40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 133 (Numbers 6:22-7:89)

Episode Date: September 18, 2018

Chad and Daniel talk about the significance of hair in the Bible. They explore one of the best benedictions in scripture. Is this Aaron's benediction or God's? What are the Trinitarian implications in this blessing? They discuss why certain passages are well known and the power of the spoken word of God. Have a listen!

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 podcast, network podcast. Go over to 1517.org. You can check out all the other podcasts that we've got going on in that network. Also, if you appreciate what we're doing, if you've benefited from it, if you think other people that are not you have benefited from it, have you ever told somebody that they should listen to this podcast or some other podcast or read something because you think it would be useful to them?

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Yeah, yeah. So we had a little Nazarite vow preview. I think you had some additional thoughts, and then we're getting into the, not a, the benediction. That's it, yeah. I think there's a couple of things, one in particular that I want to talk about with the Nazarite vow in connection with why, what's the deal about the hair? I want to talk about hair for a second, because interestingly, hair occurs actually a lot of times in the scriptures. But yeah, then we want to kind of dive into these last five verses. And from there, we're going to speed forward. All right, sounds good.

See how far we get. one of the distinctive characteristics of those who willingly take on the Nazirite vow, which we spent maybe 10 minutes on last episode, is the fact that they can't shave their head or cut their hair. It's probably the most distinctive feature of that particular vow. What happens at the end of that period, at least for those who have taken a temporary vow, we're not talking, of course about the uh the lifelong nazarites like samson and samuel and john the baptist but those who take this temporary vow they cut their hair at the end of it and one of the kind of the strange thing that happens is that the hair the the dedicated hair is placed on the fire

on the altar along with the sacrifice of the peace offerings now if you're like me one of the first things you should probably think of is that must have had a really bad aroma the smell of burning hair is not a good not a good smell yeah you can't you can't buy that room spray at bath and body works let's hope that on that day the uh the priest like tripled the incense uh that was wafting wafting through the air to kind of hide some of the smell but i i was thinking about this a couple weeks ago i just i mean what's what is the what's the deal with with hair why is the hair so significant here and i think i at least have a partial answer and it's actually uh somewhat supported by the uh some archaeological evidence we have as well it seems that because hair

continues to grow in fact uh it even grows after after we die which is kind of kind of strange but the body continues to produce hair uh even after even after death for for a time period that hair is seen as sort of uh the symbol of the life the life within a person something like that uh so it has this this life connection to it but there's there's also this this idea that it it's almost a stand-in for for the person himself or herself kind of the uh the representation uh of of the person as a whole. And I think that in particular is what is significant here with Numbers chapter six and the Nazarite vow, because this person has placed themselves under this vow. And then when it's over, and so they have already dedicated themselves. They already are kind of a

living a sacrifice, if you will, because they can't do lots of things. And when that is over, One way in which the sacrifice is consummated, if you will, is by the placing of their hair upon the fire on the altar as somewhat of a symbol of they themselves giving themselves up holy, holy to God. And there are some archaeological evidence to support that this was actually a pretty common view in the ancient world. There are archaeological records, for instance, of gold and silver vessels that were left at some non-Israelite temples in which a portion of a worshiper's hair was placed. And this was the way in which they showed that they were dedicating themselves to this particular god or goddess, whoever the temple was dedicated to, by leaving a little bit of themselves behind, as it were. So the hair becomes kind of a symbol of the person. And now that I say that, we do kind of have, maybe not so much anymore, but it was common for a while for people to actually carry a locket with a person's hair in there as a way of actually remembering the person. So there is a sense in which hair stands for the entire person.

