The Immovable Word of God Text: Numbers 23:13-26
Introduction: The Futility of Fighting God
We come now to the second act in a grand drama of spiritual warfare. On one side, you have Balak, the king of Moab. He is a man steeped in the pagan worldview, which is to say, a worldview of manipulation, superstition, and raw, panicked fear. He believes the gods are like temperamental politicians; if you can't get the vote you want in one district, you simply move your campaign to another. He thinks that by changing the scenery, by altering the angle of observation, he can change the mind of God. He is a pragmatist in the worst sense of the word, which is to say, a fool.
On the other side, you have Balaam, a fascinating and tragic figure. The Scripture is clear that Balaam was a true prophet, but not a true man. He had a genuine prophetic gift, a direct line to Yahweh, but his heart was rotten with greed. He is a hireling prophet, a man who wants to serve God and mammon, and the entire story is a demonstration of the impossibility of that project. God has hooked him like a great fish, and though he strains on the line, wanting Balak's money, God will only let him speak what God has determined for him to speak.
And in the middle, unseen but utterly central, is Israel, encamped below. They are the object of all this frantic activity, yet they are blissfully unaware of the spiritual battle raging over them on the high places. A pagan king and a compromised prophet are trying to deploy all the forces of darkness against them, and they know nothing of it. This is a profound comfort. Our security does not depend on our awareness of every threat, but on the faithfulness of our covenant-keeping God. While we are sleeping, He is not. While we are ignorant of the schemes of the enemy, God is turning their curses into blessings.
This passage is a thunderous declaration of the sovereignty of God against all human and demonic machinations. Balak's strategy is to find a loophole in the divine will. Balaam's desire is to cash a check. But God's purpose is to declare the absolute, irrevocable, and unchangeable nature of His covenant love for His people. What we are about to witness is the collision of a pagan worldview with the immovable rock of God's Word.
The Text
Then Balak said to him, "Please come with me to another place from where you may see them, but you will only see the end of them and will not see all of them; and curse them for me from there." So 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. And he said to Balak, "Stand here beside your burnt offering while I myself meet Yahweh over there." Then Yahweh met Balaam and put a word in his mouth and said, "Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak." So he came to him, and behold, he was standing beside his burnt offering, and the leaders of Moab with him. And Balak said to him, "What has Yahweh spoken?" Then he took up his discourse and said, "Arise, O Balak, and hear; Give ear to me, O son of Zippor! God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not establish it? Behold, I have received a command to bless; When He has blessed, then I cannot revoke it. He has not observed misfortune in Jacob; Nor has He seen trouble in Israel; Yahweh his God is with him, And the shout of a king is among them. God brings them out of Egypt, He is for them like the horns of the wild ox. For there is no omen against Jacob, Nor is there any divination against Israel; At the proper time it shall be said to Jacob And to Israel, what God has done! Behold, a people rises like a lioness, And as a lion it lifts itself; It will not lie down until it devours the prey, And drinks the blood of the slain." Then Balak said to him, "Do not curse them at all nor bless them at all!" But Balaam replied to Balak, "Did I not tell you, saying, 'Whatever Yahweh speaks, that I must do'?"
(Numbers 23:13-26 LSB)
A Change of Venue, Not a Change of Mind (vv. 13-17)
We begin with Balak's desperate, superstitious strategy.
"Then Balak said to him, 'Please come with me to another place from where you may see them, but you will only see the end of them and will not see all of them; and curse them for me from there.'" (Numbers 23:13 LSB)
Balak's thinking is pure paganism. He reasons that the first blessing was a fluke, perhaps caused by the impressive vista. He thinks God's blessing is tied to geography. Maybe if Balaam only sees a fraction of Israel, just the stragglers at the edge of the camp, the curse will be more manageable. This is how the pagan mind works. It believes in a limited God, a territorial deity who can be tricked or appeased by ritual and location. It is the essence of magic: trying to manipulate supernatural forces for your own ends. Modern man does the same thing, he just uses different incantations. He thinks that if he can just get the right therapeutic technique, the right political policy, or the right technological fix, he can bend reality to his will. It is the same spirit as Balak on the high places.
So they go through the whole rigmarole again. Seven altars, seven bulls, seven rams. Balak is trying to show God he is serious. But God is not impressed by the props. He is not swayed by the smell of burnt offerings when the heart is bent on wickedness. Yahweh meets Balaam, but not because of the ritual. He meets him to commandeer his mouth once more. "Then Yahweh met Balaam and put a word in his mouth." God is not negotiating. He is dictating. He places His word in Balaam's mouth like a bit in the mouth of a donkey, and the prophet, for all his avarice, must go where God directs him.
The Unchangeable God (vv. 18-20)
Balaam returns to the anxious king and delivers the second oracle, which contains one of the most foundational statements about God's character in all of Scripture.
"God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not establish it? Behold, I have received a command to bless; When He has blessed, then I cannot revoke it." (Numbers 23:19-20 LSB)
This is the central lesson. Balak, you are dealing with the wrong kind of God for your project. You think you can manipulate Him, but He is not a man. Men lie. Men are fickle. Men make promises they can't or won't keep. Men change their minds based on new information or emotional whims. God is not like that. His Word is not a trial balloon; it is a creative and sustaining decree. When God speaks, reality rearranges itself to comply.
