WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:03.200 What if the most personal thing God ever said to 2 00:00:03.279 --> 00:00:08.919 you was written down two seven hundred years ago, not 3 00:00:09.039 --> 00:00:13.679 written for a nation, not written for a congregation, not 4 00:00:13.800 --> 00:00:16.679 written for people who had their lives together, or who 5 00:00:16.719 --> 00:00:21.000 prayed enough, or who figured out the right theology, written 6 00:00:21.039 --> 00:00:24.239 for you. There is a blessing in the Bible that 7 00:00:24.280 --> 00:00:26.920 has been spoken over human beings for more than two 8 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:31.960 and a half millennia, spoken at weddings, spoken over newborns, 9 00:00:32.439 --> 00:00:37.039 spoken over soldiers going into battle, spoken at funerals, and 10 00:00:37.119 --> 00:00:41.799 spoken every single week inside synagogues across the ancient world. 11 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:46.159 Most people who know it have heard it their whole lives. 12 00:00:47.200 --> 00:00:50.119 Most of them have no idea what it actually says, 13 00:00:51.439 --> 00:00:54.560 because what is hiding inside the original Hebrew of this 14 00:00:54.679 --> 00:01:01.159 blessing is not what the English sounds like. Eeteen seventy nine, 15 00:01:01.640 --> 00:01:05.920 archaeologists found physical proof of this blessing buried inside a 16 00:01:05.959 --> 00:01:11.840 tomb in Jerusalem, two tiny silver scrolls, smaller than your thumb, 17 00:01:12.439 --> 00:01:16.120 and what was written on them changed everything scholars thought 18 00:01:16.159 --> 00:01:21.120 they knew about this text. The blessing is three verses long, 19 00:01:21.879 --> 00:01:26.280 numbers six twenty four to twenty six, and in those 20 00:01:26.319 --> 00:01:30.519 three verses, the original Hebrew does something that disappears completely 21 00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:35.159 in every English translation. It speaks directly to one person, 22 00:01:35.840 --> 00:01:40.239 not the crowd, not the church. You and the reason 23 00:01:40.280 --> 00:01:43.400 that matters is the reason you are going to want 24 00:01:43.400 --> 00:01:47.120 to stay until the very end of this video. Numbers 25 00:01:47.319 --> 00:01:51.640 six twenty four to twenty six. The aron Ick Blessing. 26 00:01:52.799 --> 00:01:55.400 Most people who have spent any time in church or 27 00:01:55.439 --> 00:01:59.120 synagogue know this text. It shows up on wall art, 28 00:01:59.640 --> 00:02:03.000 it gets recited at the end of worship services. It 29 00:02:03.079 --> 00:02:06.280 is one of the most quoted passages in the entire Bible. 30 00:02:07.599 --> 00:02:10.520 The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make 31 00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:13.639 his face shine on you, and be gracious to you. 32 00:02:14.639 --> 00:02:18.120 The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. 33 00:02:19.719 --> 00:02:25.439 Beautiful words, familiar words. But here is what most people 34 00:02:25.479 --> 00:02:30.520 have never been told. In the original Hebrew. Every single 35 00:02:30.599 --> 00:02:35.759 pronoun in this blessing is singular. Not you all, not 36 00:02:36.159 --> 00:02:41.360 your people, not everyone gathered here. The Hebrew uses a 37 00:02:41.479 --> 00:02:46.240 second person singular form, meaning this blessing was constructed to 38 00:02:46.280 --> 00:02:50.039 be spoken directly to one specific individual at a time, 39 00:02:51.080 --> 00:02:54.199 like the priest was leaning in close and saying these 40 00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:59.280 words to you personally, just you, no one else in 41 00:02:59.319 --> 00:03:04.280 the room. That might sound like a small detail but 42 00:03:04.479 --> 00:03:09.199 it is not. It means that the God who created 43 00:03:09.199 --> 00:03:13.879 the universe, the God who set the galaxy's spinning, who 44 00:03:13.919 --> 00:03:18.479 spoke light into existence, who holds every atom of everything 45 00:03:18.520 --> 00:03:22.840 that exists together right now, designed this blessing to land 46 00:03:22.919 --> 00:03:26.719 on one human face at a time, not a nation, 47 00:03:27.759 --> 00:03:33.759 not a category you. Bruce Waltkey, one of the most 48 00:03:33.800 --> 00:03:37.879 respected Old Testament scholars of the last century, points out 49 00:03:37.960 --> 00:03:41.719 that this singular structure was intentional from the very beginning. 