As move into Numbers, it starts with some of the same kind of difficult and tedious material we had in Exodus (we’ll get to some narrative soon). In the meantime, chapter six ends with a bright spot: the Aaronic blessing:

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them,

• The LORD bless you and keep you;
• the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
• the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

“So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.” (Numbers 6.22 – 27, ESV, bulleted for clarity)

When I read it, I said to myself, we probably ought to be blessing each other like this more than we do. I also thought, I’ll bet there’s a New Testament counterpart to this blessing. And, I was right. Right after I read it Christianity Today came out with an article linking the blessing with the way Paul opened his epistles. It opens:

In many parts of the world today, it is normal to begin by asking about the well-being of the recipient’s whole family; in the individualistic West, that is much less common. Our greetings communicate more than we realize.

One of the most striking examples of this in history, and certainly the most theologically significant, is in Paul’s epistles. In the first-century Greco-Roman world, letters opened in a standard format. You would give your name, then the name or names of whomever you were addressing, and then a one-word greeting: “Hilarion, to his sister Alis, many greetings.” Several letters in the New Testament follow this pattern exactly (Acts 15:23; 23:26; James 1:1).

But Paul (and subsequently Peter) developed a modified introduction. After identifying himself and the church he was addressing, he would offer “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” – Paul Put His Own Stamp on the Ancient Pattern of Opening and Closing Letters, Andrew Wilson, August 14, 2023

I checked: of 13 epistles (we don’t know who wrote Hebrews), 8 of them use those words exactly: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Three more have something very close, one leaves out Jesus, and his first epistle (we’re told), 1 Thessalonians, says only, “Grace to you and peace.” So all 13 say, “Grace and peace” in that order.

Mr Wilson makes the connection to the Aaronic blessing:

But there is another layer to the “Grace and peace” introduction. It looks very much like a deliberate reworking of Aaron’s blessing in Numbers 6:24–26. For over a thousand years, Israel’s priests had blessed the people by asking that God would “make his face shine” upon them, “be gracious” to them, “turn his face” toward them, and give them “peace.” By starting all his letters with grace and peace from God and the Lord Jesus, Paul appears to be condensing and Christianizing the Aaronic blessing. God still wants to “bless” and “keep” his people, but now the blessing includes Gentile believers, and it comes from God the Son as well as God the Father.

I’ll close with it:

• The LORD bless you and keep you;
• the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
• the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

The Lord…be gracious to you…and give you peace. (Numbers 6.25, 26)

Grace to you and peace.

(Romans 1.7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1.2, Galatians 1.3, Ephesians 1.2, Philippians 1.2, Colossians 1.2, 1 Thessalonians 1.2, 2 Thessalonians 1.2, 1 Timothy 1.2, 2 Timothy 1.2, Titus 1.4, Philemon 1.3)