Numbers 23:22

These words are repeated to stress that Israel was under the care and protection of God. They had not come out of slavery under Pharaoh by their own strength. When Balak sent for Balaam, he had said to him, "Behold, a people has come out of Egypt" (22:11). God wanted Balak to understand that they came out of Egypt by His all-powerful arm.

What were they, this famous people? Where did they come from? "Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite" (Ezek. 16). And later, what were they? A nation of slaves! Their first steps out of Egypt were a flight, and fear marked them until their enemies drowned in the sea. "God brought them out of Egypt." But now they have the strength of a unicorn.

The Hebrew word is reem. The Greek translation rendered it with a word meaning "one-horned," and from that the older English versions took "unicorn." Nothing in Scripture suggests the animal had only one horn. In fact Deuteronomy 33:17 speaks of "the horns of a unicorn," and it must have been an animal the Israelites knew. Its great strength, and the fact that it cannot be tamed, are its main features: unlike the tame ox, it cannot be put to work on a farm… Most likely it was a species of wild ox, the Bos primigenius.

The mighty strength of the wild ox was not their own. Their God gave it to them. The power of the wild ox, or buffalo, stands for what is most powerful. In Psalm 22:21 the Lord Jesus met the full force of the power of death, and God answered Him from the horns of the wild oxen — from the place where death, at the height of its power, had spent all its energy against Him. Here Israel had strength that no nation could overcome, given by God Who lived among them.

He had brought them out of Egypt, and His strength is compared to that of the aurochs, or wild ox. No man can resist such strength. Yet this is only a picture, for God's strength is far greater than any picture can show.

There are two parts in Numbers 23:22. The first presents Israel as the objects of God's care; the second, as the instruments of God's vengeance on the nations. Verse 23 answers to the first part, verse 24 to the second. "God brought them out of Egypt." It is the pledge that He never stops watching over them. When God begins to bless, He never stops… It is the assurance of His power always working for them, a power that would keep them safe from the world itself, and from the malice and hidden scheming of Satan.

"God brought them out of Egypt; he has, as it were, the strength of a wild ox." I dare not meddle with them, Balaam says. I understand far too well what they are. They are connected with God, with His strength and power. "According to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What has God done!" According to what time? The time when Israel was faint and weak, worn down by the long journey, with none of their enemies beyond the Jordan yet beaten.

For the believer it is said, "according to this time" — not what men have done, but "what God has done" (Num. 23:21-23).