What does it mean to bless, exactly?

To speak well of. The English word translates the Greek *eulogein* — *eu*, well; *logos*, word — and the Latin *benedicere*, which says the same thing. Blessing is therefore not first a feeling or a vague good wish: it is something spoken over someone, naming their good before God.

What is the difference between blessing God and being blessed by God?

The same word runs both ways, but it does not do the same work. When God blesses, he gives — keeping, presence, peace (Numbers 6:24-26). When we bless God, we add nothing to what he is: we say back what is already true of him. That is why blessing and thanksgiving sit so close together.

Do you have to be a priest to bless?

No. The blessing of Numbers 6 is entrusted to the priests, and some liturgical blessings are reserved to an ordained minister. But Scripture asks every believer to bless — "bless those who curse you" (Luke 6:28) — and a parent blessing a child, or one friend blessing another, is a very old Christian practice.

Can you bless someone you do not like?

That is the one case the New Testament insists on. Blessing commits your mouth, not your affection: "bless those who persecute you" (Romans 12:14) assumes precisely that the feeling is missing. You begin by speaking well, and sometimes you end up meaning it.

What does it mean to bless? The word in the Bible

It is one of the most used words in religious English, and one of the vaguest. A birth is a blessing, a summer was blessed, someone has been blessed in life. Used that way long enough, the word ends up meaning lucky.

That is not what it says. And its real meaning is far more workable than its blurred one.

To bless is to speak well of

The Greek gives it away: eulogein is built from eu, well, and logos, word. The Latin benedicere — from which we get benediction — says exactly the same thing. A blessing is, first of all, an act of speech.

That changes everything. Blessing is not an inner state, nor a kindly emotion you must manufacture before opening your mouth. It is something you say. And unlike what you feel, what you say is something you decide.

The same word in both directions

In the Bible, blessing travels both ways. The word stays the same while the gesture does not.

When God blesses, he gives. The most precise text on what that blessing actually contains is the formula entrusted to the priests in the wilderness:

The Lord bless you, and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine on you, and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his face toward you, and give you peace.

— Numbers 6:24-26 (World English Bible)

Read the list again. Not one promise of wealth, of success, of an easy life. What is asked for is keeping, a face turned towards you, grace, peace. Biblical blessing is not a bonus added to a life; it is a presence guaranteed inside a life that may well be hard. A great many people believe themselves unblessed because they are comparing their situation to a catalogue the Bible never wrote.

When we bless God — “bless the Lord”, says the psalm — the gesture reverses without changing its name. We add nothing to him: we say back what is true of him. Which is why blessing and giving thanks sit so close together. In both cases the work is to say out loud something you had merely noticed.

One mouth, two uses

That leaves the third direction, the one that concerns us most: blessing another person. Here a New Testament letter makes an observation almost too accurate to be comfortable.

With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men who are made in the image of God. Out of the same mouth comes blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

— James 3:9-10 (World English Bible)

Out of the same mouth. James is not pointing out an inconsistency of doctrine but an inconsistency of equipment: the same apparatus serves on Sunday and in the car. And he does not ask you to feel better about people — he asks you to watch what comes out.

Cursing, here, does not mean casting a spell. It means speaking ill: the line you let drop about someone absent, the portrait you paint of them when they cannot hear it, the version in which they are in the wrong. Nobody feels solemn doing it, and that is the trouble. Ordinary cursing is talkative; ordinary blessing is silent.

What this settles, in practice

Seeing that blessing is an act of speech solves the most common difficulty. We assume you must feel goodwill before you have the right to say it. The opposite is what is asked, and it is more honest: praying for someone who hurt you begins with a sentence said without being meant. “Bless those who persecute you” (Romans 12:14) would make no sense if the condition were the feeling; nobody would ever manage it.

Here is a short prayer, written for this page.

Lord, teach me to speak well. There are names my mouth closes over, and others I say nothing about because I take them for granted. Let me speak before I feel, and then come to want what I have said. Let what I pronounce over other people begin to resemble what You pronounce over me.

And one concrete step. Choose a person today and say one good thing over them — before God first, out loud if you can. It can be the formula of Numbers 6, word for word, with their name in place of you. It is the same gesture as carrying a loved one before God, with the difference that you are asking nothing for yourself and expecting no result.

A blessing cannot be verified. You say it, you do not know what it does, and after a while you notice it has changed the person saying it.