A day after the Passover betrothal of Israel to YHWH (See Blog 30), Israel left Egypt by night with a high hand. Their flight out of Egypt to YHWH’s holy mountain from Etham took seven Sabbaths of Israel following YHWH’s cloud and pillar of fire. At Mount Sinai, YHWH and Israel consummated their marriage vows. Before leaving the Wilderness of Sinai, YHWH arranged Israel’s Camp geometrically to reflect His heavenly abode, holy and untouched by sin’s defilement. From Sinai to the plains of Moab, Israel bore YHWH’s throne as He led them from camp to camp, each significant and necessary for Israel’s readiness to inherit the Land. Numbers 33 lists forty-two stopping places of Israel’s first and second generations, depicted as a whole. Missing from the list is any mention of Israel’s rebellions and failures to trust YHWH. In the pattern of the Ancient Near East royal military campaigns, Moses designed Numbers 33’s list of Israel’s movements as a victory march of YHWH’s triumph over Egypt’s gods1. Next, Numbers 33:50-35:34 contains YHWH’s five speeches to Israel for taking possession of the land and its allotment to the tribes by ten named princes and the giving of forty-two2 cities to the Levites and setting up six cities of refuge. These speeches ensured that the Land of YHWH’s Dwelling, reflecting His heavenly abode, holy and undefiled by idolatry or bloodshed, was suitable for YHWH and His bride. Numbers 36 concerns land inheritance preserved through kinship marriage relating to the daughters of Zelophehad, a rich imagery of Christ and the Church. This blog explores the wedding theme that runs through the Feast of Tabernacles.

At the end of Israel’s wilderness journey, YHWH found no iniquity in them and the King’s victory shout trumpeted throughout the camp, for He had prepared His bride in holiness for the gift of the Land (Num. 23:21). In Ancient Near East tradition, the bridegroom typically wore a victory wreath (Sng. 3:11). Symbolic of the bridegroom’s love for his bride in preparing her for his dwelling place, the crown of garlands spoke of honor, dignity, joy and gladness of heart, and a life of fertility3. After the marriage consummation, the bridegroom paraded his beautiful wife before the guests during the seven-day wedding feast. Their sacred marriage began their new epoch together, not just exclusively but involving the entire community. In Ancient Near East culture, the king not only married His bride, but he married the people and the land (Isa. 49:14–18, 54:1–5, 61:10–11, 62:11–12, Jer. 3:14–15, 17–18, 32:41, Hos. 1:9–10, 2:19–20, Zep. 3:17)4. Isaiah spoke of YHWH’s continued Presence (by cloud and pillar of fire) now over all His people as a wedding canopy (huppah, Strong’s H2646) because all the people in all the land are holy, worshiping Him.

In that day, the Branch of YHWH shall be beautiful and glorious;
And the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing
For those of Israel who have escaped.
And it shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy—everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. When Adonai has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning, then YHWH will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and above her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night. For over all the glory there will be a canopy. And there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge, and for a shelter from storm and rain. (Isa. 4:2-6, NKJV)

After YHWH has purged Zion of blood and cleansed the people from idolatry, He re-creates in Zion a new heavens and new earth in which He takes up residence, for the King is married to the Land and provides a tabernacle (sukkah) for protection of His holy people, for a place of refuge, and a shelter. The scope of the last verses of Isaiah 2-4’s long oracle encapsulates the Numbers forty-year sojourn in tents (sukkot), the death of self-exalting humans giving rise to a people exalting YHWH’s will, ultimately to live lives worshiping YHWH in the Land, married. Isaiah’s poetic oracle of the last days conveys that through the Messiah’s return and rule (as a shepherd of His people), fertility is restored to the land and to His people5. Isaiah carries this theme to the end of his scroll.

You [Judah] shall no more be termed Forsaken, nor shall your land be called Desolate any more. But you shall be called Hephzibah [My delight is in her], and your land be called Beulah [married]; for YHWH delights in you, and your land shall be married [owned and protected by the Lord]. (AMP)
Your children will care for you with joy, O Jerusalem, just as a young man cares for his bride.
Then God will rejoice over you as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride. (NLT) (Isa. 62:4-5)

YHWH will create a new heavens and a new land where righteousness dwells, where He can live with a purified people, causing the nations to seek Him on Mount Zion. In this way, His life-giving rulership flows outward to the farthest points of the earth so that humanity also inherits Eden.

The tenth generation from Abraham, Zelophehad’s daughters inheriting the land to preserve their father’s name and marrying to protect their inheritance forever, fulfilled the covenant promises YHWH made with Abraham to make his name great and become a father to many nations. Through Sabbath and Jubilee keeping in the land, YHWH’s marriage to the land, caring for and fructifying it, involved Sabbath fellowship with His people and with all humanity.

“For as the new heavens and the new earth
Which I will make shall remain before Me,” says YHWH,
“So shall your descendants and your name remain.
And it shall come to pass
That from one New Moon to another,
And from one Sabbath to another,
All flesh shall come to worship before Me,” says YHWH. (Isa. 66:22-23 NKJV)

John the Baptist identified Yeshua as the Bridegroom to whom the bride belongs and shares kinship (Jhn. 3:29). Yeshua bestowed His beloved bride, His segullah (private treasure), with the Spirit hovering over her to prepare her, which is “Christ in us, the hope of glory.” Via “Christ in us” moving, the “new man” increases, and the earthly “old man” dies away, halting sin’s force. Through Yeshua’s crown of thorns, He presents us clean and pure, so He, crowned in victory, may dwell with us in holiness, crowned with His glory, bearing much fruit. In a new beginning, the sacred marriage oneness of Yeshua and the Church procreates godly offspring (Mal. 2:14-15). The wedding motif from Passover to Pentecost and into the autumn’s seventh (Sabbath) month climaxes in the Eighth Day, a new beginning for humanity. 

Takeaway:
Israel, betrothed and married to YHWH, bore the shape of holiness in their Camp and in their land inheritance. YHWH’s abode within Israel’s Camp remained unchanged in the Land under His specific transformations. The daughters of Zelophehad’s story depicts YHWH’s marriage to all the land, preserving the Father’s name and all humanity living in Sabbath holiness, a new beginning. When He (by cloud and fire of His glory) protects and leads us out of exile into eternity, it is a conquest march of triumph over sin and death; His crown of thorns becomes the Bridegroom’s victory wreath, a crown of glory that He bestows upon His bride. At Sukkot, we are to remember the way in which He led us, overcoming our inherent weaknesses with the supremacy of His love.

Fun Factors:
There are 42 commands YHWH gave to Moses at the foot of Mount Sinai (Exo. 20:21; 24:4). The victory of these commands is associated with “the seventh month” sum, 42 × 17 = 714, in 1 Kings 8:2, describing taking the tabernacle and its furnishings into the Temple at the Feast of Tabernacles. A time of ever-flowing water, the seventh month is named “Ethanim,” 506, 22 × 23, the sum of 11 consecutive squares, 12 + 22 + … + 112, 5 + 6 = 11; 56 is the letter sum of “day.” In Yeshua’s genealogy, there are 42 generations (Mat. 1:1-17), and He spoke 42 words in John 9:3-4-5: “3 Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. 4 I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”