The Aaronic Blessing, Birkat Kohanim in Hebrew, is the priestly blessing recited by the Jewish priestly class, as commanded by God in Numbers 6:22-27.
And the Lord spoke to Moses saying:
"Speak to Aaron and to his sons saying,
In this way you will bless the children of Israel, saying to them,
'The Lord will bless you and He will keep you.
The Lord will make His face to shine upon you
and He will be gracious to you.
The Lord will lift His countenance to you
and He will establish Shalom for you.
And they will put My name upon the children of Israel
and I will bless them."
(One New Man Bible)
Reading it in English translated from the Hebrew is different from understanding it in the Hebrew language.
We look at the words bless... keep... face... shine... gracious... countenance... peace, and we understand them only in abstract terms.
The Hebrew alphabet is pictorial, and each picture refers to a concrete idea.
I came across an amazing blog (Christina Chronicles) that opened up my understanding of this blessing in a whole new way.
Here are flashcards for the Blessing and its meaning in Hebrew:
The LORD will bless you
and He will keep you
The LORD will make His face
shine
upon you / to you
He will be gracious to you
He will lift up
His countenance
to you / upon you
and give you (establish)
shalom
Putting all these pictorial language together, we come up with an amazing, powerful blessing:
YHWH, the head of the house with His own work strengthens His own hand
By His work He binds and overpowers the destroyer using the authority in His hand
YHWH, the Chief Ruler, secures life and order, His teaching strengthens, His work secures the hedge, strengthening life
YHWH's strong pressing hand lifts up, His work adds living utterance,
He strengthens authority, His hand destroys chaos,
His authority covers, destroying the authority attached to chaos.
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