The Priestly Prayer of the Blessing

THE NEXT SEVERAL chapters of this book deal with a very important subject: not just knowing about your heavenly Father, but instead getting to truly know Him and have access to Him in a supernatural, experiential, and intimate way.

How can we truly say we have intimacy with someone if we don’t know what his or her name is? How can we declare we know G-D if we don’t comprehend how much He loves us and how calling on His name will forever change every moment of every day of the rest of our lives? Let me assure you that other than understanding the full meaning of the Hebrew words of the Priestly Prayer of the Blessing itself, knowing the name and the character of the one true G-D as our heavenly Father will help you enter into a deeper, life-changing relationship with Him. After all, our heavenly Father is the one who authored this unparalleled supernatural prayer! To know our heavenly Father by His name will cause you to have faith to believe Him for the impossible!

In our English Bibles the word used for the name of G-D is Lord. It appears three times in the Priestly Prayer of the Blessing.

The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make His face to shine upon you, and be gracious unto you; the LORD lift His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

—NUMBERS 6:24–26

To more fully comprehend the power of the blessing, we must first understand the very name that is being placed upon us through the proclamation of G-D’s divine prayer. How can we really truly obtain the full power and impartation of this prayer if we do not realize whose name is being placed upon us?

As I came to the realization that I didn’t truly understand who the person is behind the very name that was being placed upon the children of Israel in this prayer of blessing, I reached out to my friend Rick Amato. One of the things I knew about Rick is that he had studied about and had been fascinated with the name of the one true G-D for years.

He had written many pages of notes detailing his study about the name, but he told me that years ago he had these handwritten notes with him on an airplane and inadvertently, he had left them in the pocket of the airline seat. He had already driven back toward his home when suddenly he realized that he didn’t have his study notes. He drove thirty-five minutes back to the baggage claim. Rick was obviously distressed, but the woman behind the desk didn’t appear to be sympathetic.

He asked, “Are you a believer in Jesus?” She indicated that she was. Rick asked if she would join him in prayer that the notes might be found. She did join him, and two other women hearing them praying also joined in agreement with them. Then the woman entered into her computer the information about the paperwork in case someone cleaning the airplane might find it. Three days later, Rick got a call from a man from Thailand who happened to sit in Rick’s seat on the next flight. He said he looked over the material and sensed something supernatural that compelled him to get the notes back to Rick. That was twenty years ago.

Rick told me that after he had the Priestly Prayer of the Blessing pronounced over him in Israel, he remembered those notes on the name of the one true G-D. He searched for them, knowing that he had moved several times. He had no idea where the important notes could be.

Then one day I received a call from Rick, and he was shouting, “Glory! Glory! Twenty years ago a man returned my study notes concerning the sacred name of the Most High G-D of Israel, and today, twenty years later, I opened a box in my garage and there they were in full view!”

Remarkably, twenty years from the day he had the notes returned to him, Rick found them again in his garage. This happened in the midst of my intense study concerning the Priestly Prayer of the Blessing and my trying to understand the truth concerning G-D’s sacred name. I believe it is significant and indicates that understanding the name of G-D is the first step to receiving the full impartation of the divine prayer.

The first thing we need to comprehend is that there is only one true G-D, and He, like all of us, has a name. The first commandment of the Ten Commandments is:

You shall have no other gods before Me.

—EXODUS 20:3

This clearly indicates that we should have no other gods before us except for the one true G-D of Israel. There’s one G-D, and there are many false gods. These other gods cannot help us. They are either idols, which aren’t living beings, or they are false gods—demons—who are trying to keep us from knowing the one true G-D. The Scriptures share the futility of trusting in false gods and idols:

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they cannot speak; eyes, but they cannot see; they have ears, but they cannot hear; noses, but they cannot smell; they have hands, but they cannot feel; feet, but they cannot walk; neither can they speak with their throat.

—PSALM 115:4–7

We must be clear about who the one true G-D is. When we truly understand who He is and what it means to have His holy and sacred name placed upon us, it is life transforming! This knowledge alone has changed my life and opened up greater understanding of the Word of G-D. Scripture in the Tanakh (Old Testament) and in the New Testament have a new, powerful meaning and clarity. Furthermore, understanding G-D’s sacred name and speaking it out loud when I pray has resulted in a greater intimacy and power in seeing my prayers answered.

In most languages a name is a label, an identifier. My English name is Warren. It may have a deeper meaning, but we don’t think of it as being anything more than an identifier.

This is not the case in Hebrew. Behind every Hebrew name there is a deeper meaning than the name itself. In Hebrew, names are made up of words. For example, the name Ishmael is made of two Hebrew words: shama, meaning “to hear,” and El, meaning “G-D.” Thus the name Ishmael means “G-D hears.”

