HEBREW WORD STUDY – AN IMTIMATE VISIT – PAQAD פקד Pei Qop Daleth
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 around 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 perfect form 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 perfect infliction we would render this in English in a past tense and thus, as bachan – 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 the Talmud there is the account of a rabbi, Rabbi Yannai, who would 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 as a bridegroom with the expectation of intimacy with His bride.
Would you like Chaim Bentorah as your personal Hebrew teacher?
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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 those chores to prepare for that one day you will be in the 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 infliction. There is considerable debate among Christian Hebrew scholars as to whether a prophetic perfect exist. Jews just translate without giving it a fancy name. The word for visit is paqad which literally means to visit, but it also has the idea of watch care which better fits the watchtower idea. It also means to nurture, to lay with, as well as all sorts of other good things. So, this visit is just not a “howdy do you do, thought I’d just drop over and break the quarantine” type of visit. It is a visit that provides protection for the virus, security and intimacy.
Now God is neither male nor female. We are used to calling Him Father but why stop there? Why not also refer to Him as a female or mother when the context calls for it or even when the feminine form of His name is used? 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 Jesus 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, commit adultery or visit nasty little web sites etc. A bride can protect her husband from sin. This is the protection that David received from God. God was watching over his heart like a bride watches over her husband’s heart. As a bride longs to visit her husband in the night and satisfy his needs so too does God long to visit us in the night to satisfy our needs so we do not lust after 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 and 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. He could have come as a female but the culture of that day would not accept a female Messiah. How things would be different if He came as a woman. But in His Spirit He is a Bride to us males and a Bridegroom to the females. He comes as one who will give us such satisfaction that the sin of the world, prostitutes of wealth, fame, vocation and the arm of the flesh will not seduce us.
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I have often thought of this dimension of God and the Holy Spirit. Our human minds and our “traditional thinking” often gets in the way of seeing what is real. When our understanding is enlightened by the Holy Spirit, we come to know greater things than just the rigid categories of concrete physical life that we have set up. God fits into none of these. He blows our human minds and goes so far beyond anything we can wrap our brains around. For him to touch my humanness as a Father and a Mother, as a groom or as a bride is all in the realm of the marvelous God to whom I belong. He is not a “tame lion” as CS Lewis once said. We are made in HIS image– male and female. Thank you for helping us to push past our smallness into His immensity.
I do like the idea of an intimate visit with Jesus, and Him wanting to meet my needs to keep me close to Him, but thinking of Him as a bride makes me squirm for two reasons. One, I am a girl, and thinking of Jesus as a woman makes me less attracted to Him. Not that I’m attracted to Him sexually. However, the thing He has that He enticed me to Him with, that led me to become one of His, was His beard, which is a primarily masculine trait. Second, I feel slighted that we women are always expected to meet the needs of our husbands. It’s all I ever hear and read about. What about the man meeting the needs of his wife? What about all those women out there who are tempted toward other lusts, because their husbands fail meeting their needs? I would say both genders are equally tempted. Sorry, this has always been an issue for me. I believe that Jesus has both male and female traits, and that when He created male and female, it was like splitting Himself into two, so they would HAVE to be together to make a complete One, as Jesus Himself is.
Hi Rachel
Many years ago, before Chaim ever spoke of it, I told him that I sometimes feel like the “husband” to God and that’s when he told me that the sages have written about that. We’re talking about experiencing a role, nothing to do with gender, remember God the Father is a spirit, and we, both male and female are made in His image. For instance, Holy Spirit has many female type attributes. If you have never got to the place where you have experienced it then you couldn’t relate. However, for those of us who have, do. Let me reiterate, no one “taught” me this, it was something I just experienced which was interesting to me since at the time Jesus only taught me about being the Bride. I guess it’s similar to when you’re in a marriage, there may be times where for a period, you may take on the role of your husband…if he was to become ill, disabled, fired from a job, etc., well there’s time also when we’re feeling like we’re in the role of husband to God. Also, how do you think men feel when they’re told they are the Bride…you’re looking at this all too literally (beard and all…) As for women meeting men’s needs…you need to read more of Chaim’s he’s very balanced and speaks of both and probably more often about the role of the husband to the wife. Laura, the other half Chaim Bentorah Ministries
I have learned that God has motherly traits but truly do not accept that God could be either/ or gender. That is confusing as it seems to take away the Father as head of household command.
I can only relate to Jesus as my Maker Husband. I cannot protect my earthly husband from wanting to go to the web like a spider looking to satisfy his flesh. That is not my place. He created them male and female…we are One and that is what matters. A man must be a Bride adorned for her Maker Husband or else he cannot husband his own vineyard. God has a plan to keep a woman safe from harm and that includes Him being our Maker Husband and us being His Bride! Submit one to another as to the Lord. We are called to see beyond gender and sex if we hope to be received into the Kingdom of God.
Ooh Chaim, I love that you are willing to go there – BEYOND – leaving the 3D paradigm – beautiful!! Thank you.
I think Jesus calling God as Father, literally means a male figure. His care can be compared to that of a mother and soothing as a wife’s touch but God is male. Heaven is not ‘genderless’. Simply heaven doesn’t give prominence to gender because biology is not a big thing in heaven. Male and female here on earth is significant because of procreation reasons. Apart from that males and females don’t matter. In the book of Galatians, we are told that in the body of Christ we are either male or female. How can that be? Because gender is not an issue in the spiritual body of Christ. We are equal. Only in a biological sense, it is important. Hence, God can and is male, but that doesn’t mean it is gender bias or females cannot relate to it.
And also, God created man first in Genesis according to his image. The woman was created to ‘help’ which is not inferior but to complement each other.
We are instructed by God to call Mary the mother of the saved.
Wow! Mind blown…