Priestly Blessing over the Sacred Community (6:22–27)

Bless the Israelites (6:23). That this blessing was important to the ancient Israelites is attested in the copy found in the excavations of Ketef Hinnom on the southwest of Mount Zion and the Old City in Jerusalem, where archaeologist G. Barkai unearthed a late seventh- to sixth-century B.C. burial complex. Among the remains was a phylactery containing two silver scrolls the size of a small cigarette, on which were written two versions of the priestly blessing.62 Both inscriptions contain additional appellations to YHWH as “the restorer and rock” and as “the warrior and the rebuker of evil.”63

These texts had been used as amulets either while these individuals were alive or as burial pendants. The text on the larger one is nearly identical to this passage; an abbreviated version of the second and third blessings was written on the smaller. Containing the oldest attestation to the tetragrammaton (YHWH = Yahweh) in Jerusalem, these texts indicate the authenticity and antiquity of this “priestly benediction.” Its text became a standardized liturgical form no later than the end of the preexilic period. Ancient Near Eastern texts from the second millennium B.C. contain parallels to the themes of divine countenance, the lifting up of the face, and the blessing of well-being (šālôm).64

Ketef Hinnom silver scrolls

Z. Radovan/www.BibleLandPictures.com

The LORD make his face shine upon you (6:25). The metaphor portraying God’s face as light shining on his people occurs in numerous biblical and extrabiblical texts (Ps. 80:3; 44:3). This imagery occurs in several Mesopotamian and Ugaritic contexts, in which the gods bestow gifts and extend mercy to individuals or nations.65 An Egyptian text from the First Intermediate period (ca. 2134–2040 B.C.) has a letter to the dead inscribed on a tubular jar stand: “You live for (me), The Great One shall praise you, and the face of the Great God will be gracious over you; he will give you pure bread with his two hands.”66 While this text parallels the priestly blessing in form and content, its broader context is significantly different insofar as it focuses on petitioning the deceased father for assistance in producing a male heir.

They will put my name on the Israelites (6:27). Placing the name of a deity on a place or a people asserted the claim of deity and established his presence. In Akkadian usage, the phrase šuma šakānu is used in the same way.67