God bless you! (Part I)

Many of us hear and perhaps even say these words on a regular basis, particularly in Christian circles. That’s really not too surprising considering that this phrase is used nearly 40 times in the Bible, and the word “bless” in its various forms is used over 400 times. But in spite of how common this phrase is there are relatively few people with a really a good understanding of what exactly it means to be “blessed.” The first occurrence of the word “bless” in the Bible is found in Genesis 12:2-3 where God is speaking to Abraham and makes this statement:

“I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

The Hebrew word translated “bless” literally means to kneel. This is seen easily in the many passages that refer to blessing The Lord, which was commonly done in a kneeling position – as a posture of worship and adoration. It is harder to see at first how this word has relevance to God blessing man, as in the passage above and many other scriptures. But if we look a little closer, I believe we will find a deeper shade to the meaning of blessing from this word.

Consider that while standing, sitting, and lying down are natural positions for man, kneeling is not. Our knees are bony and hard and kneeling for any length of time is uncomfortable. It is clear from this that if we are kneeling, we are most likely doing it because we want to focus on something. For example, take worship – focusing on God. How much easier is it for our thoughts to wander when we are standing, sitting, or lying than when we are kneeling? The unnatural and uncomfortable nature of the act itself causes us to focus.

In this same sense, when God speaks of blessing us, God is saying that He will focus on us. His attention will not wander (as ours often does sitting in a worship service!) from us, but He will, “Make his face shine on us” and “Lift up his countenance on us.” (Numbers 6:23-26) The heavy implication here is that God will not merely watch us, but that he will pay very close attention to us, even study us, knowing us intimately and taking pleasure in giving us the desires of our heart.

A life that is lived under the ever watchful and smiling eye of God is a life truly blessed, and it will be visible to all. As an example consider Isaac. Genesis 25:11 says, “After the death of Abraham, God blessed his son Isaac.” Then, in Genesis 26:12 we read, “And the Lord blessed him, and the man became rich, and continued to grow richer until he became very wealthy… so that the Philistines envied him.” Not only did Isaac become very wealthy because of the blessing of God upon his life, it was obvious to those who lived around him. In verse 28 the King of Gerar asked Isaac to make a treaty with him because, he said, “We see plainly that the Lord has been with you.” Some time before, this same king had asked Abraham this same thing, saying, “God is with you in all that you do.” This is precisely what God desires in blessing his people – that the world around us will see his blessing upon our life and seek out a relationship with us, and ultimately with Him because of it! Now perhaps you’ll hear it a little differently next time someone says, “God bless you!”