How do you decide who to curse?

In which Bible story does an animal talk? How do you maintain your principles in the face of powerful influence? When should a people be cursed?

"How do you decide who to curse?" is based on Numbers 23:1-12

Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.” Balak did as Balaam had said and offered a bull and a ram on each altar. Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here beside your burnt offerings while I go aside. Perhaps the LORD will come to meet me. Whatever he shows me I will tell you.” And he went to a bare height.
Then God met Balaam, and Balaam said to him, “I have arranged the seven altars and have offered a bull and a ram on each altar.” The LORD put a word in Balaam’s mouth and said, “Return to Balak, and this is what you must say.” So he returned to Balak, who was standing beside his burnt offerings with all the officials of Moab. Then Balaam uttered his oracle, saying,
“Balak has brought me from Aram,
the king of Moab from the eastern mountains:
‘Come, curse Jacob for me.
Come, denounce Israel!’
How can I curse whom God has not cursed?
How can I denounce those whom the LORD has not denounced?
For from the top of the crags I see him;
from the hills I behold him.
Here is a people living alone
and not reckoning itself among the nations!
Who can count the dust of Jacob
or number the dust cloud of Israel?
Let me die the death of the upright,
and let my end be like his!”
Then Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but now you have done nothing but bless them.” He answered, “Must I not take care to say what the LORD puts into my mouth?"

Works Referenced

Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary. New York City: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2019, Kindle edition.

Aziz, Omer. “When the demon takes over.” The Christian Century Vol. 143, No. 4 (April 2026): 66-71.

Dozeman, Thomas B. “Numbers.” In New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume III. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2015.

Dozeman, Thomas B. “Numbers.” In The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha, 5th ed., edited by Michael D. Coogan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Fox, Nili S. “Numbers.” In The Jewish Study Bible: Second Edition, edited by Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Jacobson, Karl N. “Numbers.” In Fortress Commentary on the Bible: The Old Testament and Apocrypha, edited by Gale A. Yee, Hugh R. Page, Jr., Matthew J. M. Coomber. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014. Kindle edition.

Jenkins, Jack. “At Doug Wilson’s DC Church Plant, ‘Worship Is Warfare.’” Religion News Service. July 15, 2025. https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/07/christ-church-dc-doug-wilson-pete-hegseth/

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