“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.”
My Notes
What Does Numbers 22:17 Mean?
"I will promote thee unto very great honour, and I will do whatsoever thou sayest unto me." Balak offers Balaam unlimited honor and unlimited compliance: name your price. Whatever you want. Just curse Israel. The bribe is open-ended — the most dangerous kind, because it lets greed set its own terms.
The combination of honor and obedience is designed to be irresistible: Balak will make Balaam famous AND do whatever Balaam says. The prophet gets both prestige and power. The offer appeals to every dimension of human ambition simultaneously.
The irony is that Balak is offering Balaam what only God should offer: honor (God alone should be the source of a prophet's honor) and obedience (the prophet should obey God, not have kings obey him). Balak's offer is a counterfeit divine relationship — making the prophet into a god with a king as his servant.
Reflection Questions
- 1.What 'unlimited offer' is testing your integrity right now?
- 2.How can correct theology coexist with a compromised heart?
- 3.Why is an open-ended bribe more dangerous than a specific one?
- 4.What does Balaam's right answer with a wrong heart teach about the limits of theological correctness?
Devotional
Name your price. Unlimited honor. Unlimited compliance. Whatever you want — just curse Israel for me. Balak's offer to Balaam is every ambitious person's dream: prestige AND power, with no upper limit on either.
The offer is designed to be impossible to refuse: you'll be honored beyond measure AND I'll do whatever you say. Both carrots are dangled simultaneously. The person who might resist one can't resist both. The honor feeds the ego. The obedience feeds the power-hunger. Together, they're meant to overwhelm any prophetic scruples.
The danger of the open-ended offer is that it lets greed set the price. Balak doesn't name a number. He says 'whatever you say.' The ceiling is wherever Balaam's appetite stops. And appetite, given unlimited room, never stops.
Balaam's response (verse 18) is theologically correct: 'I cannot go beyond the word of the LORD my God.' The words are right. But the story reveals that Balaam's heart isn't: he keeps trying to find a way to earn the reward while technically staying within God's boundaries (chapters 22-24). The mouth says the right thing. The heart wants the money.
What open-ended offer is testing your integrity? What 'whatever you want' is someone dangling in exchange for compromising what God has said? The correct theological answer doesn't protect you if your heart wants what the offer provides. Balaam said the right words and nearly destroyed Israel through the back door (31:16).
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
And the Lord came unto Balaam at night,.... As before, Num 22:9 it may be in a dream; the Targum of Jonathan is as…
We have here a second embassy sent to Balaam, to fetch him over to curse Israel. It were well for us if we were as…
I will promote thee unto very great honour I willsurely honour thee exceedingly. The expression does not imply that…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture