I am not talking about the Lords prayer, "Our father who art in Heaven..." from the New Testament. The Prayer I am talking about here was given to Moses in the desert by God himself. Many christian churches will tell you that the Old Testament is no longer valid because of Jesus. Many churches will tell you that the Old Testament is only to be read as a historical account and should not be taken literally. Many churches will tell you that you only need the New testament because Jesus replaced the old covenant at His crucifixion and resurrection with the new covenant. Yes I could keep going but the answer to all these claims is no, no, NO, they are all wrong, and in their saying and teaching that, you are missing out, you are missing out on so much. This prayer I am about to tell you about was written by GOD the Father himself and given to Moses for the High Priest to pray over the people.
Numbers 6:24-26
24: The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:
25: The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
26: The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.
3 verses on 3 separate lines of the Bible, it makes for a nice prayer or grace doesn't it. But, we have the English translation here not the original, so what is the original Hebrew then. At the Israel museum in Jerusalem you can see two silver scrolls, the oldest biblical text ever found, from about 700 years BC and they both have this text of the Priestly Blessing. The earliest Dead sea scrolls are from 300 years BC.
Yivarechecha Adonai viyishmirecha
Ya'er Adonai panav elecha veechuneka
Yeesa Adonai panav elecha viyasem lecha shalom
There you are, see, the original Hebrew adds far more emphasis and meaning to the prayer. Ah, like most people you don't speak or understand the original old Biblical Hebrew. Do not worry most of those who translated the Bible didn't either, they used the Latin translation which was got from the Greek which was got from the Hebrew in most cases but also had parts that were translated from Arabic. So there are a possible 4 translations where a scribe could get the meaning of a word wrong or have no idea what the word they are trying to translate means and so make a best guess scenario. In some cases it could just be that the old parchment has got so faded that a punctuation mark or Hebrew vowl is missing, changing the word into something completely different.
OK, let us back up a little here and let me explain why this prayer is from GOD and how do I know that?
Numbers 6:22: And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Numbers 6:23: Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying, On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them,
So the 2 verse before this prayer give us the how. You should notice that the LORD is all in capitals, and everywhere you see this in the Bible you can know that this in the original Hebrew manuscripts is the Name of GOD, "YHWH" Most people who translate or read the manuscripts, cannot pronounce or know what those 4 letters mean. There is a huge debate about how you say that name, there are many different variations out there and I am not going to debate them here. Modern Jewish translations will use "Adonai" which means master/husband. Sometimes you will hear "Hashem" or "Yahway". I use and believe the literal name of GOD is "Yehovah" however as I say I am not hear to talk about the literal name of God here but to talk about the prayer. So in the 2 translations above you will see LORD in the English and Adonai in the Hebrew, you simply need to remember that this is the literal name of God.
Aaron is the High Priest, his sons are the Priests and will continue the line of Aaronic Priests, according to Jewish tradition they are the only ones who can say the blessing over the congregation, it has to be the High Priest who speaks it out first and the Priests then usually echo the words. However, as a Christian, how do I get to ever have a Kohanim, High Priest pray over me? Especially this prayer of blessing. Well, God thought of this as well, we have a High Priest in Jesus and Jesus is of a higher order than even Aaron was. Jesus is a High Priest of the order of Melchizedek - the only place we read about Melchizedek is in the story of Abraham in Genesis 14. So I get to have Jesus pray the blessing over me, Jesus repeats the words as I say them.
Then what is the reason for the prayer, Numbers 6:27: And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them.
So the prayer is said over the congregation and because of this God is going to bless them. BUT here is where we get a huge problem and why this Blessing has been made of no effect and the Blessings have been lost, to put the Name of GOD onto the people you have to use the real name. So we have found this Blessing, we have found a High Priest who is allowed to say the prayer over us, but they don't use the real exact Name of GOD, they use a title instead and then wonder why they are not Blessed. Adonai is a title, El Shaddai is another but they are not the literal real Name of GOD. As I have said Adonia means master or husband, but in old times in Canaan master or husband was called Ba'al, so eventually over time we ended up with Adonia equals Ba'al. We have mixed the different religious names and no longer have the real deal, therefore we are no longer going to be blessed when we say the Blessing. So, start searching out for yourself the literal Name of GOD not what somebody else says the name is and when you have the real name, change Adonai for the name.
Now you need to recall that this blessing is given to Moses during the Exodus of the Children of Israel leaving Egypt on the way to the Promised land. How do I know, simple, Moses did not know God or lead the Children of Israel, or know Aaron before the Exodus started and Moses did not enter the Promised Land. So it has to be between these 2 times which are spread over 40 years. Obvious place for this blessing to be given to Moses is at Mount Sinai when the commandments and all the other laws and instructions. Have you noticed that whilst the Children of Israel walked through the wilderness for those 40 years, they never wore out their clothes, the shoes never broke or wore out, in fact as the children grew, where did they get the new clothes from. Notice also all the food was provided for them with mana and quail, all the water was provided from the rocks, they had full angelic protection every single day and not one of them got sick. Think about this for a moment, you only have what you can carry and you walk out of your house into the desert and do not return for 40 years and you have everything you need and require provided to you along the way, do you think that maybe, just maybe, there is someone looking after you. Maybe this blessing is worth investigating just a little bit further.
