What Hath God Wrought!

Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel: according to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!

-- Numbers 23: 23 (KJV)

As the Israelites make their way up the west bank of the Jordan, preparing to enter the promised land of Canaan, they find it necessary to dispatch a few recalcitrant native tribes. So when they reach the land of Moab and camp on the plains, across the Jordan from Jericho, the Moabite people are understandably anxious.

Their chieftain Balak summons an Eastern wizard, or professional curser, named Balaam, to put the kibosh on the Israelites. But Balaam has consulted various oracles and chatted directly with the Lord, only to discover that he will in no way be permitted to curse Israel.

Nonetheless, encouraged by God, Balaam makes the trip to Moab, where Balak trots him off to three different mountain tops overlooking the Israelites' encampment. From each peak Balaam, divinely inspired, actually blesses rather than curses the Hebrews. The second time, from the prospect of Pisgah, he utters the lines quoted here, which mean in effect that nobody but God himself can curse "Jacob" or "Israel" (the names are synonymous), and that all exotic magics are useless. He sums all this up with the memorable line, "What hath God wrought!" -- that is, "Behold what a mighty people the Lord has made of Israel!"

(Ironically enough, the Israelites, rather than laying waste to Moab, will embrace its naughty rituals, which include "sacred prostitution" and the worship of the heathen fertility god Baal. Some conquerors.)

The line "What hath God wrought!" is remembered today thanks as much to Samuel Morse as to Balaam. Having just invented the telegraph, Morse was searching for an appropriate first message when the daughter of a U.S. patent official suggested the biblical phrase. He sent it on May 24, 1844, humbling his own role while aggrandizing the invention. I don't know if other inventors have lifted the phrase, but we more often quote it now with fear or horror than reverence. Perhaps we're just cynical about what technology has wrought.

 
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Michael Macrone is Associate Site Producer of GraceCom and the author of nine books on language, literature, and ideas, including the best-selling Brush Up Your Shakespeare!