50 00:03:42.520 --> 00:03:45.759 God did not dictate this blessing to Moses so that 51 00:03:45.800 --> 00:03:49.159 it could be prayed over crowds. He dictated it so 52 00:03:49.240 --> 00:03:53.000 that each person could receive it as a direct personal declaration. 53 00:03:54.199 --> 00:03:56.759 That is the first thing the Hebrew tells you that 54 00:03:56.800 --> 00:04:01.800 the English cannot consider what was buried in Jerusalem. Around 55 00:04:01.879 --> 00:04:07.439 nineteen seventy nine, Professor Gabriel Barquey was leading an archaeological 56 00:04:07.479 --> 00:04:12.039 excavation at a site called katef Hinoum, a burial complex 57 00:04:12.120 --> 00:04:15.639 located southwest of the Old City of Jerusalem. The site 58 00:04:15.639 --> 00:04:19.000 had been so extensively explored over the years that most 59 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:22.839 people assumed there was nothing left to find. At one point, 60 00:04:23.120 --> 00:04:25.920 the chambers had even been used to store rifles during 61 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:32.600 the Ottoman period. Nobody expected anything significant, but a thirteen 62 00:04:32.680 --> 00:04:36.360 year old volunteer stumbled onto something that changed the field 63 00:04:36.399 --> 00:04:41.800 of biblical archaeology forever. A partial roof collapse had sealed 64 00:04:41.800 --> 00:04:45.680 off one chamber and protected its contents, and when the 65 00:04:45.720 --> 00:04:49.920 team excavated that chamber, they found more than one Sea 66 00:04:49.959 --> 00:04:54.920 woes are on ancient objects, pottery, bronze and iron artifacts, 67 00:04:55.480 --> 00:05:01.759 gold and silver jewelry, and two tiny silver ss They 68 00:05:01.759 --> 00:05:04.759 were rolled up so tightly they could not be unrolled 69 00:05:04.800 --> 00:05:11.519 for years. The metal was fragile, the contents were unknown. Eventually, 70 00:05:11.959 --> 00:05:16.240 a team of researchers used advanced photographic enhancement technology to 71 00:05:16.319 --> 00:05:21.639 read the inscriptions without physically unrolling the scrolls. What they 72 00:05:21.720 --> 00:05:26.800 found stopped the scholarly world cold. The scrolls contained a 73 00:05:26.879 --> 00:05:30.920 version of the aaron Ick blessing from number six, and 74 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:33.720 they were dated to the late seventh or early sixth 75 00:05:33.759 --> 00:05:37.439 century before Christ. That makes them the oldest fragment of 76 00:05:37.439 --> 00:05:42.399 scripture ever physically recovered from the ancient world, older than 77 00:05:42.439 --> 00:05:45.439 the Dead Sea scrolls by at least six hundred years. 78 00:05:46.879 --> 00:05:50.079 People were carrying these words on their bodies in ancient 79 00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:57.439 Jerusalem in tiny silver containers worn as protection the way 80 00:05:57.519 --> 00:06:00.399 we might keep a Bible verse on a note card 81 00:06:00.680 --> 00:06:05.759 in our wallet. But why why would someone carry a 82 00:06:05.800 --> 00:06:09.279 blessing on a metal scroll and wear it on their body? 83 00:06:09.759 --> 00:06:12.639 What did they believe was inside these words that made 84 00:06:12.639 --> 00:06:18.240 them worth carrying like that? According to scholar Jeremy Smoak, 85 00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:21.920 who has studied the function of protective inscriptions in ancient 86 00:06:22.040 --> 00:06:25.959 Israelite culture, one of the scrolls invokes God using a 87 00:06:26.040 --> 00:06:30.839 title that most people have never heard, the rebuker of evil, 88 00:06:31.680 --> 00:06:34.879 a being of such supreme authority that even the most 89 00:06:34.920 --> 00:06:39.240 hostile forces in the universe submit to his command. The 90 00:06:39.279 --> 00:06:44.079 blessing was not decoration, it was a shield. And to 91 00:06:44.199 --> 00:06:48.879 understand why, we have to go inside the Hebrew text itself. 92 00:06:49.639 --> 00:06:54.519 This blessing is built on six verbs, six actions, six 93 00:06:54.600 --> 00:06:59.240 movements of God toward one specific person, and each one 94 00:06:59.279 --> 00:07:01.319 of those verbs, when you look at them in the 95 00:07:01.319 --> 00:07:06.279 original Hebrew, reveals something that completely changes what you think 96 00:07:06.360 --> 00:07:10.920 this blessing is doing. Let's start at the beginning. The 97 00:07:10.920 --> 00:07:15.199 first verb is the Hebrew word baraqu we translate it 98 00:07:15.480 --> 00:07:18.839 bless but the way it appears in this text is 99 00:07:18.879 --> 00:07:21.800 not the simple form of the word it appears in 100 00:07:21.839 --> 