God is not a man, that he should lie, nor the son of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good?
⛓ Read Numbers 23 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion6
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
The clause that God 'can't lie' (1:2) draws on Balaam's oracle that 'God is not a man, that he should lie.' The divine veracity grounds the promise of eternal life made 'before time began.' Shared vocabulary and theology of God's unbreakable word make this the primary background.
High confidence'God is not a man, that he should lie' establishes that to contradict God is to make him out a liar, which is what claiming sinlessness does. 1 John inverts the axiom: denying sin effectively calls the truthful God a liar.
Medium confidence'God is not a man that he should lie... has he said, and will he not do it?' directly supports Paul's contrast between human fickleness and God's reliable Yes to his promises. The denial of divine vacillation undergirds the Yes/Amen argument. Reasonable verbal-thematic contact on God keeping his word.
Medium confidence‘It is impossible for God to lie’ (v. 18) restates Balaam's axiom that God, unlike a man, cannot lie or repent of his word. Conceptual allusion (no shared catchword), but the thought is verbatim in substance and undergirds the ‘two immutable things’ argument; the divine truthfulness theme returns at Heb 10:23 and Titus 1:2.
Medium confidence'God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.' Balaam's oracle on God's unchanging reliability undergirds James's contrast between God's constancy and the shifting shadows of the luminaries.
Medium confidence'Let God be found true, but every man a liar' (3:4) restates Balaam's axiom that God is not a man that he should lie; the contrast between divine truthfulness and human falsehood is the same theological commitment.
Medium confidenceEcho2
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
'He cannot deny himself' restates Balaam's oracle that God is not a man that he should lie, nor change his mind; what he has said he will do. The immutability of God's own word grounds the faithful saying.
Medium confidence'The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable' (v.29) coheres with Balaam's oracle that God 'is not a man, that he should lie... has he said, and will he not do it?'—the unchangeableness of God's word toward Israel. Faint thematic support.
Low confidence