The Nazarite's Vow

Samson, the son of Manoah, is the only individual among the children of Israel who is spoken of, and who speaks of himself, as a Nazarite; he was to be "a Nazarite unto God from the womb" (Judges 13:5); and this was the secret of his great strength. Separation to God is the secret of spiritual strength, and whenever moral separation is given up there will be the loss of spiritual power and of the sense of the support of the Lord. In his Lamentations, Jeremiah bemoans the condition of Israel, the state of the nation being reflected in that of her Nazarites. He writes, "Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire;" but how very different they were in the days of declension, "Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick" (Lam. 4:7-8).

The Nazarite's vow was open to all in Israel; it was not confined to any special tribe, to the priests or the Levites, or even to the men of Israel. In its application, it is open to all the saints of God, and, indeed, should mark us all at all times. In Numbers 6, where the instructions for the Nazarite are given, there was no limit set to the number of days in which one could separate himself to Jehovah, but the things commanded and prohibited were for "all the days of his separation."

It is hardly needful to say that the Christian is not called upon to make a vow, for vows belong to the legal system in which God was dealing with man in the flesh; but the separation and devotion of the Nazarite are to mark the Christian in a spiritual way. Of this the Apostle writes in 2 Corinthians 5, Christ "died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again" (2 Cor. 5:15).

Our Nazariteship, like Samson's, is for the whole of our life; and although we may answer but feebly to it, the divine standard cannot be lowered. But there was One in whom all the demands made on the Nazarite were fully answered, even in the Son of God in Man-hood, here upon earth; and in this, as in all else, "leaving us an example" that we should follow His steps.

In choosing his path of separation the Nazarite was not seeking to please men; his separation was "unto the Lord." Monks, nuns and hermits have had their own separate ways, and many of them have no doubt been genuinely seeking to please God; but theirs is not the character of separation indicated for us in the example of the Master, who, in all things, lived for the will and pleasure of His God and Father. The Hebrew Christians were exhorted to "go forth therefore unto Him without the camp" of Judaism, "bearing His reproach" (Heb. 13:13); but the value of this separation lay in its being "unto Him." This has also its application for us today, but separation from the religion of man after the flesh has its real value when Christ is the object before the soul.

The separation from the vessels of dishonour enjoined on true believers in 2 Timothy 2:21 is not simply ecclesiastical; it is also moral. Many boast of an ecclesiastical separation, while morally no different from those within the camp of Christendom. It is only as we are truly purged morally from vessels of dishonour that we can be "meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work." If the heart is not right with God; if Christ is not the object before us and the motive for our actions, our separation will be little different from that of Israel's which gave no real pleasure to God.

"Wine and strong drink," from which the Nazarite was to separate himself, would indicate that which gratifies, stimulates, and excites the flesh. King Lemuel's mother evidently thought that kings should have the features of Nazarites, when she said to him, "It is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink: lest they drink and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted. Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts" (Prov. 31:4-6). As Nazarites we do not require the joys of men, or to be sustained by what the world provides; our joy and strength are in the Lord.

The world system caters for all, providing its varied pleasures for all tastes and classes. Rich men can have their wine at all times, but the supply for the poor is limited except on special occasions. Strong drink is normally for the pleasure of the rich, and as medicine for the poor, though poor have deepened their poverty by addiction to it. Liquor of grapes are for those with means and cultured tastes, but the poor can have their moist and dried grapes. Even the outcasts of men could have the kernels and the husks, like the prodigal who fed the swine. The world endeavours to meet the cravings and desires of all in the variety of its provision in the realm of human pleasure.

But the fruit of the vine in all its parts and forms was denied to the Nazarite during the days of his separation: and the word from God to the Christian is, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world" (1 John 2:15). Men of the world may have their pleasures, according to their tastes and choice, but the believer has been called of God to a path of separation from the world to find his pleasure in and with Christ in another world.

While on earth the Lord Jesus was "a Man of sorrows," but He had joy of which the world knew nothing. In Luke 10:21 it is recorded, "In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in Thy sight." From Matthew 11 we learn that this was the time when the Lord had been rejected by the cities in which most of His Mighty works were done. Amidst the sorrow of His rejection by Israel, the Son of God found His joy in the Father and in the knowledge of His will.

