"Blessed be the Lord, who day by day loads us with good; God is our salvation.  Selah"

Psalms 68:19

"The face denotes the presence of the person, and the countenance denotes the expression of the person.  To lift up one's countenance upon a person means to confirm, assure, promise, and give everything to that person.  Jesus, the Son, came as the face of God, and the Holy Spirit comes as the countenance of God.  When the Triune God is dispensed into us, we have the face of the Triune God and also His countenance.  Eventually, we are kept in the Triune God, the Triune God becomes grace to us, and we have peace."

Numbers 6:26 footnote 1
Holy Bible Recovery Version

"Jehovah's face shining on us an His being gracious to us are equivalent to God's incarnation as the shining of His presence, which was accompanied by grace.  For the Lord to be gracious to us means that He is continually grace to us.  This grace is the grace of Christ, which is actually Christ Himself."

Numbers 6:25 footnote 2
Holy Bible Recovery Version

"The word face here signifies presence.  As the One whose face shines upon us, Christ the Son is the visible presence of the invisible God.  God and His presence are invisible, but through His incarnation He became the shining sun.  This shining sun is God's invisible presence becoming visible."

Numbers 6:25 footnote 1
Holy Bible Recovery Version

"The Father blesses us in every way and in every aspect in His love, and He keeps us in every way and in every aspect in His power."

Number 6:24 footnote 1
Holy Bible Recovery Version

"This blessing, like that in 2 Cor. 13:14, is not outward and material.  Rather, it is the eternal blessing of the Triune God, which is the Triune God dispensing Himself in His Divine Trinity into us for our enjoyment.  In the entire universe the unique blessing is the Triune God, and this blessing comes to us through the dispensing of the divine Being into us in His Divine Trinity - in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Ephesians 1 gives us a record of how the Triune God blesses His chosen, redeemed, and transformed people in His divine Trinity, issuing in the church as the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.  As the consummation of the entire record of the Bible, the New Jerusalem is the very God in His Divine Trinity - the Father, the Son, and the Spirit - mingled with His chosen, redeemed, transformed, and glorified people as their eternal blessing.  Such a blessing is the ultimate fulfillment of God's blessing to Israel in Numbers 6."

Number 6:23 footnote 1
Holy Bible Recovery Version

"Jehovah bless you and keep you; Jehovah make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; Jehovah lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace."

Numbers 6:24-26

"Then Manoah entreated Jehovah and said, Oh, my Lord!  Let the man of God, whom You sent, come again to us, I pray; and let Him teach us what we should do with the boy that is to be born...And Manoah said, Now when Your words come pass, what rule shall the boy follow, and what shall he do?

And the Angel of Jehovah said to Manoah, Observe all that I spoke to this woman.  She is not to eat of anything that comes forth from the grapevine, nor is she to drink wine or strong drink, nor is she to eat anything unclean; she shall observe all that I commanded her."

Judges 13:8, 12-14

As new parents, Amy and I often wonder how to raise our daughter.  Like Manoah, we worry what rules our daughter should follow, how she should behave, and what she should do.  But from this passage in Judges, instead of telling them what rules the boy would follow, Jehovah charged Manoah's wife to take the Nazarite vow.  For our daughter to have a proper humanity in God's eyes and to be a useful vessel in His economy, we as parents, need to live a life that is sanctified and separated according to the Nazarite vow.  In footnote 2 of Numbers 6:2, it reveals that "God desires all His people be Nazarites.  To be a Nazarite is to be sanctified, separated, absolutely and ultimately to God, i.e., to be for nothing other than God."  This requires us to subject ourselves to the Headship of Christ, daily consecrate ourselves to Him, and experience Him as the reality of the burnt offering.  By our cooperation and through His mercy and grace, we pray that our daughter would be a "vessel unto honor, sanctified, useful to the master, prepared unto every good work" (2 Timothy 2:21).

Once 'twas busy planning,
Now 'tis trustful prayer;
Once 'twas anxious caring,
Now He has the care;
Once 'twas what I wanted,
Now what Jesus says;
Once 'twas constant asking,
Now 'tis ceaseless praise.

 

Hymn 513
A.B. Simpson

"Fearing God means wanting God, desiring single-heartedly to keep His will, being fully submissive to Him, wanting nothing of ourselves, walking not according to our will, seeing not ourselves, and seeing God's greatness alone."

The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, Vol 9 page 349