Daily Manna · Day 19 · January 19
The Blessing
“The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.”
A face turning toward you across a room, and staying turned.
That is the whole picture inside this blessing, and it is why the words land so differently from the traffic that fills an ordinary day. Send the file. Are you picking up the kids. Did you book it. Nobody has spoken good over your life in a long time, and you stopped expecting it so gradually that you never registered the loss.
These lines were not composed for a card. God gave them to Moses, put them in Aaron's mouth, and then said why: they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them (6:27). A shining face is favour. A lifted countenance is attention, God looking at you and not past you. The peace at the end is shalom, whole and intact and nothing missing, which is a great deal more than a quiet afternoon. Three lines, the divine name standing in each, spoken over a people about to spend forty years going nowhere.
So, over you, in the words as they stand, because somebody should say them and it has been long enough. The LORD bless thee, and keep thee. The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 19 is Broken Cisterns (Jeremiah 2:13).