This is the joy that belongs to the Nazarite today; not the pleasures of sin for a season, but the Lord's own joy. Having spoken to His disciples the wonderful secrets of His heart, He said, "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full" (John 15:11). It was the strength that this divine joy gave that sustained Paul in his arduous labours and imprisonment for Christ's sake. He exhorted the saints at Philippi to "Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice;" but he exhorted as having this joy for himself, being able to say, "But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly" (Phil. 4:4, 10).

As a true Nazarite, Paul had refused the things in which he had pleasure as a natural man, writing, "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ" (Phil. 3:7-8). Peter also writes of the Christian's joy, "joy unspeakable," (1 Peter 1:8); and James writes of "all joy" (James 1:2); but the source of this joy is divine.

There were different ways in which any Israelite could be defiled, and no doubt these also applied to the Nazarite; but special instructions are given to the Nazarite to avoid defilement through contact with the dead. Any Israelite who became unclean through touching the dead, or by being in contact with death, required the sprinkling of the ashes of separation upon him, as prescribed in Numbers 19. No doubt, in addition to what was required of a defiled Nazarite in Numbers 6, there would also be needed the application of the ashes of the Red Heifer to procure his cleansing; he would have to be cleansed both as an Israelite and as a Nazarite.

A Nazarite could not voluntarily make himself unclean, not even for his nearest and dearest, for the claims of God were paramount, "the consecration of his God" was upon his head; and "all the days of his separation" he was "holy unto the Lord." But the Nazarite might be defiled inadvertently through a man dying "very suddenly by him," and this would bring to an end the days of his consecration. So it is with a Christian: sin is viewed as a possibility, not as necessary; even as we read, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the whole world" (1 John 2:1-2). There is no provision for wilful sin, but a sin offering for a sin of inadvertence.

Contacts with those who are dead in trespasses and sins, which are not according to the will of God, defile the Christian. This does not mean our refusing all inter-course with the men of this world, but, like our Master, seeking in converse with them to bring to them the grace of God. Peter would have refused to eat with the Gentiles, but God gave him a vision to take away his natural prejudice as a Jew, and Paul had to withstand him to the face when the old prejudice reasserted itself. But the Christian is not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers (2 Cor. 6:14-18), but to be separate, "and touch not the unclean," the men of this world in their unholy associations from which God, in His grace, has called us to be His "sons and daughters."

Some Christians think lightly of worldly associations, but God does not. To be defiled by a man dying suddenly by a Nazarite might seem to some as rather harsh, but with God it was sin; and the defiled Nazarite had seven days in which to reflect on this while awaiting the day of his cleansing. God, in His grace, made provision for one defiled inadvertently, and He has made provision for our defilement by sin, even as it is written, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).

To mark his consecration to Jehovah, the Nazarite was not to allow a razor to come upon his head, he was to "let the locks of the hair of his head grow" all the days of his separation unto the Lord. Scripture says, "Does not even nature itself teach you, that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?" (1 Cor. 11:14); but the Nazarite accepted this shame that he might be in separation for the pleasure of God. In the same part of Scripture we read that the long hair of a woman "is given her for a covering," to mark her place of subjection. The Christian, following his Master, is content with a path of reproach and shame, being in all things subject to the will of the Lord.

The divine glory of the Son of God is presented to us in the Song of Songs, where His head is of "the most fine gold;" but His true Manhood is depicted in His flowing locks that are "black as the raven" (v. 11). There we see Him as the True Nazarite in Manhood, subject in all things to the will of God. As Man He willingly bore all the reproach and shame in a path of rejection by men, so that God might be glorified where every other man had dishonoured Him. There was no breakdown in His Nazariteship, for He completed His course in this world as the "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners" (Heb. 7:26), perfect in all His relations with men, and in every moment pleasurable to His God and Father. He could not be defiled by death: none could die suddenly by Him; indeed, death was compelled to release its victims at His word.

There were seven days before an Israelite who had come into contact with death could be cleansed, and it was the same for the Nazarite, who probably received the same double sprinkling, mentioned in Numbers 19:19, and also had to wash his clothes and bathe his flesh. With the Nazarite there was an "eighth day," a new beginning, when he brought his sin offering and his burnt offering to the priest at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

Each day for the Christian is an "eighth day," when the head is consecrated to the Lord, and the heart is engaged with His work for us upon the cross, which has taken away all our sins and given us perfect acceptance before God. The door of the tabernacle was the nearest place of approach for the Nazarite of old, but we have "boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus." At all times we can enter the immediate presence of God to commune with Him, and to be occupied with the glory that shines unveiled in the face of Jesus.

