BLESS AND KEEP

Numbers 6:24 “The Lord bless you and keep you.”

These are words that God instructed the priests to say over the people of Israel.

We learn from Leviticus that the priests were to say these words with their hands held up above their heads. This was to signify that the words weren’t just being uttered by the priests, but were coming from God himself to the people. The priest was the mediator, not the initiator. When the people gathered for worship, the priest would offer the sacrifices to establish them in fellowship with God, and then he would raise his arms and pronounce the blessing.

What did it mean to say, “The Lord bless you”? The Hebrew word literally means “on bended knee”. It describes a servant kneeling out of respect for his master or a lover kneeling to ask his beloved for her hand in marriage. There is a wonderful moment near the end of “The Return of the King” when the four hobbits are stunned that the newly crowned king of men, Aragorn, kneels to honor them. That is something like what this passage has in mind. In this blessing, God is offering to come to his people “on bended knee” – that is, to come to serve them, to love them, to share himself with them.

The second part of the first phrase of the Aaronic blessing calls upon God to “keep” his people. The Hebrew word for “keep” is used to describe the way shepherds would use thorn bushes to build a protective enclosure for the sheep, to keep them safe from predators. “To keep” literally means “to build a hedge around”. Thus, the key idea is that of protection from harm, putting around you and your life a sort of fence to keep out enemies that would snatch away the blessings that God has given you, and to keep you from wandering off.

What an amazing thought. That the supreme and almighty God, who dwells in eternity, the creator of and ruler over all things, would get down on one knee as a servant to sinful and rebellious people like us. That he would then take the trouble to build a protective hedge around us to keep us safe. Yet that is exactly what the Bible says he instructed the priests to call on him to do.

Most people do not think of God like this. Yet, even more than the people of Israel, we should be able to see that this is how God has revealed himself. His coming “on bended knee” was most completely put into action in the incarnation of God the Son. Jesus in the manger is God on bended knee; Jesus eating with sinners is God coming on bended knee; Jesus living as one of us, then giving his life on the cross is God on bended knee. Jesus ascending to heaven and sending his Spirit as our Comforter is God at work keeping us secure, for as Peter wrote, “we have an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for you.”

Truly, God has shown himself to be a God who has a heart to bless and keep his people.