All for Jesus
NUMBERS 6
In the 1960s there was a radical countercultural movement that found expression in changed hairstyles among young people. As a sign of freedom, or of rebellion against authority, almost everyone started growing their hair long, both men and women. At first sight this may look like something similar to what we see in Numbers 6, a kind of early “Hippies for Jesus” movement. On closer examination, however, the two trends can’t exactly be the same, not least because the hippies were not exactly known for abstaining from wine, or any other intoxicating substance for that matter. Alternatively, if the Nazirites were not early hippies, is this chapter a kind of precursor of the monastic movement of the Middle Ages, in which people took upon themselves a voluntary vow of poverty, celibacy, and obedience in order to devote their lives to the service of God through asceticism? This analogy is perhaps closer to the mark; yet the differences between a monk and a Nazirite are as striking as the similarities. Both the monk and the Nazirite were devoted to God, but the Nazirite was no ascetic. Apart from wine and grape products, he could eat or drink whatever he wanted. He or she could live in a fine house and sleep in a comfortable bed and enjoy normal marital relations with a husband or a wife. In addition, the Nazirite vow was normally only a temporary commitment, not a lifelong vow. So the Nazirite was not exactly committed to the ascetic lifestyle as the way to a higher, more spiritual life in the way the monastic movement was.
If a Nazirite was neither a hippie nor a monk, what was he? In essence the Nazirite vow was a temporary separation from normal life to be devoted to God in a special way. In so doing, the Nazirite provided a mirror in which Israel was to look and be reminded of who she ought to be permanently as a holy nation. The Nazirite was a person who was consecrated to the Lord, just as Israel as a nation was to be consecrated to the Lord. Every time the Israelites saw a Nazirite, therefore, they would have been reminded of their own calling to serve the Lord.
THE NAZIRITE VOW
To see this, we need to begin by looking at the nature of the Nazirite vow. A Nazirite was a man or a woman whose vow was a temporary personal commitment to avoid three things: he (or she) would abstain from grapes and alcoholic beverages, let his hair grow and not cut it, and stay well away from dead bodies. Each of these commitments were to be carried through to radical lengths. The Nazirite was not just to abstain from wine and strong drink but also from vinegar, grape juice, grapes, and raisins. Even the seeds and skins of grapes were off-limits (v. 4). It wasn’t simply a matter of avoiding the intoxicating effects of alcohol, therefore, but of doing without everything associated with the grape. Since wine was the primary symbol of joy in the ancient world, to do without grape products was a vivid commitment voluntarily to turn away from life’s normal pleasures.
Similarly, the Nazirites were not simply to let their hair grow—they were to grow it long, without cutting it at all, throughout the length of their vow. Because the hair is a living part of the body, it was a natural symbol for the life of a person.1 To let your hair grow without human restriction represented giving your life over completely to God’s control. It was a vivid symbol of giving God the reins of your life.
Finally, the Nazirites were not simply to stay away from corpses in general, as all Israelites were required to do. Corpses had defiling power, as we saw in Numbers 5, and therefore the people of the living God were not to come in contact with them. Yet in normal life there were exceptions permitted to this general rule. Somebody had to prepare the bodies of the dead for burial, and normally this would be the task of a close relative. The Nazirites, however, were to stay away even from the bodies of their closest family members if they should die (6:7). This was a vivid symbol of their extreme separation from the realm of death to serve the living God. These vows were thus not random commitments, as if the Nazirite could equally well have promised to exercise for sixty minutes every day and to stay away from carbohydrates and sugar. The Nazirite made an extreme, radical commitment to serve the Lord through maintaining ritual holiness, a commitment far more radical than anything devised in the sixties.
Each of the areas of commitment—alcohol, hair control, and corpse contact—were also regulated for the priests of Israel, though in a less extreme way. The priests too were required to abstain from alcohol, but only while they were on duty (Leviticus 10:9). Wine was a good gift of God intended to bring joy and gladness. Yet there was a time to abstain from that gladness when they were employed in the service of the Lord. The priests also had to be careful with their hair, and they were forbidden to shave it (Leviticus 21:5). The high priest in particular was not allowed to disarrange his hair as a sign of mourning (Leviticus 21:10). Priests generally were also required to be careful to avoid contact with dead bodies, because such contact with the realm of death made one unclean (Leviticus 21:1–4); but the high priest, like the Nazirite, had particular obligations. He could not come in contact with a corpse even to mourn his own father and mother (Leviticus 21:11). When you put these obligations side by side, it is possible to observe that the Nazirite was a kind of temporary lay priest—someone who for a period of time lived according to the special level of ritual purity demanded of those whose lives were lived constantly in the Lord’s presence.