00:07:27.800 what Hebrew Grammarians call the pe l stem. This next 101 00:07:27.879 --> 00:07:32.680 detail matters more than it might seem at first. In Hebrew, 102 00:07:33.120 --> 00:07:36.600 verbs have different intensities. There is a simple form for 103 00:07:36.639 --> 00:07:40.759 a basic action, and there is the peel form, which 104 00:07:40.800 --> 00:07:43.959 communicates that the action is being done with maximum force, 105 00:07:44.480 --> 00:07:50.040 maximum engagement, and maximum personal intent. Think of the difference 106 00:07:50.040 --> 00:07:53.879 between someone giving you a birthday card and someone driving 107 00:07:53.959 --> 00:07:56.639 three hours to show up at your door on your birthday. 108 00:07:57.879 --> 00:08:03.519 Same action comple deletely different level of investment. When the 109 00:08:03.519 --> 00:08:07.959 blessing says the Lord bless you, the Hebrew p L 110 00:08:08.160 --> 00:08:12.040 form means God is not passively wishing you well. He 111 00:08:12.199 --> 00:08:17.120 is actively intensively, with the full force of his divine will, 112 00:08:18.040 --> 00:08:24.279 empowering you to flourish. Bruce Waltke makes this distinction crystal clear. 113 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:28.360 The p L form of baraq is not a declaration 114 00:08:28.480 --> 00:08:32.440 of good intentions. It is what Waltke calls a real 115 00:08:32.519 --> 00:08:37.679 transfer of power and favor. Something is actually moving from 116 00:08:37.759 --> 00:08:43.720 God toward you, something with substance, something that produces results. 117 00:08:45.120 --> 00:08:50.080 Waltke connects this back to Genesis one Tute Sirchemunds and 118 00:08:50.240 --> 00:08:53.679 Thorn twenty eight, when God blessed Adam and Eve. The 119 00:08:53.759 --> 00:08:56.759 Hebrew is the same word the same form, and what 120 00:08:56.879 --> 00:09:02.679 followed immediately was fruitfulness, multiplication, expansion, the capacity to fill 121 00:09:02.759 --> 00:09:06.480 the earth. So the very first word of the ironic 122 00:09:06.519 --> 00:09:10.159 blessing is telling you this God is not crossing his 123 00:09:10.279 --> 00:09:13.600 fingers and hoping things go well for you. He is 124 00:09:13.679 --> 00:09:18.000 releasing something real into your life, something that was always 125 00:09:18.120 --> 00:09:22.679 meant to produce fruit. Now here is where it gets layered. 126 00:09:24.159 --> 00:09:31.279 The second verb immediately follows schamar, translated keep or protect, 127 00:09:32.360 --> 00:09:35.639 but the Hebrew root means something far more active than 128 00:09:35.679 --> 00:09:41.039 our English word protect implies. The literal root meaning of 129 00:09:41.039 --> 00:09:45.799 samar is to pay careful and continuous attention, like a 130 00:09:45.840 --> 00:09:49.039 soldier on a city wall who never looks away, never 131 00:09:49.120 --> 00:09:54.320 steps away from his post, never stops scanning. This same 132 00:09:54.360 --> 00:09:59.159 word appears in Genesis two fifteen. God places Adam in 133 00:09:59.240 --> 00:10:02.840 the garden and tells him to shamar it to guard it, 134 00:10:03.399 --> 00:10:06.960 to keep careful watch over it, because it was precious 135 00:10:07.320 --> 00:10:11.919 and it needed protecting. Now God is using that same 136 00:10:12.039 --> 00:10:17.120 word about you. Bruce Waltke points out that the pairing 137 00:10:17.159 --> 00:10:21.440 of Barak and Shamar bless and keep, follows a pattern 138 00:10:21.519 --> 00:10:26.799 throughout the entire Exodus story. God first provides and then 139 00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:32.159 God protects what he provides. He gave manna and made 140 00:10:32.200 --> 00:10:35.279 sure it did not rot. He opened the Red Sea 141 00:10:35.360 --> 00:10:38.480 and then shut it behind his people. He gave the 142 00:10:38.559 --> 00:10:42.440 land and then fought for Israel's ability to stay in it. 143 00:10:43.799 --> 00:10:47.039 God never gives you something and then walks away from it. 144 00:10:48.320 --> 00:10:52.679 Michael Heiser, whose biblical scholarship shaped an entire generation of 145 00:10:52.720 --> 00:10:57.120 serious Bible students, took this even further. Heiser pointed out 146 00:10:57.200 --> 00:11:00.000 that the ancient Israelite did not live in a way 147 00:11:00.120 --> 00:11:04.799 world that felt safe the way we imagine safety. They 148 00:11:04.879 --> 00:11:08.720 understood that there were hostile forces in the spiritual realm, 149 00:11:09.519 --> 00:11:14.039 real ones, and they believed, based on texts like this, 150 00:11:14.879 --> 00:11:18.360 that God had placed his own divine authority between his 151 00:11:18.519 --> 00:11:23.399 people and everything that would try to harm them. That 152 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:27.960 is the shamer of God, not a vague feeling of comfort, 153 00:11:28.720 --> 00:11:33.759 a real, living, watchful presence standing between you and what 154 00:11:33.879 --> 00:11:37.919 wants to destroy you. Psalm Wonder twenty one is a 155 00:11:37.960 --> 00:11:41.799 meditation on this one word. The word Shamar appears six 156 00:11:41.879 --> 00:11:46.200 times in eight verses. He who keeps you will not slumber. 