The LORD Bless You and Keep You

A parent leans over a sleeping child at bedtime and whispers a few quiet words. The same words have been whispered, sung and prayed for more than three thousand years. And they began with God himself.

The people of Israel are still camped in the wilderness of Sinai. It is a huge camp. Moses has counted the fighting men of every tribe, and the tribes are arranged around the tabernacle in a great square, three tribes on each side, with God's tent in the middle. Soon they will pack up and set out for the promised land, across a hard and dangerous desert. They will need food, water, protection and courage. Most of all, they will need God. And before they leave, God gives Moses something for Aaron and his sons, the priests. Not a law this time. A blessing.

The LORD said to Moses: tell Aaron and his sons, this is how you are to bless the people of Israel. Say to them. And then come three short lines, each one a little longer than the one before, like a song that grows. The first line. The LORD bless you, and keep you. To bless is to do someone good, to give them what they need to flourish. To keep is to guard, the way a shepherd watches over his flock through the night. Think of the desert ahead. Snakes, enemies, thirst, wrong turns. This line says: God himself will be your guard.

The second line. The LORD make his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you. When someone you love sees you, their face lights up. That is the picture here. God is not frowning at his people from far away. He turns towards them and his face shines with warmth. And he is gracious, which means kind to people who have not earned it. This was a people who had grumbled and doubted and even worshipped a golden calf. Yet God tells the priests to say: his face is shining on you.

The third line. The LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace. Countenance is an old word for face. To lift up your face towards someone is to pay full attention to them, to look at them with favour. And then the last word of the whole blessing: peace. In Hebrew it is shalom. It means more than quiet. It means wholeness, everything as it should be, with God, with each other, inside yourself. Then God adds something remarkable. In this way, he says, they will put my name on the people of Israel, and I will bless them. The priests speak the words. But the blessing comes from God. Picture Aaron at the tent entrance, lifting his hands over the crowd, and thousands of families, the old and the young, the strong and the tired, hearing the name of the LORD spoken over them like a roof over a house.

In 1979, archaeologists excavating old burial caves at Ketef Hinnom, just outside Jerusalem's walls, found two tiny rolled-up scrolls made of silver. They were probably worn as amulets, around the neck. When they were finally unrolled and read, they held a version of this very blessing. They date to around the sixth or seventh century before Christ, and they are the oldest known objects bearing words found in the Bible.

The LORD bless you and keep you. You'll find this blessing in Numbers chapter six, verses twenty-two to twenty-seven. Three lines, given in a desert camp, still spoken over babies, brides and sleeping children all over the world. So here is a question to carry with you. Who could you speak a blessing over this week?