“Then Balak said to him, “Please come with me to another place where you can see them. You will only see the outskirts of their camp; you won’t see all of them. From there, put a curse on them for me.”” Numbers 23:13 HCSB

Balaam has been hired by Balak to curse the Israelites. He has proclaimed one oracle from God. And now Balak is not happy with the out come and is taking Balaam to a higher location so that way, maybe, when Balaam sees more of the Israelites then He will curse them. 

This bypass between Balak and Balaam reminds me of the bypass between Jesus and the devil in Matthew 4. The devil is trying His best to tempt Jesus into shortcut into God’s plan for Him, but by taking the shortcut Jesus will be sinning against the the will of God. 

Will we be swayed by the money, food, promise or deceit of the world and the devil. Or will we be obedient to the Lord and all that He tells us to do?                  Balaam had an encounter with the Angel of God before this all happened and after He beat his donkey for going astray the donkey talked to Him. The donkey was willing to keep her master safe from the angel that she saw and He did not see.  The angel charged him with these words.

“The Angel of the Lord asked him, “Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? Look, I came out to oppose you, because what you are doing is evil in My sight. The donkey saw Me and turned away from Me these three times. If she had not turned away from Me, I would have killed you by now and let her live.”

Then the Angel of the Lord said to Balaam, “Go with the men, but you are to say only what I tell you.” So Balaam went with Balak’s officials.”

Numbers 22:32-33, 35 HCSB

https://www.bible.com/72/num.22.32-33,35.hcsb

I guess Balaam still had the money signs in his eyes, but the angel and the donkey opened his eyes to his sin and now He was going with the mindset that God was going to speak to him and he would tell Balak exactly what God was going to say.