“Then Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, When a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazarite, to separate himself to Jehovah, he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink; he shall drink no vinegar of wine or vinegar of strong drink, nor shall he drink any juice of grapes, nor eat fresh or dried grapes. All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grape vine, from the seeds even to the skin.
“All the days of his vow of separation no razor shall pass over his head. He shall be holy until the days are fulfilled for which he separated himself to Jehovah; he shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow long.
“All the days that he separates himself to Jehovah he shall not come near a dead person. He shall 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 upon his head. All the days of his separation he is holy to Jehovah. And if anyone dies very suddenly beside him so that he defiles the head of his separation, then he shall shave his head on the day he becomes clean; on the seventh day shall he shave it. And on the eighth day he shall bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the priest at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and the priest shall offer one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering, and make expiation for him because he sinned by reason of the dead person. And he shall sanctify his head that same day. And he shall separate to Jehovah the days of his separation and shall bring a male lamb a year old for a trespass offering, but the former days shall be void because his separation was defiled” (Num. 6:1-12).
“And she [the mother of Samuel] made a vow and said, O Jehovah of hosts, if You will indeed look upon the affliction of Your female servant and remember me and not forget Your female servant, but give to Your female servant a male child, then I will give him to Jehovah for all the days of his life, and no razor will come upon his head” (1 Sam. 1:11).
“Therefore I, for my part, have lent him to Jehovah; all the days that he lives, he is lent to Jehovah” (1 Sam. 1:28).
“For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall by no means drink wine and liquor. And he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb” (Luke 1:15).
In Exodus and Leviticus the Lord ordained and appointed many kinds of people to serve Him. Then, in the beginning of the book of Numbers, the Lord told Moses how to coordinate these different people into one army to fight the battle. While He was telling Moses how to coordinate these people, the Lord gave Moses a supplement in chapter six of Numbers. This supplement was His special provision against degradation in the priesthood. The Lord had appointed and ordained only the house of Aaron, of the tribe of Levi, to be the priests. The rest of the Levites who served in the tabernacle were not the priests.
But suppose the house of Aaron would not be faithful to the Lord and would even forsake Him. Such a thought may be strange to us, but not to the Bible. Abraham was chosen by God after the created race had fallen. Out of Abraham came the people of Israel, of whom God intended to make a kingdom of priests. According to the Bible, a priest is one who opens himself to the Lord so that the Lord may be mingled with him. The Lord is his content, and he is the Lord’s expression—this is a priest. God’s intention was to make the whole nation of Israel a kingdom of priests; however, due to Israel’s failure, the Lord chose the tribe of Levi to replace the nation of priests in Israel. But not all of the tribe of Levi were chosen by the Lord. Only those of the house of Aaron were to be the priests.
Do you believe that the house of Aaron would never fall? The house of Aaron eventually came to the point of being fully and utterly fallen at the time of Eli’s sons (1 Sam. 2:12-17).
However, the Lord foresaw this situation. Besides His ordination of the house of Aaron as priests, He provided a supplement in the sixth chapter of Numbers. This supplement means “in case of.” In the case of failure in the house of Aaron, the Lord opened a side door as an emergency provision. When the front door is damaged, there is the need for a side door. Therefore, we have the vows of the Nazarite.
To be a Nazarite is not limited to certain people, for anyone can become a Nazarite. Whether you are a Levite, a member of the house of Aaron, a man, or a woman, the side door is open. Even the sisters need not be bothered that all the priests in the Old Testament were men; the side door is open to both men and women. During normal times, the main entrance is sufficient, but when the times are abnormal, the side door is necessary. The principle of the Nazarite vow is that the door is open for everyone. No one is excluded.