Today, I am reading and commenting on  Numbers 5-6.

Today’s passage covers the vow of the Nazirite.  Every time I have read it in the past I felt like I was missing something.  The passage tells us that if anyone wants to make a vow of dedication to the Lord as a Nazirite they needed to follow the rules laid out here, but it does not tell us any more about what it means to take such a vow.  However, as I read it today I realized that the purpose of taking the Nazirite vow was to publicly declare that you were dedicating yourself to God.  So, you would dedicate yourself to spend a period of time to work on some task in service to God.  For the length of time you had chosen to work on that task you would follow the rules of the Nazirite. Then when the time was over you would follow the rules given for ending your vow.  Other reasons for taking the vow might be as a form of penance for some action which you regret, or as a show of changing your life.  I think the modern Christian Church would do well to have a better understanding of Nazirite vows.  The Apostle Paul took a Nazirite vow twice after his conversion.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.