🔢WEB · Numbers 23:7
What does Numbers 23:7 mean?
"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."
— Numbers 23:7 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
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?
For from the top of the rocks I see him. From the hills I see him. Behold, it is a people that dwells alone, and shall not be listed among the nations.
Who can count the dust of Jacob, or count the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous! Let my last end be like his!”
Explanation
Numbers 23:7 records the opening words of Balaam's first oracle concerning Israel. In plain language, the verse tells us that Balaam began to speak in a formal, poetic style ("took up his parable") and recounted why he had come: Balak, king of Moab, had summoned him from Aram, a region to the northeast, "from the mountains of the East," with a specific request—to curse the people of Israel, here called by their ancestral name "Jacob."
The context is important for understanding the passage. The Israelites, having left Egypt, were traveling toward the Promised Land and had recently defeated the Amorites, camping on the plains of Moab. Balak, the Moabite king, grew terrified of this enormous nation encamped near his territory and sought supernatural help to weaken them, since military force seemed insufficient. He hired Balaam, a diviner or seer known for his ability to pronounce effective blessings and curses, hoping that a curse spoken over Israel would cripple them before battle. Balaam had already been warned by God not to curse Israel, for God had declared them blessed, but Balak still brought him to a high place to attempt it, building altars and offering sacrifices in hopes of persuading God to permit the curse.
Theologically, this verse sets the stage for one of the most striking reversals in the entire Old Testament: a hired pagan diviner, brought specifically to curse God's people, instead finds himself compelled by God to bless them. Balaam himself becomes an unwitting instrument of divine revelation, and his words here quote Balak's
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