🔢WEB · Numbers 22:17
What does Numbers 22:17 mean?
"for I will promote you to very great honor, and whatever you say to me I will do. Please come therefore, and curse this people for me.’”"
— Numbers 22:17 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
The princes of Moab rose up, and they went to Balak, and said, “Balaam refuses to come with us.”
Balak again sent princes, more, and more honorable than they.
They came to Balaam, and said to him, “Thus says Balak the son of Zippor, ‘Please let nothing hinder you from coming to me,
for I will promote you to very great honor, and whatever you say to me I will do. Please come therefore, and curse this people for me.’”
Balaam answered the servants of Balak, “If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I can’t go beyond the word of Yahweh my God, to do less or more.
Now therefore please stay here tonight as well, that I may know what else Yahweh will speak to me.”
God came to Balaam at night, and said to him, “If the men have come to call you, rise up, go with them; but only the word which I speak to you, that you shall do.”
Explanation
This verse records the words of Balak, king of Moab, being relayed to the prophet Balaam through a delegation of officials. Balak is desperate: the Israelites, fresh from their exodus out of Egypt, have set up camp on the plains of Moab, and their sheer numbers terrify him. Having already sent one group of messengers who were turned away, Balak now sweetens the offer, promising Balaam great honor and complete willingness to do whatever Balaam asks, if only he will come and pronounce a curse over Israel.
The context is found in Numbers 22, where the Moabites and Midianites, alarmed by Israel's victories over the Amorites, seek a supernatural solution to a problem they cannot solve militarily. Balaam was a well-known diviner or seer from Mesopotamia (Pethor, near the Euphrates), someone whose blessings and curses were believed to carry real spiritual power — "for I know that whoever you bless is blessed, and whoever you curse is cursed" (Numbers 22:6). Balak's plan is not physical warfare but spiritual warfare: he hopes that if Balaam curses Israel, their strength will be broken and Moab can then defeat them in battle.
Theologically, this verse highlights the clash between human scheming and divine sov
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