A donkey stopped three times on a narrow road, and her owner beat her every time for refusing to walk him into a sword he could not see. This Numbers 22 summary and study guide covers the Bible chapter where a king pays to have Israel cursed, and God answers on a road nobody else was watching.
Table of Contents
Setting the Stage
Long before Israel was a nation, God made Abraham a promise with two sides to it. He would bless whoever blessed Abraham’s family, and He would curse whoever cursed them (Genesis 12:3; 27:29). Nobody had yet tested that promise with money.
By the time this chapter opens, Israel has come up the eastern side of the Dead Sea, has been ordered by God to leave Moab alone (Deuteronomy 2:9), and has destroyed the two Amorite kings who stood in its way. Moab watches all of it from across the border. Balak, the king of Moab, cannot beat an army that size in a fight, so he looks for a man who can attack it another way.
Comprehensive Numbers 22 Summary
Israel camps in the plains of Moab, across the Jordan from Jericho. Balak, king of Moab, has seen what Israel did to the Amorites, and he is terrified, even though God had already forbidden Israel to touch his country. He takes counsel with the leaders of Midian and decides an army will not be enough. He sends messengers to Balaam, a famous seer living far away at Pethor, carrying the fee such men were paid, and asks him to curse Israel.
Balaam tells the messengers to stay the night while he asks God. God’s answer closes the matter. Balaam is forbidden to travel with them and forbidden to curse this people, because they are blessed.
In the morning Balaam sends the men home, telling them only that God will not let him travel, and leaving out the reason. They carry a shorter version still back to Balak: Balaam will not come.
So Balak sends more men, of higher rank, with more honour and more money. Balaam answers that no amount of silver and gold could take him past God’s word, then asks them to wait one more night while he enquires again. God tells him that if the men call him he may go, but the words will be God’s rather than his own. Balaam rises in the morning and goes.
God is angry that he went. The angel of the LORD stands in the road against him, and Balaam’s donkey sees what her master cannot. Three times she turns away, and three times he beats her, until God gives her a voice and she asks what she has done to deserve it.
Then Balaam’s own eyes are opened and he sees the sword. He offers to turn back, is told to go on and say only God’s words, and Balak takes him up to a high place overlooking the camp of Israel.
One Word Summary
- Blessed: God’s only reason for refusing, and the thing money cannot undo.
- Blind: the hired seer cannot see the angel his donkey sees.
- Hired: the chapter runs on a fee.
In One Sentence
Balak king of Moab hires Balaam to curse Israel, God refuses because Israel is blessed, and when Balaam sets out anyway the angel of the LORD blocks the road with a drawn sword while Balaam’s donkey sees what the seer cannot.
Theme of Numbers 22
Numbers 22 is about the safety of a people who have no idea they are being attacked. God guards Israel here without Israel lifting a hand or even hearing about it, and He does it by refusing to let a purchased word stand against His own.
Two ideas run alongside that one. A man can say exactly the right thing about God while his heart is set on the payment, and be blind enough with it that the animal under him sees what he cannot. And God’s permission to such a man is not the same as God’s approval.
Numbers 22 Outline
- Numbers 22:1: Israel leaves the Amorite country and camps in the plains of Moab across the Jordan from Jericho.
- Numbers 22:2-4: Balak sees what Israel did to the Amorites, and Moab in fear takes counsel with the leaders of Midian.
- Numbers 22:5-6: Balak sends messengers to Balaam at Pethor asking him to come and curse Israel.
- Numbers 22:7-8: The elders arrive with the fee, and Balaam tells them to stay the night while he asks God.
- Numbers 22:9-12: God questions Balaam and forbids him to go or to curse Israel, because they are blessed.
- Numbers 22:13-14: Balaam sends the messengers away with a partial answer, and they report to Balak that he refuses to come.
- Numbers 22:15-17: Balak sends a larger and more honourable delegation promising great reward.
- Numbers 22:18-19: Balaam says no wealth could take him past God’s word, then asks them to wait while he enquires again.
- Numbers 22:20-21: God tells him he may go if the men call him but must speak only God’s word, and Balaam saddles his donkey and goes.
