Numbers 6:24-26

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“The Lord bless you, and keep you: the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious unto you: the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.”

Some have asserted that these verses support the trinity simply because “the Lord” (in italics) is recorded three times. As silly as this is, it deserves some attention because it is the kind of passage trinitarians use to support their teaching.

Besides the fact that the New Testament does not, in fact, offer anything that helps bring the trinity to light in the Old Testament, another problem is that verses like these are used to confuse the symbolism associated with the number three. Throughout Scripture, we see a pattern of three used to denote completion of time and events—never in reference to God.

Consider these. God uses three annual Holy Day seasons to depict His Plan of salvation (Deut. 16:16), punctuated by three resurrections (I Thes. 4:16; Rev. 20:5-15). Jonah was in the belly of a great fish three days and three nights (Jonah 1:17). Christ pointed to Jonah, giving as the only sign that He was the Messiah the fact that He would be three days and three nights in the grave (Matt. 12:39-40). Notice that these are all time-related events!

Merely because Numbers 6:24-26 references three things that the Lord does, trinitarian theologians and scholars actually claim this verse as one “proof” that even ancient Israel supposedly recognized a triune godhead.

Before we explain why they believe this, ask yourself if you see any part of this passage espousing a triune godhead? Of course not! And notice that it is “the Lord,” not the Father or the Holy Spirit, who is mentioned in all three places.

Then consider this: How can theologians attest that ancient Israel believed in the trinity when they later rejected Christ, accusing Him of blasphemy when He claimed to be God’s Son? And, as Acts 19:2 states of a group of Jews that had been baptized by John the Baptist, that they had not even “so much as heard whether there be any Holy Spirit.” If ancient Israel as a whole had recognized (in form or principle) the existence of the Holy Spirit as a third member of a supposed triune godhead, it makes no sense that these Jews could have no knowledge of it whatsoever?

Under thorough examination, such “proofs” disintegrate.

If belief in a trinity had been at the core of ancient Israel’s worship of God, and if Numbers 6:24-26 is a blueprint for it, why is this passage not explicit? If Numbers 6 constitutes a supposed trinitarian “deific formula,” as some assert, why would God hide its meaning in a cryptic and coded message, instead of clearly showing three members of the godhead in this passage? Further, phrased another way, in light of the all-important First Commandment—“You shall have no other gods before Me”—why would God leave such unnecessary mystery surrounding His supposed triune nature—and correct identity as the only true God—by using these kinds of obscure passages to send so-called “messages” to His followers?

He would not!