“So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.“

Numbers 6:22-27 

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October 9, 2025

God places His name on the Israelites. He makes Himself responsible for their care and announces to the nations that they are His people.  

When Jesus taught us how to pray (Matthew 6) He told us to pray for God’s kingdom to come. This is what God does by placing His name on the Israelites. Through His miraculous protection, His generosity, and His kindness toward His people, He will show the nations that He is to be praised.  

God will not be content until all nations and peoples know Him and rejoice in Him. 

 I will make you (Israel) a light to the Gentiles,
    and you will bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.
(Isaiah 49:6 NLT) 

 Sing to the Lord, praise His name;
    proclaim His salvation day after day.
Declare His glory among the nations,
    His marvelous deeds among all peoples.
(Psalm 96:2-3) 

God wants all nations to fear Him. (Psalm 67:13). This “fear” is not terror but awe; amazement when seeing His power, generosity, and righteousness. It is a fear that makes nations bow down in recognition of His authority and glory. 

God’s consistent blessings on Israel, from generation to generation, point to His ultimate blessing—Jesus, taking on flesh, coming to live as one of us, and to die for our sins and rescue us from the curse. 

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, … He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
(Galatians 3:13a, 14) 

 The blessing from God in Numbers 6 is a free gift to Israel. So too is the good news of Jesus Christ. There is nothing we can do to earn it, no price we can pay to purchase it. We just take it, through faith.  

 The fullness of the Aaronic blessing has been secured through Jesus and what He has done to reconcile us to God, to allow us to sit in His presence, see Him face to face, and be blessed by His boundless generosity. 

 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:28-29) 

 But not all who hear God’s blessing will receive it:  

 Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.  In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
 (Matthew 23:27-28)

Yet to those who hear of God’s ultimate blessing, the sending of His son Jesus Christ, and believe in what Christ has done for us, God will place His name upon us, through the gift of the Holy Spirit. We become the inheritors of the promises. We become His chosen people. 

 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
(1 Peter 2:9) 

 Questions for reflection and discussion:   

  • How does it impact your daily life to now you have been selected by God to be His own? 
  • Are there responsibilities that some with that selection?  
  • How can you “Declare His glory among the nations?” 

 Church Reading Plan: 1 Kings 12; Philippians 3