Even if his father or mother or brother or sister should die, he is not to defile himself, because the crown of consecration to his God is upon his head. Sermons
As a vow of separation, it was to be observed in as significant a way as possible. It was not only a separation in heart and sympathy, but it had its signs, which plainly indicated the separation to others. These regulations were also helpful to the Nazarite himself as remembrancers. We may conclude that not only the details of them, but the very substance, was of God's appointment. Thus security was taken that all should be in harmony with the great body of the law, and also give the greatest chance of profit to the Nazarite himself, and the greatest chance of instruction to the people. I. REGULATIONS DURING THE CONTINUANCE OF THE VOW. 1. Abstinence from the fruit of the vine. It was to be a rigorous abstinence. This we may take to signify a protest in the most comprehensive way against all seeking of mere pleasure and comfort. The grape was the symbol of sensual delights. The spies brought back grapes of Eshcol more than any other produce to testify the riches of Canaan: this shows how much the Israelites thought of the fruit. There was, of course, no peculiar merit and advantage in abstaining from the grape itself. The abstinence was simply a sign indicating a desire to rise above the common pleasures of men. The Nazarites were not ascetics. They did not refrain from a good creature of God by way of penance. But in the grape there was the possibility of wine and strong drink, and the wine and strong drink were the testimony of the worldly soul that he loved to gratify his sensual nature, and eared not that his body should be so disciplined and restrained as to be the effectual minister of God. The appropriate joys of human life are not to be found among the powers that link us to the lower creation. We are to look for them in communion with God and following Christ. Our joy is in the Holy Ghost. "Is any merry, let him sing Psalms." 2. The unshorn head. The Nazarite was not his own. Not even the least thing about his person was at his own disposal. He was not allowed to cast away even a thing so easily and painlessly separated as the hair, seemingly of so little consequence, and so quickly growing again. It was just because the hair seemed so little a thing that leaving it unshorn was so fit for a sign (Matthew 5:36; Matthew 10:30). So when we become Christ's we become his altogether. We must be faithful in that which is least. All of life is for him, though there are many things that, hastily considered, look as little important as the short light hairs clipped from the head. The unshorn head also made a manifest difference in the sight of men. Abstaining from the vine was only known at the social board; the unshorn head revealed the Nazarite to every one he met. It was an unostentatious challenge and rebuke to the more easy-going multitude. God had accepted the Nazarite, and stamped his acceptance by this simple, impressive regulation. 3. The avoidance of the dead. Death was uncleanness (Numbers 5:2). The Nazarite as a consecrated one dare not touch the dead. "Separated for God, in whose presence death and corruption can have no place, the Nazarite must ever be found in the habitations and society of the living." Not even dead kindred may the Nazarite - man or woman - touch. What a striking reminder in verse 7 of the requirements of Christi (Luke 18:29, 30). He that would please God and rise to higher attainments in Divine things must subordinate all human kinship to higher claims. Christ divides the family against itself, and makes a man's foes those of his own household. The nearest kindred may be an obstacle to the regenerate, as still dead in trespasses and sins. "Let the dead bury their dead." A Nazarite in the observance of his vow was ever on the watch against all occasion of uncleanness, for the very least defilement compelled a fresh start from the beginning. II. REGULATIONS FOR THE RETURN TO ORDINARY LIFE. This was to be done in a public, deliberate, and sacred way. Precisely ordained offerings had to be made before the Nazarite again put razor to his head or wine to his lips. These offerings doubtless had relation both to the period just expired and the freer life to be presently resumed. There was thanksgiving for the vow successfully observed, atonement for the sin that nevertheless had mingled in it, and something to express his purposes for the future. The freer life was still to