Echoes of Blessing #7: A Blessed People

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

To God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ

Ephesians 1:1-3

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

2 Corinthians 13:14

It’s highly likely that an echo of the priestly blessing from Numbers 6:24-26 is to be heard at the start of Paul’s letters – where the ‘grace and peace to you’ of the greeting is reminiscent of the final sentence of the priestly prayer: ‘and be gracious to you... and give you peace’.

If this is the case, Paul’s frequently-added words ‘from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’ in his openings reinforce the source of the blessing. ‘Grace and peace’ provide more than just a convenient greeting, but summarise the blessings of the gospel – which come through Christ.

The link between God’s blessing and Jesus is beautifully expressed in Ephesians 1:3: ‘Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.’

The word ‘spiritual’ here means ‘of the Spirit’ – the blessing that comes by the Spirit. In which case, this blessing is triune-shaped: the Father blesses us through the Spirit in Christ – the three-in-one God working to bring about our salvation. Paul goes on to catalogue God’s amazing blessings – which come to us only because of the death of Christ, which brings about redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Ephesians 1:7).

Then, at the other end of the New Testament letters, the benedictions or doxologies function as blessings. 2 Corinthians 13:14 is perhaps the most well known of these: ‘May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.’

Once again, like Ephesians 1:3, the blessing comes from the three-in-one God: grace is available only through Jesus Christ, is grounded in the love of God, and is mediated to us by the Holy Spirit.

The God who blesses us in creation and the God who blesses us through his special covenant relationship is the God who brings those blessings about through his son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Only through him can we know God’s favour on us and his delight in us.

‘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.’

Echoes of Blessing #6: A Protected People

The LORD watches over you –

the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

the sun will not harm you by day,

nor the moon by night.

The LORD will keep you from all harm –

he will watch over your life;

the LORD will watch over your coming and going

both now and for evermore.

Psalm 121:5-8

Psalms 120-134 come grouped together, each carrying the same heading: ‘A song of ascents’. We don’t know for certain, but it’s most likely they were sung by those making their way to Jerusalem for one of the great festivals.

Of course, like other psalms, they have a reach beyond their original setting, down through the ages, even to us who journey not to the temple but to God himself. Indeed, with its final promise that ‘the LORD will watch over your coming and going

both now and for evermore’, something of those extended implications are already being worked out in the psalm itself.

That word ‘watch’ or ‘keep’ – which appears six times in the psalm – echoes the priestly blessing in Numbers 6:24: ‘the LORD bless you and keep you’. The promise originally given to those on a journey through the wilderness is here reapplied to God’s pilgrim people in subsequent generations.

With some exceptions, the relative comfort and ease with which we undertake journeys today – in air-conditioned cars, high-speed trains, and planes which cross continents and oceans – means that some of the force of the psalm might be lost on us. Here’s a prayer which anticipates a long journey over difficult terrain where ankles can easily get twisted, where bandits might lie in wait, not to mention the heat of the day and the anxieties which come with the night.

For them, the promise of help comes from the Lord, ‘the maker of heaven and earth’, the keeper of Israel who doesn’t slumber or sleep. As they make their way to Jerusalem – and as they walk the path of life – he will not let their feet slip.

And that priestly blessing which reached across the ages to those making their way to worship in Jerusalem reaches yet further across the ages to those of us, like Abraham, looking for a city ‘whose architect and builder is God’ (Hebrews 11:10). For us, too, the journey will involve challenges, even ominous or scary moments. But we, too, travel with others. (You do travel with others, don’t you?) And we claim the same promise, so amazingly comprehensive in its scope, which reaches into the whole of life.

God watches over your everyday comings and goings, day and night. Today. Tomorrow. Next year and the year after that. You and your family. You and your work. You and your life, ‘both now and for evermore’.

Echoes of Blessing #5: A Confident People

The LORD remembers us and will bless us:

he will bless his people Israel,

he will bless the house of Aaron,

he will bless those who fear the LORD –

small and great alike.

May the LORD cause you to flourish,

both you and your children.

May you be blessed by the LORD,

the Maker of heaven and earth.

