BLESSING (bres'ing). Generally, blessing may mean any advantage conferred or wished for specially.
The terms 'blessing' and 'to bless' occur very often in the Scriptures and in applications too obvious to require explanation or comment.
The patriarchal blessings of sons form the exception, these being, in fact, prophecies rather than blessings, or blessings only in so far as they for the most part involved the invocation and the promise of good things to come upon the parties concerned.
The most remarkable instances are those of Isaac 'blessing Jacob and Esau' (Gen. xxvii); of Jacob 'blessing' his twelve sons (Gen. xlix) ; and of Moses 'blessing' the twelve tribes (Deut. xxxiii). On the first of these transactions Pro fessor George Bush remarks: 'It cannot be doubted that from such a father as Isaac a com mon blessing was to be expected on all his chil dren ; but in this family there was a peculiar blessing pertaining to the first-born—a solemn, extraordinary, prophetical benediction, entailing the covenant blessing of Abraham, with all the promises, temporal and spiritual, belonging to it, and by which his posterity were to be dis tinguished as God's peculiar people.'
2. Favors, advantages, conferred by God, and bringing pleasure or happiness in their train (Gen. xxxix :5: Dem. xxviii :8: Prov. x :22, etc).
3. The invocation of God's favor upon a per son (Gen. xxvii :12).
4. A present, a token of good will (Gen. xxxiii: ; Josh. xv :19; 2 Kings v :15).—Davis' Bib. Diet BLESSING, THE CUP OF (blZk'ing, kiip ovi, name appiied to the wine in the Lord's Supper I t Cur. x a61, probably because the same name was given to the cup of wine in the supper of the Passover (which see).