The Lord Bless You and Keep You (eBook)

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The Prequel to the Aaronic Blessing

The Context of the Blessing

Several years ago I saw a movie clip at the end of a presentation. The scene depicted an older man in Arlington National Cemetery kneeling before an alabaster cross. “I tried to live my life the best I could. I hope that was enough. I hope at least in your eyes I earned what all of you have done for me.”1 Turning to his approaching wife, he pled with her, “Tell me I’ve led a good life. Tell me I’m a good man.”

It was a poignant scene and made the speaker’s point. However, I was left wondering about the surrounding story of the clip since the speaker didn’t provide any context. At this point you might assume I don’t see many films since that scene is widely known as the dramatic conclusion to Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster Saving Private Ryan, starring Tom Hanks. While I do watch my fair share of films and I had watched most of Saving Private Ryan several times before, I had never seen the conclusion!

Previous Encounters

A similar experience can be true of how we often read the Bible. Many individual portions of Scripture are familiar to us, but we don’t always know them as part of a larger story and context. This is often true of the story of the Aaronic blessing (Num. 6:24–26). This blessing arises out of a long-running story and leads to the climactic conclusion. The story is that of the “beatific vision,” of seeing God:

One thing have I asked of the Lord,

that will I seek after:

that I may dwell in the house of the Lord

all the days of my life,

to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord

and to inquire in his temple . . .

Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud;

be gracious to me and answer me!

You have said, “Seek my face.”

My heart says to you,

“Your face, Lord, do I seek.” (Ps. 27:4, 7–8)

The story that precedes the blessing of God’s gracious gaze is one of people seeing, avoiding, longing for, and catching a glimpse of the face of God. The face of God is a looming visage across the chapters of the Bible leading to when God would administer this blessing through Aaron. To fully understand the Aaronic blessing, we must appreciate the prequel events that constitute the context of God’s gracious gaze. If the Aaronic blessing means that God has made us with faces so that his could shine on ours, we need to know the backstory of faces. We’ll find that this context consists of past face-to-face encounters with God. There are four such encounters which will help us, two in Eden and one each at Penuel and Sinai.

God Made Us with Faces

The first mention of God’s face occurs when God finds Adam and Eve hiding after their “declaration of independence” by eating the forbidden fruit. Having experienced a loss of original righteousness, their eyes were opened and they perceived that they were naked. Their autonomous move left them without the protection and provision of God’s covenant lordship. Consequently, when God drew near for the kind of intimate fellowship with them that had existed before, they hid themselves from God’s face (Gen. 3:8). Most Bible translations say “presence” instead of “face,” but it is the same Hebrew word (pāneh). The anthropomorphic language, such as God “walking,” justifies a more literal rendering of “face” though used in a figurative way (3:8). Adam and Eve tried to hide themselves from being seen, from God’s face, and from his gaze.

Seeing God and being seen by him in fellowship is the very purpose for which people were created. God made people in his image and likeness in order for them to reflect his glory (Gen. 1:26). Just as a mirror will only reflect light in the presence of that light, to be made in God’s image reflects God’s purpose for us to be in his presence. To be in God’s image was also to be a son of God. The same term “image” is used in Genesis 5:3 to describe Adam’s relationship to his son Seth. We might say a particular child is the “spitting image” of a parent. So also to be made in God’s image means being in a filial relationship to him. Additionally, “likeness” (Gen. 1:26) denotes a being who is a relational creature. This is because the particular Hebrew word (dĕmût) describes three-dimensional things such as sculptures rather than two-dimensional things such as paintings. Three-dimensional things require perspective in order to be known fully and require others in order to know themselves. If we were two-dimensional creatures, we could know ourselves fully simply by looking in a mirror, but as three-dimensional creatures we need other people to help us see ourselves completely, for example the back of our heads. The sources of our self-knowledge are many. For example, we could ask for direct descriptions of ourselves from our friends. A vast source of self-knowledge is what we learn about ourselves as we move through life and observe the effects (or non-effects) we have on those around us.

Most importantly, we need to be seen and known by God to fully know ourselves. This interpersonal, relational need is the essence of our nature and its satisfaction is found in seeing and being seen by God. God made us with faces so that his could shine on ours.

The Hidden Face of Shame

God instituted curses on the man and woman for their rebellion (Gen. 3:16–19), but they were only symptoms or signs of the greater curse of alienation from God. The curses would serve as painful teachers, and when paired with the promise of redemption (the first gospel or protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15), the curses might fuel a longing for restoration with God. The overwhelming and fundamental tragedy of human autonomy was the creature’s alienation from God the Creator. The compulsion to hide from God’s face meant the loss of protection, provision, and self for our first parents, and shame came to dominate the human condition. From then on people would live with a simultaneous longing and loathing for the face of God, because it was and is both the greatest delight and the greatest horror. The curses of the fall meant life would be futile. God would preserve the life-giving power of the womb and the soil, and yet both would provide perpetual reminders of alienation from the face of God as humanity was driven out of Eden. While God graciously covered their shame in giving them garments (Gen. 3:21), he did not cover their faces. Paradise was lost, but only for a time, for they took with them the promise that “everything sad” would become “untrue” (to paraphrase J. R. R. Tolkien’s character, Sam Gamgee). One day a seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15).

Cain

As the first person born into the world outside of Eden, Cain exemplifies the “fallen face,” the face that looks downward instead of toward the face of God. True to the synergism in his name (“I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord,” Gen. 4:1), Cain is fundamentally self-reliant, treating God as a totem rather than as the generous Creator and sustainer of life. The difference between his and his younger brother Abel’s offerings was not that Abel’s involved blood as is popularly believed, for these were offerings not sacrifices. Offerings were not for atonement but were representative portions of what God had graciously provided to them. Cain and Abel each brought a portion of what God had provided through their respective callings as farmer and shepherd. The difference between the offerings was that Abel brought the very best—the fat portions of the firstborn lamb—while Cain brought “an” offering (Gen. 4:3–4). Abel’s offering was made in faith; Cain’s was a token gesture.2 When God had regard for Abel’s offering but not for Cain’s, Cain became angry and his “face fell” (4:5). Cain’s external countenance betrayed an intense inner jealousy leading to the first fratricide and a renunciation of the fundamental social obligation that all people, but especially brothers, have for one another. (“Am I my brother’s keeper?” 4:9.) For his sin, Cain was sentenced by God to become a “fugitive and a wanderer” (4:12). Cain laments that he was being driven from the “face of the ground” (lit. translation of 4:14) and hidden from God’s face. He expressed his grief not in the loss of fellowship with God, but in the loss of divine protection. “Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me” (4:14). Just as he viewed God functionally when it came to the produce of the ground, he viewed God’s presence with the same pragmatic concern. He didn’t want God; he simply wanted God’s provision and protection.

Protection and provision constitute a broad biblical theme that stretches from the opening chapter of Genesis until the new creation. The story of creation begins with the world in chaos and emptiness and proceeds through God bringing order (days 1–3) and fullness (days 4–6). These twin themes of order and fullness set a trajectory that...