Numbers 23:11
And Balak said unto Balaam, What hast thou done unto me? I took thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast blessed them altogether. And Balak said unto Balaam, What hast thou done unto me? I took thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast blessed them altogether.
Balak, king of Moab, brought Balaam from Aram, from the mountains of the East, to curse Jacob and defy Israel, expecting the curse to devastate Israel and accomplish their destruction. The verse records Balak's angry and disappointed protest, asking what Balaam has done to him, since he was brought to curse Balak's enemies but has blessed them altogether instead. Balak thought Israel's impressive appearance from that viewpoint had influenced Balaam, so he led him from one place to another in the vain hope that a different viewpoint would induce him to change the blessing into a curse.
Balaam himself was corrupt, hypocritical, avaricious and longing in heart to curse God's people for reward, and he later proved unfaithful to his trust as a prophet and would have misrepresented God's people had God permitted it. But God's power governed and controlled Balaam and constrained him to bless, so his words could not be made to serve Balak's wishes and purpose. He had received commandment to bless, and what God has blessed cannot be reversed.
The unwilling prophecy of blessing thus forced from him, prized for beauty of expression in the most exalted strains, declares that he cannot curse whom God has not cursed and cannot defy whom the Lord has not defied. Seen from the top of the rocks and from the hills, Israel dwells alone and is not reckoned among the nations, God has not beheld iniquity in Jacob nor seen perverseness in Israel, the Lord his God is with him and the shout of a King is among them. No enchantment or divination stands against Jacob and Israel, and it shall be said of them what God has wrought, proclaiming Israel as God's chosen under God's almighty protection. The blessing was clear and distinct light from God's throne that even the Moabites could see, given in God's goodness and mercy while Moab and Midian were still spared because their cup of iniquity was not yet full, as the last ray of light to a stiff-necked people who had set their wills in defiance of God's will.
Balak's failure to move Balaam by change of place is repeated in the failure of repeated efforts to move Luther from steadfastness by compromise, since human applause and fear of man were alike powerless to shake Luther's decision and he stood firm as a rock because he was sustained by divine power.