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Footnotes:
1–2 Chronicles 16:9
2–Ephesians 5:30-32
3–Revelation 22:17, 20 |
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Torah tells us that man shall leave His father and mother and be joined to his wife. The two will become one flesh. Abram knew this as he left Haran with his wife Sarai. They stayed together through all the sojourning which YHVH led them. Even more, Sarai remains faithful to Abram throughout two series of being taken as a prospective wife for both a phararoh and a king. Abraham and Sarai are one flesh before YHVH. Their bond cannot be broken until the death of Sarah almost forty years after she bore Isaac.
Abraham knew how important it was for a man to cleave to his wife, so he sends his most valued servant to find and retrieve a bride for his promised son. Rivkah goes back to Canaan with the servant and Isaac is comforted by his new wife within Sarah’s tent. Like his father, Isaac uses Rivkah to protect himself from his enemies; but, YHVH is in control through the meandering and prospers Isaac in his increase with flocks and herds and increased his riches to wealth so that the Philistines envied him. Through all of this, Rivkah stayed with him as part of his flesh. YHVH had made them one with each other.
After sojourning for a while, Rivkah bears Esau and Ya’akov. We know the story of their struggle within Rivkah’s womb and the bartering of the birthright. Yet there are some aspects that lie just beneath the surface of these two brothers.
Esau is only seconds older than Ya’akov. Yet, he has gone out and found daughters of Heth, the inhabitants to be later called Hitites and married them. These wives of Esau only serve to bring strife and contention to Isaac and Rivkah. Rivkah even declares that she is tired of living because of these daughters of Heth. It is not hard to see Esau’s actions were his own without the consultation or blessings of his parents. It is also evident that a hard lesson learned was not learned at all by Esau. He doesn’t just stop with one wife; he marries multiple wives of the land.
Later, after he sees an aspect of what could be pleasing to his parents, Esau takes a wife from the daughters of Ishmael. Yet, this is not just because they have told Ya’akov to go and find a wife from Rivkah’s household, but that he finally sees that the daughters of Canaan displeased his father Isaac. So, what does he do? He marries another wife that is from a household already rejected by Abraham. This appears to be an act of retaliation which just exacerbates matters!
Meanwhile, Ya’akov is sent. With the blessings of both Isaac and Rivkah they send Ya’akov out to seek a bride from Bethuel’s house. Now Ya’akov is commissioned to accomplish his parent’s wishes. Furthermore, before leaving the land of promise, YHVH meets Ya’akov in Bethel. Now Ya’akov has a mandate from Heaven to leave the land and allow YHVH to fulfill His part of the vow so that Ya’akov will serve Him as his Elohim. The vows exchanged in Bethel act as a ketubah, a marriage covenant, that both would be held to keep upon fulfillment of the vows made. The pillar that Ya’akov sets-up was a sign of the covenant as a memorial to what YHVH had spoken. The oil poured over the top was the consecration and separation that Ya’akov made as a commitment to be true to his word and to his father’s Elohim.
Ya’akov has made a commitment to be set apart to YHVH once both sides of the vow were fulfilled. It was the continuation of the covenant previously made with Abraham and Isaac. Yet, this time, it is not just a word given to man by YHVH, it is the actions taken by both man and YHVH to work out the conditions of the ketubah. This is the foretelling of Torah in its basic form. The agreement was the proof for all future generations that YHVH, the Elohim of Abraham, Isaac and Ya’akov would fulfill His every promise. He would be with every individual who seeks Him to serve Him, and not forsake them. YHVH would provide the food to eat and garments to wear. Moreover, YHVH woud bring His children back to their Father’s house from where they had left. This is the promise of eternal life with YHVH in His abode. Even as Adam and Eve left the garden to seek for what they had forsaken inside the garden, YHVH promises Ya’akov and future generations to put their trust in Him to return them to their Father’s house.
Not only does YHVH send Ya’akov out to Paddan-aram, but He gives him two brides and all of Laban’s wealth with children, servants, camels and other property. So far, YHVH is keeping His part of the vow. However, Ya’akov must keep his by placing his trust in YHVH to return him safely to the land of promise. Not only does this mean fleeing from Laban, but it will mean facing his brother Esau once more as well. Ya’akov has seen YHVH’s providence and provision, now he must see YHVH’s presence. This will bolster his faith to know that YHVH is always with him and that He will never leave nor forsake His people of promise.