A PICTURE OF ISRAEL
This, of course, as we said earlier, made the Nazirite a perfect picture of what Israel was intended to be. They were to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). God had chosen them uniquely out of all of the nations of the earth to be his people in order that he might dwell in their midst. In consequence, they were to be separate and distinct from the other nations. The existence of the Nazirites in their midst would constantly have reminded them of that necessity to be different and to be holy.
The prophet Samuel is a good example of this. He was born at a time of great spiritual decline in Israel. The priests of the day, Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were bringing religion into disrepute by running the temple for their own personal profit and sleeping with the women who served there (1 Samuel 2:22). Samuel entered that dark picture as a child, dedicated by his mother at birth to be a lifelong Nazirite (1 Samuel 1:11). His devotion to the Lord stood in constant contrast with the corruption of Hophni and Phinehas. In fact, the narrator highlights that contrast by switching the spotlight back and forth from Samuel to Hophni and Phinehas and back again, as if to invite you to set them side by side and draw your own conclusions. Samuel the Nazirite was a living picture in his own day of who Israel ought to be as the people of God.
Of course, simply taking a vow of holiness does not necessarily transform a person internally, as the story of another Nazirite from birth, Samson, demonstrates. Like Samuel, he too was dedicated to the Lord as a Nazirite before he was born, according to the instructions given to his mother by the angel of the Lord (Judges 13:3–5). Yet a less dedicated Nazirite than Samson would be hard to find. The first episode recorded in Samson’s adult life relates his desire to marry a Philistine woman (14:1–3). Far from keeping himself separate from the uncircumcised enemies of the Lord, he wanted to climb into bed with one. On his way to marry her, Samson turned aside to see a lion’s corpse where bees had made their nest (14:8). As a Nazirite, he should have stayed well clear of all corpses, but Samson was motivated more by his appetite than by his calling. Instead of keeping his distance, he went over and scooped some honey out from the dead body.
When he arrived at the home of his future in-laws, Samson celebrated a feast there (14:10). The Hebrew word for feast, mišteh, comes from the verb “to drink,” and I doubt very much that Samson was there as the designated driver. The second vow, abstaining from alcoholic beverages, thus apparently went by the board as well. Finally, he revealed to Delilah the source of his strength, and she shaved his head, thereby breaking his third Nazirite vow (Judges 16). Instead of being a mirror to Israel of who she ought to be, a people distinct from the surrounding nations and consecrated to the Lord from birth, Samson was a model depicting who she really was, a people untrue in every respect to her calling to be holy.
BROKEN VOWS
In the light of this function of the Nazirite as a mirror to Israel, it is fascinating to note where Numbers 6 focuses its interest. As with the laws of Numbers 5, it is not a comprehensive review of the legislation surrounding the Nazirite vow. It doesn’t tell us how or why people would take the Nazirite oath. Instead, once we have been reminded of the nature of the Nazirite vow, the attention of the passage turns immediately to two related matters: what happens if the vow is inadvertently broken, and what happens at the end of the time of the Nazirite vow. In fact, the passage spends almost as much time on each of these two matters as it does on the nature of the vow itself.
First, then, what should someone do if his Nazirite vow was inadvertently broken? Suppose he was quietly minding his own business when someone dropped dead in his presence (6:9). Now what should he do? It wasn’t his fault that his vow to keep separate from corpses was broken, but nonetheless it was broken. His consecration to the Lord had been defiled, and even such an inadvertent sin required substantive atonement. He had to bring two birds as a sin offering and a burnt offering, shave his head, and then start the period of his vow all over again (vv. 9, 10). Birds were required because they were the least expensive offering that involved the shedding of blood. A grain offering wouldn’t have been sufficient because blood had to be shed to atone even for unintentional sin. As well as the sin offering and burnt offering, reparation had to be paid through the offering of a one-year-old lamb as a guilt offering. After that, the period of the vow could be restarted (v. 12). Even though the breach of the vow had been entirely unintentional, blood had to be shed to atone for it, and the vow had to be completed exactly as promised. The message is clear: sin, even of the unintentional variety, requires costly blood payment, and nothing short of perfect fulfillment of what was promised is sufficient. God is a holy God whose standards are high indeed.
