Buried Words That Outlasted Empires

In 1979, archaeologist Gabriel Barkay was excavating a burial cave at Ketef Hinnom, overlooking the Valley of Hinnom in Jerusalem. Inside a repository carved from rock, his team discovered two tiny silver scrolls, each no larger than a cigarette. When painstakingly unrolled over three years, the inscriptions stunned the scholarly world. Etched into the silver, dating to the seventh century BC, were the words of Numbers 6:24-26: "The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you."

These are the oldest surviving texts of Scripture ever found — older than the Dead Sea Scrolls by four centuries. Someone in ancient Jerusalem valued this blessing so deeply that they had it inscribed in precious metal and carried it into the grave.

Think about what that means. Kingdoms rose and crumbled. Babylon burned the Temple to ash. Exile scattered a nation. Yet those words of blessing survived, pressed into silver, buried under rubble, waiting to be spoken again.

The Aaronic Blessing was never meant to be a ritual formality. It was God telling Moses to tell Aaron, "Put My name on My people." When the priest raised his hands and spoke those words, the Almighty Himself was turning His face toward His children — promising presence, grace, and shalom that no empire could bury and no exile could silence.