Psalm 115:12-15

Offering an elegant reminder of what faithful prayer looks like, Psalm 115 holds together words about God and words addressed to God. In doing so, it echoes the priestly blessing of Numbers 6, but takes us on a journey to hear the full force of those reverberations.

‘Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory’, the psalm begins. And the grounds for this resolute refusal to receive any of the glory which rightly belongs to the Lord flow out of his covenant commitment to us – ‘because of your love and faithfulness’ (115:1). The honour goes to the one who loves us deeply, who stays faithful to his people through history.

Not that we’re always fully aware of this. Or that we don’t feel the pinch when others ask, ‘Where is their God?’ (115:2). Where, indeed?

The psalm tells us: ‘Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him’ (115:3). Unlike idols ‘made by human hands’, God is not a mere object of worship, but the living Lord, sovereign over all creation. Idols, complete with all their body parts, look like they have the capacity to deliver on their promises. But they can’t. It’s the Lord who has a mouth, eyes, ears, nose, hands, feet, and vocal chords that work. He’s the real God who can speak and act in the world.

So, we can trust in him, the psalm says, because he is our ‘help and shield’ (115:9-11). He fights for us. He protects us.

Then, hearing those echoes at last, comes a threefold assurance for all of God’s people – ‘small and great’ – that blessing rests upon the person who trusts in the Lord. We can be confident, the psalm says, that ‘the LORD remembers us and will bless us’, that his blessing extends beyond the present to future generations, that ‘the Maker of heaven and earth’ has unlimited resources with which to bless us.

Our journey through the psalm brings us to a place where we can be bold, right where we are, even today. How? In our resolve to put God’s glory above our own. In our commitment to trust him in spite of the bemusement and even belligerence of others. And in daring to believe that he will bless us as we do so. In this is our confidence.

Echoes of Blessing #4: A Broken People

How long, LORD God Almighty,

will your anger smoulder

against the prayers of your people?

You have fed them with the bread of tears;

you have made them drink tears by the bowlful.

You have made us an object of derision to our neighbours,

and our enemies mock us.

Restore us, God Almighty;

make your face shine on us,

that we may be saved.

Psalm 80:4-7

The Psalms are a lifesaver for those of us who struggle with knowing what to pray – because they give us a voice. Where we don’t always have the words, they give us the words.

The words in this particular psalm come from a place of brokenness. In case we’re in any doubt, the central prayer comes not once, not twice, but three times: ‘Restore us... make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved’ (80:3, 7, 19).

That refrain is deliberately reminiscent of the priestly blessing in Numbers 6, where Aaron and the priests affirm the sheer delight God takes in his own: ‘the LORD make his face shine on you.’ Except, the people felt they were no longer experiencing that promised blessing of the Lord.

They’d perhaps been feeling it for some time. ‘How long?’, they ask. That question is found in a number of psalms. Sometimes it’s because devastation has come at the hands of others and it’s a plea for God to step in. In this case, though, the people are painfully – and tearfully – aware of their own culpability, of God’s anger smouldering against them, of being mocked by others. Is it possible for God’s people to be derided by unbelievers because God himself brings it about? Apparently so.

Here is a cry of anguish from God’s people who are grieved by their own failure and distraught that God seems distant or even absent from them.

What do they pray? What do we pray? We return to the one we know to be faithful even when we’re not, to what we know to be utterly true about his promises to us, and to plead with him to step in and show his face: ‘Restore to us your special presence – your shining, smiling face that brings deliverance and blessing.’

So, what is it today that you would want to cry out to God for? For yourself? For people in our congregation? For the church in our land? For your friends and neighbours? For your place of work? For our world? Take the words of the psalm and make them your own: ‘Restore us, God Almighty; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.’

And as you do so, remember that some broken things are restored because they’re precious, because they’re loved. God remains, to this day, in the restoration business.

Echoes of Blessing #3: A Missional People

May God be gracious to us and bless us

and make his face shine on us –

so that your ways may be known on earth,

your salvation among all nations.

May the peoples praise you, God;

may all the peoples praise you.

Psalm 67:1-3

The glorious benediction of Numbers 6:24-26 impresses upon us that God is the source of every blessing: ‘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.’ In this case, the blessing is mediated through the priests – bringing with it the guarantee that the sacrifice for sin has been successful, confirming God’s love for his people, reminding them that his presence is with them.

