Seder 107: Numbers 6:22-27 and Matthew 5---the Aaronic Blessing and the Beatitudes

 God is the source of all blessings (James 1:17).  In the Bible, human representatives of God like kings (2 Sam 6:18; 1 Kings 8:14,55)  and priests (Ps 118:26; Lev 9:22) often prayed for blessings for God's people.

It was a duty of Israelite priests, in fact, to pray for blessing, and God gave them the words for such a prayer (Num 6:24-26).  The words include:

• "The Lord bless you"---as in Lev 26:3-13; Dt 28:3-14, which picture wellbeing in all areas of life.
• "And keep you"---protect you from things that work against this blessing, against peace and prosperity.  Such protection is described, for example, in Psalm 121.
• "The Lord make his face to shine upon you".  This expression pictures a superior showing favor to a subject, as in Pro 16:15:  "In the light of a king's face there is life, and his favor is like the clouds that bring the spring rain."  See Ps 31:16 for another example of this expression. 
• "And be gracious to you"---a prayer for God's mercy.
• "The Lord lift up his countenance upon you"---the opposite of hiding one's face in anger and turning away, as in Gen 4:6.  Deut 28:50 refers to a nation sent to punish Israel as "hard-faced".
• "And give you peace"---"peace" is shalom, which connotes prosperity, health, and wholeness.

This blessing "placed God's name" upon the Israelites.  As bearers of God's name, they were charged with representing him before the nations, a responsibility they were to carry out faithfully, as emphasized in one of the Ten Commandments (Ex 20:7).

Moses embodied what it meant to receive this blessing.  When he communed with God on Mount Sinai, he experienced God's shining face.  His own face then shone, illustrating a close relationship with God (Ex 34:29-35).  Biblical theologian David H. Wenkel studies the Bible's "shining face" and "face-to-face" motifs in his book Shining Like the Sun:  A Biblical Theology of Meeting God Face to Face.  

Some of the oldest known copies of verses from the Bible are copies of the Aaronic blessing preserved on two tiny silver strips dating from around 600 BC.  These strips were found at Ketef Hinnom in 1979.

When we think about biblical blessings, we also think about the Beatitudes pronounced by Jesus in Matt 5:2-12.  The Beatitudes are not prayers like the Aaronic blessing.  Rather, they identify groups of people who have already received blessing, even if they might not seem in the world's eyes to be very fortunate.  In a sermon at Church of the Messiah on July 2, 2022, Kyle Kettering brought out the difference and expounded on the Beatitudes.