find him a Nazarite in heart. To be nearer God for a time and then go away to a distance, to taste the pleasures of holiness for a season and then go back to pollution, such conduct would have made the vow a mockery and abomination. We must all be Nazarite in spirit, opposed to the world as resolutely as was the Baptist, but not, like him, fleeing to the wilderness. Our guide and example is Jesus himself, the holiest of all Nazarites, who kept himself unspotted even at the table of the glutton and wine-bibber. His prayer for us is not that we should be taken out of the world, but kept from the evil. - Y. Put My name upon the children of Israel. The Evangelical Preacher. I. THE NAME OF GOD PUT UPON HIS PEOPLE INDICATES GOD'S LOVE TOWARDS THEM. II. THE NAME OF GOD PUT UPON HIS PEOPLE INDICATES THE RELATIONSHIP IN WHICH THEY STAND TO GOD. Not only His friends, but His children. III. THE NAME OF GOD PUT UPON HIS PEOPLE INDICATES GOD'S PROPERTY IN THEM IV. THE NAME OF GOD PUT UPON HIS PEOPLE INDICATES THEIR CONFORMITY TO GOD'S WILL. V. THE NAME OF GOD PUT UPON HIS PEOPLE INDICATES THE RESEMBLANCE THEY BEAR TO GOD. VI. THE NAME OF GOD PUT UPON HIS PEOPLE INDICATES THE ASSURANCE THEY HAVE OF FINAL UNION WITH GOD. () Your old name is an ugly one. I suppose you know what your name is? If you have forgotten, let me remind you that your name is entered in God's Book as "sinner." I do not think you will be sorry to exchange that bad name for a better. I knew a lady once who had a very ugly name, and she could not bear to be called by it. She got all her friends to promise never to use it, and she always signed herself by a pretty name which she selected for herself out of many others. But of course, that never altered the fact that her real name was the old and ugly one. Just so, you may not like the name "sinner," and you may call yourself by anything else, and persuade everybody that it does not belong to you, but that never alters the fact that you are a "sinner." God gave you the name, and God alone can change it. But oh! if you long for a "new name," tell Him so. He has one ready for you, and such a splendid, beautiful, adorable name! "I will write on him My new name." ()
People Aaron, Israelites, Moses, NaziriteshipPlaces SinaiTopics Account, Brother, Ceremonially, Consecration, Death, Die, Dies, Oath, Separate, Separation, Sister, Symbol, UncleanOutline 1. The law of the Nazarite in the days of his separation
13. And after their completion
22. The form of blessing the people
Dictionary of Bible Themes Numbers 6:1-8 5794 asceticism Numbers 6:1-20 5155 hair Numbers 6:1-21 4544 wine
5741 vows Numbers 6:2-7 5731 parents Numbers 6:5-12 7340 clean and unclean Numbers 6:6-7 5661 brothers Library Separation to God.
NUMB. VI. 1-21. THE INSTITUTION OF THE ORDER OF NAZARITES. The first twenty-one verses of Numb. vi. give us an account of the institution and ordinances of the order of Nazarites. And let us note at the outset that this institution, like every other good and perfect gift, came from above; that GOD Himself gave this privilege--unasked--to His people; thereby showing His desire that "whosoever will" of His people may be brought into closest relationship to Himself. It was very gracious of GOD to permit …
James Hudson Taylor—Separation and ServiceTenth Day. Holiness and Separation.
I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people. And ye shall be holy unto me, for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from other people that ye should be Mine.'--Lev. xx. 24, 26. 'Until the days be fulfilled, in the which he separateth himself unto the Lord, he shall be holy.... All the days of his separation he is holy unto the Lord.'--Num. vi. 5, 8. 'Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered without the …
Andrew Murray—Holy in Christ Of the Duties which we are to Perform after Receiving the Holy Communion, Called Action or Practice.
The duty which we are to perform after the receiving of the Lord's Supper is called action or practice, without which all the rest will minister to us no comfort. The action consists of two sorts of duties:---First, Such as we are to perform in the church, or else after we are gone home. Those that we are to perform in the church are either several from our own souls, or else jointly with the congregation. The several duties which thou must perform from thine own soul are three:--First, Thou must …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety These Things, My Brother Aurelius, Most Dear unto Me...
