If God tells me to do something, I’m doing it. No questions asked.
And if God tells me to do something, then I would assume (logically) that God is okay with me doing it, right? He commanded it, after all; why would He be mad if I follow through?
That’s the conundrum in Numbers 22:22. On two different occasions, the combined elders of Moab and Midian meet with Balaam to ask him to come to Moab and curse the Israelites.
The first time, Balaam tells them the right reason: God won’t let him go. But notice that he doesn’t tell the whole story. The reason God stated in the dream for not letting Balaam go was because Israel is a blessed nation. Cursing them is not just futile, it’s an act against righteousness.
This little detail becomes important the next time the elders show up. A few weeks later—remember, Pethor (where Balaam lives) is quite a distance from Moab—that same delegation arrives at Balaam’s doorstep, begging him to reconsider. This time, they argue, Balak is prepared to make Balaam a very wealthy man.
What Balak appeals to the second time is Balaam’s sense of devotion. “Don’t let anything prevent you coming to me,” he says. That includes payment concerns (money is no object, after all), or a pesky Jehovah who somehow seems determined to interfere.
This time around, God allows Balaam to go. Then, God gets mad about it (Numbers 22:22).
But why? If God told Balaam to go, why is He now upset?
God hasn’t changed His mind in this story; He still doesn’t want Balaam to leave. But what Balaam demonstrates is his desire to go, regardless of the reason. If he knows that the end state hasn’t changed—that Israel is still blessed and can’t be cursed—what does he expect to change? Balak wants to hire him for his cursing ability, and if he can’t do that, he’s useless.
That means Balaam operates under a simple assumption: Either God will, or Balaam hopes God will, change His mind. If God does, then Balaam can curse Israel and make a tiny profit. Everyone wins…except for Israel of course.
The story of Balaam is fundamentally about one thing: greed. Both 2 Peter 2:15 and Jude 11 describe Balaam as someone obsessed with money, and willing to use religion as a means to amass wealth for themselves, regardless of truth.
Balaam knew what God wanted—he knew it in the first conversation. He persists and God allows him to go, not because God ever wanted Balaam to go, but because He knows that Balaam is dead set on going and most likely will go regardless.
God does the same thing with us. In Romans 1:24, God “gave over” people that insisted God wasn’t real, and who then, because of that belief, lived life as if there is no God.
What do you do with people like that? For those who deny the “invisible attributes” that make God so evident to all of us, how else are you supposed to rein them in?
You can’t…just like with Balaam. The Prodigal Son was determined to go to a far country and spend his inheritance with riotous living. The father let him go.
What looks to us like approval from God may not really be approval after all. We mistake His silence for understanding. We hope God was just in a bad mood the last time we asked. This time, we reason, will be different.
God doesn’t change. If we make the decision to curse Israel, it will be because we’re the ones that moved, not Him.