- Numbers 22:22: God’s anger is stirred, and the angel of the LORD stands in the road against him as an adversary.
- Numbers 22:23-27: The donkey sees the angel three times and turns aside, and Balaam beats her each time.
- Numbers 22:28-30: God opens the donkey’s mouth and she answers her master.
- Numbers 22:31-33: Balaam’s eyes are opened, he sees the drawn sword, and the angel tells him the donkey saved his life.
- Numbers 22:34-35: Balaam offers to turn back and is told to go on and speak only what God gives him.
- Numbers 22:36-38: Balak meets him at the border and reproaches him, and Balaam warns that he can say only what God puts in his mouth.
- Numbers 22:39-41: They go to Kirjath-huzoth, Balak offers sacrifices, and the next day takes Balaam up to the high places of Baal to view the people.
Observations from Numbers 22
God’s Answer Got Smaller Every Time It Was Passed On (Numbers 22:12-14)
“Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people: for they are blessed” (Numbers 22:12). God forbade him to travel with the messengers, forbade him to curse Israel, and told him Israel already stood under a blessing. That is three things, and the third is the reason for the other two.
Balaam passed on one of the three. He told the messengers that God would not let him travel with them (Numbers 22:13), and said nothing about the curse or the blessing. The messengers then told Balak that Balaam refused to come (Numbers 22:14), and God had disappeared from the message entirely.
The part Balaam dropped is the one that could have ended the negotiation. Numbers does not say what Balak made of the reply, but what reached him was a refusal with no reason attached, and he answered it by raising the offer.
The Road Narrowed Three Times Before Anyone Spoke (Numbers 22:23-27)
The first time, the donkey had room to leave the road and go into the open field. The second time she was in a walled path between vineyards, with just enough room to press against the wall. The third time there was “no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left” (Numbers 22:26), so she lay down.
Balaam had three chances to ask why an animal that had carried him all its life was behaving like this, and he used all three to hit her.
The Angel’s First Question Was About the Donkey (Numbers 22:32)
Balaam is on his face in the road in front of a drawn sword, and the first thing the angel asks is not about Moab or the money. “Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times?” (Numbers 22:32). Why did you beat your donkey three times?
The charge about his own way comes second, in the same verse. God took up the cruelty before He took up the errand, which fits what Scripture says elsewhere about how a righteous man treats his animal (Proverbs 12:10).
Balaam Wanted a Sword, and One Was Already There (Numbers 22:23, 29, 31)
“I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee” (Numbers 22:29). Balaam tells the donkey that if he had a sword on him he would use it on her.
There was a sword in front of him the whole time, in the hand of the angel he could not see (Numbers 22:23, 31). Later, in Israel’s war against Midian, Balaam was killed with the sword (Numbers 31:8).
Israel Takes No Part in Its Own Defence (Numbers 22:1)
After the first verse, Israel does not appear in this chapter again. The nation camps by the Jordan while a king spends a fortune on a plan to destroy it, and not one Israelite is recorded as knowing anything about it.
God did all of it. Israel neither arranged this protection nor asked for it, and so far as the record goes never learned it had been needed.
Difficult Verses Explained
Why Did God Say No, Then Say Go, and Then Get Angry?
God never changed His mind about the curse, which is the part that matters. In Numbers 22:12 He forbids two things, the trip and the curse. In Numbers 22:20 He releases the first and keeps the second: Balaam may go, but only the word God gives him may be spoken. The ban on cursing Israel is repeated again in verse 35 and again by Balaam himself in verse 38, so it never moves at any point in the chapter.
What changed was the kind of answer Balaam was given. He had already been told plainly, and he asked a second time hoping for a different reply.
Many Bible teachers read the second answer as God handing him over to what he already wanted, which is a pattern Scripture describes elsewhere: “Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way” (Proverbs 1:31), and “he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul” (Psalm 106:15). God can let people have the thing they insisted on, and the having of it becomes the judgment.
Verse 20 also carries a condition, and verse 21 never records it being met. God said “If the men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them” (Numbers 22:20), that is, wait until they come for you. The next verse has Balaam getting up in the morning, saddling his own donkey and going. The passage does not say the men called him.
