The Priestly Blessing, Still Spoken Today

Naso's threefold priestly blessing (Numbers 6:24-26) is among the oldest continuously used texts in Judaism, a version was found inscribed on silver amulets from the seventh century BCE, the earliest known biblical text, and it is still pronounced by the priests (kohanim) in the synagogue and by parents over their children on Shabbat. As the longest parashah, it is often read on the Shabbat after Shavuot.

The silver amulets discovered at Ketef Hinnom near Jerusalem, dated by most archaeologists to the late seventh or early sixth century BCE, inscribed with a version of the priestly blessing, are widely cited as the earliest known artefact preserving a biblical text, predating the Dead Sea Scrolls by several centuries and offering rare material confirmation that this specific formula was already in liturgical use before the Babylonian exile. The blessing's threefold structure, each line longer than the one before, is read by rabbinic commentary as building in intensity, from simple divine blessing and protection, to the shining of God's face, to the ultimate gift of peace. Its continued use both in the formal priestly blessing recited by kohanim in the synagogue and in the widespread custom of parents placing hands on children's heads to recite it on Friday evenings gives Naso's central text a domestic as well as institutional liturgical life spanning well over two and a half thousand years of continuous use.