Good Morning Yamon Ki Yesepar;
Psalms 17:3 “Thou has proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night.”
If you have ever celebrated the Sabbath evening with a Jewish orthodox family you will notice they leave their doors open during the Sabbath night prayers (or pray facing a door) to welcome the Shabbat Hamalka, the Sabbath Queen or Bride.
In the Talmud the Sabbath is compared esoterically to a bride given to us by God, whom we long for her arrival (Shabbat 119a). Of course to us this Sabbath Queen or Bride is really Jesus. There is just one problem with this, we are suppose to be the bride and Jesus is the groom. An orthodox Jewish Rabbi once told me: “You Christians are so one dimensional. Indeed we are. God is a father, never a mother. Yet, He nurtures us like a mother, we seek Him like a child seeks a mother. We know that God is neither male nor female, so why can we not call Him a mother? People thought Gloria Steinem said something radical when she said: “May God keep you and may she bless you.” Actually Jewish rabbis and sages have been teaching the feminine nature of God for thousands of years. I believe Psalms 17:3 can be best understood if we consider God as our bride and we as the groom. I know some of you women may have a problem thinking of yourselves as a husband, but hey, how about us men who are running talking about ourselves as a “bride” of Christ.
Let’s take a look at this phrase in Psalms 17:3. “Thou hast proved mine heart.” The word for “proved” is in a past tense from the root word “bachan” which literally means a watch tower. In a sense a watch tower is built over a city so as to guard against enemy invaders. Keeping in mind that this is in a past tense and “proved” literally means guard or a watchtower, we could render this passage as: “Thou has guarded or protected my heart. More literally, “Thou has been a watchtower over my heart.”
Why does God guard the heart of David? So he can visit him in the night. This is where the rabbis get the idea that what David is referring to is a visit from the “Sabbath Queen or Bride.” In Talmudic literature, Rabbi Yannai used to wrap himself up in festive clothes toward Friday evening as if to prepare to receive his bride. He would recite: Come, O bride, come O bride!” More orthodox Jews believe we are encouraged to call upon God every day, but only once a week, the Sabbath, are we allowed to be in his presence.
Now imagine that you just got married and then your new wife or husband discovers that his or her job requires being out of town on business for 6 days a week. You talk on the phone every day, but only one day of the week are you really together. You can bet you will not use that one day to clean the house, do laundry or mow the lawn, or fix the roof. And you can bet you will spend the entire six days doing these chores to prepare for the one day you will be in your presence of your spouse. That is the sort of expectation that the Sabbath was meant to create. Sure we are in God’s presence seven days a week, but that seventh day is meant to be something special, it is meant to be a “date” night.
The word “visit” is really in a prophetic perfect tense. Only in recent years have Christian Hebrew scholars began to accept the fact that there is a prophetic perfect in the Hebrew, which is probably why it is not evident in most translation. The word for visit is “pakad” which literally means to visit, but has the idea of watch care (fits the watchtower idea, hey?), to nurture, to lay with, as well as all sorts of other good things. So this visit is just not a “howdy do thought I’d just drop over and watch the College Bowl with you” type of visit. It is a visit that provides protection, security and intimacy.
Now God is neither male nor female. Yet, to illustrate he is referred to as a Father. But why stop there, let’s also refer to Him as a female? He is a Husband but he can also be a Bride. If we follow Jewish thinking for Psalms 17:3 and God or in the case of us Christians, Jesus is taking on the role of a Bride, how can God as a Bride protect her husband? The sages taught in ancient times, as even is the case today, That a bride can and indeed must protect her husband by fulfilling such needs that he will not be moved to lust, adultery, nasty little web sites etc. A bride can protect her husband from sin. This is the protection that David received from God. God watching his heart and then visiting him in the night, the Sabbath Night, where God satisfies his needs and longings so he will not fall into sin and seek fulfillment from other gods. When one is satisfied with his bride, then money, fame, accomplishments and all the trappings and gods of this world, mean nothing. The world it’s gods have little to entice us when we are totally satisfied with our “bride” – Jesus.
Matthew 22:30 suggest that there is neither male nor female in heaven, hence Jesus may have been male on earth but that does not mean he will be a male in heaven, particularly if there is neither male nor female. So we men, like David can see Jesus as a bride to whom we look forward to spending our Sabbath evening with. A bride who will give us such satisfaction that the sin of the world, prostitutes of wealth, fame, vocation, the arm of the flesh, will not seduce us.
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