you see some hang hangovers of that maybe not currently but not you don't have to go too far back to where i mean i mean back even just in like kind of the victorian era you know sometimes if a dude was going off to war or something like that i mean you've probably seen this in old movies and the reason you've seen it is because this this was still a cultural thing it's like a girl will like clip a lock of hair or something and give it to this guy as he's like going off and um and you'd be like what is that about i mean i don't think that's probably something that's happening currently but it wasn't that long ago that people did that and uh and the reason that was it's a way of saying that telling this person that you know i'm yours like i'm waiting i'm

waiting for you that kind of thing and they would they'd have this this locket of hair uh maybe they have it in you know in something or whatever and they uh you can see this in movies and stuff and It's not just some kind of Hollywood thing. It was a real thing that took place, again, not that long ago. Yeah. I think that, I mean, it's probably always been this way, but I mean, it still certainly is this way. I mean, people care a lot about their hair, of course,

because that is, it's sort of the crown of a person, right? In fact, one of the psalms even, when it talks about the hair, refers to the hair as the crown of the head. So there is the sense in which it's the top of our person, and it kind of is a symbol of who we are, and in this particular case, it's left behind on the altar to symbolize the fact that this Nazarite had given himself or herself wholly unto God. so uh you've got that that kind of that whole history and and and theology of of hair that's represented here in the nazirite vow and of course we actually have a lot of occurrences throughout the rest of the scriptures where where hair is involved sometimes in in in good ways and sometimes in bad ways it was uh sometimes in shameful ways where for instance uh if an enemy

conquered uh their their adversary they would sometimes cut the men's beards in half as a as a symbol of a shame upon them uh and then you have of course uh even in even the new testament you have paul's discussion in in corinthians about uh a woman's hair being her glory and the cutting of the hair so this this this this theology of the hair and the significance of the hair carries over into into the new testament as well so if you've you've ever looked at this nazirite vow and wonder well you know what's the deal why what's what's up with the hair i think that's at least a partial answer answer to that question yeah even even the story of samson i mean there's the obvious role that that hair plays he he brings up his hair numerous times before he actually

says you know i cut it and this is what happens but uh but yeah you have all the all just tied into into the hair i mean i think it's interesting that like in the and i guess this is because i mean you can correct me if i'm wrong i haven't thought about this until just this moment but in all of the old school paintings of jesus and even now when you have movies that have christ in them and stuff he's always got long hair now there's nothing in the new testament that says jesus had long hair you know it doesn't doesn't say that but the reason that we think he does is because there's this nazirite prophecy that matthew talks about um now matthew well that's for another time but matthews ties in him being from nazareth to the nazirite thing which doesn't

make any sense but yeah but that's the reason for it is that we the reason all the vast majority of the the paintings and and depictions of christ you see as long hair has to do with this there's no other there's no other reason to assume you had long hair yeah yeah i think that's i think that's It's that N-Z-R, that root letter from Nazarene, that's also the root of the Nazarite vow that makes that particular connection. I've never studied the history of art and its connection with that theology there, but that makes total sense as to why it's depicted that way. Yeah. So if you want to be like Jesus, just don't get a haircut. I don't know if I've brought this up before, but as an actor in the Great Passion play, Jesus always had this long hair.

And then all the other disciples had short hair, and it was just a way for him to stand out. And I'm pretty sure that if that was the case, then he probably didn't have long hair, because I don't think Jesus was doing things to intentionally stand out. In fact, supposedly there's nothing about him that you would notice. And I suppose if he had hair down to the middle of his back, that might be a little – because it actually wasn't standard in those days for men to have long, long hair because, I mean, it's a pain. I mean, they didn't have showers. I mean, it's just nasty. I mean, they had beards and stuff, but long hair down the middle of your back, that's not – nobody was doing that. Right.

Yeah, only the Nazarites would have looked that way with the men. So I think that New Testament connection with Nazarene and Nazarite is the reason Christ is often depicted that way. So that's another kind of Old Testament, New Testament connection here between number six and what we see in the New Testament. All right, let's move on. Let's do it. So this particular section at the end of number six doesn't really, it's not like it flows from the whole Nazarite vow into what we're about to look at, but it is where it is, for whatever reason, this benediction is placed at the end of this chapter on the Nazarite vow. And it's real short. It's only verses 22 through 27, but it happens to be one of those Old Testament sections, which, short though it is, has probably exerted more of an influence on the worship of the church than hardly any other Old Testament selection. And this is the benediction, which I don't know how commonly it's called this in the various churches out there.