Did Balaam’s Donkey Really Speak?
The New Testament treats it as something that happened. Peter writes of Balaam that “the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet” (2 Peter 2:16), that is, an animal that cannot talk spoke in a human voice and stopped a prophet who had lost his senses.
Scripture does not say how. The wording in Numbers 22:28 is that the LORD opened the donkey’s mouth, which puts the miracle in God rather than in the animal. Some readers understand this as God giving her speech; others understand it as God speaking through her, and note that when Balaam’s eyes are opened the angel asks him the same question the donkey had just asked. Either way the passage is pressing what the seer could not see, rather than what the donkey could do.
Readers often ask why Balaam was not astonished. The passage does not say, and any answer is a guess.
Was Balaam a Prophet of God or a Sorcerer?
Scripture never calls Balaam a prophet of the LORD, and it does call him something else. Joshua 13:22 names him “Balaam also the son of Beor, the soothsayer”, using the word for a man who tells fortunes, a practice God later forbids Israel outright (Deuteronomy 18:10). The men who come for him bring “the rewards of divination” (Numbers 22:7), the standard fee for that trade.
And yet God genuinely speaks to him and genuinely speaks through him. Both things stand in the passage without being resolved, and it is better to hold them together than to flatten either one. He knew the LORD by name, he told Balak the truth about his own limits, and he still spent the chapter looking for a way to earn the money.
Did Moab Give Israel Food and Water or Not?
Two passages appear to disagree, and the difference is in what each one is describing. Deuteronomy 2:29 has the Moabites in Ar selling Israel provisions as they passed by. Deuteronomy 23:4 gives the reason Moab was later barred from joining the worshipping congregation of Israel: “Because they met you not with bread and with water in the way, when ye came forth out of Egypt; and because they hired against thee Balaam.” Moab stayed behind its border while Israel passed, and Moab paid for a curse.
Selling supplies at a distance is one thing, and coming out to meet travelling kinsmen with food and water is another, which is why Deuteronomy 23:4 puts the hiring of Balaam in the same sentence as that failure. Scripture leaves it there, so it is wise to press it no further than the wording allows.
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Common Misunderstandings
- That God changed His mind about cursing Israel. He did not. The ban on cursing stands unaltered in verses 12, 20, 35 and 38, and only the permission to travel ever moved.
- That the donkey was magical or reasoned on her own. Numbers 22:28 says the LORD opened her mouth. The chapter never credits the animal with power or understanding of her own.
- That Balaam was a faithful prophet who slipped once. Numbers 31:16 says Israel’s later sin at Peor came “through the counsel of Balaam”, and Revelation 2:14 names a false teaching after him.
- That “Numbers 22” concerns the biblical meaning of the number 22. Numbers is the fourth book of the Bible, named for the two censuses it records. The chapter number is a chapter number.
Christ Connection
The one standing in the road speaks and acts as God Himself. He uses the first person, telling Balaam “the word that I shall speak unto thee, that thou shalt speak” (Numbers 22:35), which is word for word the instruction God had given in verse 20. Balaam bows his head and falls flat on his face in front of him (Numbers 22:31), and he holds the man’s life in his hand (Numbers 22:33).
The same title, the angel of the LORD, belongs to the one who found Hagar in the desert (Genesis 16:7) and appeared to Moses in the burning bush (Exodus 3:2), and Christians have long understood these appearances as the Son of God showing Himself before He was born in Bethlehem.
There is a promise standing behind that road. God had told Israel that if they obeyed His voice He would be “an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries” (Exodus 23:22), opposing whoever opposed them. Numbers 22:22 is the only place in the Bible where someone is said to be met “for an adversary”, and the man it happens to is the one hired to curse Israel.
Four things in this chapter point toward Him.