Second, though, what happened when the period of the vow was completed? A person couldn’t just walk away from his life of complete devotion to God and return to ordinary life. He had to offer a smorgasbord of offerings, covering all the basic kinds of sacrifice. At the end of his vow he had to complete symbolically all of the covenant obligations in miniature. He had to offer a whole burnt offering, which symbolized total consecration and general atonement for sin. Along with it, he offered a grain offering, or tribute offering, which served as a mark of submission to the Lord as master and king (vv. 14, 15). After that, he was required to offer a sin offering, symbolizing the forgiveness that was required for particular sins (v. 16). There were also the offerings of unleavened bread—unleavened because leaven represents change and decay and therefore sin—and the associated drink offerings (v. 17).
Finally and climactically, the Nazirite would offer a fellowship offering, symbolizing communion with God around a common table (v. 17). The fellowship offering was a symbolic meal with God: part was offered on the altar along with the Nazirite’s hair, which had finally been shaved off, symbolizing his life offered up to God. Meanwhile, the remainder was consumed by the worshiper and his family. The end of the vow was thus a celebration of joy, of life in God’s presence, after which the worshiper returned to his normal life once more. The Nazirite was now freed from his vow and was once again able to drink wine and cut his hair.
CALLED TO BE HOLY
So what is the point of this passage? Is the goal of this passage the recruiting of new Nazirites, encouraging people to devote themselves to God in this extreme way? If that was its purpose, it is hard to explain why so much of the attention is focused on the (unintentional) failure of the vow or the intended goal of completion of the vow. Rather, the very existence of the Nazirite vow shows us the weakness and inability of the Old Testament people of God to meet God’s standard of perfect holiness. The Nazirites were some Israelites who took a vow of special holiness for a limited time. Even out of these people, there were some who were not able to complete their period of sanctification without sacrifices and starting over. What is more, almost all of those who did take this vow eventually reverted to a normal way of life. Yet if all Israel had been truly and permanently set apart to God, what need would there have been for Nazirites? The Nazirites were called to be holy because Israel wasn’t holy. They were called for a while to be a miniature kingdom of priests because the larger people were not fully and perpetually devoted to the Lord.
The same is true of us. We should all have the same level of committed devotion to God that the Nazirites did. We should all be wholly dedicated to the service of God. Yet if you are like me, the reality is that we don’t even keep the resolutions we make to serve the Lord, let alone the resolutions that we ought to be making. Our sins and broken promises to God are not merely inadvertent but deliberate and repeated. We do and say the things we ought not to do and say, and we fail to do and say the things we ought to do and say. Even if we turn over a new leaf for a while, sooner or later we always seem to fall back into our old ways of doing things. For the most part, we are not personally committed to giving up the joy that might legitimately be ours for the sake of the kingdom. Few of us are easily content to give the control of our lives into the hands of God, nor are we ready and eager to separate ourselves from the realm of sin and death. Can we really claim that we are ready right now to give our all for Jesus? The law of the Nazirite exposes our hearts as well as those of ancient Israel.
THE FINAL NAZIRITE
Even the best Nazirites needed more than their own personal best efforts, though. After they had successfully competed the period of their vow, they couldn’t simply waltz into God’s presence and say, “Here I am. What a wonderful asset to your kingdom I have been.” On the contrary, even after they had completed the vow faithfully, they still needed to offer a sin offering before they could share a covenant meal with the Lord. Even our very best acts of obedience always fall short of God’s perfect standard.
What Israel needed, and what we need, therefore, is someone who would come and permanently and finally and perfectly fulfill the role of the Nazirites on their behalf. They needed someone who would give up the joy that might otherwise legitimately be his and who would give control of his life into the hands of others while keeping himself permanently pure on their behalf. They needed someone who at the end would offer up his very life in order to enable them to enter the feast. The answer to this need is certainly not Samson, and not even Samuel. They were not able to bring about lasting rest and peace for God’s people. Rather, the one who has come as our perfect Nazirite is Jesus Christ.
He was truly separated to God from birth, not by outward symbols but by the inner reality of a holiness that pervaded every aspect of his life. He was not a Nazirite in terms of the outward marks of being separated from wine or having uncut hair or complete separation from the dead. On the contrary, he himself transformed the water into wine at the wedding at Cana in Galilee in his first miracle (John 2:1–11), and he regularly touched corpses, bringing them back to life (e.g., Luke 8:54, 55). His consecration was thus not in the outward forms but in the inner reality to which these forms pointed.
