Numbers 22:20 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

If the men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them, &c.— This is better rendered by Houbigant, Since the men are come to call thee, arise and go with them: but thou shalt, or wilt, be able to do nothing beyond that which I shall command thee. God, says he, does not command Balaam to go: for, being soon after angry that Balaam went, how can He be supposed now to command him to go? Numbers 22:22 for the same reason God gave not Balaam leave to go; he had first commanded him not to go, Numbers 22:12 but Balaam wished again to hear the will of God; thereby immediately declaring himself staggered by the large promises of Balak. As Balaam, therefore, shews himself thus affected, God speaks to him in this manner, determined to compel him by another method. Go, says he; and, since you speak of these messengers being come, in such a manner as to shew that you are resolved to go with them, go. The Lord adds: Nevertheless, you shall do what I say; i.e. you shall not do what you will, but what I will; and because you go contrary to my will, you shall do that, contrary to your own, which you would wish not to do. Saurin observes, that God knew the motives of Balaam's heart, thus abandoned to covetousness; and, in order to punish him for having asked leave a second time to go into the land of Moab, which God had so positively forbidden, he granted his request: but scarcely had Balaam begun to make use of it, before he had reason to be sensible, that one of the greatest misfortunes with which God punishes indiscreet prayers, is to hear them. Bishop Butler observes, in the before-quoted place, that, as when this nation afterwards rejected God from reigning over them, he granted them a king in his anger; in the same way, as appears from other parts of the narrative, he gives Balaam the permission he desired, who, however, for not hearkening to the voice of God, was left to perish in his own devices. See Joshua 13:22. "When men are foolish, froward, and self-willed," says Dr. Waterland, "and for their humour or vanity, or corrupt views, will take their own ways, notwithstanding the kindest reproofs offered to make them retreat; God then deserts them, and abandons them to follow their own imaginations, to their own undoings. The case was exemplified in the prophet Balaam, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, and pursued his avarice and his self-conceit, till they became his ruin." See his Scripture Vindic. p. 46.