Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: Numbers 5-6.
Listen to this choral rendition of Aaron's Blessing while you read this article:
Aaron's Blessing:
"The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace"
. (Numbers 6:24-26)
This photograph is of the famous "Silver Scrolls" found in a Judean tomb dating back to 700 BC:
"Excavations in Jerusalem in 1979–80 by Gabriel Barkay turned up two amulets dating from the late seventh century BC. They were found in the fourth of several burial caves he discovered on an escarpment known as Ketef Hinnom, which overlooks the Hinnom Valley (Gehenna) just opposite Mt. Zion. Each amulet contained a rolled-up sheet of silver which, when unrolled, revealed the Priestly Benediction inscribed on them."
From the late archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon:
"This [the Silver Scrolls] is now the earliest occurrence of a Biblical text in an extra-Biblical document, significantly predating the earliest of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is also the oldest extra-Biblical reference to YHWH, the God of Israel."
From Michael D. Coogan, professor of religious studies at Stonehill College in Massachusetts:
"The two amulets are evidence of the antiquity of traditions preserved in the Bible; it also provides indirect evidence, as do the Dead Sea Scrolls and other manuscripts from the Second Temple period, of the accuracy of scribes who for centuries copied sacred texts."
How beautiful that God has preserved for us 2,800 year old evidence that his words are accurate for us today.
