balaam answered Balak.
    • Balaam asked whether he had not told Balak that all the LORD speaks, that he must do.
  27. 23:27
    • Balak said to Balaam, "Come, I will take you to another place."
    • Balak said perhaps it would please God for Balaam to curse them for him from there.
  28. 23:28
    • Balak brought Balaam to the top of Peor.
    • Peor looks out over the wasteland.
  29. 23:29
    • Balaam said to Balak, "Build me seven altars here."
    • Balaam told Balak to prepare seven bulls and seven rams here.
  30. 23:30
    • Balak did as Balaam had said.
    • Balak offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

23:1
Balaam is a professional seer, hired by Balak, king of Moab, to put a curse on Israel, who are camped on Moab's border. Seven altars, each with a bull and a ram, is a large and formal offering; seven was the standard number for a complete ritual set throughout the ancient Near East. Sacrifice normally came before asking for an oracle: it was understood to secure the god's attention first.
23:2
The King James "oxen" in verse 1 and "bullock" here translate the ordinary Hebrew word for an animal of the herd. In 1611 English a bullock was a young bull, not a castrated work animal.
23:3
A burnt offering was an animal killed and burned whole on the altar, with no part kept back to be eaten. Balak stays with the offering while Balaam withdraws alone, as a diviner was expected to do to receive a message. KJV's "an high place" translates a Hebrew word that probably means a bare, treeless height; some take it instead as a hilltop shrine.
23:5
"Put a word in his mouth" is the ordinary idiom for a message dictated word for word, which the messenger delivers without altering it. It is the hinge of the whole episode: Balaam has been paid to curse, and can only say what he is given.
23:6
The princes, or leaders, of Moab are the delegation of nobles who fetched Balaam; they are present as official witnesses to whatever he says. Moab was a small kingdom east of the Dead Sea.
23:7
KJV "took up his parable" translates the Hebrew word mashal: a formal saying delivered in poetry (an oracle or pronouncement, not a story with a moral. Aram lay far to the north-east, in the upper Euphrates region; Balak has sent hundreds of miles for a specialist. Jacob and Israel are two names for the same people) Jacob was the ancestor renamed Israel, and Hebrew poetry regularly pairs them in matching lines.
23:8
Cursing here is a technical act, not an insult or a wish. A curse pronounced by a qualified specialist was believed to take effect by itself, which is why Balak pays for one. Balaam's answer is that the words are inert unless God has already spoken them.
23:9
The Hebrew is open in two directions: the people "dwell apart" can describe how they are camped, separate from everyone else, and "not reckoned among the nations" can mean either that they do not count themselves as one nation among others or that they have no place in the ordinary tally of peoples. The line is left unresolved.
23:10
"Dust" is the standard idiom for a quantity too large to be counted, used in the older promises to Abraham. "A fourth of Israel" reflects the camp's arrangement in four divisions on the four sides of the tent-shrine (Numbers 2): not even one division can be numbered.
23:11
The King James "altogether" means completely, entirely. Balak has paid for a curse and received the exact opposite, in full.
23:13
A curse was widely thought to require the target in view. Balak moves Balaam to a place where only part of the camp can be seen, apparently hoping a smaller or different sight will make the curse take hold where the full view did not.
23:14
Zophim means something like "the watchers" or "lookouts." Pisgah is the ridge above the plains of Moab, north-east of the Dead Sea, high enough to look down over the Israelite camp.
23:18
Zippor was Balak's father. Addressing a man by his father's name is formal, heightened speech, suited to the opening of an oracle.
23:19
KJV "repent" does not mean being sorry for sin. In 1611 English it also meant simply changing one's mind or going back on a stated intention, which is the sense here.
23:20
"I cannot reverse it" reflects how spoken blessings and curses were understood in the ancient world: once the words were out, they were treated as released and working, and could not be recalled or cancelled by the speaker.
23:21
The two Hebrew nouns can mean either moral wrong (KJV "iniquity" and "perverseness") or misfortune ("trouble," "disaster"). So the line says either that God finds no fault in Israel or that he has no harm in store for them; both readings are ancient. The "shout" is teruah, a loud ritual cry or trumpet blast used both to acclaim a king and to signal in battle.
23:22
KJV's "unicorn" translates re'em, the wild ox or aurochs (a massive horned bovine, now extinct), not a one-horned horse. The image is of raw strength. The Hebrew also leaves it unclear whether the strength described is God's or the people's.
23:23
Enchantment and divination were professional techniques for reading omens and for altering events by ritual words, Balaam's own trade. The Hebrew preposition allows two senses: either that no spell can work against Jacob, or that no such practice is needed or found within Jacob.
23:24
The Hebrew names two lions, a lioness and a lion, and the picture is of a pride rousing itself to hunt. Drinking the blood of the slain is conventional poetry for a nation going to war and winning, not a description of ritual.
23:25
Balak's reasoning follows from the same assumption behind the whole hire: words spoken by a diviner do work. If Balaam cannot produce a curse, then every blessing he speaks is actively strengthening Balak's enemy, so silence is the safer purchase.
23:27
"Peradventure" means perhaps. Balak keeps moving because gods were commonly thought to be tied to particular territories and particular vantage points, so a third site might, he hopes, produce a different answer.
23:28
Peor is a peak in Moab, later linked with the local god called Baal of Peor (Numbers 25). Jeshimon means "the wasteland", the dry country running down toward the Dead Sea; it may be a proper place-name or simply a description.

Read Numbers 23