THE ANCIENT JEWISH WEDDING CEREMONY
How does it
picture Messiah Yahushua and His Bride?
John 14:2-3: “In My Father’s house are many rooms. I go to prepare a place for you. And, if I go to prepare and place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, there you may be also”.
Matthew 24:36, 44: “But of
the day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but My Father
only”. “Therefore, be also ready: for in such an hour as you think not, the Son
of man comes”.
Matthew 25:10-13: “…the
Bridegroom came: and they that were ready went in with Him to the marriage and
the door was shut”.
Revelation 7:7-8: “Let us be
glad and rejoice and give honor to Him, for the marriage of he Lamb is come and
his wife has made herself ready. And to
her was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine
linen is the righteousness of saints”.
John 3:29, John the baptiser, referring to himself as the “friend of the
Bridegroom” and to Yahushua, the Bridegroom:
“He that has the Bride is the Bridegroom: but the friend of the
bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatest because of he
Bridegroom’s voice. This, my joy,
therefore is fulfilled”.
Psalm 45:6-17 “Upon Your
Right Hand (Yahushua) did stand the Queen, in gold of Ophir.”
Matthew 22:8-14: This is a story of the gathering of the
guests. They must be invited, and must
have on a “wedding garment”. The wedding
garment is linen—the “righteousness of the set-apart, “saved”.
The Word of Elohim is basically
the story of a wedding, from start to finish.
It is a love story of a loving Father, seeking the perfect Bride for His
Son, Yahushua--a Bride who is totally devoted, pure of heart, in love only to
Him, submitted and perfect in His sight.
Such a picture of this is found in Genesis 24:1-67--Abraham sending out
his servant to find the perfect Bride for Isaac.
In the basic structure of the
Ancient Jewish Wedding Ceremony, you will see the Father, and the Bridegroom
Yahushua, the “servant”, the Ruach Yahuweh, the
Bride, the attendant of the Bride (pictured by Moses), and the attendant of the
Groom (pictured by Elijah), and the guests.
In most weddings, there are 3
groups of people: 1) the guests, forming the largest group, 2) the attendants
of the Bride and the Groom, usually a small group, and 3) the Bride and her
Bridegroom. All are content and happy
within their situation. But, only the
Bride gets to go home with the Bridegroom and live in His House forever. She has an intimacy with Him that no one else
has! And, so there is a new earth, which
will be created for the “saved” guests.
There are the attendants--the “King’s of the earth”--who are “saved” and
who represent the guests before the Father and the Bridegroom. And, there is the Bride, who stays with her
Husband in the Father’s House.
(Revelation 21:22-22:5, 14)
This is also mentioned in
Revelation 3:7-13: --the letter to the church at
I.
Ha Melech – the King!
Another name for Rosh ha Shanah, which is the
day of His coming--at the Feast of Trumpets, is “Coronation Day”. This Feast usually occurs during the Roman month of September. On this day the Bridegroom comes for His
Bride, and at their wedding day, He is crowed the King, and she is crowned the
Queen. Thus marriage day is the day of
Coronation.
II.
Yahushua will come for His Bride on Rosh ha Shanah--Tishre 1 on the Hebrew calendar. The essential message of this Feast is the
reaffirmation of the Kingship of Elohim.
III.
Messiah will be
crowned on Rosh ha Shanah and given the heathen for
His inheritance, as well as receiving His Kingdom. Daniel 7:13-14 and Psalm
2:6
IV.
Jewish Scripture
used for this day: Genesis 49:10 and
Zechariah 9:9
V.
Revelation
19:11-16: He comes with the sound of the
trumpet and much fan-fare and ceremony.
He comes as the trumpet sounds loudly, with His angels, in the wrath of
the Father, to destroy His enemies and the enemies of His Bride. He comes as a victorious King to deliver His
Bride from the evil one.
VI.
He becomes the
King of Kings over all the kingdoms of this world: Revelation 11:15-19; 19:16;
Daniel 7:9, 13-14, 27; Revelation 1:7.
VII.
On the wedding day,
the Bridegroom and the Bride are called King and Queen – and reference is made
to Psalm 45.
I.
1) Either the
father arranges the wedding as Samson’s father did, or2) the father sends an
agent in his place, as Abraham sent Eleazer, or 3)
the young man comes
by himself
to the girl’s father to arrange the marriage between the two of them.
II.
If the young man
goes to the house of the girl, he initially must carry these three things:
a)
A large sum of
money (or many expensive items) to pay the price for the Bride
b)
A betrothal
contract with his promises to the Bride written on it
c)
A skin of wine
Note: In John
5:8: “For there are three that bear witness in earth: the Spirit, and the
water, and the blood: and these three agree in one”. In prophetic typology, the wine represents
the Ruach ha Kodesh (Holy
Spirit), the water represents the Word—the marriage contract or Covenant--the
Torah given at Sinai--and the blood represents the price paid for our
salvation. Acts 20:28, Paul speaking to
Pastors: “Take heed to yourselves,…to feed the
assembly of Elohim, which He has purchased with His own blood”. Ephesians 1:14 tells us that the Ruach’s presence with us is the “down-payment of our
inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession…” His Bride was the purchased possession, and
He is coming to fully redeem her unto Himself.
I Corinthians 6:20; I Corinthians 7:23: “For you are bought with a
price”.
III.
If the Father
approves of the marriage, the girl is called in and they all drink the wine together. In the drinking of the wine, she commits
herself to the young man. Jeremiah 31:31 “I will make a new covenant with the
House of Israel and the House of Judah”.
