Nazarite

The Nazirite is a person — man or woman — who, by a special vow, is set apart to Yahweh for a defined season under three concrete restrictions: no produce of the grapevine, no razor on the head, and no contact with the dead. The legislation in Numbers 6 frames the vow; the books that follow show what it looked like in actual lives — Samson and Samuel set apart from the womb, the Rechabites holding to a parallel abstinence by family oath, the prophet Amos rebuking Israel for breaking the consecrated young men, and John the Baptist reading in the New Testament as a son under the same austere pattern.

The Vow of Separation

The vow opens with Yahweh's instruction to Moses: "Speak to the sons of Israel, and say to them, When either man or woman will make a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to Yahweh" (Nu 6:2). The first restriction is dietary. The Nazirite "will separate himself from wine and strong drink; he will drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of strong drink, neither will he drink any juice of grapes, nor eat fresh grapes or dried" (Nu 6:3). The exclusion is total across the whole grape: "All the days of his separation he will eat nothing that is made of the grapevine, from the kernels even to the husk" (Nu 6:4).

The second restriction is the hair. "All the days of his vow of separation no razor will come upon his head: until the days be fulfilled, in which he separates himself to Yahweh, he will be holy; he will let the locks of the hair of his head grow long" (Nu 6:5). The unshaven head is the visible sign that the vow is in force.

The third restriction is corpse-defilement. "All the days that he separates himself to Yahweh he will not come near to a dead soul. He will not make himself unclean for his father, or for his mother, for his brother, or for his sister, when they die; because his separation to God is on his head" (Nu 6:6-7). The sentence that closes this section gives the Nazirite his standing: "All the days of his separation he is holy to Yahweh" (Nu 6:8).

Defilement and Recovery

The legislation anticipates the vow being broken not by the Nazirite's choice but by accident. "And if any man dies very suddenly beside him, and he defiles the head of his separation; then he will shave his head in the day of his cleansing, on the seventh day he will shave it" (Nu 6:9). On the eighth day he brings two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the priest, who offers one for a sin-offering and the other for a burnt-offering and "make[s] atonement for him, for that he sinned by reason of the soul, and will hallow his head that same day" (Nu 6:10-11). The previous days are voided — "the former days will be void, because his separation was defiled" (Nu 6:12) — and the count begins again, sealed with a he-lamb a year old for a trespass-offering.

Completion of the Vow

The completion ritual is the law's largest single block. "And this is the law of the Nazirite, when the days of his separation are fulfilled: he will be brought to the door of the tent of meeting" (Nu 6:13). He brings a he-lamb for a burnt-offering, an ewe-lamb for a sin-offering, a ram for peace-offerings, "and a basket of unleavened bread, cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and their meal-offering, and their drink-offerings" (Nu 6:14-15). The priest presents these and offers the ram for peace-offerings (Nu 6:16-17).

Then the hair, which has been the visible sign of the vow, is itself surrendered to the altar fire: "And the Nazirite will shave the head of his separation at the door of the tent of meeting, and will take the hair of the head of his separation, and put it on the fire which is under the sacrifice of peace-offerings" (Nu 6:18). The priest takes the boiled shoulder of the ram, an unleavened cake, and a wafer, places them on the Nazirite's hands, and waves them as a wave-offering before Yahweh (Nu 6:19-20). Only at the end, with the sign cut and burned and the offerings made, is the abstinence lifted: "and after that the Nazirite may drink wine" (Nu 6:20). The legislation closes by binding everything to what the man himself has sworn — "according to his vow which he vows, so he must do after the law of his separation" (Nu 6:21).

Set Apart from the Womb: Samson

Beside the time-bounded vow that anyone might take stands a small set of figures consecrated by another's vow before they were born. Samson is the first. The angel's word to Samson's mother folds the dietary and the hair-restrictions into one sentence about her unborn son: "for, look, you will become pregnant, and give birth to a son; and no razor will come upon his head; for the lad will be a Nazirite to God from the womb: and he will begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines" (Jud 13:5). The same word repeated to her husband adds the abstinence rule and extends the term: "and now drink no wine nor strong drink, and don't eat any unclean thing; for the lad will be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death" (Jud 13:7).