Do you want to see someone who set aside the joy and comfort that might otherwise legitimately have been his? Look at Jesus, who left the glories of Heaven and came down to live in our midst. Do you want to see someone who gave up complete control of his own life, giving it over into the hands of his heavenly Father? Look at Jesus, who seeing the reality of the cross in front of him cried out in the Garden of Gethsemane, “not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). Do you want to see someone separated from sin and death? Look at Jesus whose life of perfection was such that he was completely without blemish or flaw. He had no sin, deliberate or involuntary, that needed to be atoned for. He needed no sin offering or guilt offering made on his behalf in order to enter the presence of his heavenly Father. On the contrary, Jesus himself was the spotless atonement offering whose blood enables you and me to draw near to the presence of the holy God and experience his blessing. He gave his life to enable you to share in God’s feast.
COMPLETE COMMITMENT
So what is your response to his complete commitment? If Israel was supposed to be reminded of their own need to be holy every time they saw a Nazirite, how much more should you and I be convicted of our need to be holy every time we contemplate the commitment of Jesus. Let me suggest three areas that match the areas of the commitment of the Nazirite in which we may need to hear this convicting voice.
First, are you willing to give up earthly means of joy for Christ? The Nazirite made the radical commitment to give up all grape products as part of his vow; Jesus gave up the glories of Heaven to win your salvation. So to what are you clinging? What is there that you say you must have if you are to be happy here? Perhaps it is a habit that you are unwilling to break, or a pleasure that you are unwilling to forego, or a dream that you desperately want to see fulfilled. Whatever it is, it is not necessarily sinful in itself, but it has come to be more precious to you than it ought to be. Remember that you are called to be part of a holy nation, a kingdom of priests, wholly devoted to your God.
Second, are you willing to give up control of your life? The irony here, of course, is that we don’t really have control of our lives to begin with. We cannot even make our own hair grow, as the burgeoning market for baldness products continues to demonstrate. Yet we like to maintain the illusion that we really do have the power to direct our own lives. Thus, when God directs our lives in a way that we would not have chosen, we often go along kicking and screaming. That was not the way of the Nazirite, nor was it the way of Jesus. Instead we too need to learn to say to God, “not as I will, but as you will,” even when we foresee the thorniness of the road that his will has chosen for us. God has the right to direct your life according to his wisdom, in whatever way he sees fit.
Third, are you willing to be separate from the realm of death and sin? In his second epistle, Peter appeals to his readers that in view of the prospect of the return of the Lord they should “be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace” (3:14). John reminds us, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:5–7). There must be a difference between your lifestyle and that of the world around you. Your heart should long to be separate from the spiritual death and corruption that surrounds you on every side.
One way to stir up our hearts to renewed commitment is to read the biographies of those who have gone before us, who gave up much for the sake of the kingdom. As we read of pioneer missionaries who left everything for the expectation of a short and painful life in the wilds of Africa or of the martyrs who suffered prison and torture for the sake of Christ, it is almost impossible for our hearts to remain unmoved at the contrast between the sacrifice of these believers and our own self-protective attitudes. There is little doubt which of these two approaches to life is more in line with the gospel we have received. Our bodies are to be offered to our Lord as living sacrifices, wholly committed to his service.
There is one more thing to observe, however. The Nazirite vow was generally not forever. A Nazirite did not give up these things because the spiritual life is automatically enhanced by a life of giving things up. He or she was not an ascetic. Rather, he or she gave these things up temporarily, knowing that at the end of the time he or she would sit down in the presence of the Lord for a covenant meal. So too, whatever you and I may give up in this life, it is only a temporary loss. There is an end coming. There is a time ahead of us when all of the separation and tears and pain will be over, and we will sit down in the presence of our covenant Lord for a grand feast. At that feast there will be wine in abundance and fullness of joy in a celebration that will never come to an end.
This glorious feast is paid for by Jesus’ perfect life in our place and his death on the cross, and it is sure because his time for giving things up is already over. Jesus has now completed his period of suffering obedience and has returned to his Father’s side. He is seated there even now, planning the menu for you and me and preparing the table for our arrival. Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, nor has the mind imagined what that celebration will be like when it finally happens (see 1 Corinthians 2:9). No one there on that day will ever think that they gave up too much for God. On the contrary, all of our earthly trials and sufferings will then seem like “slight momentary affliction” (2 Corinthians 4:17) in comparison to the glories that have been prepared for us. Remembering that such a glorious feast awaits us will surely help us faithfully endure the hunger and sorrow of the journey that God has plotted out for us and to remain faithfully committed to following the path of holiness.
Duguid, I. M., & Hughes, R. K. (2006). Numbers: God’s presence in the wilderness (pp. 77–85). Crossway Books.
