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Considerable difference of opinion exists among lexicographers as to the connection
between Nazareth and the word Nazarite. Although etymologically the likeness is
accidental and not real, who can avoid comparison of the two estimates--man's and
God's--expressed in the two following inscriptions?
"And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, Jesus of
Nazareth, the King of the Jews" (John 19: 19).
"And they made the plate of the holy crown (nezer) of pure gold, and wrote upon it a
writing . . . . . Holiness to the Lord" (Exod. 39: 30).
Man called Him the Nazarene: God saw in Him the true, anointed, separated, and
devoted Nazarite.
Just as anyone, a man or a woman, could take the Nazarite vow without usurping the
priesthood, so to-day sanctification and Christ-likeness are open to all without in any
sense encroaching upon the exclusive glory of the risen Lord.
The Nazarite's separation to the Lord was to be manifested in three connections
(Numb. 6: 3-6):--
(1) ABSTIENENCE FROM THE PRODUCT OF THE VINE.--"Wine, strong drink,
vinegar of wine, vinegar of strong drink, liquor of grapes, dried grapes. Anything
made from the vine, from the kernels even to the husk."
(2) ABSTINENCE FROM CUTTING THE HAIR.--"All the days of the vow of his
separation there shall no razor come upon his head: until the days be fulfilled, in the
which he separateth himself unto the Lord, he shall be holy, and shall let the locks of
the hair of his head grow."
(3) ABSTINENCE FROM CONTACT WITH THE DEAD.--"All the days that he
separateth himself unto the Lord, he shall come at no dead body."
In no circumstances was the Nazarite allowed to break the last rule. It could not be
relaxed even for father, mother, brother or sister, when they died, and if it should happen
that someone suddenly died at their side, the number of days already passed were
considered lost, the head of his consecration was defiled, he had to shave his head, offer
sin offering, burnt offering and trespass offering, and begin again.
While Scripture warns against some kinds of wine, it commends others, and, apart
from wine altogether, grapes are most wholesome and good for food. Here then is the
principle of voluntary abstinence from things innocent in themselves, which finds its
parallel in the pilgrim path of the believer to-day:--
"And they that use this world, as not using it to the full" (I Cor. 7: 31).
"Let your moderation be known to all men" (Phil. 4: 5).
Jeremiah, lamenting the downfall of Israel, says: "Her Nazarites were purer than
snow, they were whiter than milk" (Lam. 4: 7), and calls upon Jerusalem to act like the
Nazarite who had become defiled, whose days of separation were lost. "Cut off thine
hair (nezer), O Jerusalem, and cast it away" (Jer. 7: 29). The Nazarite who had fulfilled
his vows offered his hair to the Lord, and it was put into the fire under the peace