The word "repent" here does not mean God regrets a sin. It means He does not change His mind or His purpose. His will is immutable. This is the bedrock of our confidence. If God could change His mind about His promises, then our salvation would be a matter of constant, terrifying uncertainty. But because He is not a man, because He cannot lie, His covenant promises are more stable than the mountains around them. What He has said, He will do. What He has spoken, He will establish.
Balaam is a man under authority. "I have received a command to bless." He is not a free agent. And the conclusion is devastating to Balak's plan: "When He has blessed, then I cannot revoke it." God's blessing is not a flimsy piece of paper that can be torn up. It is an iron decree. To try and curse what God has blessed is like trying to punch the tide back into the sea.
The Covenantal Gaze (vv. 21-22)
Now Balaam explains the basis for this irrevocable blessing. It is not based on Israel's performance, but on God's covenant relationship with them.
"He has not observed misfortune in Jacob; Nor has He seen trouble in Israel; Yahweh his God is with him, And the shout of a king is among them. God brings them out of Egypt, He is for them like the horns of the wild ox." (Numbers 23:21-22 LSB)
This is a staggering statement. "He has not observed misfortune in Jacob." Does this mean the Israelites were sinless? Of course not. The book of Numbers itself is a catalog of their grumbling, rebellion, and idolatry. So what does this mean? It means that when God looks at His covenant people, He looks at them through the lens of His grace. He does not see them in their sin, but in their covenant head. He does not impute their iniquity to them. This is a profound foreshadowing of the gospel. For the Christian, God does not observe misfortune in us, because He has already observed it, judged it, and condemned it in the person of His Son on the cross. We are clothed in a righteousness that is not our own. "Yahweh his God is with him." This is the heart of the covenant: Immanuel, God with us.
And because God is with them, "the shout of a king is among them." This is a cry of victory, of acclamation for their true King, Yahweh. He is their strength, their protector. He brought them out of Egypt with a high hand, and He possesses the untamable strength of a wild ox. They are not a people to be trifled with, not because of who they are, but because of who their God is.
Invincible and Victorious (vv. 23-26)
The oracle concludes with a declaration of Israel's invincibility and ultimate triumph.
"For there is no omen against Jacob, Nor is there any divination against Israel... Behold, a people rises like a lioness, And as a lion it lifts itself; It will not lie down until it devours the prey, And drinks the blood of the slain." (Numbers 23:23-24 LSB)
All of Balak's occultic efforts are worthless. You cannot put a hex on the people of God. You cannot read the entrails or consult the stars to find a weakness in God's covenant. All the black magic, all the sorcery, all the demonic power of Moab is rendered utterly inert before the blessing of Yahweh. The only thing that can be said of Israel is to look and wonder, "what God has done!" Their story is a testimony to His power, not their own.
And this people is not passive. They are pictured as a lion, a lioness rising to the hunt. This is not a picture of a meek and mild people hoping not to be noticed. This is the Church militant. God has blessed them in order to make them a blessing, but also to make them a terror to His enemies. They have a divine mandate to take dominion, to devour the prey and drink the blood of the slain. This is the language of holy war, of executing God's righteous judgment on the wicked inhabitants of Canaan. And it is a picture of the Church's ultimate victory. We will not rest until Christ's enemies are made His footstool, until the prey has been devoured and the victory is complete.
Balak's reaction is one of utter exasperation. "Do not curse them at all nor bless them at all!" He is a man who has lost control. He wants to hit the mute button. If he can't get the curse he paid for, he'll settle for silence. But Balaam reminds him of the central constraint: "Did I not tell you, saying, 'Whatever Yahweh speaks, that I must do'?" The Word of God cannot be silenced, neutralized, or compromised to suit the whims of pagan kings.
Conclusion: Blessed and Uncursable
This entire episode serves as a powerful lesson for the people of God in every age. The world, like Balak, will always try to curse the Church. It will use political power, cultural pressure, and every form of intimidation and manipulation it can muster. It will try to find an angle, a weakness, a reason for God to revoke His favor.
But the gospel truth, prefigured here in Balaam's forced oracle, is that our standing is not in ourselves. If God looked at us as we are, He would find plenty of "misfortune" to observe. But He doesn't. He looks at us in Christ. And because we are in Christ, we are irrevocably blessed. "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies" (Romans 8:32-33).
There is no omen against the Church of Jesus Christ. There is no divination, no demonic strategy, no political maneuvering that can possibly succeed against it. The gates of Hell will not prevail. God has spoken a word of blessing over His people, sealed in the blood of His Son, and He is not a man that He should lie. He has commanded a blessing, and it cannot be revoked.
Therefore, we should not live in fear, constantly looking over our shoulder at the Balaks of this world. We should live as a people blessed, as a people with whom God dwells, as a people in whom the shout of the King is heard. We should rise like a lioness, confident in the victory that has been secured for us, and get about the business of devouring the prey that our King has appointed for us.