I have, occasionally, been accused of various sorts of musical snobbery – and anyone who has read much of this blog will understand that it is written by someone with taste tending usually towards the high-brow. So, to go counter to type, let us consider John Rutter and his anthem ‘The Lord bless you and keep you’, written in in 1981 and published in an anthology of ‘Easy Anthems’ from OUP.

The music flows gently, and is relatively easy on the singers – and not even too bad for the organist (though also available in orchestral and piano-accompanied versions) making use of slightly varied repetitions with single voices echoed by multiple, and an extended Amen.

The text is the Aaronic blessing from Numbers 6, important in various forms as a benediction. It is also, probably, the earliest attested text that became part of the Bible: amulets with this blessing have been found from the Iron age levant, suggesting that it was used as an apotropaic device at a very early stage in the development of what became Yahwistic religion.

While any invocation for the Lord’s protection might be a comfort, there is something significant about invoking the presence of the divinity by referring not only to His countenance (literally his face, פניו) but the light of His countenance – in Rutter’s text; in the Hebrew has a verbal form of אוֹר (light) to be rendered something like cause His face to shine. It reminds us that Moses coming out from the presence of the Lord had a face which itself shone (not, pace Jerome, with horns…) reflecting the light of the Lord’s countenance.

There is, in the musical setting, also a sense when the voices multiply, that the blessing pronounced by the singular voice goes out and is echoed and multiplied by the people so blessed. This ancient benediction is still a forceful making presence of the Lord, living and active, to His people; let us pray that the light of His countenance continues to shine, especially into places of darkness and brokenness in this world of His creation.

If our lives can reflect even a small proportion of the dazzling light of His countenance, then we may be thought to be living well.