Let me break down each line by phrase for you from the Hebrew into English and then the amplified English meaning.
- Yivarechecha Adonai - The LORD Bless you
May Yehovah, your heavenly Father, kneel before you, like a good Father kneeling before his child presenting you with gifts and promises - viyishmirecha - and keep you
May Yehovah, your heavenly Father, guard you with a hedge of thorny protection that will prevent Satan and all your enemies from harming you, your mind, body, soul, spirit, your loved ones and all your possessions. - Ya'er Adonai panav elecha - The LORD make his face shine upon you
May Yehovah, your heavenly Father illuminate the wholeness of His being toward you, continually, bringing you to order so that you fulfill your God-given destiny and purpose. - veechuneka - And be gracious to you
May Yehovah, your heavenly Father provide you with perfect love and fellowship, never leaving you, and give you sustenance, provision and friendship. - Yeesa Adonai panav elecha - The LORD lift up his countenance upon you
May Yehovah, your heavenly Father lift up and carry His Fullness of being toward you, bring everything that He is to your aid, suppporting you with His Diviine Embrace and His Entire Being. - viyasem lecha shalom - And give you peace
May Yehovah, your heavenly Father set in place all you need to be whole and complete so you can walk in victory, moment by moment, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Do you see how much more the words mean when you go back to the Hebrew and you translate each Hebrew word into its full meaning. You are not getting just one Blessing here, you are getting a tsunami of Blessings one after the other and they will keep coming, that is God the Fathers way, unless you say stop.
Just to make this really clear it is not the Priest who blesses the people, the Priest is simply saying the words, it is God, Yehovah who does the blessing. God had always done the Blessing in the covenant up to this point,but now God gives the words for the Priest to say, but God still does the Blessing.
The last thing that Jesus did on this earth as he was ascending into Heaven was to say the Priestly Blessing over the disciples. Luke 24:50, 51.
50: And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them.
51: And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.
The only prayer or blessing that you lift up your hands is the Priestly Blessing.
As you can see from the image to the right, all the priests that are saying the blessing over the people are holding their hands up in a specific way. Their hands form and symbolise the "Shem", you may well say that looks familiar, I have seen something like that before. You are correct Spock from the television series Star Trek used to hold his hand up and say "live long and prosper" with his fingers spread in such a way. Why? actor Leonard Nimoy when reading the script suggested the hand sign be added to give a little more authenticity to the character, both the words and the hand is an abbreviated version of the Blessing. Leonard knew this as he is in fact Jewish and had seen the hands during his time in the synagogue as a child.
So you can see, what you thought was just a nice little prayer with little meaning is when you look at the original language it was written in has a much richer and deeper in symbolism and meaning than you ever thought possible. This is another reason why I like going back to the original and not just sticking to the lower powered English version.
To be able to speak the Hebrew blessing, I have broken the words down into their syllables here for you and spelt them as close to the sound as possible. Each word starts with a Capital letter and in each word the emphasis is put onto the letters that are Capitalised, I have also added extra space between each word. As you listen to the video above you will hopefully recognise the sounds.
Yeh-va-reh-khe-KHA Ah-do-NAI Veh-yeesh-meh-REH-kha
Yah-EHR Ah-do-NAI Pah-NAHV Eh-LEH-kha Veey-khoo-NEH-ka
Yee-SAH Ah-do-NAI Pa-NAHV Eh-LEH-kha Veh-yah-SEM Leh-KHA Sha-LOM
Hear I show how I say the Blessing with the name Yehovah, the name of God instead of the title "Lord", but I suggest that you use the version you feel comfortable with.
Yeh-va-reh-khe-KHA Ye-ho-vah Veh-yeesh-meh-REH-kha
Yah-EHR Ye-ho-vah Pah-NAHV Eh-LEH-kha Veey-khoo-NEH-ka
Yee-SAH Ye-ho-vah Pa-NAHV Eh-LEH-kha Veh-yah-SEM Leh-KHA Sha-LOM
The priests raised their hands over the people and laid the Blessing onto the people. Now the actions of the Priests was new, the words were new, but the Blessing itself had been around since the creation of Adam and Eve, the first thing God did after He created Adam and Eve was to Bless them, later on He put His Blessing on Noah then He placed His Blessing onto Abraham and all of Abraham's seed. You are as a born again believer in Jesus became a seed of Abraham the instant you made your decision. You have the Blessing God gave to Abraham on you, you have all the benefits, so do youthink it is wise to find out what that means? Are you going to believe what the Bible says about the Blessing or are you going to belive what the world says, your choice. Life or death, blessing or curse, which one will you choose?
Then in Isaiah 61: 14, 16 we find God says this "See my servants from all nations singing for gladdness of the heart because of my blessing". I challenge you, say the blessing over yourself and your family each day, sing it over them if you wish, just say it out loud and see what happens. Join in with the version here from You Tube, there are many videos on You Tube if you do not like this one or you wish to see a version from your own country.