Abstract:
The present work intends to investigate the concept of blessing in the Old Testament,
especially in the Pentateuch. The first part analyzes the general characteristics of the
term to bless / blessing in the Hebrew Bible and looks at the etymology, the
semantic field, the formulas, the gestures, rites and words of blessing. As blessing is
the continuous and permanent activity of God in history, the chapter finishes with the
concept of history in the ancient world. The second chapter makes an incursion into
the characteristics of the ancient biblical society in the two big periods of pre-state
Israel and Israel as a state. It studies the nomadic pre-history and the pre-state
sedentary Israel paying particular attention to the social organization in families,
clans and tribes. In the state period, it gives attention to the Deuteronomic reform and
its consequences in the social and religious life of Israel. The third chapter presents
the exegesis of selected texts. In the primeval history it looks at blessing in creation,
and in the patriarchal history it searches for the strokes of blessing in the family and
state context. It also deals with the priestly blessing in Numbers 6,22-27 with special
attention to the cult, and with selected texts from Deuteronomy that connect blessing
with covenant and endow it with conditionality. The last chapter presents a reflection
about family religion and state religion in Israel, and studies the characteristics of
blessing in both fields that interrelate not always without tensions- and articulate
between them.