- The drawn sword by Jericho. The exact phrase “sword drawn in his hand” occurs three times in the King James Bible: twice of the angel here (Numbers 22:23, 31), and once in Joshua 5:13, where Joshua meets a man by Jericho holding a drawn sword and is told, “as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come” (Joshua 5:14). Israel is camped by Jericho in Numbers 22:1, and Joshua is by Jericho in Joshua 5. The same words describe both scenes, and the two men respond in opposite ways: the hired seer has to have his eyes opened before he can see the sword at all, while Joshua sees it at once and falls down to worship.
- A blessing no payment could reverse. God’s whole reason in verse 12 is that Israel is already blessed. Moses later tells Israel why the plot failed: “the LORD thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the LORD thy God loved thee” (Deuteronomy 23:5). The reason given is God’s love, not Israel’s record, and that is how the gospel speaks about those who belong to Christ (Romans 8:31-34). This is not a promise that God’s people are beyond consequence: three chapters later Israel falls into the sin at Peor and twenty-four thousand die (Numbers 25:1-9), and what a hired curse could not do to them, they did to themselves.
- The curse that turned into a promise of Christ. The mouth Balak paid to speak against Israel ended up saying, “there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel” (Numbers 24:17), a coming ruler from Israel. Many Bible teachers understand this as pointing toward Christ.
- The question the chapter leaves open. Measured by what Israel had deserved in the wilderness, a curse would have been the fair verdict, and Balak was counting on it. Scripture does not tell us how Balaam reasoned about that, but it does tell us how God answers it: He is “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:26), righteous Himself while declaring guilty people right with Him.
God Himself later told Israel to keep this episode in mind, and said why: “O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal; that ye may know the righteousness of the LORD” (Micah 6:5). Remember what the king of Moab planned and what the seer answered him over that stretch of country, so that you understand how right and faithful the LORD is.
God pointed a later generation back to this chapter as evidence about Himself. The curse Balak paid for was never going to land, because God had already blessed the people it was aimed at. A different curse could land, the sentence the law pronounces on those who break it, and Christ took that one Himself: “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). Christ bought us out from under the law’s curse by becoming cursed himself in our place.
When, Where, and Why
- When: The fortieth year after Israel left Egypt, immediately after the defeat of the Amorite kings Sihon and Og. Israel stays camped in this same place for the rest of Numbers and through the whole of Deuteronomy.
- Where: The plains of Moab, the low ground of the Jordan valley opposite Jericho, land that had belonged to Moab before the Amorites took it. Balaam is summoned from Pethor, a town whose location is no longer certain, and the two men meet at a border city on the river Arnon before going up to the high places of Baal.
- Why: Moses records an attack Israel never saw so that Israel would know who kept them. The chapter also explains why Moab was later treated as it was, and Micah 6:5 shows God pressing the same episode on a later generation as proof of His own faithfulness.
Key Verses
Come now therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people; for they are too mighty for me
Numbers 22:6
Balak asks Balaam to come and curse this people for him, because they are stronger than he is. He goes on in the same verse to say that he knows whoever Balaam blesses is blessed and whoever he curses is cursed, which shows what he thought he was buying: power over a nation’s God rather than advice.
If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the LORD my God, to do less or more.
Numbers 22:18
Balaam says that even a palace filled with silver and gold could not make him go past what the LORD his God says, in either direction. Every word of it is accurate, and he calls Him “the LORD my God” while saying it, which makes this the clearest measure in the chapter of how far correct belief can travel with the heart still going the other way.
Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and he bowed down his head, and fell flat on his face.
Numbers 22:31
God uncovered Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with his sword out, so he bowed his head and dropped face down on the ground. The danger had been there since verse 22, and the only thing that changed was what Balaam could see.
Lo, I am come unto thee: have I now any power at all to say any thing? the word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak.
Numbers 22:38
Balaam tells Balak that he has arrived but has no authority to say anything he chooses, and that he will speak only what God puts in his mouth. The man Balak sent for twice, and offered a palace of silver and gold, has been reduced to a mouth God will fill, which is exactly what happens over the next two chapters.
Key Lessons from Numbers 22
- God can defend His people from an attack they never learn about (Numbers 22:1-6).
- A blessing God has given is not something other people can withdraw by paying for it (Numbers 22:12; Genesis 12:3).