Matthew 26:27-28: “And He took the cup (the 3rd cup of the
Seder—the cup of Redemption) and gave thanks, and gave it to them saying `Drink you all of it: for this is My blood of the New
Covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins’”. Thus, He renewed His Covenant in his own
blood, with His remnant Bride--who would be taken from among the whole
believing House of Israel.
IV.
At this point, the two are considered husband and wife. Their union can only be dissolved by divorce,
but their state is still called “betrothal”, as with Mary and
Joseph.
V. After the wine is drunk, the young man
says the words of John 14:2-3. He will
go away and prepare a room for them--adding on a room to his father’s
house. He
promises
that when the room is finished, he would come back for her, and she would forever
be with him. She belongs to him now, for
she has been “bought with a price’, and this purchase has been witnessed and
confirmed.
VI.
The young man
goes to prepare a chador (chamber) in his father’s house, sometimes called a “chuppah” (honeymoon bed).
VII.
The girl must now spend her time learning how
to be a wife and mother, and to learn how to please her husband. He may be gone for as long as 2 years or
more.
**The young man, if asked when the day of his
wedding will be, often gets rid of nosey inquirers by saying: “No man knows the
day or the hour, only my father
knows”. (Matthew 24:36/Mark 13:32) Thus he puts the responsibility of dealing
with nosey friends and family off on his father. It is a personal thing with
him, and
he only talks about
the timing of his coming for His Bride with his father. He may communicate with his Bride, in
secret--perhaps by messenger (represented by the
Ruach ha Kodesh--the go-between between the Bride of Messiah and
Yahushua. But, also, the term “no man knows the day or the hour” is a
catch-phrase for the
Feast of Trumpets—Rosh ha Shanah—for
it is always over 2 days around the earth. Three trumpets are blown during that
2-day time period. And, everyone waits for
the
“last trump”, when according to Jewish tradition, the gates of heaven open and
the righteous ascend to heaven, while the fate of the wicked is sealed.
VIII.
The groom designates two close friends to
assist him and to assist the bride during the ceremony. They are called “witnesses”. The two witnesses of Revelation 11
also have
this aspect to them. Also, during the ceremony the contract containing the
groom’s promises are then turned over to the parents of the bride.
IX.
He comes for his bride with great fanfare,
trumpets, his servants and friends and family.
It is a joyful day when he comes to receive his bride for the wedding
ceremony. There is music and dancing and rejoicing.
(John 2)
X.
On their wedding day they are called the King
and Queen. On this day, tradition says
that they stand without spot or blemish as they are united. For two years or
more (for
us, 2000 years approximately since our Bridegroom went back to His Father’s
house) the servant, represented for us by the Ruach
ha Kodesh, works to
prepare
the Bride to perfection for her marriage to the perfect Bridegroom, Yahushua. From I
Corinthians 1:4-9: “I thank Elohim always concerning you…
that you
are not lacking in any gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Master Yahushua Messiah…”
I Thessalonians 5:23: “And the
Elohim of peace Himself set you completely apart, and your entire spirit, and
soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of
our Master
Yahushua Messiah”.
From Ephesians 5:25-27: “...Messiah also did love the assembly and gave
Himself for it…in order to present it to Himself a splendid
assembly,
not having spot or wrinkle,…but that it might be set-apart and blameless”. The
Bride has purified herself, and made herself set-apart unto Him alone!!
XI.
The words of the
wedding ceremony are from Psalm 45, and Isaiah
61:10-62:5--“…as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall Elohim
rejoice over you”.
XII.
Once the ceremony
is over, the two go into the bridal chamber (chuppah)
for 7 days. Portions
of the Song of Solomon, read during Passover, gives the details of the
intimacy between Messiah and His Bride.
XIII.
The seven days in
the chamber correspond to the seven days between the end of the Feast of
Trumpets, and the Day of Atonement, when the High Priest takes the blood before
the altar of Yahuweh, and the sins of the nation of
XIV.
At the end of the
7 days, the groom’s “friend” (or Elijah--John the baptiser
came in the spirit of Elijah, and represented Messiah, and called himself the
“friend of the Bridegroom” in John 3:29), or “witness”, waits at the chamber
door. The guests have arrived and are
waiting for the door to be opened, and the wedding banquet to begin. When the groom is ready, he knocks from the
inside of the door of the chamber, indicating that they are ready to make their
public appearance before everyone. The
friend opens the door, and the guests cheer.
XV.
In Revelation 11,
the two witnesses have been in the earth witnessing and preparing for 3 ½
years. At the voice of the Bridegroom
calling them up, Messiah Yahushua comes out of heaven with a trumpet blast,
accompanied by the set-apart ones who have died, to gather His whole Bride for
the wedding, and the 7 days in the chuppah. The door of heaven opens and He proceeds
out. The “bride has made herself
ready”. He picks up His Bride who is
alive and waiting for Him on the earth.
Then after His glorious entrance into
XVI.
John the baptiser saw himself as the groom’s “friend”--John
3:28-30. Jewish tradition says that Elijah
attends the groom--John was called “Elijah” even by the “Groom”--Yahushua. (Matthew 11:13-14) Elijah’s message is one of preparation for
the coming Messiah. He stands and waits
for the Groom’s knock. Matthew 17:3
shows the glorified, radiant Messiah standing with Moses and Elijah.
XVII.
The Bride’s
attendant according to Jewish tradition is Moses. His function is to escort the
Bride to the Bridegroom, as Moses escorted the children of
XVIII.
After the
marriage the Bride goes to live with her Bridegroom as the Queen of the
Almighty Elohim and King of
Yedidah, May 13, 2004
Note: Today is my anniversary
of having been born again for 53 years.
I dedicate this study on the Bride of Messiah Yahushua to my soon-coming
Bridegroom. I await my wedding day with
the greatest joy!!!