2. should anyone act exceptionally. Much of the biblical view of the institution of the nazir depends on the interpretation of the verb yafliʾ that is used here. Some modern commentators make it relatively neutral by claiming that, in conjunction with “vow,” it merely means to state the vow expressly. The philological evidence, however, for this technical sense of the verb is slender, as Baruch Levine argues. Some medieval commentators, whom Levine follows, understand it as a synonymous reinforcer of the reiterated verb hazir, “to set apart,” assuming that the root p-l-ʾ is an orthographic variant of p-l-h, which does mean “to set apart” or “to distinguish.” But the common biblical use of the verbal stem p-l-ʾ is in the sense of performing a wonder or acting in a way that is profuse or extraordinary (thus Abraham ibn Ezra). If that is the most likely meaning, then the biblical legislator sees the person who assumes these obligations of self-restriction as doing something extraordinary. Whether this extraordinary act is viewed with admiration or suspicion is not entirely clear.

a nazirite vow. A nazir or nazirite is “someone set apart” (compare Joseph’s blessing, Genesis 49:26, “the one set apart from his brothers,” nezir ʾeḥaw). The word is a phonetic and etymological relative of the word that immediately follows it, neder, “vow.”

3. from both wine and strong drink. The second of these two terms, shekhar, clearly derives from the verb meaning “to intoxicate,” but it is not clear what sort of intoxicant it may have been. Some understand it as a form of ale, but Levine rightly questions whether any kind of fermented grain would have been allowed on the altar. The Targum of Onkelos renders yayin weshekhar as “new wine and old wine,” and since the restrictions on the nazirite are almost obsessively focused on anything connected with grapes, this understanding has a certain plausibility. Or, it might well be grappa.

5. the days come to term. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “the days are filled.”

7. the crown of his God is on his head. The Hebrew turns on a pun: nezer is a common word for “crown,” but in context it also means “naziritehood.” The abundance of uncut hair, crowning the head of the vow taker, is, as the visible manifestation of his vow (neder), also a synecdoche for his naziritehood. Thus, in verse 9, “his nazirite head” could also be rendered as “the crown of his head.”

12. and the first days shall fall away. That is, the days until the moment he defiled himself by contact with the corpse are to be canceled, and he must begin anew the count of days of the period he has vowed to be a nazirite.

14. an offense offering. What offense (ḥataʾt) has he committed? The consensus of medieval and modern commentators is that by now removing his person from the realm of the consecrated to the ordinary realm of the profane, he is taking something away from God and so must make an offense offering. An antithetical construction is also possible: this “acting exceptionally” to set oneself apart for holiness, renouncing the pleasures of wine and letting one’s hair grow long, expresses a kind of presumption, an aspiration to spiritual superiority, and thus is an offense.

20. elevate them as an elevation offering. This was a performative act of gesturing that formally conveyed what was elevated to God’s jurisdiction. Practically, this meant that it was conveyed to God’s agent, the priest.

21. besides what his hand may attain. The sacrifice just stipulated is the constitutive obligation of the nazirite vow. If the person who makes the vow has the means and desire to pledge more than this as an offering, he is free to do so.

23. Thus shall you bless the Israelites. This cadenced threefold blessing came to play a central liturgical role for both Jews and Christians, and probably began to serve that function even in the biblical period. Remarkable for its rhetorical stateliness and its emphatic use of repetition and overlapping terms, it is not, in strictly formal terms, a poem, but it does exhibit a remarkable degree of formal organization. Jacob Milgrom aptly characterizes its three clauses as embodying “a rising crescendo of 3, 5, and 7 words, respectively”; and this pattern, he goes on to observe, is coordinated with the number of stressed syllables (3, 5, and 7), and the total number of syllables (12, 14, and 16). A nearly identical version of this blessing was found on two silver filigree amulets in a burial cave at a site called Kateph Hinnom, in Jerusalem, in 1980. The amulets have been dated to the seventh century or early sixth century B.C.E. The version of the blessing on the amulets is somewhat abbreviated, which has led some scholars to conclude that they register the “original” text. It seems more plausible, however, that the text was abbreviated in order to fit it on the small amulets: the shortened form does not preserve the just mentioned formal elegance of the version in our text. Levine speculates that the prayer to be favored and guarded by God may have been applied, given the fact that Kateph Hinnom was a burial place, to safeguarding in the underworld, though that is hardly the original intention of the blessing.

25. light up His face to you. In biblical idiom, the shining of the face (or eyes) toward someone is a showing of favor or affection. Lifting up the face has the same meaning.

27. and I Myself shall bless them. The device of emphasis—the insertion of the first-person pronoun ʾani before the conjugated verb, which because of its conjugation would normally make the pronoun superfluous—is not reflected in most translations. It is particularly important here because it underscores the idea of God’s special relationship with Israel: after the pronouncing of the threefold blessing, God’s name, a kind of divine proprietorship, will be set over Israel, and God Himself will carry out the blessing.