“God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?”
Numbers 23.19
We love knowing about the future. We long to see beyond the veil of present circumstances and current events. The desire to see beyond what our understanding allows us is intensified when we encounter trials. Often, we are dumbfounded by the events that we find ourselves in, the animosity and hostility of those we thought were our friends, and the ensuing loss of control we experience over our lives when trouble comes looking for us. These potholes and roadblocks make us wonder about where we are, and what God is up to.
In such times, we long for assurance that God is still around and has not forgotten the things that he told us. Sometimes, though, when we pray for guidance and understanding, it appears as if the heavens are brassy: God’s silence is too loud to bear. Holding on to faith and trust become challenges that reveal how much or little of both we truly possess. And the question that niggles at the back of our mind surfaces at the most troubling moments: “Is God playing games with me?”
The story of Israel and its fate in Numbers 22-24 should encourage us. Israel had gained a name for itself among its landed neighbors for being a warlike and fearsome terror that swept through the deserts like a vengeful wind. Having heard of what Israel had done to vanquish the Amorites, Balak son of Zippor and king of Moab feared for his country’s safety. What would spare Moab from the marauding hoard of nomads who boasted that their God, who showed himself in the strange phenomena of cloud and fire, would rout their enemies and deliver them into their hands?
Balak did what desperate men do: he turned to a diviner, Balaam the Amorite, and paid him to curse Israel. Balaam agreed though he knew that God had forbidden him to curse his people, Israel. But it was a question of lucrative payment. We are familiar with the events that follow in Numbers: Balaam found himself simply unable to utter a curse on the people whom God had blessed! There was no real power in his imprecations, as he himself admitted:
“How may I imprecate
whom God has not imprecated?
How may I execrate
whom Yahweh has not execrated?” (22.8)
Balaam recognized Israel’s special role in God’s purposes: they were a “people that [dwelt] alone” (v. 9)—a peculiar people unlike the rest of the nations, and the treasured minion of Yahweh, the incontestable God.
In fact, instead of cursing Israel, Balaam ended up committing the irony of ironies; he had to bless them too:
“Who may number the dust of Jacob?
Who can count the dust-cloud of Israel?
O that I might die the death of the upright!
Ah, that my latter end might be like his!” (v. 10)
His oracles turned out to be words of blessing in Numbers 23-24. The diviner whose powerful incantations controlled the veil that opened up future things found himself an unwitting and unwilling instrument in a hand mightier than his.
His frustration and that of poor king Balak are perhaps best expressed in Numbers 23.19, our reading for today: “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?”
We can take heart from the story of Balaam, the diviner who sought to get a handle on the supernatural, and who found himself prodded along by a divine finger that made him do what he had not set out to do. All this in aid of a bunch of ex-slaves. But it was to this “no-people” that God had promised his presence and care. To them were given his oracles, announced by his own voice (see Exodus 19-20), and requiring no diviner to conjure up. When he blessed them, his blessing was irrevocable because his nature was unchangeable. Balaam knew this, and admitted that his mission to curse Israel would fail miserably. The account in Numbers of what happened to Balaam every time he opened his mouth borders on the comical.
The story of Balaam and Balak cautions us against too much doubt. It is clear that God’s compassionate eye is upon those whom he loves. Even when Israel did not know what Balaam and Balak were up to, God was at work to ensure that nothing their enemies wanted to do to reverse his blessing and promise could possibly succeed. Balaam gave up with the curse, and told Balak the same. God had blessed Israel and that was that. Of course, the later chapters take another turn, as man pits brains against God … but that is a story for another day.
For today, though, Balaam’s story provides us with the answer to our doubting question: “Is God playing games with me?” Sometimes, our enemies know God better than we do. While we sit and mourn our misfortune, those hostile to us know that their intents are doomed. When God has spoken, his word must be fulfilled. When he has uttered blessing and prophecy over us, our destinies are secured and secure. If we do not know this, we should begin to …
There are indeed certain things that God cannot do. One of them is to lie. The other is to change his mind. If we can hold on to these two truths of what God cannot do, we will understand better the irrevocability of his promises.
They must come to pass. They will come to pass.
