![]() His covenant, personal name is central to this priestly blessing. The Lord alone established the nation of Israel and He would continue to preserve His people.Īs the Lord indicated, when referring to the pronouncement of the blessing, So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them. Using His covenant name, Yahweh, God was emphasizing His close relationship with Israel. ![]() This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you. When Moses asked who he should say sent him to free the Israelites, God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM. God first revealed His personal, covenant name to Moses when He appeared to Him in the burning bush in the wilderness. He will be true to himself as is only righteous for God.Īnd if we missed it in the threefold repletion of his name the Lord, the Lord, the Lord at the head of each line in the blessing, he ends verse 27 with an emphatic I: I will bless them. In other words, Gods zeal for his name, for his glory, is the bedrock of this great blessing. This God will not give his glory to another, nor will he forsake his people, for his own names sake. And yet so also, in Gods own name being put upon them, they position themselves in the best of all places. Which is a weighty and wonderful task weighty because they carry Gods holy name on them in an unholy world. They are his people and represent him in the world. They know it, and so will the surrounding nations. ![]() Through the pronouncing of this sacred blessing, God says, he puts his name on his people. The center and apex of Gods blessing, however, is the presence and person of God himself.įinally, then, after the poem, God says to Moses in verse 27, So shall put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them. In fact, they can be taken away, not as the removal of Gods blessing but even as the very expression of it. But they are not the heart of the blessing. They can be precious gifts, expressions of Gods fatherly favor. Temporal supplies, earthly peace, and human offspring are not unholy, irrelevant, or insignificant. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. The culminating blessing that which was most important was Gods own presence, God himself: However, we should be careful not to sell Gods ancient people short on the fullness of what they longed for in his blessing. Included would be the earthly and temporal, which God did not begrudge: rains, harvest, and produce, peace in the land and victory in battle, being fruitful and multiplying through offspring, and storehouses of resources. Perhaps no place sums up better than Leviticus 26 how multifaceted their Lords blessing would have been in their minds. How spiritual and eternal and divine were the hopes of the people? How many would be content with merely physical, temporal, material blessings? What would the ancient Israelites have assumed this blessing from God would include? This may be the single most important question we can ask about this poem. Other Versions Bless: His Face Shines With Grace Hes not a man who thinks or judge by appearance. ![]() Remember, He sees and knows the motives of our hearts. According to Matthew 6:33, we should always put Him first in everything we do and we will see how prosperous our lives will be. Therefore, we should make God the first in our lives and allow Him to ride on our lives.
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