Numbers 23:17
And when he came to him, behold, he stood by his burnt offering, and the princes of Moab with him. And Balak said unto him, What hath the LORD spoken? And when he came to him, behold, he stood by his burnt offering, and the princes of Moab with him. And Balak said unto him, What hath the LORD spoken?
Balak stood by the burnt offering with the princes of Moab and anxiously asked Balaam what the Lord had spoken, after Balaam had offered sacrifices and gone alone to commune with God's angel. The question belongs to Balak's repeated attempts to have Israel cursed, conducting Balaam from one place to another to turn the blessing into a curse, yet failing every time. Balaam was a corrupt and hypocritical gain-seeker whose heart longed to curse God's people for reward in order to accomplish Israel's destruction for the king of Moab.
God's power controlled the avaricious prophet, prevented the curse, commanded blessing and put words of blessing for His people into his mouth, constraining him to proclaim Israel as God's chosen under God's almighty protection, so clearly that even the Moabites could see he was compelled. Balaam's answer was that God had commanded blessing that cannot be reversed, and neither Balak's efforts nor any curse could reverse it. Brought from Aram by Balak to curse Jacob, Balaam declared he cannot curse whom God has not cursed, that Israel dwells alone and is not reckoned among the nations, that God has not beheld iniquity in Jacob, that the Lord his God is with him with the shout of a King among them, that there is no enchantment or divination against Jacob and Israel, and that the only word to Balak is what God has wrought. The passage is part of Balaam's unwilling prophecy of blessing in Numbers 23:7-23, beautiful poetry among the earliest as well as the most sublime poetic utterances known, in the most exalted strains of inspiration and not inferior in beauty to Job and the Song of Songs.
The verse displays God's goodness and mercy in protecting Israel from intended destruction. This clear and distinct light from the throne of God was the last ray of light shining upon a stiff-necked people who had set their wills in defiance of God's will. As with Luther's steadfastness to God's word against attempted compromise, Balak succeeded no better, showing that human applause and the fear of man are alike powerless to shake one who is sustained by divine power to speak only blessing where God has blessed.