By Yonatan Granovsky

There’s a Jewish liturgical poem based on Psalm 16 that goes like this:

“We are happy [or blessed]. How goodly is our lot, and how pleasant is our fortune, and how beautiful our heritage!”

It’s a very happy psalm, with words reflecting delight in God and all He has given us.

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
    you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. (Psalm 16:5-6)

We are very blessed. Although this is a Jewish poem whose purpose is to give thanks for the good that the people of Israel have received, all God’s people can join in singing it. All God’s children can be happy because His blessing is upon all of us!

Why are we blessed?

In ONE FOR ISRAEL, we have been blessed with generous support and means to carry out the Kingdom work we do. We have been blessed with God-given talent and professionalism in a variety of departments, and we have even blessed to see some of the fruit of our labors: We have seen the dramatic increase in the number of followers and views on our Hebrew outreach channels, we’ve seen more and more of our people coming to faith in Yeshua our Lord. We’ve received recognition and good reviews in a number of areas. We could go on and on listing God’s great blessing on our ministry, and I’m sure others can do the same thing.

But the question I would like to ask is: Why does God bless us? Is it because we are special? Better than others? Because we have cracked the secret to successful service in God’s eyes? Anyone who has been part of ONE FOR ISRAEL long enough knows that we are far from perfect, and that we still have room for improvement. We do not receive God’s blessing because we are spectacularly good. On the contrary, God’s blessing upon us is yet another expression of His love and grace.

Let’s rephrase our question: What does God bless us FOR?

I believe there are good reasons that we see God’s blessing on our lives. We can see the purpose behind God’s blessing in Psalm 67:

To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Psalm. A Song.

As in the other Psalms, this beautiful song is full of literary devices and artistic genius. Not only is the psalm divided into three stanzas by the twice-repeated refrain: “Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!” (vv.3,5) but the refrain itself is a clever play on words. In Hebrew the root of the word for praise (“Yodha” – יוֹדוּךָ) has two possible meanings. It can either mean “praise / thank,” or it can mean “admit / confess.” It can simultaneously mean that the nations will confess that the Lord is God (expressing their agreement about God’s sovereignty), or it can mean all the nations will thank you (expressing praises to Him).

The fruit of the earth

Some scholars claim that this psalm was originally sung during Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, because of verse 7:

“The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, shall bless us.” (v. 6).

However, In my humble opinion, there is not much to the claim. Not only is the hypothesis quite a leap based on only a single verse, but in the psalm the word “earth” (Hebrew: Aretz – אֶרֶץ) is always used to relate to the world, and not the soil of the ground (vv. 2, 4, 7). This means that the reference is not to the earth that produces agricultural crops, but to the world that produces spiritual crops among the nations.

What is even more compelling is the allusion we see at the beginning of the psalm:

May God be gracious to us and bless us
    and make his face to shine upon us, Selah.

What other verse in the Bible does this remind you of?

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)

There’s a good reason that the psalmist alludes to this Aaronic Benediction. Through that allusion we see the reason for which the people of Israel were chosen and blessed:

that your way may be known on earth,
    your saving power among all nations.

God did not choose Israel to be His chosen people because they were more numerous or stronger than other nations (Deuteronomy 7:6–7). He chose the people of Israel so that they would shine His face among the nations – to be a light to the nations: “Let His face shine upon us” (v. 2). He chose to bless the seed of Abraham so that through them all the families of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:3).

The choice of Israel was not at the expense of blessing the nations – on the contrary, through Israel’s blessing the nations would also be blessed.

I think the principle applies to us as individuals as well.

God’s blessing is not just a physical expression of His love for us. He blesses us so that we may bless others – that may His face shine upon us, and we can shine His light in the world. The question is: How do we channel His blessing to those around us?

Let’s take this opportunity to thank Him in prayer for the abundance of blessings He bestows upon us, and, based on the psalm, to ask Him to continue to bless so that we may be a blessing to others around us, and to give us the wisdom and generosity of heart to use His blessing to bless others.

Photo by Timon Studler on Unsplash