But I think it's pretty widespread that it's referred to as Aaron's benediction or the Aaronic benediction. And as I mentioned last time, that's really a poorly chosen name for it, wherever that particular name came from. Because, if anything, God makes clear that this is not Aaron's benediction. It over and over, in the very structure of the benediction, and especially in the closing verse of this particular chapter, God makes it abundantly clear that it's not the priests who are blessing. They're the mouthpiece, but it is God himself who is imparting the blessing. So, I mean, if I could go back and change all of those names from Aaronic benediction to the Lord's benediction or Yahweh's benediction, then I would, because that's really what it is. Aaron and his sons are nothing more than those upon whose lips have been placed this blessing.

But the blessing, they're just the conduit for it. God is the one who is imparting the blessing. So it's real short. Let me just read it to you. Beginning of verse 22. and to his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you peace. And then we have this closing verse,

verse 27. So they shall invoke my name or put my name on the sons of Israel, and I then will will bless them. So it does start out here in verse 23, saying that this is the way that Aaron and his sons, and by Aaron and his sons, it's simply referring to those who have been placed into the priesthood. So Aaron and all of his priestly progeny after him, this is the way that they are to bless the sons of Israel. So they are blessing, but again, they're only the ones who are imparting the blessing that comes actually from the source and that is from god himself now the the blessing itself is uh is only three verses only three lines uh but the way that it's structured is it's almost like a little it's almost like poetry uh of course we're looking

at in english if you were to look at it in hebrew it's even it's even more abundantly clear in the structure of it that uh it has this kind of poetic feel to it of course the most obvious element of the structure is the threefold repetition of the divine name so as as we've mentioned before if you're looking in english bibles anytime that you see uh l-o-r-d in all caps then the hebrew behind that is the name yahweh if you see capital l and then smaller lowercase, O-R-D, then it's probably the Hebrew for Adonai. So anytime you see capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, that is Yahweh. So in the Hebrew, it's Yahweh bless you and keep you. Yahweh make his face. Yahweh left his countenance. So you have the threefold repetition of God's

name. And then there's sort of a crescendo as you go through this, because in Hebrew, the first line is only three words. The second line is five words. And the third line is seven word. So there's this increasing from three to five to seven, this crescendo that takes place as well. So of course, Yahweh is the subject of everything that's going on here. And there's a couple of different ways that we can number what God is doing. So God is the actor here. He is the blesser, and the Israelites are the blessees. But what is he doing? Well, you could count six different things if you want to or you can count three different things because if you count six that means he he blesses he keeps he makes his face shine he's gracious he lifts up his countenance

and he gives you peace six things but there's also uh there's also a way that you can translate this where the first part is like god's movement toward the people and the second part is the result of his movement or his action toward the people. So we might translate it this way. The Lord bless you so that he keeps you. The Lord make his face shine on you so that he is gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you so that he gives you peace. So you can look at these gifts that are imparted in the blessing a couple of different ways, and I'm not sure which is best, but how we want to number it six or three what's going on is that when the priests speak these words god is in their mouth and when they utter these words or god uttered these words through

them then these words actually impart that of which they speak so these words do things in other words. When God blesses you, you are blessed. When he keeps you, you're kept. When he makes his face shine on you, then you are shined upon. So it's not as if this creates a potential, but it imparts a reality. So God's word does what it says. You can really compare it to the opening verses of the Bible, right? When God speaks, when he says, let there be light, well, there's light. It's not a potential it's reality so his words create that of which they speak uh there's any we can i guess compare this uh maybe in in our legal realm you know when a when a sentence is pronounced those aren't just words but they actually create that reality or when a a man and a woman are are

married when they are pronounced husband and wife then those words create that reality so on a human level we see this happening as well and certainly when god does it then what he says is to be so when he says these words over the israelites they are blessed they are kept his face does shine he is gracious his countenance is lifted up and he does give them give them peace so anytime that the benediction was spoken over the israelites this was god's way of affirming that he is the one who stands there in the person of the priest to give them through these words that which he desires them to to receive uh i might add one little uh somewhat of a note here a bit of bible trivia or at least jewish history trivia from what i understand at least by the time that the

