Monthly Archives: April 2023

GOD’S MARRIAGE COVENANT – THE PURPOSE OF THE KETUBAH

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GOD’S MARRIAGE COVENANT – THE PURPOSE OF THE KETUBAH

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery,” Exodus, 20:2

The Ten Commandments or God’s Ten-word Ketubah was prefaced with the words, “I am the Lord your God”, in Hebrew “Anochy Yahweh Elohim “.

The letters in the word A-N-CH-Y are pictures, each of which has a meaning:

A = an oxhead going into a yoke, signifying authority,

N = fish multiplying

CH = a hedge or fence

Y = upraised hand, implying worship or submission

The word anochy, then, literally means, “Your authority is multiplying inside the hedge of praise and submission.” This was God’s promise in the preamble to His ketubah. “A relationship with me will increase you, not diminish you.” Unlike the gods of the pagans, God did not make demands but promises based on the kind of behaviour that promoted unity within the nation.

In Hebrew thought, life is hell in any area where there are no boundaries. The significance of the ketubah was to set boundaries around a couple’s marriage relationship so that, within those boundaries, their lives would be happy and free. If they crossed the boundaries, they would be committing marital unfaithfulness and there would be consequences for both. If one partner persisted in transgressing the boundaries without repentance, that would be reason for divorce.

We cannot dismiss the Ten Commandments as irrelevant for us who live in the era of the New Covenant. God’s ketubah was not intended to be set of rules which, if we keep them, will guarantee the continuation of our relationship with Him. They are a protective boundary fence within which we will experience the greatest amount of freedom, peace, happiness, and the best kind of life. They were not given to make us good but to set us free. This is not a check list for Brownie points. Each commandment contains a deeply embedded principle which exposes more than behaviour. It uncovers the heart.

God’s purpose in giving the Ten Commandments was to teach the people of Israel, who were in covenant with Him, the best way to live in order to show the world what He is like. The purpose of the Ten Commandments is to protect love, to preserve unity and to promote contentment. Each one of the commandments fits into one of these categories.

In His ketubah, God was saying to the people, “This is who I am and this is the way I want you to relate to me and to one another. If you stick faithfully to these instructions, you will experience a full, free and happy life. I am not giving you these rules so that I will love you because I love you already. I am giving you this ketubah so that you live the best kind of life to show the world what I am like.”

God knows that we have the power to destroy ourselves. He made provision in His ketubah to save us from disaster.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS – A MARRIAGE CONTRACT

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THE TEN COMMANDMENTS – A MARRIAGE CONTRACT

And God spoke all these words: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” Exodus 20:1, 2

Dr Bill Bright, founder of “Campus Crusade for Christ”, formulated a simple way of witnessing to people about Jesus. It is called the Four Spiritual Laws and begins with “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”. Unfortunately, what follows is a very narrow view of God’s plan.

What is God’s plan for His people? It began with one man, Abraham, who became a family which became a large group of people during their stay in Egypt. Pharaoh was afraid that the Israelites would join Egypt’s enemies and attack them, so he made them slaves. When they were demoralised and helpless, God stepped in and, through Moses, led them out of slavery into freedom.

God’s plan was to “marry” them and to teach them how to live with Him and with each other in a marriage bond. He told them His plan through Moses, in the language of courtship and marriage to show them how He wanted to relate to them and them to Him.

There were 5 stages in the Hebrew courtship and marriage protocol. During their courtship, when the man was sure he wanted to marry the woman, he would tell her “lachah” which meant “I want to make you mine”. God told the Israelites through Moses before He rescued them from slavery: “I will free you from being slaves to them …I will take you as my own people and I will be your God.” Exodus 6:6,7.

The next step was to confirm his choice, telling her “segulah” which meant “I want to make you my treasured possess.” In Exodus 19:5, God told Israel, at the foot of Mount Sinai, “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations you will be my treasured possession.” This is wedding talk!

The third step took place three days before the man’s formal proposal of marriage. He would tell her to prepare herself by washing – “mikvah” – to make herself ready. In Exodus 19:10 God instructs Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, have them wash their clothes and be ready by the third day…” Again, wedding talk!

The fourth step was to draw up a marriage contract, called a “ketubah”, setting up the boundaries within which they would relate to each other in a way acceptable to both of them The ketubah dealt with all the aspects of living together and was witnessed and signed by the couple’s fathers. The “Ten Commandments” is a 10-word ketubah setting out God’s requirements for living with His people in the intimacy of a marriage relationship.

The final step was the marriage ceremony under a canopy called the “chuppah” which represented the presence of God, and the consummation of their marriage in the bridal chamber prepared by the bridegroom.

The ketubah forms the heart of this relationship.

GOD’S MARRIAGE COVENANT – NO GRAVEN IMAGES

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GOD’S MARRIAGE COVENANT- NO GRAVEN IMAGES

 “You shall not make for yourself an idol…” Ex 20:4

For 430 years, God’s covenant people were exposed to Egyptian culture which included worshipping a variety of idols. This had many implications for the Israelites’ understanding of a God they could not see.

Firstly, God said to them “Don’t make me look like something I am not.” It was in them to have an object to worship. The Egyptians had reduced their gods to what they could understand and control, but God is bigger than anything we can imagine. God says to us, “Don’t try to manage me so that you can manipulate me. Our relationship is to be based on love and submission, not on what you can get from me.”

Secondly, if we make an idol, we must place it somewhere and, to us, that place becomes holy.  We differentiate between spiritual and secular. We make the place where God is located sacred and everywhere where He is not, secular but God says that each person is to carry His presence in his being because we are His temples.

