20 Behold, I have received a command to bless. He has blessed, and I can't reverse it.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Behold I have received commandment to bless. He signifies that a command to bless had been given him, antl a positive law laid down for him. For, as has been said, he was not free and independent in this matter; but God had bound him to exercise the prophetic office, even against his own will. Hence he declares that it is not in his power to alter the revelation, of which he is the minister and witness. But there is a remarkable expression introduced in the midst of his declaration, viz., that God himself had blessed; whereby he intimates that the lot of men, whether adverse or prosperous, depends on the authority of God alone; and that no other commission is given to the prophets, except to promulgate what God has appointed; as if he had said, It belongs to God alone to decree what the condition of men is to be; He has chosen me to proclaim His blessing; it is not in my power either to reverse or withdraw it. Now, since Balaam here sustains the character of a true Prophet, we may gather from his words that no other power of binding or loosing is given to the ministers of the Word, except that they should faithfully bring forward what they may have received from God.
I have received commandment to bless - literally, "I have received to bless." The reason of his blessing lay in the augury which he acknowledged, and in the divine overruling impulse which he could not resist, not in any "commandment" in words.
Behold, I have received commandment to bless,.... The people of Israel, to pronounce a blessing upon them, to declare them a happy people:
and he hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it; God has blessed them, has determined to bless them, has promised to bless them, has blessed them in the victories he has given them, and will complete the blessing of them, by bringing them into the land he has given them: so the blessings which God has designed for his spiritual Israel, and bestows upon them, are irreversible; they are blessings indeed, spiritual ones, and are for ever; he blesses them with himself, as their covenant; God, their portion here and hereafter, with Christ his Son, and all things with him, with righteousness, peace, and pardon, with his Spirit and the grace thereof, with sonship, heirship, and eternal life.
"Behold, I have received to bless: and He hath blessed; and I cannot turn it." Balaam meets Balak's expectation that he will take back the blessing that he has uttered, with the declaration, that God does not alter His purposes like changeable and fickle men, but keeps His word unalterably, and carries it into execution. The unchangeableness of the divine purposes is a necessary consequence of the unchangeableness of the divine nature. With regard to His own counsels, God repents of nothing; but this does not prevent the repentance of God, understood as an anthropopathic expression, denoting the pain experienced by the love of God, on account of the destruction of its creatures (see at Genesis 6:6, and Exodus 32:14). The ה before הוּא Numbers 23:19) is the interrogative ה (see Ges. 100, 4). The two clauses of Numbers 23:19, "Hath He spoken," etc., taken by themselves, are no doubt of universal application; but taken in connection with the context, they relate specially to what God had spoken through Balaam, in his first utterance with reference to Israel, as we may see from the more precise explanation in Numbers 23:20, "Behold, I have received to bless' (לקח, taken, accepted), etc. השׁיב, to lead back, to make a thing retrograde (Isaiah 43:13). Samuel afterwards refused Saul's request in these words of Balaam (Numbers 23:19), when he entreated him to revoke his rejection on the part of God (1-Samuel 15:29).
*More commentary available at chapter level.