Numbers — Chapter 23

How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? How shall I denounce whom the Lord has not denounced? Balaam cannot curse those whom God blesses; a consolation for those persecuted by enemies: the blessing of God cannot be nullified by human curses.

Let my soul die the death of the just, and my last end be like to theirs! Even the wicked Balaam, illuminated by grace, desires the death of the righteous; but he does not desire their life — a deadly contradiction, noted by St. Gregory.

God is not a man that He should lie, nor as the son of man that He should change. Hath He then said, and will He not do it? God's immutability grounds the certainty of His promises; four reasons why men break their word do not apply to God.

There is no idol in Jacob, nor is any divining seen in Israel; the Lord his God is with him, and the sound of the king's triumph is in him. Israel praised for pure worship of God and the absence of divination — contrasted with the nations.

God brought him out of Egypt; his strength is like a unicorn (rhinoceros). Lapide's extended excursus on the rhinoceros and monoceros — the rhinoceros symbolises God's slow but terrible power; the monoceros (unicorn) tamed by a virgin = Christ captured only in the womb of the Virgin.

There is no augury in Jacob, nor divination in Israel; in due time it shall be told to Jacob and Israel what God has wrought. Israel's prophetic gifts — given through Moses, the priestly ephod, and the Prophets — replace the false augury of the nations.