The biblical pattern of the naming of children generally falls into one of three categories:

Thus, a person spends his whole life under the identity of his name. Imagine naming your child Loser or Dummy. No one in their right mind would even think of doing such a thing. Why? Imagine the stigma of having such a name and what it would mean as other children made fun of your child. Imagine how your child would take on the identity of that word as you spoke it every time you called him or talked about him. In this sense the names that were given to people in the Bible often prophesied who they would become.

I have shared with you that my mother gave me a Hebrew name Meyer. The meaning of my Hebrew name is “bearer of the light” or “bearer of the glory.” When this meaning was revealed to me, I was stunned. It’s as if G-D’s destiny for me to write this book was revealed in the Hebrew name my mother had given me.

The real name of G-D in the way that He identified Himself to Moses can be found in the Old Testament more than sixty-five hundred times. More than a label or identifier, it reveals something about His very nature and character. Therefore, it is very important for us to understand the meaning behind His name.

Let’s begin our journey to discover the full meaning behind of the Priestly Prayer of the Blessing by uncovering the meaning of the very first word. The actual word found on the amulet, written in ancient Paleo-Hebrew, is in the form of the tetragrammaton, the four Hebrew letters Yod, Hey, Vov, Hey, transliterated as YHWH.

Centuries ago, Jewish rabbis began the tradition of not pronouncing the sacred and holy name of G-D out of reverence for His holiness, which led to the tetragrammaton replacing the sacred name. By using only consonants and not revealing the vowels of the name, its pronunciation has remained a mystery for many generations.

In ancient Israel only the high priest was able to pronounce the sacred and holy name. He alone would declare it over the people. Remember that there was great separation in the old covenant between the children of Israel and the one true G-D. Only the Aaronic priests could go into the tabernacle, and only the high priest could go once a year, on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), into the holy of holies where G-D appeared in the form of the Shekinah glory.

As a child I attended Hebrew school as most young Jewish children do. One of the things they taught us was the holiness of the name of G-D. The name of the Lord is to be feared.

For I am a great king, says the LORD of Hosts, and My name is to be feared among the nations.

—MALACHI 1:14

If a Hebrew Bible or hymnal was dropped on the floor, we were taught to pick it up and kiss it in reverence to the sacred name of G-D. If someone dropped the Hebrew Torah scroll, that person and the entire congregation were supposed to fast for forty days in repentance. Again, it is because the sacred Hebrew name of the one true G-D is so holy.

We were also taught that because His Hebrew name is so holy, even when we write His name in English, we should only write the consonants and leave out the vowels. Therefore, instead of writing “GOD,” we would write “G-D.” This emanated out of the spelling of G-D’s holy name as it is expressed in the tetragrammaton, which again contains only the consonants and not the vowels of G-D’s sacred name.

The sacred name is so holy as expressed in the tetragrammaton itself that to this day Orthodox Jews will substitute the Hebrew word Adonai (which means “Lord”) when they read it in the Holy Scriptures. Adonai is a beautiful expression of the one true G-D, but it isn’t His sacred name as revealed to Moses. Yet even Adonai is too close to the sacred and holy name, according to some Orthodox Jews who won’t say it in public. Instead, they will say in their conversations, “May Hashem bless you.” They will refer to Him in public as Hashem, which means “the name.” (Hashem is comprised of two words: ha, meaning “the,” and shem, meaning “name.”)

As a Jewish man who believes in Yeshua as my Messiah and Lord (Adonai), my relationship with G-D has changed. I am no longer simply a child of Israel—a child of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—but I am a spiritual son of G-D, my heavenly Father. We who believe in Yeshua have received access into the heavenly holy of holies to stand before the one true G-D, our heavenly Father. We can stand in the presence of the Almighty!

Let us then come with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

—HEBREWS 4:16

Through the new birth we have been adopted as spiritual sons and daughters of G-D. Because of Yeshua’s sacrifice, we can come boldly before the throne of grace without fear of the name. In light of what Yeshua (Jesus) did for us, we don’t have to be afraid to call upon His name and pronounce the sacred name.

Although we have freedom under the new covenant, it is important to understand fully what the meaning of the Hebrew word shem implies to us. Remember that in Numbers 6:27 the one true G-D of Israel says He will place His name (shem) upon us. To understand what this means, we must first gain an understanding of the word shem.

As with various Hebrew words I’ll be discussing in this book, the Hebrew word shem means so much more than the word name means in English. For instance, one shade of the meaning is the Hebrew word ne-shema, which means “breath.” This is part of the full understanding of how significant it is to have the name of G-D placed upon us.

