EXODUS REFLECTION - Week 4
I know this doesn’t line up perfectly with the daily readings, but I said on Sunday that I would expand on this comparison I’d heard about between the journey to Sinai and an Ancient Eastern wedding.
I can’t take any credit really for this information – it is almost entirely taken from my reading of other people’s research!
So here’s the basic structure of an Ancient Eastern wedding;
1) Betrothal 2) Groom leaves to prepare the house 3 )Arrival of the Bridegroom 4) Bride is consecrated
5)Shofar is sounded 6) Gather under the Chuppah 7) Presentation of the Ketubah 8) Consummation of the wedding 9) Exchange of wedding gifts 10) ’Honeymoon’ year.
Here’s a little bit more on each of those to help understand the culture more;
0) Ancient eastern weddings were arranged relationships and were about the whole family trying to find a partner for one of their own, who would be a good fit – people were often married young so these hormonal teenagers weren’t left to make a choice on their own!
1) The son, the groom, would take off with his father to go to the girl that they were going to ask, the potential bride. When they arrive at the village, the dad would take a cup out of his pack and he would fill it with wine and he would hand it to the son. The son would take this cup of wine and he would hand it to the potential bride.
He would say, “This is the cup of a new covenant that I make with you today. I will not drink of this cup again until I drink it with you in my father’s house.”* Then, he hands her the cup. If she takes the cup and drinks from it, it’s her way of covenantally saying, “Yes, I accept your proposal.” If she pushes a cup away it’s her opportunity to say no.
2) The groom now leaves to go prepare the house.** He goes back to his father’s town. He builds onto his father’s house and these become multi-family dwellings. They weren’t Greek and Western. They didn’t live all independently out on their own. The idea was not to grow up and move out of the house. The idea was to grow up and stay in the house and help your father pursue his vocation, help your father pursue his legacy. He now goes back to his father’s house and builds an extra room and he doesn’t know how long this process is going to take. He has no idea. Only the father knows.*** This is the dad’s last opportunity to teach his son a lesson. He might be really generous and help him even build the extension. The groom doesn’t know if he’s going to be building this house for three months or three years, he literally has no idea, nor does the bride, or any of her family back home.
3) One day, the father is going to walk in and he’s going to say, “You know what, I think it’s pretty much done. I think we’re almost ready. I think it’s time.”
The whole family is going to leave to go to the village of the bride. Depending on how far they have to travel, they could show up in the middle of the night. You might even think of the story that Jesus told about the ten bridesmaids and their lamps. Five of them had oil in their lamps and five didn’t. In the context of Ancient Eastern weddings, it’s not a weird story at all, these bridesmaids have to be ready. Once that groom leaves, the party could be within days, weeks, months, years, you have to be ready at any time. Because once he shows up, the party is going to get started. The ceremony is going to happen and it doesn’t matter if you’re ready or not.
4) The bride is going to be whisked away to be consecrated. She’ll take a big ritual bath and not just practically to be ready for the ceremony, but spiritually. This is a ritual cleansing. The word consecrate means to “set apart”. She is setting herself apart for this relationship. She’s setting herself apart for this special sacred moment. She has consecrated herself and she’s prepared.
5) Then, the shofar is sounded and that’s when the ceremony gets started. The shofar is a big ram’s horn that can be blown into to make a trumpet-like sound. The bride comes in being carried on a chair but she’ll make the entrance as the shofar is being sounded.
6) At that point, the couple is going to gather under what’s called the chuppah, which is a type of canopy. This canopy that symbolizes the presence of God. That’s where they’re going to, essentially, take their vows.
7) While they stand under the chuppah, there’s going to be the presentation of what’s called the ketubah.
The ketubah is a covenant and it’s been prepared by the groom. It’s usually 7, 10, 12 items where the groom is basically saying, “This is the foundation of a relationship. These are the main tenants that I want to build our marriage on.” In the ancient world, the bride wasn’t a part of making the ketubah, but she did get to accept or reject it. This is his opportunity to say to his bride, “This is who I am. This is what’s important to me. This is what I hope is true of us as we’re married together.”