We see this story repeating itself throughout Torah and the Prophets as the children of Israel come out of Egypt and wander in the wilderness for forty years. YHVH reveals Himself to them within the land of their captivity and then brings them to the place where He writes the Ketubah, the Torah, in front of them on Mount Sinai. For forty years, YHVH tests and purifies Israel’s heart to be a spotless bride, yet they are destined to fall away and be harlots by serving other gods and breaking their vows of the covenant.
The lack of faith to realize how the body of Israel becomes one flesh was not to be found in the people of that day. Not because they could not, but because they refused to surrender themselves to YHVH. He called them a stiff-necked and stubborn people. Yet YHVH continued to fulfill His part of the covenant because it is impossible for YHVH to lie and the wickedness of the people living in the land had to be driven out as a fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He uses this to eventually disperse Israel into the nations. Just as the mixed multitude adjoins to Israel coming out of Egypt, YHVH makes Israel to adjoin to the mixed multitude. This is both a curse for disobedience and a blessing to the nations to bring about the fulfillment of the covenant to Abraham: that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through his seed.
YHVH’s secret that He disclosed in the garden, before the fall was that the two would become one flesh. This is comfort to man as he sojourns, looking for his helpmate. Yet it is only the foreshadow of what YHVH is to fulfill in us as His children.
Torah has given us the picture of what our body of Messiah should look like. Within the perimeters of the instructions and precepts are the meeting points and times that the children of YHVH come together to give homage to the King. With each passing cycle we have opportunity to grow closer together and become the one new man that we are to be as Israel is restored back to the land to be brothers with Judah once again. Sadly, our stiff-necks and stubborn hearts get in the way of love and blind us from seeing the true Messiah that will unite the two houses forever.
This Messiah left his heavenly abode, His Father’s house to reveal YHVH to us. YHVH is still fulfilling His vow to Ya’akov by showing Himself through Yeshua, our Bridegroom. He has sent us out into the nations to be dispersed so that we will be gathered again with a mixed multitude with us. YHVH came to earth in the form of man so that we would behold the Bridegroom and ready ourselves for the wedding of eternity.
YHVH sent His Son out to search to and fro for a spotless bride to be married to Himself. Yeshua is both the Servant of YHVH as seen being sent out by Abraham as his servant searched for a bride for Isaac; and, He is YHVH come to us just as Ya’akov himself searched for his bride. As we are made ready for our Bridegroom, we are to become one with each other, learning to worship in Spirit and in Truth together. Yeshua prayed this on our behalf in John 17 saying “That they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.” Yeshua desires our unity as one body in Him so that as He reveals us to the Father, He sees Yeshua in us and Us in Yeshua.
The two will become one flesh; it is the desire of man in his heart to be unified and to know the greater whole. He searches the earth to find kindred spirits. Likewise, the eyes of YHVH go to and fro searching to strengthen those hearts that are fully committed to Him.1 He searches out the earth looking for a bride that is not bound to this earth but who is seeking YHVH for every aspect of life. Yeshua has appeared and shall come again to take for Himself the Bride who has made Herself ready for Him and then the two shall be made One.2 It is the completion of what took place in the garden. For He knew that it was not good for man to be alone, so He gave Himself to be the Bridegroom and has betrothed Himself to us as a promise to never leave us nor forsake us. We will have Him to cover us as our garment. Yeshua will nurture us with His body, the bread of the Word that satisfies completely and His blood that once we drink, we never thirst again. His promise to us to fulfill the vow made to Ya’akov was that He was going to prepare a place for us, and as such, He would come again to receive us to Himself.
As Yeshua looks for us, He will find us. Will He find us ready? As he passes by, He will say, “Then I passed by you and saw you, and behold, you were at the time for love; so I spread My skirt over you and covered your nakedness I also swore to you and entered into a covenant with you so that you became Mine, declares the Adonai YHVH.”
In that day, we will be one with Messiah forever and we will never be apart from Him. The Ketubah will be completed and fulfilled in all that Messiah will do on our behalf; and, we will dine with Him at His table at the marriage supper of the Lamb so that we will Tabernacle with Him in His Father’s house for eternity. The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life. He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Adonai Yeshua.3 |
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