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As a child we sang a song at school – Count your blessings, count them one by one. We have so many blessings and often take them for granted.

There are more to blessings than just counting them. We are to give blessings to the Lord. Blessing the Lord is to give Him praise and thanks.

We often read or hear or wear a bracelet that says: Do as Jesus did or What would Jesus do?  He was and is and will be coming again as a Jew. His name was and is still Yeshua, a name we can pronounce, so we do not really need to change it. Yeshua means the Lord saves. As a Jew Yeshua knew all the Jewish blessings and used them as well. Jewish blessings are Biblical, are New Testamental and are what Yeshua did. I’d like to quote from the Complete Jewish Bible: Moreover, Yeshua is still a Jew, since he is still alive; and nowhere does Scripture say or suggest that he has stopped being Jewish.

A blessing starts typically as follows: Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe. In Hebrew: Baruck atah, Adonai Eluheinu, Meleck ha-olam. The Hebrew word for ‘bless’ is ‘baruck’ and the root meaning of ‘baruck’ is ‘to kneel’. In other words, we humble ourselves, thank and praise the Lord and acknowledge that He is our Lord and King of all. Such a blessing is much more than just a little thank you. So instead of just counting our blessings, we bless the Lord for everything coming our way throughout the day and every day. It actually makes a difference to how you perceive a day when you make a point of blessing the Lord for everything. In so doing we become more positive in outlook, we keep in touch with the Lord and we build a relationship with Him.

The first blessing in the Bible is possibly in Gen24:27 when Abraham’s servant met Rebecca after praying to meet the right woman for Isaac. “Praise be to the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not abandoned his kindness and faithfulness to my master.”

Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, also knew these blessings. In Exodus 18:10 ‘He said, “Praise be to the Lord, who rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians and of Pharoah, and who rescued the people from the hand of the Egyptians.”’

New Testament examples:

Matthew 9:8 Yeshua healed a paralytic. When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to men.

Matthew 15:31 The people were amazed when they saw the dumb speaking, the cripple made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.

Every time Yeshua took bread, gave thanks and broke it, he said something similar to Blessed is he who brings forth the bread from the earth or Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who brought forth the bread from the earth.

Beyond the Gospels, Paul must have had these blessings in mind when he said we are to give thanks to God at all times for everything. See Ephesians 5:20 – always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, and also 1 Thessalonians 5:18 – give thanks in all circumstances.

Examples of blessings can be found in a very nice website: http://www.hebrew4christians.com/

Handy ones to begin with:

Over meals: Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who by his word brings about all things.

When breaking bread: Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth the bread from the earth.

When drinking wine or grape juice: Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.

When reading the Bible: Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, who gives us the Word of truth and the Good News of Salvation.

This blessing is actually much longer. In the Complete Jewish Bible you will find this blessing in the front of the Bible: Praised are you, Adonai our God, King of the universe, who gives the Torah of truth and the Good News of salvation to his people Israel and to all the peoples through his son Yeshua the Messiah, our Lord.

Torah is what the first 5 books of the Bible is called.

I notice that the words of the blessings are not always identical.  The shorter version of ‘Blessed is he …’ is also used.

For further reading:

Sitting at the feet of Rabbi Jesus – Ann Spangles and Lois Tverberg

Blessing the King of the universe – Irene Lipson

http://www.hebrew4christians.com/