In the 1960s there was a radical countercultural movement that found expression in changed hairstyles among young people. As a sign of freedom, or of rebellion against authority, almost everyone started growing their hair long, both men and women. At first sight this may look like something similar to what we see in Numbers 6, a kind of early “Hippies for Jesus” movement. On closer examination, however, the two trends can’t exactly be the same, not least because the hippies were not exactly known for abstaining from wine, or any other intoxicating substance for that matter. Alternatively, if the Nazirites were not early hippies, is this chapter a kind of precursor of the monastic movement of the Middle Ages, in which people took upon themselves a voluntary vow of poverty, celibacy, and obedience in order to devote their lives to the service of God through asceticism? This analogy is perhaps closer to the mark; yet the differences between a monk and a Nazirite are as striking as the similarities. Both the monk and the Nazirite were devoted to God, but the Nazirite was no ascetic. Apart from wine and grape products, he could eat or drink whatever he wanted. He or she could live in a fine house and sleep in a comfortable bed and enjoy normal marital relations with a husband or a wife. In addition, the Nazirite vow was normally only a temporary commitment, not a lifelong vow. So the Nazirite was not exactly committed to the ascetic lifestyle as the way to a higher, more spiritual life in the way the monastic movement was.
If a Nazirite was neither a hippie nor a monk, what was he? In essence the Nazirite vow was a temporary separation from normal life to be devoted to God in a special way. In so doing, the Nazirite provided a mirror in which Israel was to look and be reminded of who she ought to be permanently as a holy nation. The Nazirite was a person who was consecrated to the Lord, just as Israel as a nation was to be consecrated to the Lord. Every time the Israelites saw a Nazirite, therefore, they would have been reminded of their own calling to serve the Lord.
THE NAZIRITE VOW
To see this, we need to begin by looking at the nature of the Nazirite vow. A Nazirite was a man or a woman whose vow was a temporary personal commitment to avoid three things: he (or she) would abstain from grapes and alcoholic beverages, let his hair grow and not cut it, and stay well away from dead bodies. Each of these commitments were to be carried through to radical lengths. The Nazirite was not just to abstain from wine and strong drink but also from vinegar, grape juice, grapes, and raisins. Even the seeds and skins of grapes were off-limits (v. 4). It wasn’t simply a matter of avoiding the intoxicating effects of alcohol, therefore, but of doing without everything associated with the grape. Since wine was the primary symbol of joy in the ancient world, to do without grape products was a vivid commitment voluntarily to turn away from life’s normal pleasures.
Similarly, the Nazirites were not simply to let their hair grow—they were to grow it long, without cutting it at all, throughout the length of their vow. Because the hair is a living part of the body, it was a natural symbol for the life of a person.1 To let your hair grow without human restriction represented giving your life over completely to God’s control. It was a vivid symbol of giving God the reins of your life.
Finally, the Nazirites were not simply to stay away from corpses in general, as all Israelites were required to do. Corpses had defiling power, as we saw in Numbers 5, and therefore the people of the living God were not to come in contact with them. Yet in normal life there were exceptions permitted to this general rule. Somebody had to prepare the bodies of the dead for burial, and normally this would be the task of a close relative. The Nazirites, however, were to stay away even from the bodies of their closest family members if they should die (6:7). This was a vivid symbol of their extreme separation from the realm of death to serve the living God. These vows were thus not random commitments, as if the Nazirite could equally well have promised to exercise for sixty minutes every day and to stay away from carbohydrates and sugar. The Nazirite made an extreme, radical commitment to serve the Lord through maintaining ritual holiness, a commitment far more radical than anything devised in the sixties.
Each of the areas of commitment—alcohol, hair control, and corpse contact—were also regulated for the priests of Israel, though in a less extreme way. The priests too were required to abstain from alcohol, but only while they were on duty (Leviticus 10:9). Wine was a good gift of God intended to bring joy and gladness. Yet there was a time to abstain from that gladness when they were employed in the service of the Lord. The priests also had to be careful with their hair, and they were forbidden to shave it (Leviticus 21:5). The high priest in particular was not allowed to disarrange his hair as a sign of mourning (Leviticus 21:10). Priests generally were also required to be careful to avoid contact with dead bodies, because such contact with the realm of death made one unclean (Leviticus 21:1–4); but the high priest, like the Nazirite, had particular obligations. He could not come in contact with a corpse even to mourn his own father and mother (Leviticus 21:11). When you put these obligations side by side, it is possible to observe that the Nazirite was a kind of temporary lay priest—someone who for a period of time lived according to the special level of ritual purity demanded of those whose lives were lived constantly in the Lord’s presence.
