Biblion Bible Commentary
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How Shall I Curse Whom God Has Not Cursed?
Numbers 23:1-30
1 Balaam said to Balak, “Build here seven altars for me, and prepare here seven bulls and seven rams for me.” · WEB
Twice a king pays for a curse and twice he receives a blessing, and the prophet explains that the constraint is not his to move.
The procedure is elaborate and it is repeated: seven altars, seven bulls, seven rams, on a height overlooking the camp Numbers 23:1–2.
Balaam goes off alone and comes back with words he did not choose. How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? How shall I defy whom Yahweh has not defied? Numbers 23:8.
That is the sentence the whole episode turns on. The question is not whether Balaam is willing but whether the thing is available, and it is not. A curse is not a technique that works on whoever it is aimed at; it depends on a verdict that has already been given elsewhere.
The first oracle describes Israel as a people that dwells alone, and shall not be listed among the nations Numbers 23:9 — which is an accurate description of the separation the law had been building for three books.
Balak's response is to move him: come with me to another place, where you may see them. You shall see just part of them Numbers 23:13. If the whole camp produced a blessing, perhaps a partial view will produce something usable.
The strategy is worth naming because it is not stupid. He is trying to change the outcome by changing the vantage point, and the second oracle answers exactly that instinct.
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? Or has he spoken, and he won't make it good? Numbers 23:19.
And then: behold, I have received a command to bless. He has blessed, and I can't reverse it Numbers 23:20.
The most striking line follows, and it is spoken about a people who have spent forty years complaining: he has not seen iniquity in Jacob. Neither has he seen perverseness in Israel Numbers 23:21.
That is not a description of their record; the previous nine chapters are. It is a statement of how they stand, which is a different thing, and it is delivered by a hostile witness who would have said otherwise if he could.
Balak's exasperation is comic and exact: neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all Numbers 23:25. Having failed to buy a curse, he asks for silence, and cannot have that either.
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