Then the LORD [G-D] formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man [Adam] became a living being.

—GENESIS 2:7

When we read “the LORD G-D” in our English Bibles, the actual Hebrew word used isn’t Lord but the tetragrammaton, YHWH, the sacred name of G-D. It is the Father who breathed into Adam’s nostrils; He was imparting a portion of His very person to Adam.

Then [G-D] said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

—GENESIS 1:26

It was G-D the Father imparting the essence of who He was to His created son, Adam.

In Hebraic thought your shem (name) is your breath, and your breath is your character. It is your personality. It is what truly makes up who you are.

Even without knowing the biblical meaning of the Hebrew word for name, we often begin to associate certain traits of character to a person. You might see a person named Ralph and another person says to you about him, “Oh yes, Ralph. He is a liar and a cheat. Stay away from him.” Even though we often don’t realize it, when we know the actual person beyond just their name or title, we tend to associate their character with their name.

I thank G-D that when we come into the new covenant, Yeshua’s death makes it possible for us to overcome the bad character our names once represented. Whether a person has been a drug dealer, an adulterer, a prostitute, or a murderer, G-D “so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” so that they might become new creations and their names begin to take on a new persona. (See John 3:16.)

For you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light—for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth—proving what is pleasing to the Lord. And do not have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness; instead, expose them.

—EPHESIANS 5:8–11

You shall not take the name of the LORD your [G-D] in vain, for the LORD will not hold guiltless anyone who takes His name in vain.”

—EXODUS 20:7

Since the Hebrew word shem for the English word name actually means “character,” let us replace the word name with the actual meaning in the scripture found in Exodus.

You shall not take the [character] of the LORD your [G-D] in vain, for the LORD will not hold guiltless anyone who takes His [character] in vain.”

—EXODUS 20:7

Taking G-D’s name in vain is not about adding a swear word to G-D’s name. It’s so much deeper. It’s recognizing that, through Yeshua, G-D’s name is upon us, and we must behave in a way that is consistent with His character. We are to be examples of who the one true G-D of Israel truly is.

You see, in English we look at the word name in the abstract. When we read, “You shall not take the name of the LORD your G-D in vain,” we surmise that it is talking about not using some curse word or profanity in conjunction with His name. Though it would be a good idea not to do so, the Hebrew meaning refers to G-D’s nature, His character, and the person who He truly is. It is really conveying that if we are the children of G-D, we should not misrepresent who He is. We don’t want to do those things that defile or discredit our heavenly Father and His holy character.

In the church today this is seldom being taught. Most don’t realize what this scripture and others like it are truly conveying. “You shall not falsely misrepresent the only one true G-D of Israel and the Messiah Yeshua (Jesus).”

In other words, taking G-D’s name in vain is misrepresenting His character. If we confess Messiah, but we lie, cheat, and steal, then we are taking G-D’s name (His shem, His character) in vain.

Many people in the church today are on opposite sides concerning grace and holiness. The Scriptures declare:

But as He who has called you is holy, so be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”

—1 PETER 1:15–16

The truth is G-D the Father, Yeshua, and the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) are persons of the Elohim (the triune nature of G-D). Just as we have things we love and things we dislike or even hate, so too does G-D. In the Torah, G-D calls the things He loves “holy,” and the things He hates “sin.” He loves the things He calls “holy” because if we do those things we will have victory, provision, good health, prosperity, unity, peace, safety, perfect love, everlasting life, and much more. The things He calls “sin” will bring strife, sickness, failure, poverty, dissention, war, loneliness, despair, suicide, everlasting condemnation, and much more.

There are those in the world who get upset with what the one true G-D of Israel considers to be “holy” because it doesn’t include some of the things they might embrace. The truth is the heavenly Father knows best!

If we want to have a good and intimate relationship with another person, the first thing we do is learn the things they love and the things they hate. We then intentionally try to do those things that bring us closer, and we avoid those things that would divide us.

The moral precepts of the Law (the Torah) are still intact. The things G-D lists as being holy were not changed when the new covenant was ushered in because they reflect His character, and the character of the one true G-D never changes. The Bible says:

For I am the LORD, I do not change.

—MALACHI 3:6

Jesus Christ [Yeshua the Messiah] is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.

—HEBREWS 13:8

G-D’s character, His attributes or perfections, don’t change. He is always good, loving, just, righteous, holy, all-knowing, and all-powerful.

KEYS TO THE BLESSING

The name of G-D is more than just a label or title. It refers to His actual person, His holy character, and His power and authority.

STUDY QUESTIONS

What does the Hebrew word shem mean?

When G-D says He will place His name upon us, what implication does this have for us?