Samson himself, under Delilah's pressure, finally states the vow as the explanation of his strength: "And he told her all his heart, and said to her, A razor has not come upon my head; for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb: if I were shaved, then my strength will go from me, and I will become weak, and be like one of man" (Jud 16:17). The narrative treats the unshaven head not as a magical talisman but as the sign of a consecration whose violation is also the loss of the strength tied to it.

Set Apart from the Womb: Samuel

Hannah, barren and weeping at Shiloh, makes the same kind of pre-natal vow over a son not yet conceived. "And she vowed a vow, and said, O Yahweh of hosts, if you will indeed look at the affliction of your slave, and remember me, and not forget your slave, but will give to your slave a man-child, then I will give him to Yahweh all the days of his life, and no razor will come upon his head" (1Sa 1:11). The two halves of her vow — life-long dedication to Yahweh and the unrazored head — name the Nazirite shape exactly, given through a mother's promise rather than a priest's instruction.

Character and Reproach

The figure of the consecrated young man enters the prophets as something both beautiful and abused. In the lament over fallen Jerusalem, the nobles' pre-ruin glory is described in terms that match the Nazirite ideal: "Her nobles were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk; They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was as of sapphire" (La 4:7).

In Amos, Yahweh names the raising up of Nazirites as one of his gifts to Israel and a measure of how flagrantly Israel has rejected him: "And I raised up of your⁺ sons for prophets, and of your⁺ young men for Nazirites. Is it not even thus, O you⁺ sons of Israel? says Yahweh" (Am 2:11). The reproach in the next verse is exactly that the Nazirite was forced off his vow: "But you⁺ gave the Nazirites wine to drink, and commanded the prophets, saying, Don't prophesy" (Am 2:12). Inducing a Nazirite to drink and silencing a prophet are paired as the same kind of violation.

A Parallel Vow: The Rechabites

Jeremiah is sent to test, and then to commend, a Kenite family who hold to an analogous abstinence not by Nazirite law but by an ancestral oath. Yahweh tells him to bring the Rechabites into the temple chambers and "give them wine to drink" (Jer 35:2). Jeremiah sets bowls of wine and cups before them and says, "Drink⁺ wine" (Jer 35:5).

The refusal is the heart of the chapter: "But they said, We will drink no wine; for Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying, You⁺ will drink no wine, neither you⁺, nor your⁺ sons, forever" (Jer 35:6). Their abstinence runs wider than the Nazirite's — no houses, no sown seed, no vineyard, only tents (Jer 35:7) — but it shares the central feature: a vow against wine, kept across generations, as fidelity to the one who imposed it.

The point Yahweh draws is the contrast. "The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, that he commanded his sons, not to drink wine, are performed; and to this day they drink none, for they obey their father's commandment: but I have spoken to you⁺, rising up early and speaking; and you⁺ haven't listened to [my Speech]" (Jer 35:14). The Rechabites' ancestral discipline becomes a reproach to Judah's ignored covenant. The chapter ends with a blessing on the Rechabite house: "Because you⁺ have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your⁺ father, and kept all his precepts, and done according to all that he commanded you⁺; therefore thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel: Jonadab the son of Rechab will not lack a man to stand before me forever" (Jer 35:18-19).

John the Baptist

John the Baptist is grouped under NAZARITE for his lifelong abstinence rather than for any explicit Nazirite vow attested in the gospel text. The Lukan saying that survives in UPDV puts the abstinence in Jesus' own mouth, set against his own contrasting practice: "For John the Baptist has come eating no bread nor drinking wine; and you⁺ say, He has a demon" (Lu 7:33). The pattern — bread and wine refused, the man himself misread by the people who watched him do it — sits in the same ground that produced the Nazirite vow and the Rechabite oath: a visible, dietary, public consecration that others read as madness.