Although the Nazarite had failed, he was to "consecrate unto the Lord the days of his separation," for God has delight in those who seek to live for Him in this world, and that in spite of their weaknesses and failures. The lamb of the trespass offering gives the assurance before God that all His claims have been met in regard to our failures, and that our relations with Him rest on the perfection of the work of His own Son.

We are reminded in the closing words of verse 12 that our failures, though not altering God's disposition towards us, or detracting from His pleasure in anything of Christ in our lives, bring to us spiritual loss: "but the days that were before shall be lost, because his separation was defiled." There is great spiritual gain in keeping in the path of separation, with Christ as the object before us; and spiritual loss to those who give up the path of separation for some other path that does not demand the same spiritual exercise of heart before God, and constant dependence upon Him.

The Law of the Nazarite

It need hardly be said that the Christian does not make vows. These belong to the legal system in which God was dealing with man in the flesh; but in the type there is precious divine teaching for our learning through which God would have us to profit. Although vows belong to the legal system of Judaism, the devotedness expressed in the vow should mark the Christian at all times, knowing that Christ died for all, "that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again" (2 Cor. 5:15).

There came the day when the vow of the Nazarite was ended, when his path of shame was over, and when he could have his pleasure to the full. So it will be with the Christian at the coming of the Lord. During our sojourn in this world we are called upon to deny ourselves the pleasures of those around us that belong to the man after the flesh, and in subjection to God's will share the place of Christ's rejection, bearing His reproach. When the Lord comes all that will be over, and we shall have our joy with Him in the glory of His kingdom, and in the deep, eternal joys of the Father's house. Even now, while waiting for the eternal joys of heaven, our joy can be full, but as having Christ's joy, and in the circle of his own (John 15:11; 1 John 1:4).

In Numbers 6:13 it is written, "When the days of his separation are fulfilled." There came the time when Christ, the True Nazarite had fulfilled the days of His separation, when "the hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father" (John 13:1); and for Him it was the time of "offering Himself without spot to God" (Heb. 9:14). All the offerings of the Nazarite, the he-lamb for a burnt offering, the ewe-lamb for a sin offering, and the ram "without blemish for peace offerings," had their fulfilment in the great work of the cross.

The basket of unleavened bread also speaks of Him, in all that He was for God in Manhood in this world. The fine flour mingled with oil depicting the perfection of Christ's Manhood as come into the world by the operation of the Spirit, the Spirit of God permeating all that He was in His holy nature as "the holy thing" born of the Virgin. The unleavened bread anointed with oil presenting Jesus as the anointed Man here for God's pleasure to carry out all His will. The meat offering offered with the burnt and peace offerings surely telling us that the offering up of Christ on the cross carried with it the sweet savour of all that He was for God's pleasure in His life of devotion and perfection; and the drink offerings that God had His joy in His Son at all times, whether in life or in death.

In the application of this type to ourselves, our blessing, in being brought into the scene where the days of our separation are over, is based on the work of the Lord Jesus, as seen in the sin offering and the burnt offering; and our communion now, as in the coming day, is in the fellowship of God's Son, based upon His death.

The burnt offering is a "he lamb of the first year," like the "continual burnt-offering," of Exodus 29:38; that which so blessedly brings before us what Christ's death was for God in all its fragrance and perfections.

The sin offering was not a male, as were the sin offerings on the day of atonement, but a female as in Numbers 19, where it is man's state that is in question rather than his position. For the peace or communion offering it was a ram, like the ram of consecration of Leviticus 8, which brings before us our communion with each other and with God through the work of Christ.

On the day his separation was over the Nazarite was to "shave the head of his separation at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall take the hair of the head of his separation, and put it in the fire which is under the sacrifice of the peace offerings." Do we not see in this the day when the Lord Jesus finished His path of separation, and entered into the joy of His Father's presence? The long hair which denoted His path of shame is removed, and, like the peace offering, it is put in the fire that consumed the offerings "of a sweet savour unto the Lord."