first century rolled around when the priest would utter this benediction it was the only time that you would actually pronounce the divine name. You know, most of the time when the name of God arose in the reading of the Old Testament, they wouldn't say Yahweh, they would substitute Adonai. That way they wouldn't pronounce this most sacred name. But at least some Jewish traditions say that when the high priest or when the priest would pronounce this benediction, that then he would actually say he wouldn't say adonai bless you and keep you he would actually say yahweh bless you and keep you so this highlighted even more the by saying out loud the actual divine name this highlighted even more the significance of this blessing for for these lives yeah so every time

i hear this uh blessing which is nearly every sunday i'm in church many congregations and their service is with the this which i which i think is the best way to end i've always kind of i'm always disappointed kind of when it doesn't end with this because it's awesome there's also and you mentioned it you have this thrice thing going on so there's a very trinitarian move being made here so you have god god god or yahweh yahweh yahweh and i think that you can sort of see in what is being said godhead rolls sort of in the midst of this so if you if you go father son and holy spirit you can see this that the father would bless you and keep you that in christ who is the face of god uh i mean if god has a face it belongs to jesus uh and as john says that grace

and truth uh come through him so that you have the father bless you and keep you the son uh the face of god shining upon you and god's gracious act to you uh and then the spirit lifting up his countenance upon you and giving you peace so we you have the holy spirit as the as the author of peace and so i you do have not just this sort of trinitarian thing in the sense that it's threefold but i think even in the things that are being being blessed to you the blessing that's pronounced upon you is trinitarian in in the way that the the roles of the godhead are described to us in scripture um that it is it is god who who is the father of all blessings um that it is it is christ who is the face of god and and the grace of god um and it is the the holy spirit who who gives us

piece again when i hear it uh i i hear the entirety of the godhead is is like coming at me with this blessing yeah you know the uh the the the structure of a lot of christian worship services accents exactly what you're saying because a lot of churches begin uh with an invocation of the father son and holy spirit so those are kind of the the opening they they they open the worship That's the first words that are spoken, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And then most then end with, again, this trifold blessing, this Trinitarian blessing. So from the beginning of the service to the end of the service, you have this connection. And the way the service begins, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

well, that's intended to remind us of the one who baptizes us into his name, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And by that act, placing us into his name and putting his name upon us, and that just happens to be also the way that this particular section ends. So it says, so they, it's talking about the priest, so they shall place my name or put my name on the sons of Israel. So just like in baptism, we are put into the name of Christ, baptized into that name, and that name is then placed upon us. same thing happens this is you can kind of think of this as a verbal baptism if you will it's this idea that through this god is putting his name on on us so i love the way that that that ties in with a whole lot of of uh the worship services in in various christian churches begins in the trifold name the trinitarian name it ends in the trinitarian name and joining these

together is really the baptism by which we are placed into that name and as a result of that receive the blessings of that name being placed upon us yeah yeah it's uh it's one of the it's one of those sometimes there's passages you know that you're like oh yeah i know that passage i've heard that a million times you know i hear that every time i go to church uh this is one of the so most of the time it's it's for a good reason you know uh or i i always say that certain passages are well known and they should be you know and and you should you could you could spend a lot of time just taking the passages that are well known like this is no doubt the most well-known passage in numbers i would say but for good reason and anything that's that's well known

and you should you should it's easy for it to become something that just bounces off you and you don't really think about but the reason the church has historically made it well known is because there's actually lots to consider there and uh you know i mean i tell people all the time that like what's your favorite passage i'm like well i don't know if i have a favorite passage but i do in fact think john 3 16 is pretty great and that's not because like i've never read the bible and it's the only verse i know it's because and i'm not saying it is my favorite passage but it was for a long time like the most famous passage in the bible for a really good reason man i mean that passage is awesome uh yeah i mean that's the whole just was just randomly selected

oh let's let's look at john chapter three and find something there no it's not cliche it's not it's not just like oh it's pithy like no it's not i mean it's the whole thing man it's the whole thing in a verse i mean like god loved the world in this way that he gave gifted his only son whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life i mean that's the whole thing man uh i mean find a better verse yeah right uh so i just an encouragement to to really maybe think on some common text as this one is uh there's a there's a lot of the common text the text that you know best um are easy to dismiss and not think about but they're known for a lot of them are known for a reason psalm 23 is

