What does it mean to 'dedicate oneself to God,' and why is it needed? Judging by the description of the Nazirite vow in today's chapter, for the ancient Israelites it meant promising God not to defile oneself and to refrain from sin for a certain period of time, aided by abstaining from wine, although of course the symbolism of wine here is much deeper; let us also not forget the uncut hair - see the story of the Nazirite Samson in Judges. In other words, such a vow is a time of the greatest possible holiness for a person, whose source and goal is likeness to God.

We can see this goal not only in descriptions of the lives of people such as the prophet Samuel and John the Baptist, who were also Nazirites, but also in the evangelist's words about the Last Supper, when the Lord solemnly pronounces a vow: 'From now on I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until the day when I drink new wine with you in My Father's Kingdom' (Matt 26:29), dedicating Himself for all who will be called to sanctification by the truth (John 17:19).

Among the blessings with which God commanded His priests to bless His people, the blessing of peace holds a special place. Of course, peaceful life is a good; only a very bloodthirsty or very frivolous person can doubt this. But is peaceful life alone what is being spoken of here? It is not by chance that this blessing is connected with another, the one that mentions God's mercy, verse 25, and that the two together constitute blessing as such, which will help preserve the people, verse 24. Of course, peaceful life in itself is necessary for the preservation of the people: the Jews were never so numerous that they could afford a major war. But for it to become possible, God's direct intervention in the fate of His people is needed; otherwise, survival in the political situation that took shape in the Near East, and it was never calm there, was completely unrealistic.

And such intervention, as is evident, is never limited to solving one concrete task. Perhaps this is exactly why we are sometimes so indecisive in our prayers: consciously or subconsciously we understand that God will of course solve our problems, but after that He will no longer leave us or leave us in peace. He will try to make us His to the end. So too for the people of God, the blessing of peace was of course directly connected with peaceful life, with life without war, which undoubtedly gladdened everyone. But God always went further, desiring to turn His people into a community of the faithful, for whom peace would be inseparable from His presence and from communion with Him.

Yahwism knows traditional blessings, pronounced by priests during worship at the Tabernacle or in the Temple, in which the name of God was always heard. At some point they came to be treated as traditional ritual formulas, but originally all these blessings had their own meaning and purpose.

Such are the blessings we see in the Book of Numbers. In antiquity, the sacred name was generally treated in a special way: it was thought that the name by which God reveals Himself to a person, if pronounced, unites the person with God. Pagans looked at the matter in the same way, and sacred names in the pagan world were often even credited with magical properties.

Yahwism, however, did not involve any magic: the point was the intention that a person directs toward God when calling Him by name. To use sacred names casually, in passing, for rhetorical effect or out of habit, is a violation of the third commandment of the Decalogue, and in ancient Israel this was well understood.

What, then, is a blessing? In its original sense, the corresponding Hebrew word means the transmission by the one blessing of his own (usually supernatural) power to the one being blessed. When God blesses a person, He gives that person His power, and when the priests bless the people, they wish for the people that God, before whom they have just stood, would give them His power.

This power can preserve and protect, especially if God shows a person His face. To meet God face to face meant to experience personal communion with God; such an experience has been known in every age. But this meeting could bring a person not only joy: after all, a sinful person appeared before God as he was, and the outcome of the meeting could be highly unexpected for him.

That is why the traditional ritual formulas include words about peace and mercy: both were absolutely necessary for a sinful person so that a face-to-face meeting with God would not turn into a curse for him instead of a blessing.

Of course, God never curses a person for his sins; otherwise no one would have any chance of salvation. But a meeting with God is always a trial for a person as well, not only joy, and the traditional blessings spoken by the priests also included a request that the meeting with God would become for those being blessed not destruction, but spiritual renewal.