The Nazarite Vow

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. If any of the people, either men or women, take the special vow of a Nazarite, setting themselves apart to the LORD in a special way, they must give up..." Numbers 6

In the book of Numbers in the Old Testament, there is this scene where God is giving the Law to Moses and in the middle of it, he offers this option. A choice. This is not a law--not a requirement. This Nazarite vow is something that any man or woman can choose to do at any point to "set themselves apart to the LORD in a special way".

As best as I can tell, the Nazarite vow was meant to be a form of worship for the follower of God. It was something his people could do to set themselves apart from the world for a time to open themselves up to whatever God wanted to do in/through them.

Samson and John the Baptist are the two most famous Nazarites (I would almost put King Nebuchadnezzar in this group, but I'm not prepared to argue about it). Oddly enough, they were not very good examples of the vow. Both of them were committed to the vow from birth to death and Samson kind of made a mess of the whole thing.

The vow (read Numbers 6 if you really don't want to take my word for it--which I highly recommend) is designed to set a person apart to God for a limited time to be determined by the person involved. There were some specific terms to the vow and sacrifices to be made at the end of the established time period.

The vowee was to give up drinking wine or eating anything that had to do with grapes and vines. This had to do with sacrificing the pleasures of this world for a time to focus on the things of God. They also stopped shaving their beards and cutting their hair. This allowed them to let go of their external presentations and it was also a societally shameful act to walk around as a man with long hair which would have brought on some level of despisal from the world around them. The person making the vow was also required to stay away from anything dead, the idea being to maintain a certainl level of purity before God. Upon the conclusion of the time chosen for the vow, the person had to show up at the tabernacle, shave their head, then offer specific sacrifices to God.