Num 6:24-26
“The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.”’
This is a rather short blessing. In Hebrew, it’s only 15 words. After translation to English and Chinese, it’s more than 15 words. Nonetheless the 15 word blessing contains much significance and meaning. It starts from small to hit.

The first blessing is only 3 Hebrew words. The second, 5. The third, 7. 2 words are added each time.

We might be thinking what does this blessing has to do with our lives today. It’s not too obvious in what ways we have blessed others or how others have blessed us. But if we think about it, we receive a blessing at the end of Holy Communion every month. We do give and receive blessings in our lives. But we have to consider whether these blessings are truly meaningful.

The speaker would like to correct the following misconception: blessings and prayers are the same.

When we listen to someone giving a blessing, we may perceive it as asking God to give the blessing. The target of our communication is God. If this is the case, it’s a prayer.

But when we examine these verses when Aaron was told to bless the congregation, his target was the people and not God.

We hence have to correct this misconception. When we bless, our target is the congregation, not God. We give the blessing in the name of God but we speak to the recipient of the blessing.

What is the true significance of blessings? When we see brothers and sisters in church we say things like “May God give you peace/may the peace of God be with you”. We also greet “hallelujah” (although this is more of praising God). We may have gotten so used to doing this that we don’t think of it as blessing others anymore. We just see it as a greeting. But a true blessing has an effect and true meaningfulness.

When we are blessed after the Holy Communion, we may not even concentrate on what the person is blessing us with; we may be just saying our own prayer. Or we may listen and forget about it soon after.

Some churches put the blessing of Aaron as their liturgy. The way they conduct their service is: when the service ends, the preacher will read out the blessing of Aaron to the congestion. To many of these people, it’s just a portion of their service; they don’t feel there’s great significance or meaning to it.

But we’re supposed to worship God in spirit and in truth. That means we should put in the intention and heart in what we do. If not, we shouldn’t do it at all.

Num 6:23
This wasn’t a blessing Aaron came up with. God instructed Aaron to bless as such. Since the blessing of Aaron is a blessing from God, the content of the blessing is concrete.

Aaron doesn’t simply bless, he has to bless in the name of the Lord. This means that as the priest of God when he stands before the people and blesses in the name of God, he blesses on behalf of God. When he blesses the people in such a way, God blesses them too.

1. 1st part of the blessing
   Num 6:27
   “The Lord bless you and keep you”
   ‘The Lord bless you’ means ‘to kneel down and praise’. In English, the word ‘bless’ can be used when it’s from God to us or from us to God. But in Chinese, the word is used when we ‘praise’ God. In Hebrew, it means ‘praise’ though. Why does it also mean to kneel down? As we bless God, it’s reasonable for us to kneel down since we are His creation. When God blesses us, He doesn’t need to kneel. What we can realise is that when God blesses us, it’s just like a father blessing the son. As adults when we talk to our children, since we’re taller than them, we have to squat down to their level or lift them up to our level. This is the same manner we can imagine how God treats us.

Mark 10:13-16
A record where the disciples disallowed the children to come to Jesus. Jesus was unhappy with what they did and told them not to stop the children from coming to Him. He taught that to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, we must be like a child. Jesus took the children in His arms and blessed them. He wasn’t standing up high when He blessed them. He took them in His arms and blessed them. Just like how we treat our own children and our students, we’d come down to the same eye level as them and communicate with them. If we remember, the Lord Jesus also powered Himself to wash the feet of His disciples. This teaches us that when God wants to bless us, He’s willing to lower Himself down to our level to do so. This shows He’s a God of humility.

1. 2nd part of blessing
   Num 6:24
   “The Lord will keep you”
   When the Lord wants to bless you, His second action is to keep you. The meaning of keeping you is to set up a fence around you.

Job 1:10
Satan accused Job in the presence of God. He said, “Job fears You. But that’s because You protect his family.” He challenged God to take away His protection and then Job would curse Him.

(The speaker says perhaps his following explanation may cause us to be more confused haha)
From this we can see that without God giving permission, Satan cannot harm us. This means that whatever tests and tribulations we need to go through cannot come to pass without the permission of God.

The content of Aaron’s blessing is hence to put a fence around us to protect us and our household. Many times we need a peaceful environment for us to grow. A peaceful and comforting environment allows us to seek growth.