Thirdly, we must not confine God to a location otherwise where He is, is spiritual and everywhere else, where He is not, we can live as we like. The best kind of life is to have a God-consciousness all the time so that we are aware of God in everything we do.

God says, “Don’t try to make me manageable.”

                        “Don’t try to confine me to a location.”

“Don’t try to separate life into secular and spiritual.  I am your life.”

                                                “Don’t try to figure God out.”

When we treat Him like this it provokes Him to anger.

The best life is serving a God you can’t get your head around.  God is multi-dimensional, we are three-dimensional.  We can never figure God out and we must not try. We must give God the freedom to be God without trying to understand Him, control Him or confine Him to our experience or some place outside of which we are free to do as we like.

The Samaritan woman asked Jesus, “Where do you go to find God?” Jesus responded by explaining to her that God is not confined to a place because He is in us. We recognise everything by its boundaries, but we cannot set boundaries around God since He is a spirit.  We cannot understand spirit because we can’t control it.  We need to have faith in a God bigger than anything we can control. We must give up our need to control, submit to, trust, and love the God who is revealed in the Bible and not a god we have shaped in our own imagination. When we make God manageable, our concept of Him becomes an idol to which we bow, and to which concept we force everyone else to bow.

This was the problem the Pharisees had which led to them crucifying Jesus because He did not match their idea of God.

GOD’S MARIAGE CONTRACT – NO OTHER GODS

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GOD’S MARRIAGE CONTRACT – NO OTHER GODS

 “You shall have no other gods before me.” Ex 20:3

We are all on a journey with God and our faith and understanding develop and grow as we journey with Him. For the people of Israel, Sinai was a defining moment in their journey which began with Abraham who multiplied through the generations to become a nation in covenant with El Shaddai – God Almighty.

They became slaves in Egypt where they lost their dignity and freedom as human beings and were at the mercy of their Egyptian slavedrivers. God met Moses, revealed Himself as Jehovah and identified Himself as their God.  Before they had done anything to deserve it, He chose them to be His own. He had already established a relationship with them by covenant, not to make them good but to make them free. They did not have to impress Him, but He had to train them to believe that He already loved them and wanted to teach them to be human again. His rules were given to protect them because in Egypt as slaves they did not know how to treat one another.

The Ketubah was a set of ground rules to establish boundaries around the relationships that were already established. God had the huge task of teaching a group of slaves to respect the image of God in each other and to do life together. 

Israel was a community of people who would bring forth Messiah.  They needed to understand sin, forgiveness etc., to be ready for Messiah’s arrival. God could not drop their Messiah into a situation where they did not understand why He had come. He had to build into their culture everything they needed to know about deliverance, redemption, forgiveness and sonship etc through their religious system, sacrifices and cultural practices so that they would understand the work of Jesus.

The ketubah is a revelation of God’s way of living to a group of people who were to show God to the world. The process began in Ex 12 – the Passover. God spoke for the first time in 430 years – saying “Kill a lamb. Let’s eat and put blood on your house.”  These seem strange instructions, but God was asking, “Do you trust me?” Israel had to learn that they were saved by faith in the blood of a lamb, and they had to live by obeying God’s commands – by representing God’s character to the world. God’s way works because it brings peace and freedom from slavedrivers.  Do we trust Him?

Rules don’t establish relationship. They protect a relationship that has already been established. God’s Ketubah started with grace. His instruction to them, “No other gods” meant “No other men in your life.” This makes sense because, in Egypt they were exposed to a multiplicity of gods but now God was calling them into an exclusive relationship with Him. As their husband, He had to be the only one. They struggled with this because it demanded faith to worship a God they could not see.

THE LORD’S PRAYER – YOURS IS THE KINGDOM, THE POWER, AND

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THE LORD’S PRAYER – YOURS IS THE KINGDOM, THE POWER, AND THE GLORY

“For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.” (Matthew 6: Footnote)

Hebrew people always thought in circles. A thought would begin with God, for example, be developed and then go back to God, closing the circle where it began. Paul uses this construction in his wonderful doxology in Romans 11:33- 36, especially verse 36, “…for from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen. “

Although this is not part of the original text, this same literary construction summarises and takes us back to the first thought in this prayer. Jesus began with “Our Father who is in heaven” … focussing our attention on God as our Originator and Source. We become aware of the presence of the One to whom we pray and acknowledge that He is as near to us as our breath. He teaches us that prayer is much more about God than about us. We must fix our gaze on Him and recognise that He wants us to experience His life within the bigger picture of His kingdom and His will for the whole earth and not just for us.

As we feed on His word through our daily “gathering of manna” and through the weekly ministry of our spiritual head, we will be fortified with the knowledge of the truth. In turn, the truth will guard our minds against the devil’s deception and design to lure us back into the belief that real life is about looking after ourselves as number one.

The way to keep the lines of communication open between ourselves and God is to keep short accounts with those who hurt or offend us. God cannot forgive us if we refuse to forgive the debts of others, He will not be merciful to those who refuse to show mercy.

We need His grace and His Spirit to keep our attention on Him first and not on our own needs and wants. Our biggest enemy is the evil eye in ourselves and not the devil who can tempt us but not make us do what we do not choose to do. Hence, we are dependent on God’s strength to keep us from yielding to our own lusts.

As we allow His light to shine through us, putting others before ourselves, and sharing our abundance with those in need, we will experience God’s ever-increasing glory in our lives, by revealing God’s love to others by what we say and do.

It’s all about awareness of and dependence on Him first.  He will take care of our needs as we place our attention on what He cares about and values first – the display of His splendour to the world that does not know Him. He desires that His rule be extended across the whole earth for the sake of His name and for the good of His creation. Imagine how the world would change if we prayed like this!