A PICTURE OF ISRAEL
This, of course, as we said earlier, made the Nazirite a perfect picture of what Israel was intended to be. They were to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). God had chosen them uniquely out of all of the nations of the earth to be his people in order that he might dwell in their midst. In consequence, they were to be separate and distinct from the other nations. The existence of the Nazirites in their midst would constantly have reminded them of that necessity to be different and to be holy.
The prophet Samuel is a good example of this. He was born at a time of great spiritual decline in Israel. The priests of the day, Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were bringing religion into disrepute by running the temple for their own personal profit and sleeping with the women who served there (1 Samuel 2:22). Samuel entered that dark picture as a child, dedicated by his mother at birth to be a lifelong Nazirite (1 Samuel 1:11). His devotion to the Lord stood in constant contrast with the corruption of Hophni and Phinehas. In fact, the narrator highlights that contrast by switching the spotlight back and forth from Samuel to Hophni and Phinehas and back again, as if to invite you to set them side by side and draw your own conclusions. Samuel the Nazirite was a living picture in his own day of who Israel ought to be as the people of God.
Of course, simply taking a vow of holiness does not necessarily transform a person internally, as the story of another Nazirite from birth, Samson, demonstrates. Like Samuel, he too was dedicated to the Lord as a Nazirite before he was born, according to the instructions given to his mother by the angel of the Lord (Judges 13:3–5). Yet a less dedicated Nazirite than Samson would be hard to find. The first episode recorded in Samson’s adult life relates his desire to marry a Philistine woman (14:1–3). Far from keeping himself separate from the uncircumcised enemies of the Lord, he wanted to climb into bed with one. On his way to marry her, Samson turned aside to see a lion’s corpse where bees had made their nest (14:8). As a Nazirite, he should have stayed well clear of all corpses, but Samson was motivated more by his appetite than by his calling. Instead of keeping his distance, he went over and scooped some honey out from the dead body.
When he arrived at the home of his future in-laws, Samson celebrated a feast there (14:10). The Hebrew word for feast, mišteh, comes from the verb “to drink,” and I doubt very much that Samson was there as the designated driver. The second vow, abstaining from alcoholic beverages, thus apparently went by the board as well. Finally, he revealed to Delilah the source of his strength, and she shaved his head, thereby breaking his third Nazirite vow (Judges 16). Instead of being a mirror to Israel of who she ought to be, a people distinct from the surrounding nations and consecrated to the Lord from birth, Samson was a model depicting who she really was, a people untrue in every respect to her calling to be holy.
BROKEN VOWS
In the light of this function of the Nazirite as a mirror to Israel, it is fascinating to note where Numbers 6 focuses its interest. As with the laws of Numbers 5, it is not a comprehensive review of the legislation surrounding the Nazirite vow. It doesn’t tell us how or why people would take the Nazirite oath. Instead, once we have been reminded of the nature of the Nazirite vow, the attention of the passage turns immediately to two related matters: what happens if the vow is inadvertently broken, and what happens at the end of the time of the Nazirite vow. In fact, the passage spends almost as much time on each of these two matters as it does on the nature of the vow itself.
First, then, what should someone do if his Nazirite vow was inadvertently broken? Suppose he was quietly minding his own business when someone dropped dead in his presence (6:9). Now what should he do? It wasn’t his fault that his vow to keep separate from corpses was broken, but nonetheless it was broken. His consecration to the Lord had been defiled, and even such an inadvertent sin required substantive atonement. He had to bring two birds as a sin offering and a burnt offering, shave his head, and then start the period of his vow all over again (vv. 9, 10). Birds were required because they were the least expensive offering that involved the shedding of blood. A grain offering wouldn’t have been sufficient because blood had to be shed to atone even for unintentional sin. As well as the sin offering and burnt offering, reparation had to be paid through the offering of a one-year-old lamb as a guilt offering. After that, the period of the vow could be restarted (v. 12). Even though the breach of the vow had been entirely unintentional, blood had to be shed to atone for it, and the vow had to be completed exactly as promised. The message is clear: sin, even of the unintentional variety, requires costly blood payment, and nothing short of perfect fulfillment of what was promised is sufficient. God is a holy God whose standards are high indeed.
