Blessing

BLESSING, VALLEY OF . See Berachah, Valley of. BLIND'NESS is extremely common in the East, as all travellers in those lands observe. In Egypt especially ophthalmia prevails extensively among children and adults. The infliction of blindness was in old times a common as well as barbarous punishment or penalty of resistance to a victorious enemy. Jud 16:21; 1 Sam 11:2; 2 Kgs 25:7. There are several recorded occasions, when, as translated in A. V., God miraculously sent blindness. Gen 19:11; 2 Kgs 6:18; Acts 9:8; Acts 13:11. In these incidents there was not so much an actual, though transient, loss of vision as a confusion of sight — perhaps really a mental confusion, which gave all the uncertainty of actual blindness, as in Luke 24:16. The word ''blindness" is likewise employed in a spiritual sense as meaning the sinner's inability to recognize divine truth; e.g. Rom 11:25; Eph 4:18. BLOOD is the fluid of life in the animal body. Ex 29:12. Its use was expressly prohibited to Noah when everything else was freely given him. Gen 9:4. By the Jewish law also it was expressly and solemnly forbidden. Lev 17:10, etc. The reason of this interdiction is probably because blood was sacredly appropriated. Lev 17:11. The Jewish ritual abounds with the use of blood, Heb 9:22; and the manner of employing it is stated with minuteness in Heb 9:1-10:39, where also its use and effects are shown in striking contrast with the blood shed upon the cross. See also Acts 20:28; Rom 5:9; Eph 1:7; Col 1:14; Heb 7:27; 1 John 1:7. The prohibition of eating blood or animals that are strangled has been always rigidly observed by the Jews. In the Christian Church the custom of refraining from things strangled and from blood continued for a long time. In the council of the apostles held at Jerusalem, Acts 15, it was declared that converts from paganism should not be subject to the legal ceremonies, but that they should refrain from idolatry, from fornication, from eating blood, and from such animals as were strangled and their blood thereby retained in their bodies: which precept was observed for many ages by the Church. Acts 15:20-29. The notion that the blood of the victims was peculiarly sacred to the gods is impressed on all ancient pagan mythology. See Christ. Blood, Avenger of. See Avenge, Cities of Refuge.

Part of speech: noun (n.)

1. The act of one who blesses.

2. A declaration of divine favor, or an invocation imploring divine favor on some or something; a benediction; a wish of happiness pronounces. This is the blessing, where with Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel. Deut. xxxiii. 1.

3. A means of happiness; that which promotes prosperity and welfare; a beneficent gift. Nature's full blessings would be well dispensed. Milton.

4. A gift. [A Hebraism] Gen. xxxiii. 11.

5. Grateful praise or worship.