How delightful to God was the path of separation of Jesus. It bore the same character as His work upon the cross; and in the cross there was not only the great work of atonement, but the perfections of Him that had glorified God in His path, even unto death. God will never forget the work of His Son in death, nor will He ever forget that He was the True Nazarite during His earthly sojourn, eschewing all of pleasure here to bring infinite pleasure and satisfaction to the heart of His God and Father.

Nor does God forget the separate path of His people; the walk of those who have forsaken this world and its joys that they might bear the character of His Son, sharing the outside place with Him, "bearing His reproach," while waiting to share with Him the place into which He has entered before the face of His Father. The fire that consumed the hair was under the communion offering, the offering in which we have part, as feeding upon the death of Christ in communion with God and with each other.

The offering priest had his portion as also his own part in the law of the Nazarite. He had to offer the sacrifices (v. 16, 17), and to wave the wave offering before the Lord. Normally it was the breast that was waved before Jehovah, but here it is "the sodden shoulder," of the peace offering, with an unleavened cake and an unleavened wafer. What the priest is about to feed upon is waved before God, for God finds pleasure in His priests feeding upon the Christ who glorified Him in life and death.

Christ's strength was manifested in the place where He was crucified in weakness: it was His strength that sustained Him in the hour that He bore judgment for us, and glorified God in relation to our sins. Does not the sodden shoulder tell us that that divine strength, made known in Christ's death, is available to us through the word of God? It is as we feed upon the word that we feed upon the strength of Christ, manifested, and made available for us, upon the cross.

But Christ was not only the victim, He was also the Offering Priest. He did not properly enter into His priesthood until He rose from the dead and entered heaven; it is in heaven that He is Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. Nevertheless, on the cross He had the character of the Offering Priest, when "He offered Himself without spot to God" by the Eternal Spirit (Heb. 9:14). And He is also the portion of the offering priest, having the privilege to wave before His God and Father that which He knew was for His pleasure in His life and death. He too delights in what He accomplished for His father and for the blessing of those who are blessed through Him.

This wave offering was "holy for the priest, with the wave breast and heave shoulder." Paul delighted to speak of the love of Christ for himself (Gal. 2:20), for the saints (Eph. 5:2), and for the church (Eph. 5:25); and it is our privilege to wave the love of Christ in the presence of God, as we surely do when met together at the Lord's Supper; and as also to heave the shoulder speaking of the One who ascended after having descended into the lower parts of the earth, and who, in the might of His strength, led captivity captive, and will soon fill all things (Eph. 4:9-11; Col. 2:15).

It was not until the offerings had been offered, and the priests had waved the wave offering before Jehovah that the Nazarite was allowed to drink wine. Was not this before the Lord on the night He instituted the Supper, when He said, "I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom"? (Matt. 26:29). He must enter into death, offering the offerings ordained of God, before He can have the joy with His own that belongs to another world.

For himself, there is the joy of the Father's presence, even as He said in spirit in Psalm 16, "In Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore" (Ps. 16:11). His joy is full as having been received by the Father with the work He gave Him to do forever accomplished. And we can have our joy even now, the joy He left with His own before He left them, and joy in communion with Him where He is in the Father's presence.

But our present joy is not from this world; our joy belongs to the scene into which the Lord has entered; and we wait to have our full joy with Him in His Father's kingdom. Today, for the saints of God, there is joy and sorrow mingling; joy in the company of the Lord, and, like the disciples, "rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His Name" (Acts 5:41). But the days of suffering shame will soon be over; the hair of the Nazarites will be burnt, and the only joy that will be theirs will be that shared with the Lord Jesus in His kingdom, and in the kingdom of His Father.

Although the path of the Lord Jesus as the Nazarite is over; He has still chosen the place of subjection, even as it is written, "When all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all" (1 Cor. 15:28); but this is the answer to another type, even that of the Hebrew servant in Exodus 21, who said plainly, "I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free" (Ex. 21:5). In love for His Father, and for those whom the Father has given to Him, the Son of God has chosen to take the subject place for evermore.

May the Lord enable us to apprehend His mind regarding the Nazarite, whether as seen in its perfection in His own Son, or as applicable to ourselves; so that we may be content to walk in the path of separation marked out for us by the steps of Jesus, and to wait for our part with Him in the deep, eternal joys of His Father's House.

(Revised Notes of a Reading with H. Taberner.)