Numbers 6:27

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

"So they shall put my name on the children of Israel; and I will bless them."

World English Bible · Public Domain

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אֲבָרֲכֵֽם

bârak

H1288

“to bless · them”

Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural

Appears 330× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 1:22

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 285

to bless, kneel - (Qal) - to kneel - to bless - (Niphal) to be blessed, bless oneself - (Piel) to bless - (Pual) to be blessed, be adored - (Hiphil) to cause to kneel - (Hithpael) to bless oneself - (TWOT) to praise, salute, curse

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

8: words
8: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
3 nouns
1 pronoun
1 preposition
1 particle

Verb forms

וְשָׂמ֥וּ Qal · Sequential Perfect
אֲבָרֲכֵֽם Piel · Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 16 words from the Hebrew and 18 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Numbers 6:27 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

2 Chronicles 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
Daniel 9:18–19 My God, turn your ear, and hear; open your eyes, and see our desolations, and the city which is called by your name: for we do not present our petitions before you for our righteousness, but for your great mercies' sake.
Deuteronomy 28:10 All the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of Yahweh; and they shall be afraid of you.
Jeremiah 14:9 Why should you be like a scared man, as a mighty man who can't save? yet you, Yahweh, are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name; don't leave us.
Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ;
Psalms 115:12–13 Yahweh remembers us. He will bless us. He will bless the house of Israel. He will bless the house of Aaron.
Isaiah 43:7 everyone who is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, yes, whom I have made.
1 Chronicles 4:10 Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from evil, that it not be to my sorrow! God granted him that which he requested.

Genesis 32:26 The man said, "Let me go, for the day breaks." Jacob said, "I won't let you go, unless you bless me."
Genesis 32:29 Jacob asked him, "Please tell me your name." He said, "Why is it that you ask what my name is?" He blessed him there.
Exodus 3:13–15 Moses said to God, "Behold, when I come to the children of Israel, and tell them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you;' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' What should I tell them?"
Numbers 23:20 Behold, I have received [commandment] to bless: He has blessed, and I can't reverse it.
Psalms 5:12 For you will bless the righteous. Yahweh, you will surround him with favor as with a shield.
Matthew 28:19 Therefore go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Genesis 12:2–3 I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you, and make your name great. You will be a blessing.
Psalms 67:7 God will bless us. All the ends of the earth shall fear him.

Exodus 34:5–7 Yahweh descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of Yahweh.
2 Samuel 7:23 What one nation in the earth is like your people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem to himself for a people, and to make him a name, and to do great things for you, and awesome things for your land, before your people, whom you redeem to you out of Egypt, [from] the nations and their gods?
Exodus 6:3 and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty; but by my name Yahweh I was not known to them.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Numbers 6:27 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְשָׂמ֥וּ אֶת שְׁמִ֖י עַל בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וַאֲנִ֖י אֲבָרֲכֵֽם

"So they shall put my name on the children of Israel; and I will bless them."

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 6:27 Septuagint · lemma form

And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel, and I the Lord will bless them.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וִישַׁווּן יָת בִּרְכַּת שְׁמִי עַל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַאֲנָא אֲבָרֵכִנוּן

And they [the Priests] should place the blessing [that is] My name upon the Children of Israel, and I will bless them.

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וִישַׁווּן יַת בִּרְכַּת שְׁמִי עַל בְּנֵי יִשְרָאֵל וַאֲנָא בְּמֵימְרִי אֲבָרְכִינוּן

And they shall bestow the benediction of My Name upon the children of Israel, and I, by My Word, will bless them.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Numbers 6:27 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

The Biblical Illustrator

Joseph S. Exell

Num_6:27

Put My name upon the children of Israel.

The Christians Divine name

I. The name of God put upon his people indicates Gods love towards them.

II. The name of God put upon his people indicates the relationship in which they stand to God. Not only His friends, but His children.

III. The name of God put upon his people indicates Gods property in them

IV. The name of God put upon his people indicates their conformity to Gods will.

V. The name of God put upon his people indicates the resemblance they bear to god.

VI. The name of God put upon his people indicates the assurance they have of final union with God. (The Evangelical Preacher.)

Gods name upon His people:

Your old name is an ugly one. I suppose you know what your name is? If you have forgotten, let me remind you that your name is entered in Gods Book as sinner. I do not think you will be sorry to exchange that bad name for a better. I knew a lady once who had a very ugly name, and she could not bear to be called by it. She got all her friends to promise never to use it, and she always signed herself by a pretty name which she selected for herself out of many others. But of course, that never altered the fact that her real name was the old and ugly one. Just so, you may not like the name sinner, and you may call yourself by anything else, and persuade everybody that it does not belong to you, but that never alters the fact that you are a sinner. God gave you the name, and God alone can change it. But oh! if you long for a new name, tell Him so. He has one ready for you, and such a splendid, beautiful, adorable name! I will write on him My new name. (Eva Poole.)

Valued because of the Giver:

When our soldiers returned from that great succession of blunders, the Crimean War, those who had specially distinguished themselves were marshalled in a line to receive the crosses or medals which rewarded their valorous merit from the Queen. As she passed along the line she took the decorations one by one from a salver carried by her side and pinned it to the breast of the happy recipient. As she was pinning one on it slipped from her hand and fell to the ground. A little girl, who was near, picked it up and was proceeding to pin it to the soldiers breast, when he stepped a pace back and said, No; I do not value that piece of metal. It is the hand which bestows it I value. So with the gifts which God gives us here, though they are of themselves of priceless value, yet even more precious is the knowledge that they are bestowed by our heavenly Father..