- Repeating what God said while leaving out the part that settles the matter is not honest reporting (Numbers 22:12-14).
- Asking God again for something He has already refused can be a way of arguing rather than praying (Numbers 22:19).
- God may let a person have what they insisted on, and being allowed to go is not the same as being approved (Numbers 22:20-22).
- A man can be entirely right about what God’s word is and still be travelling the wrong way (Numbers 22:18, 32).
- God noticed how the animal was treated and raised it before He raised anything else (Numbers 22:32; Proverbs 12:10).
To see how this chapter fits into the rest of the book, read our chapter by chapter walk through all thirty-six: The Book of Numbers Summary by Chapter.
Bible Study Questions
- Balak had been told nothing by God, yet Israel had orders not to touch Moab. What does his fear in Numbers 22:2-4 show about acting on what you can see rather than what is true?
- Compare Numbers 22:12 with what Balaam actually tells the messengers in verse 13. What does he leave out, and what does leaving it out achieve?
- In Numbers 22:18 Balaam says something completely true about God’s word, and in verse 19 he asks God again anyway. How do those two verses fit together?
- God gave a condition in Numbers 22:20 and Balaam acted in verse 21. What is different between what he was told and what he did?
- The donkey turns aside three times in Numbers 22:23-27 and Balaam reads none of it. What would it have taken for him to notice?
- Why do you think the angel’s first question in Numbers 22:32 is about the donkey rather than about the trip to Moab?
- Balaam says “I have sinned” in Numbers 22:34 and then adds a condition. What does that condition leave undecided?
- Micah 6:5 tells Israel to remember this episode so they will know the righteousness of the LORD. What does Numbers 22 show you about God that you would want a worried person to hear?
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Balaam in the Bible?
Balaam was a foreign seer from Pethor, hired by Balak of Moab to curse Israel. He was not an Israelite, and he is named in eight books of the Bible, three of them in the New Testament, where he is always a warning. Numbers 22 to 24 is the only place his story is told at length.
Who was Balak in the Bible?
Balak son of Zippor was the king of Moab during Israel’s final year in the wilderness. He saw Israel destroy the Amorite kings and, judging himself too weak to fight, tried to buy a curse instead. He appears in Numbers 22 to 24, and is mentioned again in Joshua 24:9, Judges 11:25 and Micah 6:5. Some readers have suggested from Numbers 22:4 that he came from Midian rather than Moab, though the chapter does not say so.
What happened to Balaam in the end?
After failing to curse Israel he advised Moab and Midian how to corrupt them instead, and Numbers 31:16 says the sin at Peor came about “through the counsel of Balaam”. He was killed in Israel’s war against Midian some time later (Numbers 31:8).
What is the doctrine of Balaam?
It is the teaching Jesus condemns in Revelation 2:14, where Balaam is said to have taught Balak how to make Israel stumble into idolatry and immorality. The New Testament attaches his name to three things: the way of Balaam, which Peter ties to loving the wages of unrighteousness (2 Peter 2:15), the error of Balaam, which Jude ties to running greedily after reward (Jude 1:11), and the doctrine of Balaam, which is corrupting God’s people from inside after cursing them from outside had failed.
Is there any archaeological evidence for Balaam?
There is an inscription that names him, though it does not confirm the events of Numbers 22. In 1967 archaeologists at Deir Alla in Jordan found writing on a plastered wall, dated to roughly the ninth century BC, that opens by describing Balaam son of Beor as a seer. It shows that a seer of that name was remembered in that region centuries later, within a few miles of where this chapter is set, and its religious content differs from the account in Numbers.
Where was Pethor?
Nobody knows for certain. Numbers 22:5 places it by a river, and Deuteronomy 23:4 says Balaam came from Mesopotamia, which points to a town on the Euphrates several hundred miles from Moab. Some scholars have argued for a site much closer to Moab. Moses records nothing further about the place.
Numbers 22, The Full Text (KJV)
Read the full chapter below for reference.
1 And the children of Israel set forward, and pitched in the plains of Moab on this side Jordan by Jericho.
2 And Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites.
3 And Moab was sore afraid of the people, because they were many: and Moab was distressed because of the children of Israel.