That the blessing shaped the faith of subsequent generations is clear from the number of times we hear its echoes elsewhere in Scripture, not least in the opening line of Psalm 67: ‘May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us.’ However, here the blessing is sought not for its own sake or even for the sake of Israel, but for all peoples, as seen in the next line – ‘so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations’ – expressing the hope that God’s blessing will become a global reality.

Far from an isolated reference, the Psalms are packed with exhortations to Israel to sing of God’s mighty deeds among the nations, summons to the nations to praise God, and promises of a future in which the nations will join Israel in worship. In line with God’s original promise to Abraham, the blessings for Israel were always the precursor of a still greater blessing – for all nations – ultimately fulfilled in Jesus.

Psalm 67 is of a piece with the rest of Scripture not only in providing a vision of God’s salvation embracing all nations, but in seeing the people of God as those chosen to be instruments of his blessing to others. Through his grace, God brings together a people who exist so that others might be blessed. God’s desire to bless hasn’t changed, and nor has his means of doing so. The Psalm thus enables us to see the arenas of our everyday life as places where God blesses us, calls us to be living proofs of that blessing, and invites us to share it with those around us – in our families, neighbourhoods, and workplaces.

And then, beyond even this amazing privilege, the Psalm reminds us of the ultimate goal of mission – nothing less than the worship of the Lord among ‘all the peoples’. To God be all the glory.

Echoes of Blessing #2: A Secure People

Answer me when I call to you,

my righteous God.

Give me relief from my distress;

have mercy on me and hear my prayer...

Let the light of your face shine on us...

In peace I will lie down and sleep,

for you alone, LORD,

make me dwell in safety.

Psalm 4:1, 6, 8

In 1967, psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe conducted a study with over 5,000 patients on the connection between significant life events and illness. The resulting chart – known as the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale – which contained 43 causes of stress in 1967, was updated to 55 causes in 2006. It appears we are finding more ways of feeling stressed! Not far from the top of the list are finances, work, family, personal concerns, relationships, and death – issues that many people face, regardless of how secure they may appear.

Stress spans the ages too, as this Psalm makes clear. Although the cause in this case is not immediately apparent, David’s prayer has a very human and contemporary feel to it – ‘Give me relief from my distress’. How recently have you prayed that for yourself?

But note how he addresses God – ‘Righteous God’, or ‘God of my right’. Here, as elsewhere in Scripture, God’s righteousness is bound up with his covenant love and faithfulness to his people. It’s because he is the God who does what is right, who makes things right, that we can pray, ‘Give me relief from my distress’. It’s this God alone who can provide the compassion we seek. We pray on the basis that God is a righteous God, and has mercy on his people. Ultimately, we have no other source of hope, no other means of deliverance.

It’s completely of a piece with God’s covenant faithfulness that towards the end of the Psalm, David can use words from the priestly blessing of Numbers 6, to ask God to shine on the people, and expresses the confidence that he will enjoy peace, shalom, the wellbeing that the priestly blessing goes on to pray for. It’s the Lord alone who does this, he says; only the Lord counts.

And so he lies down to sleep. It’s not apparent that the situation has changed by the end of the Psalm, or that the cause of the stress has been removed. But praying it through has somehow put it in perspective. Prayer to the covenant-keeping God has a way of doing that. The Psalms are unrelenting in pointing us back to the one who stands at the heart of our faith – the one who still promises that his peace, which passes all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Stressed Out?

I contributed this week’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

Answer me when I call to you,

my righteous God.

Give me relief from my distress;

have mercy on me and hear my prayer...

Let the light of your face shine on us...

In peace I will lie down and sleep,

for you alone, LORD,

make me dwell in safety.

Psalm 4:1, 6, 8

In 1967, psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe conducted a study with over 5,000 patients on the connection between significant life events and illness. The resulting chart – known as the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale – which contained 43 causes of stress in 1967, was updated to 55 causes in 2006. It appears we are finding more ways of feeling stressed! Not far from the top of the list are finances, work, family, personal concerns, relationships, and death – issues that many people face, regardless of how secure they may appear.

Stress spans the ages too, as this Psalm makes clear. Although the cause in this case is not immediately apparent, David’s prayer has a very human and contemporary feel to it – ‘Give me relief from my distress’.

But note how he addresses God – ‘Righteous God’, or ‘God of my right’. Here, as elsewhere in Scripture, God’s righteousness is bound up with his covenant love and faithfulness to his people. It’s because he is the God who does what is right, who makes things right, that David can pray, ‘Give me relief from my distress’. It’s this God alone who can provide the compassion which David seeks. He prays on the basis that God is a righteous God, and has mercy on his people. Ultimately, we have no other source of hope, no other means of deliverance.

It’s completely of a piece with God’s covenant faithfulness that towards the end of the Psalm, David can use words from the priestly blessing of Numbers 6, to ask God to shine on the people, and confess that he will enjoy peace, shalom, the well-being that the priestly blessing goes on to ask for. It’s the Lord alone who does this, he says; only the Lord counts.

And so he lies down to sleep. It's not apparent that the situation has changed by the end of the Psalm, or that the cause of the stress has been removed. But praying it through has somehow put it in perspective. Prayer to the covenant-keeping God has a way of doing that. Here as elsewhere, the Psalms are unrelenting in pointing us back to the one who stands at the heart of our faith – the one who still promises that his peace, which passes all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

A ‘So That’ People

I contributed this week’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

May God be gracious to us and bless us

and make his face shine on us –

so that your ways may be known on earth,

your salvation among all nations.

May the peoples praise you, God;

may all the peoples praise you.

Psalm 67:1-3

The glorious benediction of Numbers 6:24-26 impresses upon us that God is the source of every blessing: ‘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.’ In this case, the blessing is mediated through the priests – bringing with it the guarantee that the sacrifice for sin has been successful, confirming God’s love for his people, reminding them that his presence is with them.

That the blessing shaped the faith of subsequent generations is clear from the number of times it’s alluded to in Scripture, not least in the opening line of Psalm 67: ‘May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us.’ However, the blessing is sought not for its own sake or even for the sake of Israel, but for all peoples, as seen in the next line – ‘so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations’ – expressing the hope that God’s blessing will become a global reality.

Far from an isolated reference, the Psalms are packed with exhortations to Israel to sing of God’s mighty deeds among the nations, summons to the nations to praise God, and promises of a future in which the nations will join Israel in worship. In line with God’s original promise to Abraham, the blessings for Israel were always the precursor of a still greater blessing – for all nations – ultimately fulfilled in Jesus.

The Psalm is of a piece with the rest of Scripture not only in providing a vision of God’s salvation embracing all nations, but in seeing the people of God as those chosen to be instruments of his blessing to others. Through his grace, God brings together a people who exist so that others might be blessed. God’s desire to bless hasn’t changed, and nor has his means of doing so. The Psalm thus enables us to see the arenas of our everyday life as places where God blesses us, calls us to be living proofs of that blessing, and invites us to share it with those around us – in our families, neighbourhoods, and workplaces.

And then, beyond even this amazing privilege, the Psalm reminds us of the ultimate goal of mission – nothing less than the worship of the Lord among ‘all the peoples’. To God be all the glory.

Blessing (3)

PrayerWorks, a new venture from the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity starting in early January 2012, seeks to encourage prayer for the workplace by providing creative ways of praying and developing pathways of prayer for Christians together. From 1 February, this will include a 40-day journey of prayer for work using the prayer pathway of blessing. As part of this, I have been asked to write a supportive piece on what the Bible says about ‘blessing’ – what it tells us about God and the way he works, and its implications for our response in praise to God and in praying for others.

Earlier posts:

• Blessing (1) – Introduction

• Blessing (2) – Blessing comes from God – the creator God

(b) The covenantal God

To be blessed is not only to benefit from God’s ongoing gifts in creation but to enjoy special relationship with God. God’s desire and intention to bless his people is bound up with the covenant relationship he establishes with them, beginning with Abraham.

The promise to Abraham

The promises to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3, given against the backdrop of the curses announced in the previous chapters (3:14, 17; 4:11; 5:29; 9:25), mark a new turning point in God’s dealings with the world. Judgment is not the last word: God does not reject the nations, but chooses one family to bring blessing to the nations. Thus begins the first episode in a long story in which God progressively works out his plan of restoration – a plan which includes creation itself. In this way, God’s promises to Abraham may be read in conjunction with Genesis 1 – as a reaffirmation of his original blessing on men and women. It is Abraham and his descendants who will become God’s instruments to bless the world. From this one man and his family, God’s blessing (‘bless’ words appear five times in Genesis 12:2-3) will flow to all nations.

It’s not clear in 12:2 whether Abraham is commanded to be a blessing or told that he will be a blessing; either way involves the transmission of blessing to others. There is also ongoing debate as to whether 12:3 should read ‘all families will be blessed through you’ (passive) or ‘all families shall bless themselves by you’ (reflexive). As it happens, similar phraseology elsewhere in Genesis (in 18:18; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14) suggests both will be case, and the upshot is the same in any case – God’s blessing will be extended to the nations through Abraham.

The link with worship

The deliverance of God’s people from Egypt and the establishment of his covenant relationship with them at Sinai leads into the building of a sanctuary to facilitate preservation of that relationship. Through the sacrificial cult, Israel was able to dwell in harmony with God and enjoy his ongoing blessing – mediated through the priests. So it is that at the conclusion of the first service of worship, Aaron blesses the people (Lev. 9:22-23), and the levites are set apart for this as an ongoing task (Deut. 10:8; 21:5; 2 Chron. 30:27). God’s blessing is thus bound up with appropriate worship and sacrificial offering. With the priest’s blessing comes the guarantee that atonement has been successful, making the final blessing an essential component of the worship, confirming God’s favourable attitude to his people, serving as a reminder that his presence is with them, to bless them.

The priestly blessing is specified in Numbers 6:22-27:

‘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.”’

The source of the blessing is clear: it is the Lord himself – seen in the threefold repetition of his name in the blessing itself, and confirmed in the final phrase (‘So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them’). This strong link between God’s covenant name and the blessing of his people is also promised in Exodus 20:24, where it is connected with appropriate means of atonement. Although the blessing comes only through the Lord God, it is the priests – in a functional and representative role – who mediate it to the people. It may be seen as a prayer for God’s blessing and protection, his approval and grace, his attention and peace – a prayer which is promised to be effective – ‘I will bless them’ (6:27).

The priestly blessing is alluded to in several psalms (e.g., 29:11; 115:12-15; 134:3). Psalm 67, for example, begins: ‘May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us’ (67:1). But the blessing, in this case, is sought not for its own sake or for the sake of Israel, but for all peoples, as seen in the next line of the Psalm – ‘so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations’ (67:2) – with the Psalm expressing the hope that God’s blessing will become a global reality. While Psalm 67 reflects on the ‘blessing’ part of the priestly benediction, Psalm 121 echoes the ‘keeping’ part, with forms of that word appearing six times in this Psalm of Ascent. The Lord watches over his people not just on their occasional journeys, or even on the physical ascent to the temple in Jerusalem, but ‘now and forevermore’ (121:8).

The blessing promised in Numbers 6 is reinforced by the account of Balaam in Numbers 22-24. The king of Moab hired Balaam to curse the people of Israel (22:4-6); but each time Balaam opened his mouth, he blessed them instead of cursed them (Num. 23:8, 20; 24:9-10). Balaam, in spite of his skills and renown as a prophet, was powerless to bless or curse Israel without the Lord’s direction (cf. Deut 23:4-5; Josh. 24:9-10; Neh. 13:1-2). It’s a strong indication that no magic or rituals will make a difference; the authority to bless belongs to the Lord who cannot be coerced.

The way of obedience

According to Exodus 23:25-26 and Deuteronomy 7:11-15, God promises to bless his people if they are obedient to him and provide them with everything necessary for their well-being in the land. The blessings are articulated more fully in Deuteronomy 28:1-14 (cf. Lev. 26:1-13), providing a picture of the blessed life as bound up with the provision of food and water, children and crops, farming and fertility, defeat of enemies and long life in the land. The establishment of the covenant flows out of God’s undeserved love for the people (Deut. 7:7-8), but the promise of blessing seems conditional on ongoing obedience to the covenant stipulations (7:11-15; 11:8-15; 28:2), while disobedience causes a breakdown of the covenant, with curses replacing blessings (27:26; 28:15-68). At the very least, this shows that the old covenant people of God were not simply passive recipients of blessing, but were called on to follow God’s standards in everyday life.

Even so, this is not a mechanistic system of reward and punishment so much as an expression of the consequences of staying within and straying from the covenant stipulations which ordered their relationship with God and each other. Keeping or breaking God’s requirements does not set in motion a series of blessings or punishments applied by fate, but from the hand of God with whom they were in covenant relationship.

The invocation of blessing

So far, we have focused on God’s blessing of the created world and his covenant people, but we also see in Scripture examples of people praying for God’s blessing on other people. We have already noted that priests were called to pronounce blessings in the Lord’s name, but others were also able to do so, effectively invoking God’s blessing on someone else – ‘May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful’ (Gen. 28:3).

In some cases, a blessing could be as simple as a greeting (Gen. 47:7; 1 Sam. 13:10; 15:13; 2 Kings 4:29) or a parting (Gen. 31:55; 47:10; 2 Kings 19:39), or it could be as significant as a father invoking God for the continuation of blessing from one generation to another (Gen. 27:27-29; 48:15-16; 49:25-26). There are examples of leaders blessing their people (Deut. 33:1; 2 Sam. 6:18; 1 Kings 8:14, 55), of family members blessing a woman about to be married (Gen. 24:60), of a mother blessing her son (Judges 17:2), of a blessing for fertility (1 Sam. 2:20-21). In each case, blessing appears to involve praying for, even invoking, wellbeing, health, and prosperity from one party to another. Such blessings are different from regular prayers in that they are addressed to fellow men and women rather than God, but they still function as requests or desires for God to bless, and he is still understood to be the ultimate source of the blessing.

It should come as no surprise that many of the blessings occur in the context of family life, expressing hopes for the safe birth of children, fertility of crops, increase of herds, defeat of enemies, and length of days. Even so, within the context of the biblical story as a whole, such blessings were significant for the ongoing survival of God’s covenant people precisely so that God’s plan to bless the nations could be brought to its completion.

A number of these themes are combined nicely in the book of Ruth, which shows the significance of blessing at the heart of the ongoing life of the covenant community. The story begins with a parting, with Naomi urging her widowed daughters-in-law to return to their homes in Moab and effectively praying a blessing on them (1:8-9). In doing so, she commits their future to God, seeking his kindness for them, and praying that God will grant them the security that comes from being married rather than the vulnerability that would come with widowhood. The next blessing occurs in 2:4, as Boaz greets his harvesters with ‘The Lord be with you’, and they reply with ‘The Lord bless you!’ Although this may be no more than a greeting (but what a greeting!), it’s a lovely reminder of God’s presence in the everyday, with the use of God’s name to invoke his blessing in daily life and work, in the meeting and leaving of friends. In his first encounter with Ruth, Boaz prays a blessing for Ruth’s wellbeing because of her faithfulness to Naomi (2:11-12), words which are picked up again in his blessing of her in 3:10 as she dares to seek Boaz, as her next of kin, to take responsibility for her wellbeing. 2:19-20 then records Naomi’s reaction to Ruth when she returns from the fields with a supply of grain – ‘Blessed be the man’ – with a prayer seeking God’s blessing on Boaz. Then, after Boaz and Ruth are married, those who witness the occasion seek God for the provision of children and the building up of their household (4:11-12). When a child is born, the women bless God in thanksgiving for dealing kindly with Naomi (4:14-15). Naomi’s desire for Ruth to find security in a husband’s house (1:9) has come true. In a story shot through with covenant faithfulness, the blessing she sought has come about in the blessing from God of a family from whom will come king David (4:18-22), from whom will come Christ himself (Matt. 1:5). Here is one snapshot of the Old Testament story which traces the transmission of God’s promise of blessing from Abraham through the generations to all nations.

That we are blessed by God means we acknowledge that God is Lord of creation and covenant, the one who freely gives us all good things. That we bless others is an expression that they too might enjoy what we have received. In relationship with God, we are blessed by him, a blessing which overflows from us to others which is then offered back to God in thanksgiving and praise.

