The Lord Bless You and Keep You
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. (Numbers 6:24–26) Tucked away in an otherwise inconspicuous place, in Numbers chapter 6, we find one of the great poems in all the Bible. There God instructs Moses to speak to Aaron (his brother and Israel’s high priest) and his sons, saying, “Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them . . .” (verse 23). Then follows what we now know as the great “Aaronic blessing,” not only one of Scripture’s best-known verses but also one of its oldest. Many Christians today are familiar with it from songs and benedictions in corporate worship that echo it still. In fact, some of us are so familiar with the blessing that it’s easy to take its content for granted and miss what it really means. Whether it’s new or old to you, consider what makes this blessing so great and why it assumed such a place in Israel — at the close...