157 00:11:46.840 --> 00:11:51.159 He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The 158 00:11:51.240 --> 00:11:54.320 Lord is your keeper. The Lord will keep your going 159 00:11:54.360 --> 00:11:58.360 out and your coming in from this time forth and forever. 160 00:12:00.240 --> 00:12:03.200 Twenty one is not a poem about good vibes. It 161 00:12:03.279 --> 00:12:06.600 is a theological statement about a God who has committed 162 00:12:06.639 --> 00:12:10.159 to watching over you every moment of every day, without 163 00:12:10.200 --> 00:12:16.919 a single break. Two verbs Barak and shamar. God empowers you, 164 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:22.639 and God guards what he has empowered. Now the blessing 165 00:12:22.720 --> 00:12:26.240 moves into its second verse, and this is where things 166 00:12:26.320 --> 00:12:29.159 get almost too beautiful to take in all at once. 167 00:12:30.879 --> 00:12:35.000 May the Lord make his face shine on you. The 168 00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:39.480 Hebrew behind make shine is a causative verb form. It 169 00:12:39.600 --> 00:12:42.639 means God is causing light to radiate from his face 170 00:12:42.759 --> 00:12:46.879 toward you, and the word for face here pon him, 171 00:12:47.159 --> 00:12:50.000 is one of the most theologically loaded words in all 172 00:12:50.039 --> 00:12:54.399 of scripture. In the ancient Near East, the face of 173 00:12:54.440 --> 00:12:58.919 a god was everything. When a god's face was turned 174 00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:06.399 toward you, it meant favor, acceptance, joy, protection. When a 175 00:13:06.440 --> 00:13:10.759 god's face was hidden, when the deity turned away, it 176 00:13:10.879 --> 00:13:18.279 meant abandonment, judgment, disaster. The texts of ancient Babylon are 177 00:13:18.320 --> 00:13:21.759 full of prayers begging the gods to stop hiding their faces, 178 00:13:22.679 --> 00:13:25.879 because a hidden face meant you were on your own 179 00:13:27.120 --> 00:13:30.080 so when this blessing declares that God will make his 180 00:13:30.200 --> 00:13:34.720 face shine on you, it is announcing the complete opposite 181 00:13:34.840 --> 00:13:37.960 of abandonment. It is saying that God is looking at 182 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:41.519 you the way a father looks at his child, with joy, 183 00:13:42.240 --> 00:13:47.559 with warmth, with delight. Heiser connected this to what the 184 00:13:47.600 --> 00:13:53.200 Hebrew scriptures call the glory of God, that luminous, visible, 185 00:13:53.320 --> 00:13:58.159 overwhelming manifestation of his presence, the cloud and fire in 186 00:13:58.200 --> 00:14:02.639 the wilderness, the light that filled the tabernacle so completely 187 00:14:03.120 --> 00:14:07.480 that even Moses could not enter, the presence that the 188 00:14:07.519 --> 00:14:11.720 Hebrew people called the sho kaina. When the priest spoke 189 00:14:11.799 --> 00:14:15.720 these words over one person, he was invoking that same 190 00:14:15.799 --> 00:14:20.799 living presence to rest on them personally. And then the 191 00:14:20.840 --> 00:14:27.799 fourth verb hanan translated be gracious. The Hebrew root of 192 00:14:27.799 --> 00:14:31.200 hanan is the word for grace, but not grace in 193 00:14:31.240 --> 00:14:34.480 the watered down way we sometimes use it. This is 194 00:14:34.600 --> 00:14:37.559 favor given to someone who has not earned it and 195 00:14:37.679 --> 00:14:42.279 does not deserve it. It is pure, chosen, sovereign love. 196 00:14:43.879 --> 00:14:47.440 In Exodus thirty three, when Moses asks God to show 197 00:14:47.519 --> 00:14:52.240 him his glory, God responds with these exact words, I 198 00:14:52.320 --> 00:14:56.639 will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. The 199 00:14:56.679 --> 00:15:00.440 Hebrew verb is hanan, and what God is saying is 200 00:15:00.480 --> 00:15:03.679 that his grace is not a reward system, It is 201 00:15:03.720 --> 00:15:08.200 a sovereign decision of his own heart. Waltke in his 202 00:15:08.279 --> 00:15:12.679 Old Testament theology connects hanan to the great self disclosure 203 00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:16.960 of God. In Exodus thirty four, when the Lord passes 204 00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:20.759 before Moses and declares who he is. The first thing 205 00:15:20.840 --> 00:15:25.240 he says is this the Lord, the Lord, a God, 206 00:15:25.399 --> 00:15:29.519 merciful and gracious. The word there is from the same 207 00:15:29.639 --> 00:15:34.080 root hanan. It is how God defines himself before he 208 00:15:34.120 --> 00:15:38.720 says anything else, which means when you receive this blessing, 209 00:15:39.639 --> 00:15:42.480 you are receiving favor from a God who chose grace 210 00:15:42.919 --> 00:15:47.840 as the very center of his identity. Now four verbs 211 00:15:47.919 --> 00:15:52.200 in you might be asking, where is all of this going? 212 00:15:53.120 --> 00:15:56.960 What is the point of these six Hebrew verbs? The 213 00:15:57.000 --> 00:15:59.639 fifth verb answers that question in a way you are 214 00:15:59.639 --> 00:16:03.519 not a expecting. May the Lord lift up his face 215 00:16:03.759 --> 00:16:09.519 toward you. The Hebrew word is nasa, meaning to lift, 216 00:16:10.120 --> 00:16:16.080 to carry, to raise, and scholars, including Chaiem Cohen, who 217 00:16:16.080 --> 00:16:19.200 have studied the parallel literature of the ancient Near East, 218 00:16:19.679 --> 00:16:23.320 draw a careful and important distinction between verse twenty five 219 00:16:23.799 --> 00:16:28.679 and verse twenty six. Making the face shine, they argue, 220 00:16:29.159 --> 00:16:33.480 communicates emotion, the joy and delight God has toward you, 221 00:16:34.399 --> 00:16:39.879 But lifting the face communicates something different. It communicates decision. 222 00:16:41.080 --> 00:16:43.320 It means God has made up his mind to give 223 00:16:43.360 --> 00:16:48.799 you his full attention, not divided attention, not occasional attention, 224 00:16:49.720 --> 00:16:56.879 full attention, committed, sustained, turned toward you, and held there. 225 00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:01.679 Waltke connects this to one of the most staggering statements 226 00:17:01.679 --> 00:17:06.880 in all of Isaiah, chapter forty nine, verses fifteen and sixteen. 227 00:17:07.359 --> 00:17:11.240 God is speaking to people who feel forgotten, who feel 228 00:17:11.319 --> 00:17:14.359 like He has moved on, who wonder if he even 229 00:17:14.400 --> 00:17:18.680 remembers them, And he says this, can a mother forget 230 00:17:18.720 --> 00:17:21.839 the baby at her breast and have no compassion on 231 00:17:21.920 --> 00:17:26.079 the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I 232 00:17:26.200 --> 00:17:30.200 will not forget you. See. I have engraved you on 233 00:17:30.279 --> 00:17:35.839 the palms of my hands, engraved, not written in pencil, 234 00:17:36.599 --> 00:17:41.000 not saved in a file somewhere, engraved on his palms. 235 00:17:42.599 --> 00:17:46.839 That is Nasa panim. God has looked at you and 236 00:17:46.920 --> 00:17:51.640 then decided he will never look away. And then the 237 00:17:51.720 --> 00:17:56.359 sixth verb, the word that closes the blessing, the one 238 00:17:56.400 --> 00:18:01.799 that wraps everything up shalom. Most of us translate it peace, 239 00:18:02.720 --> 00:18:08.079 and that is not wrong, but it is dramatically incomplete. 240 00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:13.160 The Hebrew root of Shalom comes from a word meaning wholeness, completeness, 241 00:18:13.759 --> 00:18:19.119 nothing missing, nothing broken. Theologian Willard Swartly describes it as 242 00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:23.400 what he calls an iridescent word, one with many layers 243 00:18:23.440 --> 00:18:27.160 of meaning in the Hebrew scriptures, but with one consistent 244 00:18:27.240 --> 00:18:34.359 foundation underneath all of them, well being, wholeness, a life 245 00:18:34.400 --> 00:18:39.079 where nothing is out of place. Waltgay points out that 246 00:18:39.200 --> 00:18:43.960 shalam describes the original order of creation. Before the fall, 247 00:18:44.359 --> 00:18:49.960 everything was shalom, everything was whole, everything was in its 248 00:18:50.039 --> 00:18:53.440 right place, And the entire redemptive story of the Bible 249 00:18:53.880 --> 00:18:57.400 is the story of God working to restore that wholeness. 250 00:18:58.119 --> 00:19:00.359 Here is the thing that lands when you hear it. 251 00:19:01.880 --> 00:19:05.359 The blessing was spoken in the wilderness, in the middle 252 00:19:05.400 --> 00:19:10.480 of the desert, surrounded by uncertainty, by enemies, by thirst, 253 00:19:11.119 --> 00:19:14.519 by the terrifying unknown of a forty year journey to 254 00:19:14.599 --> 00:19:17.839 a land they had never seen. And in the middle 255 00:19:17.839 --> 00:19:22.799 of all of that, God spoke Shaloam over each individual person, 256 00:19:23.359 --> 00:19:28.319 not things, will calm down someday not your circumstances will 257 00:19:28.359 --> 00:19:35.359 improve eventually. Right now over you, nothing missing, nothing broken, 258 00:19:36.319 --> 00:19:40.720 everything whole. That is the sixth verb, and it is 259 00:19:40.799 --> 00:19:45.200 the destination the first five we're all building toward. But 260 00:19:45.279 --> 00:19:49.599 here is where the blessing stops being theology and becomes 261 00:19:49.599 --> 00:19:58.079 something deeply personally unsettling. Numbers six twenty seven the verse. 262 00:19:58.359 --> 00:20:02.880 Immediately after the blessing, it says this, so they shall 263 00:20:02.920 --> 00:20:05.880 put my name on the children of Israel, and I 264 00:20:06.079 --> 00:20:10.920 will bless them put my name on them. What does 265 00:20:10.960 --> 00:20:14.680 that mean? Why does the blessing put a name on 266 00:20:14.720 --> 00:20:19.200 a person, and whose name? And what does that name 267 00:20:19.240 --> 00:20:22.720 actually do to the person who carries it. To understand 268 00:20:22.720 --> 00:20:24.880 what it means for God's name to be placed on 269 00:20:24.920 --> 00:20:28.319 a person, we have to understand something about the ancient 270 00:20:28.400 --> 00:20:32.519 world that most people in the modern West have completely lost. 271 00:20:33.880 --> 00:20:38.039 In our culture, a name is an identifier. It is 272 00:20:38.079 --> 00:20:40.680 how you know which person to call when you are 273 00:20:40.720 --> 00:20:44.799 trying to reach someone. It tells people a part. But 274 00:20:44.920 --> 00:20:48.640 in the ancient Near East, and specifically in the Biblical world, 275 00:20:49.119 --> 00:20:53.119 a name was not just an identifier. A name was 276 00:20:53.160 --> 00:20:57.880 an extension of your very being, your nature, your authority, 277 00:20:58.759 --> 00:21:02.960 your reality. When a king placed his name on a city, 278 00:21:03.680 --> 00:21:08.680 that city came under his protection. His resources became available 279 00:21:08.680 --> 00:21:14.000 to it, His enemies became its enemies. His authority covered it. 280 00:21:15.200 --> 00:21:18.279 When a conqueror placed his name on a defeated people, 281 00:21:19.279 --> 00:21:22.359 he was not just giving them a new label. He 282 00:21:22.519 --> 00:21:26.880 was transferring them into his sphere of existence. His reality 283 00:21:27.160 --> 00:21:32.400 now covered their reality. Heiser's scholarship on the structure of 284 00:21:32.440 --> 00:21:37.000 the ancient world is illuminating here. He spent years studying 285 00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:40.799 a passage in Deuteronomy thirty two, verses eight and nine 286 00:21:41.400 --> 00:21:44.240 that describes how the nations of the earth were arranged 287 00:21:44.319 --> 00:21:48.720 under different authorities. The text uses the phrase sons of 288 00:21:48.759 --> 00:21:52.720 God to describe divine beings assigned over the different peoples 289 00:21:52.720 --> 00:21:57.599 of the world. Every nation had a governing power except one. 290 00:21:58.880 --> 00:22:05.200 The Lord's portion is his people, Jacob, his allotted heritage. 291 00:22:05.279 --> 00:22:08.480 Israel was not under the governance of any other power. 292 00:22:09.480 --> 00:22:15.200 Israel was the Lord's own possession, his personal inheritance. And 293 00:22:15.240 --> 00:22:19.559 that was not a metaphor. That was the spiritual reality 294 00:22:19.640 --> 00:22:24.440 that defined who they were. And the ironic blessing was 295 00:22:24.519 --> 00:22:30.279 the mechanism, the repeated, spoken, public declaration through which that 296 00:22:30.359 --> 00:22:35.440 reality was renewed over each individual person again and again 297 00:22:36.039 --> 00:22:40.400 throughout their entire life. Every time a priest finished speaking 298 00:22:40.440 --> 00:22:44.079 those six verbs, the name of God had been placed 299 00:22:44.079 --> 00:22:49.319 on that person. They were marked, they were claimed, They 300 00:22:49.319 --> 00:22:52.880 were His. Now I want you to let that land 301 00:22:52.920 --> 00:22:55.680 in your own life for a moment, because I think 302 00:22:55.759 --> 00:22:58.680 most of us, even people who have been in church 303 00:22:58.720 --> 00:23:02.279 for decades, carry a version of the same quiet fear, 304 00:23:02.960 --> 00:23:05.880 the fear that God maybe paying attention to someone else, 305 00:23:06.480 --> 00:23:10.480 someone more important, someone who has it more together spiritually, 306 00:23:11.200 --> 00:23:16.480 someone who prays more consistently, serves more faithfully, struggles less. 307 00:23:17.319 --> 00:23:19.759 And we put ourselves in the background of our own 308 00:23:19.799 --> 00:23:23.599 relationship with God, like we are standing in the crowd, 309 00:23:24.640 --> 00:23:28.839 hoping He notices us somewhere in the back. But the 310 00:23:28.880 --> 00:23:33.680 Hebrew singular pronoun says otherwise. Every single time this blessing 311 00:23:33.799 --> 00:23:37.920 was spoken in ancient Israel, it was spoken to one person, 312 00:23:38.799 --> 00:23:43.079 not the congregation. The grammar points at one face, one 313 00:23:43.119 --> 00:23:48.200 set of eyes, one specific human being. You are not background, 314 00:23:48.319 --> 00:23:53.440 noised to God. You never were. And here is the devastating, 315 00:23:53.680 --> 00:23:59.319 liberating truth of the fourth verb, hanan grace. You do 316 00:23:59.440 --> 00:24:01.680 not need to earn your way to the front of 317 00:24:01.720 --> 00:24:06.160 the line. The favor of God is not a reward system. 318 00:24:06.519 --> 00:24:10.039 It is a sovereign, uncoerced decision of the heart of 319 00:24:10.079 --> 00:24:14.160 a God who looked at you specifically and chose you 320 00:24:15.880 --> 00:24:19.720 Isaiah thirty to eighteen. Therefore, the Lord waits to be 321 00:24:19.759 --> 00:24:23.440 gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show 322 00:24:23.519 --> 00:24:29.000 mercy to you. He is waiting to be gracious, not reluctantly, 323 00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:36.720 not with conditions attached, waiting wanting to release blessing, wanting 324 00:24:36.759 --> 00:24:40.799 his face to shine, wanting to fix his full attention 325 00:24:40.960 --> 00:24:45.599 on you and keep it there. The question the Blessing 326 00:24:45.720 --> 00:24:49.720 is asking you is not have you done enough? The 327 00:24:49.839 --> 00:24:54.799 question is will you receive it? Will you let yourself 328 00:24:54.839 --> 00:25:01.720 be someone who is barocked, actively, powerfully, in intensively empowered 329 00:25:01.799 --> 00:25:05.519 by the God of the universe. Will you walk through 330 00:25:05.599 --> 00:25:13.079 your actual Tuesday morning as someone under shamar, under the continuous, undistracted, 331 00:25:13.720 --> 00:25:17.799 never sleeping guard of the one who is always watching. 332 00:25:18.279 --> 00:25:20.960 Will you believe that the face of God is turned 333 00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:25.720 toward you right now, not in judgment, not in disappointment, 334 00:25:26.440 --> 00:25:29.319 but with the expression of a father who is genuinely 335 00:25:29.400 --> 00:25:34.160 glad you exist. This is not wishful thinking. This is 336 00:25:34.160 --> 00:25:37.519 the architecture of a blessing spoken over human beings for 337 00:25:37.640 --> 00:25:43.079 two seven hundred years, carried on silver scrolls in ancient tombs, 338 00:25:44.039 --> 00:25:47.920 repeated in synagogues across the known world every single week. 339 00:25:48.319 --> 00:25:51.119 And then the apostle Paul did something with it that 340 00:25:51.160 --> 00:25:56.440 should stop us cold. Paul was a Pharisee. He had 341 00:25:56.480 --> 00:26:00.880 heard the ironic blessing spoken in synagogue worship his entire life. 342 00:26:01.680 --> 00:26:03.880 He knew it the way most of us know songs 343 00:26:03.920 --> 00:26:07.519 we grew up singing in church. It was in his bones. 344 00:26:08.799 --> 00:26:11.519 And when Paul began writing letters to the churches he 345 00:26:11.599 --> 00:26:15.920 had planted, he opened every single one with the same formula, 346 00:26:16.519 --> 00:26:20.000 Grace and peace to you from God, our Father, and 347 00:26:20.039 --> 00:26:31.440 the Lord Jesus Christ. Every letter Romans first and Second, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 348 00:26:32.200 --> 00:26:36.680 every single one. Biblical scholars who study the way New 349 00:26:36.720 --> 00:26:40.680 Testament writers echoed the Hebrew scriptures have noted something important here. 350 00:26:41.319 --> 00:26:45.279 Paul's opening greeting is not a casual pleasantry. It is 351 00:26:45.319 --> 00:26:48.640 a direct echo of the last two elements of the 352 00:26:48.680 --> 00:26:53.400 aaran ick blessing. Be gracious to you Hanan in Hebrew 353 00:26:53.759 --> 00:26:59.119 becomes grace, in Paul's Greek give you peace. Shalom in 354 00:26:59.200 --> 00:27:04.480 Hebrew becomes peace in Paul's Greek. Paul was not just 355 00:27:04.640 --> 00:27:09.680 being polite. He was functioning as a priest, opening each 356 00:27:09.759 --> 00:27:12.599 letter the way a priest would open a worship service 357 00:27:13.359 --> 00:27:17.960 by pronouncing a blessing over the people he loved. But 358 00:27:18.119 --> 00:27:22.559 Paul added something that changed everything. He added a name, 359 00:27:23.599 --> 00:27:27.240 grace and peace to you from God, our Father, and 360 00:27:27.279 --> 00:27:32.039 the Lord Jesus Christ. In the original blessing, only one 361 00:27:32.119 --> 00:27:37.079 source of blessing exists, only one name is spoken, only 362 00:27:37.119 --> 00:27:42.319 one person is invoked. Paul places Jesus alongside the Father 363 00:27:42.759 --> 00:27:46.799 as the co source of grace and peace. That is 364 00:27:46.839 --> 00:27:51.160 not a casual theological claim. Scholars recognize this as one 365 00:27:51.200 --> 00:27:55.200 of Paul's most precise and pointed statements about who Jesus is. 366 00:27:55.680 --> 00:27:59.359 He places Jesus in the exact position the aharan Ick 367 00:27:59.440 --> 00:28:04.400 blessing reserved for God alone, which means Paul believed that 368 00:28:04.440 --> 00:28:07.640 the name being placed on believers through the blessing of 369 00:28:07.680 --> 00:28:13.319 the New Covenant was the name of Jesus Christ, the 370 00:28:13.359 --> 00:28:17.599 same name that commands every knee to bow, the same 371 00:28:17.720 --> 00:28:22.279 name above every name, the same name the silver scrolls 372 00:28:22.279 --> 00:28:26.279 were invoking from a sealed tomb in ancient Jerusalem. And 373 00:28:26.359 --> 00:28:29.559 this brings us to the final question, the one the 374 00:28:29.720 --> 00:28:33.160 entire structure of this blessing has been building toward since 375 00:28:33.200 --> 00:28:37.240 the very first word. If carrying the name of God 376 00:28:37.359 --> 00:28:41.160 was enough to make ancient Israelites believe they were protected 377 00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:45.640 from every hostile force in the universe, what does it 378 00:28:45.720 --> 00:28:48.400 actually mean to carry that name in your life today? 379 00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:53.039 What does it look like in the real world, in 380 00:28:53.079 --> 00:28:58.799 your marriage, your fear, your finances, your uncertainty about your 381 00:28:58.839 --> 00:29:02.559 purpose to live as someone whose name has been placed 382 00:29:02.559 --> 00:29:06.440 on the palms of God. And what happens when you 383 00:29:06.559 --> 00:29:10.920 realize that Shalom, the last word of the blessing, is 384 00:29:11.000 --> 00:29:15.000 not just something God gives you, It is something you 385 00:29:15.119 --> 00:29:19.599 have become. Return to the blessing's architecture one final time. 386 00:29:20.680 --> 00:29:24.240 Verse twenty four has three Hebrew words. Verse twenty five 387 00:29:24.359 --> 00:29:30.960 has five, Verse twenty six has seven, three, five, seven. 388 00:29:31.519 --> 00:29:35.039 In the literary tradition that produced this text, numbers were 389 00:29:35.079 --> 00:29:41.720 not arbitrary. Three represented completeness of action. Five appeared consistently 390 00:29:41.839 --> 00:29:46.519 in covenant contexts, the contexts where God was binding himself 391 00:29:46.640 --> 00:29:51.839 to his people. Seven communicated totality, the fullness of a 392 00:29:51.880 --> 00:29:57.920 divine cycle, the completeness of creation itself. The blessing does 393 00:29:58.000 --> 00:30:03.240 not begin with peace. It builds toward peace, and that 394 00:30:03.319 --> 00:30:06.920 building is the answer. Think about what those six verbs 395 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:14.319 actually do together. Barak, the peel intensive blessing gives you 396 00:30:14.440 --> 00:30:17.640 the empowerment of God at work in your life. You 397 00:30:17.720 --> 00:30:22.119 are not laboring alone. You are not building alone. You 398 00:30:22.200 --> 00:30:25.240 are not trying to produce something in your own strength. 399 00:30:26.079 --> 00:30:31.519 The God of creation is actively personally with maximum intent, 400 00:30:32.839 --> 00:30:36.839 releasing his empowering grace into every area of your life 401 00:30:37.119 --> 00:30:43.240