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Numbers 23 · a question people ask

What does "a people that dwells alone" mean?

Interpretation

Balaam, looking down from the heights, says, "Behold, it is a people that dwells alone, and shall not be listed among the nations" (23:9). The oracle doesn't explain it further, and readers hear it in two main ways, each with its verses. Both agree that it is said of Israel as the people God has blessed (23:8, 23:20).

How Christians read it

Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.

Set apart as God's own

Some read it as Israel set apart from the nations to belong to the LORD. The same verse goes on, "and shall not be listed among the nations" (23:9). The LORD told Israel, "I, the LORD, am holy, and have set you apart from the peoples, that you should be mine" (Leviticus 20:26), and Moses asked, "Isn’t it that you go with us, so that we are separated, I and your people, from all the people who are on the surface of the earth?" (Exodus 33:16).

Numbers 23:9 · Leviticus 20:26 · Exodus 33:16

Living in safety

Others read it as Israel living secure, with no one to threaten them. The same two Hebrew words, dwell and alone, come together in Moses' blessing: "Israel dwells in safety, the fountain of Jacob alone" (Deuteronomy 33:28). Jeremiah puts the same two together of a nation "that is at ease", one "that dwells alone" (Jeremiah 49:31).

Deuteronomy 33:28 · Jeremiah 49:31

The verses

“For from the top of the rocks I see him. From the hills I see him. Behold, it is a people that dwells alone, and shall not be listed among the nations.”
Numbers 23:9 · World English Bible
“How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? How shall I defy whom the LORD has not defied?”
Numbers 23:8 · World English Bible
“Behold, I have received a command to bless. He has blessed, and I can’t reverse it.”
Numbers 23:20 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Numbers 23

Numbers 23: God is not a man

Balak moved Balaam from height to height, hoping a new view would bring a curse (23:13, 23:27). It never did. Each time "the LORD put a word in Balaam’s mouth" (23:5), and the word was blessing, because "God is not a man, that he should lie" (23:19). "Return to Balak" (23:5) and "I can’t reverse it" (23:20) use one Hebrew verb: Balaam could be sent back, the blessing couldn’t.

In Favor, questions like this come up right where they arise as you read, with the Hebrew and Greek behind the words and how the chapter leads to Jesus.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions