🔢WEB · Numbers 23:5
What does Numbers 23:5 mean?
"Yahweh put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.”"
— Numbers 23:5 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bull and a ram.
Balaam said to Balak, “Stand by your burnt offering, and I will go. Perhaps Yahweh will come to meet me. Whatever he shows me I will tell you.” He went to a bare height.
God met Balaam, and he said to him, “I have prepared the seven altars, and I have offered up a bull and a ram on every altar.”
Yahweh put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.”
He returned to him, and behold, he was standing by his burnt offering, he, and all the princes of Moab.
He took up his parable, and said, “From Aram has Balak brought me, the king of Moab from the mountains of the East. Come, curse Jacob for me. Come, defy Israel.
How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? How shall I defy whom Yahweh has not defied?
Explanation
Numbers 23:5 describes a moment in a strange and dramatic episode: God takes control of what the pagan seer Balaam is about to say and dictates the very words he must speak to
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