There was a parable that the Lord Jesus brought up while preaching. There was a fig tree planted in the garden. We have been planted in a place that we weren’t originally from, but we have been planted in the garden of God. God puts fencing around His vineyard so we have His protection and are able to grow.

Many times in Isaiah, God says Israel is a vineyard He has placed a fence around; He has planted good seeds to receive good grapes. But God reminder His protection because the Israelites disobeyed His word. What we must learn is that since we are under the protection of God, we must be trees that bear fruit, not trees that don’t.

3a. Third part of blessing
Num 6:25
The third part has increased in scope.
“The Lord make His face shine upon you”
The light reveals the nature of God. We know God cannot be seen with our physical eyes. But when He reveals Himself through His word, we can then see what His nature is like. Light is an important element humans need. It illuminates the path before us.

What is the light coming from God’s face? The significance of it is that God treats us with His graciousness, just as light that shines on our faces.

When someone you love talks to you, your face will beam, even when you’re annoyed or your mood is down. But when someone you adore or respect comes to speak to you, it’s unlikely you’ll pull a long face. Your uptight face will probably relax and you’ll smile.

But if someone we hate comes to you when you’re in a bad state, the person doesn’t even need to say a word and the blackness of our face chases him away.

Our facial expression reveals whether we esteem a person.

The Lord letting His face shine upon us means to give us graciousness; to give us an expression of joy. Just like the expression someone who loves you gives you.

3b. Third part of blessing
Num 6:25
“…and be gracious to you”
This has the meaning of showing mercy. We all need God to be merciful to us, because to have mercy on us is a grace. Since we are not perfect, we all the more need God to be gracious to us. Let us take note not to lightly esteem His grace. Oftentimes we read in the Bible that when God turns His face from you to display His displeasure; when we cause great displeasure to God, He’ll choose to turn His face from us.

When a child has done something very bad,

When God treats us with such graciousness, let us know how to receive it. Otherwise He’ll hide His face from us and not give us anymore grace.

1. The fourth part of the blessing
   Num 6:26
   “The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.”
   Another aspect of God’s face. What’s the difference between [making His face shine upon us] and [Him lifting up His countenance upon us]?

The former is Him giving us grace. The latter is from another angle; God puts His focus on us.

When we pay attention to someone, we lift our faces up to them. A common problem modern people have is that we put our heads down (to look at our phones haha). Often we’re not aware of our surroundings. Some children get knocked down while walking with their parents because their parents were too focused on their phones.

God puts His focus on His people. The outcome He wants is to give them peace. The peace here also has the meaning of making Man complete.

Of course peace itself is a blessing but it also has the meaning of making a man complete.

Isa 57:17-18
v18 “…and will heal him”
This also has the meaning of giving peace. It teaches us the following concept: after someone has received chastisement from God, God will come to heal him. The person who has been chastised would feel remorse and regret. Even though he has many stripes on his body, God will heal him and he’ll receive peace.

Hebrews tells us the fruit of chastisement bears the fruit of life. Afterwards he will have true life because he has departed from sin.

Ruth 2:12
“The Lord repay your work and a full reward be given you by the Lord God of Israel under whose wings you have come for refuge.”
The reward also refers to being given peace. Because Ruth was a virtuous woman, God rewarded her for she has come under the wings of the Lord God of Israel for refuge.

Her life was a regretful one. Her husband died and she had no children. But because she worshipped the one true God, He blessed her and made her life complete. Such a peace made her life more complete.

Job 22:21
“Now acquaint yourself with Him, and be at peace; Thereby good will come to you.”
When you know God, He will give you peace, a peace that makes Man complete. Some say that in every Man’s heart there is emptiness, and the shape of emptiness is that of God. This emptiness in Man can’t be filled by anything in the world. Whatever we try to use can’t make us complete. It’s only when we use God can we be made complete.

True peace is hence when we have mended our relationship with God; when we have established a relationship of Father and son with Him.

Thus concludes going through the blessing of Aaron. Sometimes the blessing of Aaron is said during the Holy Communion benediction. The speaker hopes we can all receive the blessing of Aaron.

Psa 67:1-2
“God be merciful to us and bless us, And cause His face to shine upon us, Selah
That Your way may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations.”
Very similar to the blessing of Aaron, but it’s content is even broader. v2 says “that Your way may be known on EARTH, Your salvation among all NATIONS”.

The speaker hopes that after we have received grace from God, we can be a channel of blessing to the people around us.