uences of his state of positive consecration. Nor
id his vow compel him to withdraw from fellow-
ship with his fellow-men ; there is nothing in the OT to indicate that the Nazirites generally either lived apart by themselves or in guilds like ‘the sons of the prophets.’ The Nazirite was originally a zealot for the national religion ; he was one that had devoted himself to the service of Jehovah and His people. The service to which his vow called him might be very manifold: now it might possibly be to spend much of his time in prayer or in the service of the sanctuary, or to protest against current evils by a life of asceticism; and now it might be to fight the nation’s foes or to rule the nation as judge. Whatever the service might be, he was regarded as a special instrument whereby God worked on behalf of His people. Samson, as being a Nazirite, is to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines (Jg 13°); he achieves his various exploits because the Spirit of the Lord moved him or came mightily upon him (Jg 13% 145. 8 154); and Amos (2) regards it as a mark of God’s grace towards Israel that He not only raised up prophets from among their sons, but also from among their young men Nazirites, who by their abstinence from wine protested against the sensu- ality that evidently abounded so greatly in the northern kingdom during the reign of Jeroboam IL. ‘The temporary Nazirate afterwards became a purely private asceticism, which the individual vowed to God in order to secure the fulfilment of Perhaps the early Nazirites ae for themselves in
this or that desire. also hoped to obtain somet
500 NAZIRITE
NAZIRITE
return for their abstinence. But above everything they served the whole community ; they sought to exhibit, both for Israel and for Jehovah, the true nature of Israel. They felt themselves impelled to do so, after the manner of the prophets, by the Spirit of Jehovah. They did not thereby acquire any merit for themselves; it was a oak of the pa of Jehovah to His people, that He raised up
azirites’ (Smend 3, p. 95 f.).
It must not be assumed that the Nazirites were necessarily saintly men, in the modern sense of thatexpression. Their consecration to J” certainly implied a separation in several respects from ordinary secular life; but they might nevertheless be men of a very secular spirit. In speaking of them, we must therefore guard against using exaggerated language. It must Eats forgotten however, that Amos, who had a very ethical conception of J”, says that they were raised up by the Lord (24), and regards it as a grievous sin on the part of the Israelites that they tempted them to break their vow (v.”). It may safely be in- ferred from this that the Nazirites known to him personally or from tradition were men of real moral worth, good gifts of God to His sinful but beloved people.
From the circumstance that the restrictions imposed upon the Nazirites were similar to those imposed upon the priests, and especially upon the high priest, it has been often inferred that the former represented the idea of the priestly life. But there is no positive evidence in support of this inference. Amos does not class them along with the priests, but with the prophets; we do not hear of their ever discharging priestly functions ;* and the similarity of the restrictions in the two cases is sufficiently explained by the fact that Nazirites and priests were alike specially consecrated persons. The former were men in whom (at least in early times) ‘ the characteristic spirit of Israel expressed itself most clearly and most uniquely’ (Schultz).
The Nazirites were doubtless more numerous than the few notices of them in the OT might lead us to suppose. Am 2" and the Rechabites show that they were found both in Israel and in Judah down to a late period in the history of both kingdoms. After the Return from the Exile the institution flourished again, and naturally, considering the strictly legal character of post- exilic Judaism, in the form prescribed by the law in Nu 6. They are mentioned in 1 Mac 3” and also in Josephus (BJ U. xv. 1, Ant. XIX. vi. 1). We also hear of 300 Nazirites being to- gether, and finding difficulty in providing the sacrifices required at the expiry of their period of separation, in the time of Alexander Janneus. By this time, however, the Nazirate had lost its old significance, and had become a purely private asceticism. The vow was generally taken in times of sickness or other trouble, or when one was making a journey; it was looked on as a means whereby one might secure the fulfilment of some wish, or escape some feared danger. ‘I shall become a Nazirite, if such and such a thing happen,’ became a common formula of asseveration ; and this formula was abused so as to compel some against their will to become Nazirites. The scribes also exercised their ingenuity upon the law in Nu 6, developing it more fully, rendering it more precise, and bringing it into complete harmony with the historical instances. They disallowed a Nazirite vow for a shorter period than 30 days; they distinguished between the lifelong Nazirate in accordance with the law, and that after the manner of Samson; the former permitted the Nazirite to cut his hair from time to time (after