"13 And Balak said to him, “Please come with me to another place, from which you may see them. You shall see only a fraction of them and shall not see them all. Then curse them for me from there.” 14 And he took him to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar. 15 Balaam said to Balak, “Stand here beside your burnt offering, while I meet the Lord over there.” 16 And the Lord met Balaam and put a word in his mouth and said, “Return to Balak, and thus shall you speak.” 17 And he came to him, and behold, he was standing beside his burnt offering, and the princes of Moab with him. And Balak said to him, “What has the Lord spoken?” 18 And Balaam took up his discourse and said,
“Rise, Balak, and hear;
give ear to me, O son of Zippor:
19 God is not man, that he should lie,
or a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Has he said, and will he not do it?
Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
20 Behold, I received a command to bless:
he has blessed, and I cannot revoke it.
21 He has not beheld misfortune in Jacob,
nor has he seen trouble in Israel.
The Lord their God is with them,
and the shout of a king is among them.
22 God brings them out of Egypt
and is for them like the horns of the wild ox.
23 For there is no enchantment against Jacob,
no divination against Israel;
now it shall be said of Jacob and Israel,
‘What has God wrought!’
24 Behold, a people! As a lioness it rises up
and as a lion it lifts itself;
it does not lie down until it has devoured the prey
and drunk the blood of the slain.”
25 And Balak said to Balaam, “Do not curse them at all, and do not bless them at all.” 26 But Balaam answered Balak, “Did I not tell you, ‘All that the Lord says, that I must do’?"
Numbers 23:13-26
The second prophecy was prepared for, and given to Balaam in the same way as the first (14,16). There are two things in particular to notice. The first is Balaam's conviction of the un- changing nature of God's covenant promises to Israel, stated as clearly and plainly as it was centuries later by the Apostle Paul, in Romans 11:29: 'The gifts and callings of God are with- out repentance.' Balaam puts it thus: 'God is not a man that He should lie...hath He said and shall He not do it...?' That is to say, He has said He would bless the people, and He keeps His promise (19). What words for us, and for all time! 'Hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?' This is a word that we need to take with us day by day, and, in looking at how faithfully it has been fulfilled in Israel, be assured that what He has said to us, He will also do.
The second point to note is what is said of Israel in 21. This does not mean that the people of God were sinless, or that God overlooked their sins we know that is not true but rather that no sin of theirs could weary His exhaustless mercy or cause Him to abrogate His covenant, or His purposes with them. Ah, He sorely punished their sins, but He never left them nor forsook them, for His covenant's sake. He was indeed with them, and the shout of a King was among them (this last has reference to their triumphant progress into the Promised Land, with the Ark in their midst).