SATURDAY 3rd
Numbers 6:22-27
NIV – ‘The LORD said to Moses, Tell Aaron and his sons, This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace. So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.’
ESV – ‘The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.’
I don’t know about you but when I think of the book of Numbers there are two Scriptures that would come to mind, the first is our text known as the Priestly blessing and the second is Numbers 32:23 which says ‘. . . be sure your sin will find you out.’
Today we will take the Priestly blessing, or Aaronic blessing which I am sure we are all familiar with and during this time of pandemic has become very recognisable as a piece of music that has been put together by using the wonders of modern technology where individuals in isolated places have combined their voices to make one song. (as an example I will post a link after the devotion)
This blessing is often used as a benediction, where we seek to invoke the blessing of God upon a company of God’s people. It easily forms three sections,
- ‘The LORD bless you and keep you’
- The LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you’
- The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace’
In the actual act of pronouncing the blessing upon the people of Israel, the Scripture says that Aaron and his sons would be putting the name of the LORD God upon them, thus we read later for example in 2 Chronicles 14:7 ‘If MY PEOPLE who are CALLED BY MY NAME.’ (emphasis mine)
The ones who are going to pronounce the blessing were Aaron and his sons, but the one who is going to bless is the LORD God himself and the ones who are going to be the recipients of his blessing are the people of Israel.
We will look at these three aspects of the blessing over the next few days, using three words, GUARD you, GRACIOUS to you and GIVE you.
Before we go into the three points, we know that this original blessing was from God to his chosen people, the people of Israel, and I re-echo today that God has not finished with Israel, they still are important and still have an important part to play in the outworking of God’s plan and purpose, but at the same time in accordance to his divine plan, God has also called out from among the world another people for himself, that is us the Church, the body of the Lord Jesus Christ and one day all things will be brought to completion on the day of Jesus Christ, and so as we read in 1 Peter 2:9-10 (‘But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.’) we the Church have also become a people of God and thus in the same way God chose for his name to be upon the people of Israel, so his name is upon the Church, thus as he blessed Israel and still blesses Israel with a particular blessing, so he blesses the Church.
To end todays devotion, I remind us of the Scripture: ‘Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!’ May they be secure who love you!’ (Psalm 122:6) May we find some time today to pray for Israel a nation that is so small in its land size and yet so big in the purpose of God, a nation that is surrounded by enemies and yet has the preserving hand of God over it.