that way it's probably the most well-known psalm but uh man there's a there's a lot of great things or great promises of god there like and uh and so there's a there's a reason that it's that way yeah those the these short passages like this or uh john 3 16 or psalm 23 or any number of these real tight tightly knit very brief passages are what makes for for great meditation because they're also easily memorized if you don't already know them they're very short they memorize and thus they're also easy to think about in a lot of different situations uh when you when you have time to reflect meditate then you know don't shoot if you're going to meditate on a bible passage don't choose psalm 119 you know it's got like a thousand verses right

choose this from number six or choose a couple of passages from john or a couple of verses from from psalm 23 and mull over those and let them kind of bounce around inside your your mind and and heart and and think about them pray about them turn them into a prayer and in that way they don't become just cliche they don't become just another thing that you hear so often it just it bounces off of you but instead it begins to kind of sink in and uh you get a you get a better feel for the depth and the beauty that's that's there yeah i remember one time uh a guy i was going through a rough patch and and this guy said you know god god says you know um that he causes all things to work together you know for good for those who love him are called according to his

purpose and uh and i actually said because i was kind of angry at that time that's a good platitude you know because i mean it's like it's a very well-known passage i mean it's like what everyone says and this particular person said to me he's like it's not a platitude it's a hell of a promise and he's right he's right yeah i mean he's like that's that's what that is yeah yeah we we make them into platitudes or treat them as platitudes only because we just kind of uh just dismiss them as a lot of times something where yeah everybody knows that right right yeah you think if you start thinking about the words you're like oh yeah that is that is something that's that is definitely not that's definitely not nothing yeah yeah truly profound hopefully that gives

you a little bit better insight into yahweh's benediction it's time to read it next time you listen to it in church then think oh yeah yeah i i understand that uh and appreciate that a little bit more now yeah next time you hear that just to know that the whole trinity is coming at you with a blessing it's pretty great nothing better than that yeah all right so that that's chapter six. Chapter seven, we're going to go through very quickly because there's just not a whole lot there that needs any kind of explanation. What the chapter is about is the various tribes of Israel presenting offerings to the Lord for the service of the tabernacle. So what happens is you have each of the head of the tribes uh collecting all basically the same stuff so

you've got uh some carts they're going to be used to transport the various elements of the tabernacle when it's disassembled when they're when they're on their journey from one campsite to another and you have some uh you have teams of oxen that are donated to pull those particular carts you have uh silver pans that are uh full of fine flour that's to be used at the at the tabernacle and you also have golden pans full of incense and what the chapter does is it goes through and this is this is one of the things that kind of gets on gets on people's nerves sometimes and they're when they're trying to read through the whole bible because every every few verses you can just repeat what you read before except it's a different tribe i mean

it goes through and it with every single leader of every single tribe it says the exact same thing that each one of them brings so this is this is one of the ways that the bible wants to make sure simply by repetition that we that we get it we don't miss it it's gonna it's gonna use a lot of parchment and a lot of ink to get this across now if we were to write it we'd probably say and all the heads of the 12 tribes of israel all brought these things and listed out in four verses but that's not the way the scriptures work they repeat it all uh and i think probably one of the reasons is because when when uh the scriptures were written and for for actually most most of the people of god's history when when they heard the scriptures they heard the scriptures they

didn't read the scriptures the fact that that you have a bible in a book uh and of course especially the fact that you have a bible on your phone is something relatively new the possession of a copy of the scriptures by by individuals uh was was unheard of until really until the printing press came along it was books were hard to come by because of course they had to be hand copied But Chad, I just recently had a guy tell me that if you don't read your Bible, you're in sin, which I do read my Bible, but I thought, man, it really puts the vast majority of Christian history in a bad spot. all those poor people before gutenberg came along i guess they were just living their whole lives in sin because they weren't able to read a bible they didn't possess i guess so yeah yeah but i do i think that that's significant that one of the reasons this is my opinion anyway that that the

bible is structured the way it is and that you have a lot of these repetitions it's because we all know that repetition is the mother of learning you got to hear things over and over and if you're only hearing something and you're not reading it because you don't have a copy of the bible at home hardly anybody they might have had you know selected verses written down but most people that they heard the bible they heard it synagogue or the temple or or in church and uh so they they had to hear it and sometimes the same thing is repeated over and over so they'd hear it again so that would begin to to sink to sink in so you have that repetition taking place in numbers chapter 7 where each of the tribes brings the same kind of offerings and this is spelled out