Second, though, what happened when the period of the vow was completed? A person couldn’t just walk away from his life of complete devotion to God and return to ordinary life. He had to offer a smorgasbord of offerings, covering all the basic kinds of sacrifice. At the end of his vow he had to complete symbolically all of the covenant obligations in miniature. He had to offer a whole burnt offering, which symbolized total consecration and general atonement for sin. Along with it, he offered a grain offering, or tribute offering, which served as a mark of submission to the Lord as master and king (vv. 14, 15). After that, he was required to offer a sin offering, symbolizing the forgiveness that was required for particular sins (v. 16). There were also the offerings of unleavened bread—unleavened because leaven represents change and decay and therefore sin—and the associated drink offerings (v. 17).
Finally and climactically, the Nazirite would offer a fellowship offering, symbolizing communion with God around a common table (v. 17). The fellowship offering was a symbolic meal with God: part was offered on the altar along with the Nazirite’s hair, which had finally been shaved off, symbolizing his life offered up to God. Meanwhile, the remainder was consumed by the worshiper and his family. The end of the vow was thus a celebration of joy, of life in God’s presence, after which the worshiper returned to his normal life once more. The Nazirite was now freed from his vow and was once again able to drink wine and cut his hair.
CALLED TO BE HOLY
So what is the point of this passage? Is the goal of this passage the recruiting of new Nazirites, encouraging people to devote themselves to God in this extreme way? If that was its purpose, it is hard to explain why so much of the attention is focused on the (unintentional) failure of the vow or the intended goal of completion of the vow. Rather, the very existence of the Nazirite vow shows us the weakness and inability of the Old Testament people of God to meet God’s standard of perfect holiness. The Nazirites were some Israelites who took a vow of special holiness for a limited time. Even out of these people, there were some who were not able to complete their period of sanctification without sacrifices and starting over. What is more, almost all of those who did take this vow eventually reverted to a normal way of life. Yet if all Israel had been truly and permanently set apart to God, what need would there have been for Nazirites? The Nazirites were called to be holy because Israel wasn’t holy. They were called for a while to be a miniature kingdom of priests because the larger people were not fully and perpetually devoted to the Lord.
The same is true of us. We should all have the same level of committed devotion to God that the Nazirites did. We should all be wholly dedicated to the service of God. Yet if you are like me, the reality is that we don’t even keep the resolutions we make to serve the Lord, let alone the resolutions that we ought to be making. Our sins and broken promises to God are not merely inadvertent but deliberate and repeated. We do and say the things we ought not to do and say, and we fail to do and say the things we ought to do and say. Even if we turn over a new leaf for a while, sooner or later we always seem to fall back into our old ways of doing things. For the most part, we are not personally committed to giving up the joy that might legitimately be ours for the sake of the kingdom. Few of us are easily content to give the control of our lives into the hands of God, nor are we ready and eager to separate ourselves from the realm of sin and death. Can we really claim that we are ready right now to give our all for Jesus? The law of the Nazirite exposes our hearts as well as those of ancient Israel.
THE FINAL NAZIRITE
Even the best Nazirites needed more than their own personal best efforts, though. After they had successfully competed the period of their vow, they couldn’t simply waltz into God’s presence and say, “Here I am. What a wonderful asset to your kingdom I have been.” On the contrary, even after they had completed the vow faithfully, they still needed to offer a sin offering before they could share a covenant meal with the Lord. Even our very best acts of obedience always fall short of God’s perfect standard.
What Israel needed, and what we need, therefore, is someone who would come and permanently and finally and perfectly fulfill the role of the Nazirites on their behalf. They needed someone who would give up the joy that might otherwise legitimately be his and who would give control of his life into the hands of others while keeping himself permanently pure on their behalf. They needed someone who at the end would offer up his very life in order to enable them to enter the feast. The answer to this need is certainly not Samson, and not even Samuel. They were not able to bring about lasting rest and peace for God’s people. Rather, the one who has come as our perfect Nazirite is Jesus Christ.
He was truly separated to God from birth, not by outward symbols but by the inner reality of a holiness that pervaded every aspect of his life. He was not a Nazirite in terms of the outward marks of being separated from wine or having uncut hair or complete separation from the dead. On the contrary, he himself transformed the water into wine at the wedding at Cana in Galilee in his first miracle (John 2:1–11), and he regularly touched corpses, bringing them back to life (e.g., Luke 8:54, 55). His consecration was thus not in the outward forms but in the inner reality to which these forms pointed.
