NOTES for Num 23:19

Do we ever "create" God in our own image and likeness? We take our qualities and traits, inflate them to immeasurable size, and insist that God is exactly like that. Is this not the reason for our distrust of God, which we cannot overcome by our own strength? We say, "Trust in God, but do your part." We say, "God gave, God took"...

But biblical revelation repeatedly emphasizes: God is not like a human being. He is other; He is beyond imagining and is not made up of human qualities raised to the highest degree. God is paradoxical: He is always the Same, and yet He is the living God, which for us is always associated with change. The resolution of this paradox can be found in the idea of faithfulness: God is faithful in everything, and His word is so faithful that it becomes not merely a word, but a deed. Therefore no lie ever proceeds from Him; otherwise word and deed would immediately diverge.

If even the Old Testament Balaam understands this, then how much less ground for "god-making" and distrust of God remains for us, who have received confirmation of God's faithfulness through the fulfillment of so many of His words in the events of the New Testament!

Does it happen to us "to create" God in our image? We take our qualities and characters, we inflate them till the immense dimensions and we assure that God is exactly like that. Isn’t it the reason of our irresistible (our strengths is this step in it!) distrust of God? We say: "trust in God, but rely on yourself". We say: " God gave God took"...

But the Biblical revelation underlines time and again: God is not as a man, He is different, He is not representable and is not composed of the human qualities in a superlative degree. God is paradoxical: He is always the same and He is a living God (which is always associated for us with change). We can find the solution of this paradox in the notion of "faithfulness". God is faithful in everything, and His word is as faithful as the facts also. That is why no lie ever goes out of Him, otherwise His word would have immediately diverged from facts.

If Balaam of the Old Testament understands it, how much of us who received the certification of the faithfulness of God through the fulfillment of many of His words in the events of the New Testament, so we have fewer reasons for "the edification of God" and incredulity towards Him.

Human attempts to come to terms with God have never ceased. Nor, for that matter, attempts to come to terms with those pagan gods whom people often, if they did not create them themselves, at least imagined in their own image and likeness. So it was with Balak - at first he wanted only one thing: the defeat of the people of God in the war that lay ahead for him with them. Balaam's God was needed by him only as a force that could be set against the people and their incomprehensible God. For Balak there exists only force, natural and supernatural, and both kinds are equally suitable for achieving the goal he has set. For Balak, Balaam is only a specialist in managing supernatural power, nothing more.

He may have guessed that a prophet and prophecy are something more than such management, but judging by the story, this something more did not interest him. Balaam, however, turned out to be a real prophet, even though a pagan one. Real because he refused to follow anyone or anything except the voice that he heard and that led him. Such were real prophets - judging by what we know about them today, they did not always understand whom exactly they served, but they knew one thing firmly: their life presupposed a path and service.

One must not betray the experience that opens to you in the depths of your own heart; one must not fail to listen to the voice that sounds there, and one must not betray one's own path - otherwise catastrophe is inevitable, the collapse of one's whole life. Balaam follows these rules - not always consistently, but always sincerely, and what God needs from a person first of all is sincerity, faithfulness to oneself, and faithfulness to one's own path. Balak, however, wants Balaam simply to solve the task set before him - otherwise why invite him at all? This is where they clashed: Balaam refuses to act as Balak demands, despite both promises and threats.

He even refuses the compromise Balak offers: neither to bless the people nor to curse them. Balak was, in the end, even ready for that option - since the maximum had failed - but Balaam cannot betray himself. In all likelihood, he knew nothing about YHWH, at least at first, when Balak invited him to come. But he knew that one must not betray oneself and the One who speaks in the heart, whoever He may be. This faithfulness to himself and to his path allowed Balaam to hear the God whom he had not known before.

Despite all King Balak's desire, and perhaps his own as well, Balaam cannot curse Israel. God remains unchanged in His blessing. But this is only the outer side. Within Israel, as we read in other chapters, God reproaches His people for unbelief and punishes them. Yet such is the nature of God's love: despite all our sins and unfaithfulness, He is unchanging. And however zealous Balak may be, the prophet utters not curses but blessings. God proves His love once again, and far from the last time, for those whom He has chosen.