“You Can Have What You Want or Something Better”–Come Follow Me Podcast #20: Num. 11-14, 20-24
Scot
Welcome to Meridian Magazine’s Come, Follow Me podcast. We are Scot and Maurine Proctor and we are delighted to be with you today. We’re going to be studying Numbers chapters 11 through 14, and chapters 20 through 24.
Now this is the only opportunity we have to study the Book of Numbers in the Come, Follow Me curriculum. And I was thinking, Maurine, about something that we have seen a number of times in Israel that is one of the most exciting things, I think, that’s ever been discovered. It’s called the Priestly Blessing, and it is located in the sixth chapter of Numbers verses 25, I believe, to 28. But the thing that was fun about this, this was only discovered in 1979 and the archaeologist who discovered it—well, it wasn’t really him who discovered it—but Gabriel Barkay was kind of working in the Hinnom area, the southern part of the valley of Hinnom, just south of Jerusalem. And he didn’t have any budget at all. And so, he was employing 12- and 13-year-old boys to work with him. And one of the boy’s names was Nathan and he had a hammer that he just happened to find.
And Professor Barkay was kind of saying, ‘would you kind of go on your way, maybe go over in that tomb over there and just work a little bit’ and he didn’t realize he had a hammer. So, he got kind of bored and he started pounding on the floor of this of this tomb and he broke a hole in it and he brought a perfectly preserved pot over to the professor to the archaeologist and they found that there is this repository of all these sacred items.
And one of them was the priestly blessing from numbers and it was 2800 years old. So, it became, and is to this day, as far as I understand, the oldest scriptural text that we have. It dates to 800 B.C. And it’s so exciting, because oftentimes they will have a display in the Israel Museum.
So, of course, that priestly blessing–it’s actually versus 24 to 26—”The Lord bless thee and keep thee,” you recognize these verses, “the Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace.” We’re all familiar with this. But there it is on this silver scroll, rolled up in a very tight thing that was found back in 1979. It’s one of the great treasures of Israel. Now we have a special guest with us today.
Maurine
Yes, John Hilton III was born in San Francisco and grew up in Seattle. He served a mission in Denver and got a Bachelor’s Degree from Brigham Young University. While there, he met his wife Lani and they have six children. They have lived in Boise, Boston, Miami, Mexico, Jerusalem and China
John has a Master’s Degree from Harvard and a PhD from BYU, both in education, and he is a professor of religious education at Brigham Young University. John has published several books with Deseret Book, including Considering the Cross: How Calvary Connects Us with Christ. He is also the author of the video course and podcast, Seeking Jesus. And we run that podcast on Meridian every weekend. We just love it. We look forward to it when we see it. So, we’re so glad to have you here today.
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