The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you, and
be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.
Numbers 6:24-26
The Dead Sea Scrolls were, until recently, our oldest copies of biblical text.
But in 1979, Villanova professor, Judith Hadley, was asisting archaeologist,
Gabrial Barkay, in excavating a site in Jerusalem's Hinnom Valley. In a
burial cave, she saw something resembling the metal cap of a pencil. It
was a sensational find, a tiny silver scroll of great antiquity. Another was found nearby,
These tiny amulets, dating to the Hebrew monarchy seven centuries before Christ,
were so small and fragile they took several years to painstakingly clean and open.
When scientists finally unrolled them, they found the world's oldest extant copy
of a biblical text, the words of Numbers 6:24-26: The Lord bless you and keep you; The
Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance
upon you, and give you peace.
While the amulets date from the seventh century BC, the original words are far
older, coming 1,400 years before Christ. As the Israelites wandered in the wilderness,
the Lord commanded the priests to bless the people with this three-fold blessing.
The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord lift His countenance upon you,
and give you peace.
The Lord make His face to shine upon you;
and be gracious unto you,
and give you peace.