Do you want to see someone who set aside the joy and comfort that might otherwise legitimately have been his? Look at Jesus, who left the glories of Heaven and came down to live in our midst. Do you want to see someone who gave up complete control of his own life, giving it over into the hands of his heavenly Father? Look at Jesus, who seeing the reality of the cross in front of him cried out in the Garden of Gethsemane, “not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). Do you want to see someone separated from sin and death? Look at Jesus whose life of perfection was such that he was completely without blemish or flaw. He had no sin, deliberate or involuntary, that needed to be atoned for. He needed no sin offering or guilt offering made on his behalf in order to enter the presence of his heavenly Father. On the contrary, Jesus himself was the spotless atonement offering whose blood enables you and me to draw near to the presence of the holy God and experience his blessing. He gave his life to enable you to share in God’s feast.
COMPLETE COMMITMENT
So what is your response to his complete commitment? If Israel was supposed to be reminded of their own need to be holy every time they saw a Nazirite, how much more should you and I be convicted of our need to be holy every time we contemplate the commitment of Jesus. Let me suggest three areas that match the areas of the commitment of the Nazirite in which we may need to hear this convicting voice.
First, are you willing to give up earthly means of joy for Christ? The Nazirite made the radical commitment to give up all grape products as part of his vow; Jesus gave up the glories of Heaven to win your salvation. So to what are you clinging? What is there that you say you must have if you are to be happy here? Perhaps it is a habit that you are unwilling to break, or a pleasure that you are unwilling to forego, or a dream that you desperately want to see fulfilled. Whatever it is, it is not necessarily sinful in itself, but it has come to be more precious to you than it ought to be. Remember that you are called to be part of a holy nation, a kingdom of priests, wholly devoted to your God.
Second, are you willing to give up control of your life? The irony here, of course, is that we don’t really have control of our lives to begin with. We cannot even make our own hair grow, as the burgeoning market for baldness products continues to demonstrate. Yet we like to maintain the illusion that we really do have the power to direct our own lives. Thus, when God directs our lives in a way that we would not have chosen, we often go along kicking and screaming. That was not the way of the Nazirite, nor was it the way of Jesus. Instead we too need to learn to say to God, “not as I will, but as you will,” even when we foresee the thorniness of the road that his will has chosen for us. God has the right to direct your life according to his wisdom, in whatever way he sees fit.
Third, are you willing to be separate from the realm of death and sin? In his second epistle, Peter appeals to his readers that in view of the prospect of the return of the Lord they should “be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace” (3:14). John reminds us, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:5–7). There must be a difference between your lifestyle and that of the world around you. Your heart should long to be separate from the spiritual death and corruption that surrounds you on every side.
One way to stir up our hearts to renewed commitment is to read the biographies of those who have gone before us, who gave up much for the sake of the kingdom. As we read of pioneer missionaries who left everything for the expectation of a short and painful life in the wilds of Africa or of the martyrs who suffered prison and torture for the sake of Christ, it is almost impossible for our hearts to remain unmoved at the contrast between the sacrifice of these believers and our own self-protective attitudes. There is little doubt which of these two approaches to life is more in line with the gospel we have received. Our bodies are to be offered to our Lord as living sacrifices, wholly committed to his service.
There is one more thing to observe, however. The Nazirite vow was generally not forever. A Nazirite did not give up these things because the spiritual life is automatically enhanced by a life of giving things up. He or she was not an ascetic. Rather, he or she gave these things up temporarily, knowing that at the end of the time he or she would sit down in the presence of the Lord for a covenant meal. So too, whatever you and I may give up in this life, it is only a temporary loss. There is an end coming. There is a time ahead of us when all of the separation and tears and pain will be over, and we will sit down in the presence of our covenant Lord for a grand feast. At that feast there will be wine in abundance and fullness of joy in a celebration that will never come to an end.
This glorious feast is paid for by Jesus’ perfect life in our place and his death on the cross, and it is sure because his time for giving things up is already over. Jesus has now completed his period of suffering obedience and has returned to his Father’s side. He is seated there even now, planning the menu for you and me and preparing the table for our arrival. Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, nor has the mind imagined what that celebration will be like when it finally happens (see 1 Corinthians 2:9). No one there on that day will ever think that they gave up too much for God. On the contrary, all of our earthly trials and sufferings will then seem like “slight momentary affliction” (2 Corinthians 4:17) in comparison to the glories that have been prepared for us. Remembering that such a glorious feast awaits us will surely help us faithfully endure the hunger and sorrow of the journey that God has plotted out for us and to remain faithfully committed to following the path of holiness.
Duguid, I. M., & Hughes, R. K. (2006). Numbers: God’s presence in the wilderness (pp. 77–85). Crossway Books.
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