Elmer Martens on Numbers 6:24-26

Elmer Martens, ‘Intertext Messaging: Echoes of the Aaronic Blessing (Numbers 6:24-26)’, Direction 38, 2 (2009), 163-78.

Understanding intertextuality as ‘the process of invoking a text, either through direct quotation or through allusion, as a way of adding color and depth to the topic under discussion’, Elmer Martens here explores how the priestly blessing in Numbers 6:24-26 is echoed by other biblical writers.

The Priestly Benediction (Numbers 6:24-27)

He begins with some reflections on the blessing itself, a three-line prayer followed by a concluding explanation:

‘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.

The benediction, he notes, is to be spoken by ‘Aaron and his sons’ (Num. 6:22; cf. Deut. 10:8; 21:5). The Lord is the subject of each line, and it is best to think of it as three petitions rather than six – with each line containing a call on God to act, followed by an outcome of his action. The first petition is for blessing, the second is about guarding and protecting, while the third – make his face shine – ‘expresses contentment and joy and points to favorable acceptance’.

‘In sum, the Aaronic benediction is a petition to God for beneficence to be shown to a people, a beneficence couched in six verbs: bless, keep, make a face to shine, be gracious, lift up countenance, and give peace.

Old Testament Echoes

Martens goes on to explore some Old Testament echoes of the priestly benediction, notably in Psalms 67 and 121.

Psalm 67 begins: ‘May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us’ (67:1). Here, however, the intended blessing ‘is desired, not in the interests of individuals or even of Israel, but in the interests of God’s salvation becoming known to peoples everywhere’, as seen in the next line of the Psalm: ‘so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations’ (67:2). The prayer for blessing functions ‘as a channel for God’s revelation and salvation to nations’. And Psalm 67 goes on to describe what is entailed in this ‘blessing’. As Martens summarises:

‘God’s favor on a people is sought for the ultimate benefit of the peoples of the world. The ancient benediction, Israel-focused, has become globally-focused. Its dimensions are distant both in geography and in chronology In short, the Psalm in its reuse of the priestly blessing tweaks it in three ways. “Blessing” is about physical productivity. Blessing also has a decidedly spiritual dimension, one having to do with knowing God’s salvation. And thirdly, the benediction is given a missional thrust.’

While Psalm 67 reflects on the ‘blessing’ part of the priestly benediction, Psalm 121 echoes the ‘keeping’ part, with forms of that word appearing six times in this Psalm of Ascent. The Lord watches over his people not just on their occasional journeys but ‘now and forevermore’ (121:8). As Martens notes, ‘the ancient ritual is “tweaked” to encompass the image of a journey, be that the physical ascent to Jerusalem, or symbolically, the journey of life’.

New Testament Echoes

Martens suggests that an echo of the priestly benediction might be seen not at the end of Paul’s letters so much as at their start, in the regular greeting – with the ‘grace and peace to you’ reminiscent of the final sentence of the priestly prayer, ‘And be gracious to you... and give you peace’.

This isn’t as straightforward as it might appear, as Martens himself notes, since the Greek translation of Numbers 6 uses eleeo (normally rendered with ‘show mercy’, ‘be merciful’, etc.), whereas Paul uses a form of charis in his greetings. Of course, charis and eleos are closely related (cf. Ps. 86:15; Exod. 34:6), and Paul’s frequently-added words ‘from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’ in his greetings are odd if they are ‘little more than a conventional form of “hello”’. Martens summarises:

‘Granted, it may still be something of a reach to regard Paul’s salutation in his letters as a re-use of the priestly blessing. But, while speculative, it is not an unreasoned reach. If the echo of Paul’s salutation of “grace and peace” is less than sharp, but distant... there is an echo nevertheless. The exercise of intertextuality is more than matching some words; it is realizing the power of ancient texts now hinted at, now expounded. More than repetition or echo is involved.’

Martens concludes his article by noting, among other things, the benefit to preachers of attending to intertexts – by paying attention to how Scripture itself elaborates on ‘blessing’ and ‘keeping’, by seeing how other passages show ‘what it means to live under divine benediction’.