through all 89 verses of this chapter this is a long chapter and that's one of the reasons so uh well it's also a good thing that faith comes through hearing and not literacy yeah yeah yeah i mean the gift of hearing the gift of hearing the scriptures is something that we uh uh that we just kind of don't pay attention to a lot of times because we are we because we've kind of been we've we've been trained to to read with our eyes and to and to think of think of the acquisition of knowledge is taking place through vision but that's not the way it that's not the way that it was through most of most of world history it was through the ears and faith comes through hearing uh because that was that's where the word that's where the word reaches us so

anyway, that's chapter 7. It wraps up with something we've heard before. This is the 89th verse. It says, now when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak to him, that is to God, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the testimony from between the two cherubim. So he spoke to him. So we encounter something very similar to this back in Exodus chapter 25, 22, saying that God would meet with Moses from between the cherubim. So we have a reaffirmation of that here, that Moses goes into the tent of meeting to speak to God. And it doesn't say for God to speak to him. It says for him to speak with him. So this is a two-way communication that's going on. And the voice, the voice of God speaks from above the

mercy seat that's on the ark of the testimony from between the two cherubim so that is where god's voice addressed israel and that's also where his ears heard moses moses speaking speaking to him we have actually the same image carried forward into the temple when the temple is built during solomon's solomon's lifetime god talks about his ears being there and his heart being there so that when the people of israel prayed toward the temple god heard and god answered so this location of god inside the holy of holies to listen and to speak is carried forward not not just here in the tabernacle but also in the life of life of the temple really all all setting the stage for the incarnation because now we now we don't just have god saying i put my

ears inside a building, but his ears are actually his own. I mean, he actually has a pair of human ears now, and he has a human mouth, so that when we speak to him, we're not just directing our prayers toward a room in which God has promised to be present, but we're directing them toward a person with a heart and two ears and a mind and a whole body which receives our words and then speaks back his own words his own words to us so this is a all these uh tabernacle passages like this where god speaks from a certain location are a foreshadowing of when god is going to actually speak in a specific person in uh in his own in his own incarnate son yeah i think i think that sometimes when we you know when we say you know that jesus is you know the the word made

flesh or he's the the word of god it's easy for us to think because you know we've got books upon books about books that he's the word of god like he's the he's the the things that god wrote down made flesh or whatever when we think of words we think of letters on a on a page forming sentences but that's not what it means it means that he's the the speech of god so god's act of speaking uh is what creates it's it's this is why he has you know the the priests declare things over the people oh this is why god says let there be light he doesn't write it down moses writes down that he said it right jesus is the the truthful speech of god made flesh the the speech act of god the acting speech of god made flesh and so god is not just this god who has things written down

but a god who speaks things into existence that speaks things and makes them so right and this is why it's important that you know um you might say like well maybe i could just sit at home and read my bible um and that's not a bad thing to do you since you have it you should you know hey sit down and read it it's uh it's uh worthwhile but it's not the same as having the word of lord declared to you that because that's a distinctly god-like act um it's not simply that he doesn't hand moses you know or or hand the apostle something and say you know we read this um He says, now say this to the people, you know, even the law is carved in tablets of stone, but it's not in carved in, you know, in six million tablets of stone and then passed around. It's, you know, Moses gets it and then declares it to the people because that's how that's how the word of God works.

It's a spoken word. It reminds me of the well-known quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer that the word of God is stronger in the mouth of my brother than it is inside my own heart. And that is that when God uses someone else external to us to speak to us, he's doing a very God thing. He's bringing the word from outside of us to give us either the rebuke or the consolation that we need. That's the way that God works. And, of course, that word lodges in our heart as it comes to us through our ears. But there's a world of difference between hearing someone else say, God forgives you, than hearing inside my own heart that God forgives me. So we need that external word

That spoken word That is the way that God Has always worked Amen And that's it We are out of time Guys we will be in Chapter 8

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