38. These things, my brother Aurelius, most dear unto me, and in the bowels of Christ to be venerated, so far as He hath bestowed on me the ability Who through thee commanded me to do it, touching work of Monks, I have not delayed to write; making this my chief care, lest good brethren obeying apostolic precepts, should by lazy and disobedient be called even prevaricators from the Gospel: that they which work not, may at the least account them which do work to be better than themselves without doubt. …
St. Augustine—Of the Work of Monks. The Worship of the Synagogue
One of the most difficult questions in Jewish history is that connected with the existence of a synagogue within the Temple. That such a "synagogue" existed, and that its meeting-place was in "the hall of hewn stones," at the south-eastern angle of the court of the priest, cannot be called in question, in face of the clear testimony of contemporary witnesses. Considering that "the hall of hew stones" was also the meeting-place for the great Sanhedrim, and that not only legal decisions, but lectures …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life Peace
Grace unto you and peace be multiplied. I Pet 1:1. Having spoken of the first fruit of sanctification, assurance, I proceed to the second, viz., Peace, Peace be multiplied:' What are the several species or kinds of Peace? Peace, in Scripture, is compared to a river which parts itself into two silver streams. Isa 66:12. I. There is an external peace, and that is, (1.) (Economical, or peace in a family. (2.) Political, or peace in the state. Peace is the nurse of plenty. He maketh peace in thy borders, …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity Gen. xxxi. 11
Of no less importance and significance is the passage Gen. xxxi. 11 seq. According to ver. 11, the Angel of God, [Hebrew: mlaK halhiM] appears toJacob in a dream. In ver. 13, the same person calls himself the God of Bethel, with reference to the event recorded in chap. xxviii. 11-22. It cannot be supposed that in chap xxviii. the mediation of a common angel took place, who, however, had not been expressly mentioned; for Jehovah is there contrasted with the angels. In ver. 12, we read: "And behold …
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament Covenanting a Privilege of Believers.
Whatever attainment is made by any as distinguished from the wicked, or whatever gracious benefit is enjoyed, is a spiritual privilege. Adoption into the family of God is of this character. "He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power (margin, or, the right; or, privilege) to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name."[617] And every co-ordinate benefit is essentially so likewise. The evidence besides, that Covenanting …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting Prayer
But I give myself unto prayer.' Psa 109: 4. I shall not here expatiate upon prayer, as it will be considered more fully in the Lord's prayer. It is one thing to pray, and another thing to be given to prayer: he who prays frequently, is said to be given to prayer; as he who often distributes alms, is said to be given to charity. Prayer is a glorious ordinance, it is the soul's trading with heaven. God comes down to us by his Spirit, and we go up to him by prayer. What is prayer? It is an offering …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments Annunciation to Zacharias of the Birth of John the Baptist.
(at Jerusalem. Probably b.c. 6.) ^C Luke I. 5-25. ^c 5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judæa [a Jewish proselyte, an Idumæan or Edomite by birth, founder of the Herodian family, king of Judæa from b.c. 40 to a.d. 4, made such by the Roman Senate on the recommendation of Mark Antony and Octavius Cæsar], a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course [David divided the priests into twenty-four bodies or courses, each course serving in rotation one week in the temple …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel Things to be Meditated on as Thou Goest to the Church.
1. That thou art going to the court of the Lord, and to speak with the great God by prayer; and to hear his majesty speak unto thee by his word; and to receive his blessing on thy soul, and thy honest labour, in the six days past. 2. Say with thyself by the way--"As the hart brayeth for the rivers of water, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, even for the living God: When shall I come and appear before the presence of God? For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety Numbers
Like the last part of Exodus, and the whole of Leviticus, the first part of Numbers, i.-x. 28--so called,[1] rather inappropriately, from the census in i., iii., (iv.), xxvi.--is unmistakably priestly in its interests and language. Beginning with a census of the men of war (i.) and the order of the camp (ii.), it devotes specific attention to the Levites, their numbers and duties (iii., iv.). Then follow laws for the exclusion of the unclean, v. 1-4, for determining the manner and amount of restitution …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament Links Numbers 6:7 NIV
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