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Joseph Benson's Commentary

Num 6:27. Put my name — Shall call them by my name, shall recommend them to me as my own people, and bless them, and pray unto me for them as such; which is a powerful argument to prevail with God for them.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Tyndale Open Study Notes

Tyndale Open Resources

6:27 The priests were the mediators of God’s covenant with Israel, so their duty was to pray for God’s people and invoke his blessing on them. Jesus has the same role in relation to the church (see Rom 8:34; Heb 2:17-18; 4:14-16).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

They shall pray in my Name for them.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

Invoke. Hebrew, "they shall name my name (Yehovah, in pronouncing blessings) upon the sons of Israel," which I will ratify. (Haydock) --- "They shall place the blessing of my name," &c., Chaldean. They shall praise my name. (Calmet) --- God authorizes us to use a determinate from of blessing, and grants the effect, when his minister pronounces it, (Worthington) if no obstacle be put by the party. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

i.e. Shall call them by my name, shall recommend them to me as my own people, and bless them and pray unto me for them as such; which is a powerful argument to prevail with God for them, and therefore hath been oft used by the prophets interceding for them, as Jer 14:9; Dan 9:18,19; compare 1Sa 12:22. I will bless them; I will ratify their blessings, and give those blessings to the people which the priests pray for.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

27. They shall put my name — The name of a man is the medium in which his personality floats from mind to mind. But the name of Jehovah, when thus invoked upon obedient Israel, signified more than that: it conveyed, in a measure, the attributes for which that name stands. Hence to ask in the name of Christ is to lay hold of his living and omnipresent personality as substantive and real. Professor Bush suggests that the blessing in the name of Jehovah is putting his name upon Israel. He thus translates the words, “And thus shall ye put my name,” etc. In Joh_17:12, Jesus says, “I kept them in thy name,” probably referring to the priestly benediction.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

They shall put my name upon the children of Israel. The "name of God is uniformly treated in Scripture as something very different from a mere arrangement of letters or an arbitrary vocal sound. All nations have bad names for the Supreme Being, but there was nothing sacred about them, except from association. The name of God was not of man, nor from man, but of his own direct revelation, (Exo_6:3) and was therefore of an unspeakable sanctity. (Exo_20:7 Exo_33:19) Like the "word" of God, it cannot be dissociated from God himself. It is in some sense an extension outwards, into the sphere of the created and sensible, of the ineffable virtues of the Godhead itself. It stands in a real, though unassignable, relation to infinite goodness and power, and therefore it comes fraught with untold blessing (or perchance cursing) to those on whom it lights. Hence, to put the name of God the covenant name upon the people had a real meaning. No one could do it except by his express direction; and when it was so done there was an invisible reality answering to the audible form; with the name pronounced in blessing came the blessing itself, came the special providence and presence of God, to abide upon such at least as were worthy of it. It is a fact, the significance of which cannot be denied, that the name which was commanded to be put upon the people was lost, and irrecoverably lost, by the later Jews. Out of an exaggerated dread of possible profanation, they first disobeyed the command by substituting Adonai for that name outside the sanctuary; and finally, after the death of Simeon the Just, the priests ceased to pronounce that name at all, and therefore lost the tradition by which the pronunciation was fixed. Our method of spelling and pronouncing the name as Jehovah is merely conventional, and almost certainly incorrect. It would seem to be the more devout opinion that the name itself, as revealed by God and uttered by many generations of priests, was forfeited (like Paradise), was withdrawn, and ought not to be inquired after. And I will bless them. Here is the precise truth of all effectual benediction: they shall put my name; ... I will bless. The outward form was ministered by the priests, the inward reality was of God and from God alone. It is observable that the form of blessing is expressed in the singular; either

a. because all Israel was regarded as one, even as the first-born son of God, (Exo_4:22, 23 Hos_11:1) or

b. because all real blessing must in truth be individual a nation can only be blessed in its several members.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes

Put my name - Shall call them by my name, shall recommend them to me as my own people, and bless them and pray unto me for them as such; which is a powerful argument to prevail with God for them.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Keil & Delitzsch

C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch

This blessing was not to remain merely a pious wish, however, but to be manifested in the people with all the power of a blessing from God. This assurance closes the divine command: "They shall put My name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them."

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

ושמו את שמי AND THEY SHALL PUT MY NAME [UPON THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL] — i.e. they shall bless them by the Proper Name of God (i. e. when uttering the blessings they shall use the Tetragrammaton and no substitute for it) (Sifrei Bamidbar 43).

ואני אברכם AND I WILL BLESS THEM — i.e. I will bless the Israelites: I will give My approval to the priests’ blessings (lit., I will agree with the priests). — Another explanation of “And I will bless them” is: “And I will bless the priests (Chullin 49a).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Numbers, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 8 words (8 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is bârak (“to bless”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word bârak carries the sense “to bless.” How does it shape the verse?
How does 2 Chronicles 7:14, which shares this passage’s theme, read alongside this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«וְשָׂמ֥וּ» is a Qal Sequential Perfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how The Biblical Illustrator and Joseph Benson's Commentary read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

These translations choose different wording for 3 words in this verse.
8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 8 words in this verse.