8) After the ceremony is done, there is the consummation of the wedding. There’s a special room that has been set aside for the consummation of the marriage and it sounds very odd in our culture, but the best man stands outside the room and listens at the door for the deed to be done. A bloody cloth is produced to prove that the bride is a virgin, and then when the best man has that, everybody celebrates and the party continues.
9) Once the marriage is consummated, they exchange pre-arranged gifts – this can be something like the idea of a ‘dowry’, otherwise known as a ‘bride price’ or mohar. This was a payment of property or money by the groom’s family to the bride’s family.
10) Then, for the next year — after the party will go on for five, six, seven days — after that, they enter into what we call a ‘honeymoon’ year. For one year, the book of Deuteronomy says, they’re not going to engage in major communal responsibilities. He can’t go to war. He’s not going to farm the fields. He’s going to take one year to get to know his new bride. In this culture, based on what we’ve just talked about, they didn’t date. They didn’t court, they didn’t get to know each other.
This guy showed up pre-arranged by your families, you didn’t know him. Now all of a sudden, you say yes. There’s a mini party, he disappears. The next time you see him, he shows up to marry you. You consummate the wedding and now you have to figure out how to like each other. Figure out how to love each other and figure out how to get to know each other.
So that’s an overview of Ancient Eastern wedding practices. But what relevance does any of that have for Exodus?
Now, if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations, you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be, for me, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. – Exodus 19:5-6
This is when they get to Mount Sinai and God is about ready to give them the Ten Commandments. God is essentially saying, ‘I want to enter into a special relationship with you.’ The wording he uses there is unique. God says, “If you will agree to enter into the covenant”. There’s no demand here. God rescues them from Egypt first.
They aren’t rescued from Egypt after they’ve agreed. They are rescued from Egypt, then get to Mount Sinai and then God says, “I’d like to be in a special covenant relationship with you as a nation. If you say yes, then you will be for me my treasured possession.” Now, that phrase in the Hebrew, “my treasured possession,” is wedding talk almost exclusively. That’s what a groom calls his bride on their wedding day.
It seems that what God is doing is God is essentially talking about this moment at Sinai as a wedding. In fact, five verses later, God tells Moses, “Go and consecrate the people,” which feels a whole lot like, “Well, that’s what we would do next if we’re going to have a wedding.” In fact, if we were to go back to our list, we could follow this entire narrative.
The betrothal would go all the way back to Genesis 12-15. “God came to Abram and he said, “Abram, leave your father’s house and go to a land that I will show you.” That’s a betrothal. That’s a groom showing up and saying, “I want you to leave your father’s house and come with me to a place I’m going to prepare for you.”
Then later, the groom leaves. We could call that their time in Egypt when it appears that God has disappeared. They sit in Egypt, oppressed, crying out, “Where is their groom?” Then the arrival of the bridegroom. Well, that would be the story of Passover. Their bridegroom shows up. The bride is consecrated. God tells Moses to consecrate Israel (Exodus 19:10). The shofar is sounded. We’re told that when they get to Sinai, there is the sound of a trumpet (Exodus 19:19).
Then they’re going to gather under the chuppah, which would be the cloud at Mount Sinai, the place of God’s presence. They’re going to present the ketubah. That’s going to be the Ten Commandments. They have these Ten Commandments in which God says, “This is what I want to define our relationship. This is the starting place. This is the foundation for our relationship.”
There’s a consummation of the wedding, which is going to be the tabernacle. The tabernacle is going to serve as the honeymoon suite. Then, you have the exchange of wedding gifts – the rest of the law is given. I mentioned on Sunday that in parts of Judaism, you’ll hear them talk about the law as their gifts. It’s God’s gifts to them.
Then, of course, you have the honeymoon year, which is all of that time wandering in the desert. In fact, in Jeremiah 2:2 we read “I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert through a land not sown.” God saw their time in the desert as a honeymoon period.
I hope that brings some different perspective on this wider story and the context within which it may well originally been understood, an understanding that we might have lost over time as culture changes.
If you’re still reading this and have a little more attention – there might have been a few bits which felt familiar in a different context. I won’t try and unpack them here and now, but have a think about the possible connections with the information above – I’ve added * to relate back to the relevant sections.
*”Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” – Matthew 26:27-29
**“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. – John 14:1-3
***“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert, for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight or at cockcrow or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.” – Mark 13:32-36