NOTES for Num 6:24-26

Yahwism knows traditional blessings, pronounced by priests during worship at the Tabernacle or in the Temple, in which the name of God was always heard. At some point they came to be treated as traditional ritual formulas, but originally all these blessings had their own meaning and purpose.

Such are the blessings we see in the Book of Numbers. In antiquity, the sacred name was generally treated in a special way: it was thought that the name by which God reveals Himself to a person, if pronounced, unites the person with God. Pagans looked at the matter in the same way, and sacred names in the pagan world were often even credited with magical properties.

Yahwism, however, did not involve any magic: the point was the intention that a person directs toward God when calling Him by name. To use sacred names casually, in passing, for rhetorical effect or out of habit, is a violation of the third commandment of the Decalogue, and in ancient Israel this was well understood.

What, then, is a blessing? In its original sense, the corresponding Hebrew word means the transmission by the one blessing of his own (usually supernatural) power to the one being blessed. When God blesses a person, He gives that person His power, and when the priests bless the people, they wish for the people that God, before whom they have just stood, would give them His power.

This power can preserve and protect, especially if God shows a person His face. To meet God face to face meant to experience personal communion with God; such an experience has been known in every age. But this meeting could bring a person not only joy: after all, a sinful person appeared before God as he was, and the outcome of the meeting could be highly unexpected for him.

That is why the traditional ritual formulas include words about peace and mercy: both were absolutely necessary for a sinful person so that a face-to-face meeting with God would not turn into a curse for him instead of a blessing.

Of course, God never curses a person for his sins; otherwise no one would have any chance of salvation. But a meeting with God is always a trial for a person as well, not only joy, and the traditional blessings spoken by the priests also included a request that the meeting with God would become for those being blessed not destruction, but spiritual renewal.

In spiritual life, nothing is unimportant. It would seem that if you want to say something good to someone, then say it. What difference does it make how? As the saying goes, even a cat appreciates a kind word. But no: even here God considers it necessary to give us a model for a good wish, a blessing. And this is very reasonable, because how can we really know what will truly be good for another person?

So what does God call a good word for every person? First of all, the wish that God would bless that person, that is, that the One who determines what is good would wish good for him. Second, that this person would come under God's protection, for no one is stronger than God Almighty. Third, that light would enter this person's life from the face of the Lord, from His constant presence nearby, because light means seeing the way and having joy in the soul. Then comes God's mercy, His forgiveness of human sin. And finally, peace: not just the absence of war and hostility, but a state of spirit in which everything around us gains meaning and harmony.

Tell me, do you want to be blessed in this way? Then you yourself should bless others in this way.

The law concerning the Nazirite may seem somewhat strange. What was the goal of the Nazirite, and why was the mentioned abstinence from all strong drink required? What is this - some temperance movement? Or a brotherhood of ascetics? But then why is the matter specifically abstinence from strong drink, and not from meat or from married life, since the overwhelming majority of ancient ascetic practices presupposed both? If there is asceticism here, it is of a very distinctive kind. In addition, the issue is not a permanent vow for one's whole life, but a temporary vow. It is not known whether making a Nazirite vow for life was possible. And still, Naziriteship was a kind of ascetic practice, though not in the usual sense of the word.

It is not accidental that abstinence from strong drink comes to the foreground here. Incidentally, in ancient Israel there was an entire movement whose members used neither wine nor other drinks connected with fermentation at all. These are the so-called Rechabites, literally "those living on the streets." On the streets because they made a point of rejecting not only wine and other strong drinks, but settled life in general: even in cities they demonstratively pitched their tents and lived in them, convinced that otherwise, in a city house, one could not remain a true Yahwist.

They rejected wine for the very same reason they rejected city dwellings: both were incompatible with the life of a nomad, and for the Rechabites only the nomad was a Yahwist. Wine, it goes without saying, is a great rarity for a nomad, since a nomadic way of life leaves no room to speak of one's own vineyards. Something roughly similar, though on a smaller scale, takes place in the case of Naziriteship: abstinence from wine and other strong drinks was meant first of all to remind a person of the wilderness, of the Exodus, of the path the people had to walk from Sinai to the promised land.

Here, of course, it was not enough merely to abstain from wine. Much had to be remembered, lived through anew; one had to return in thought to the origins, to the place where everything began, where the Torah was given, where God first revealed Himself to Moses. Such experiences could spiritually renew a person and make him gather himself inwardly, look anew at his relationship with God and at his life in general. Of course, there could be no guarantees here, but the possibility of such renewal was offered to everyone. The rest depended on the person himself.

What does it mean to 'dedicate oneself to God,' and why is it needed? Judging by the description of the Nazirite vow in today's chapter, for the ancient Israelites it meant promising God not to defile oneself and to refrain from sin for a certain period of time, aided by abstaining from wine, although of course the symbolism of wine here is much deeper; let us also not forget the uncut hair - see the story of the Nazirite Samson in Judges. In other words, such a vow is a time of the greatest possible holiness for a person, whose source and goal is likeness to God.

We can see this goal not only in descriptions of the lives of people such as the prophet Samuel and John the Baptist, who were also Nazirites, but also in the evangelist's words about the Last Supper, when the Lord solemnly pronounces a vow: 'From now on I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until the day when I drink new wine with you in My Father's Kingdom' (Matt 26:29), dedicating Himself for all who will be called to sanctification by the truth (John 17:19).