4 And Moab said unto the elders of Midian, Now shall this company lick up all that are round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field. And Balak the son of Zippor was king of the Moabites at that time.
5 He sent messengers therefore unto Balaam the son of Beor to Pethor, which is by the river of the land of the children of his people, to call him, saying, Behold, there is a people come out from Egypt: behold, they cover the face of the earth, and they abide over against me:
6 Come now therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people; for they are too mighty for me: peradventure I shall prevail, that we may smite them, and that I may drive them out of the land: for I wot that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed.
7 And the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with the rewards of divination in their hand; and they came unto Balaam, and spake unto him the words of Balak.
8 And he said unto them, Lodge here this night, and I will bring you word again, as the LORD shall speak unto me: and the princes of Moab abode with Balaam.
9 And God came unto Balaam, and said, What men are these with thee?
10 And Balaam said unto God, Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, hath sent unto me, saying,
11 Behold, there is a people come out of Egypt, which covereth the face of the earth: come now, curse me them; peradventure I shall be able to overcome them, and drive them out.
12 And God said unto Balaam, Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people: for they are blessed.
13 And Balaam rose up in the morning, and said unto the princes of Balak, Get you into your land: for the LORD refuseth to give me leave to go with you.
14 And the princes of Moab rose up, and they went unto Balak, and said, Balaam refuseth to come with us.
15 And Balak sent yet again princes, more, and more honourable than they.
16 And they came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus saith Balak the son of Zippor, Let nothing, I pray thee, hinder thee from coming unto me:
17 For I will promote thee unto very great honour, and I will do whatsoever thou sayest unto me: come therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people.
18 And Balaam answered and said unto the servants of Balak, If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the LORD my God, to do less or more.
19 Now therefore, I pray you, tarry ye also here this night, that I may know what the LORD will say unto me more.
20 And God came unto Balaam at night, and said unto him, If the men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them; but yet the word which I shall say unto thee, that shalt thou do.
21 And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab.
22 And God’s anger was kindled because he went: and the angel of the LORD stood in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him.
23 And the ass saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and the ass turned aside out of the way, and went into the field: and Balaam smote the ass, to turn her into the way.
24 But the angel of the LORD stood in a path of the vineyards, a wall being on this side, and a wall on that side.
25 And when the ass saw the angel of the LORD, she thrust herself unto the wall, and crushed Balaam’s foot against the wall: and he smote her again.
26 And the angel of the LORD went further, and stood in a narrow place, where was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left.
27 And when the ass saw the angel of the LORD, she fell down under Balaam: and Balaam’s anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff.
28 And the LORD opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?
29 And Balaam said unto the ass, Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee.
30 And the ass said unto Balaam, Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? was I ever wont to do so unto thee? And he said, Nay.
31 Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and he bowed down his head, and fell flat on his face.
32 And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? behold, I went out to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse before me:
33 And the ass saw me, and turned from me these three times: unless she had turned from me, surely now also I had slain thee, and saved her alive.
34 And Balaam said unto the angel of the LORD, I have sinned; for I knew not that thou stoodest in the way against me: now therefore, if it displease thee, I will get me back again.
35 And the angel of the LORD said unto Balaam, Go with the men: but only the word that I shall speak unto thee, that thou shalt speak. So Balaam went with the princes of Balak.
36 And when Balak heard that Balaam was come, he went out to meet him unto a city of Moab, which is in the border of Arnon, which is in the utmost coast.
37 And Balak said unto Balaam, Did I not earnestly send unto thee to call thee? wherefore camest thou not unto me? am I not able indeed to promote thee to honour?
38 And Balaam said unto Balak, Lo, I am come unto thee: have I now any power at all to say any thing? the word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak.
39 And Balaam went with Balak, and they came unto Kirjath-huzoth.
40 And Balak offered oxen and sheep, and sent to Balaam, and to the princes that were with him.
41 And it came to pass on the morrow, that Balak took Balaam, and brought him up into the high places of Baal, that thence he might see the utmost part of the people.
