I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; (Mt 8:11)
But why call it a "bosom"? It's not even a fun word to type or say aloud. Try it. Bosom.
It wasn't much fun in English, was it?
Let's try in Hebrew. Take a swig of milk or a bite of soft cheese, and you might generate enough phlegm to do it right. Or Crank n Boom ice cream. That should do it for sure. Ready?
cheik
It's like "cake," but the "ch" should be a phlegmy mess when you pronounce it.
The Hebrew root of cheik is Strong's 2436:
from an unused root, apparently meaning to enclose; the bosom (literally or figuratively): bosom, bottom, lap, midst, within.
A cheik is a bosom in Hebrew. It's the area of the chest where one enclosed another with his or her arms. It is a place of intimacy where only those most trusted and loved are embraced. Notice it also can mean a "lap." Doesn't it make you think of Yeshua gathering the little children to bless them in his bosom? Sorry, his cheik. Cheik, cheik, cheik.
All of the meanings of cheik have to do with an area that is enclosed, like a chok, which is a Biblical statute that defines or carves out specific instructions. To understand Abraham's bosom, let's start where he did, the Torah. Here's one context:
"If your brother, the son of your mother, your son or your daughter, the wife of your bosom..." (Dt. 13:6) (Thanks, Mariela, for presenting this definition to the class Monday night!)
A wife is a man's bosom. His cheik. Sarah is Abraham's bosom. If you'll recall the previous newsletter, to Tent Sarah is attributed 1) the Shabbat lamp that never went out, 2) bread that miraculously multiplied, and 3) the cloud of the Shekhinah. Sarah comforts those who dwell in Abraham's bosom with bread, light, and the Presence of Adonai. Yeshua demonstrated all three signs to Israel.
The wonderful promise given to Abraham and Sarah was that they would be father and mother to many nations. Abraham was a hundred years old when Isaac was born, and the promise was passed on to Isaac. When Yeshua refers to dining with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom, it is in the context of Matthew Eight, which is the account of the Roman centurion who requests that Yeshua heal his servant from afar, for he has faith. He understands spiritual authority. Yeshua heals the centurion's servant, and then for the reader familiar with Abraham's life of prophecy and Jewish tradition concerning him, he says:
I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; (Mt 8:11)
The centurion is a leader over a hundred. He was from the nations. Abraham was a hundred years old when Isaac was born to become the type of Messiah in his figurative resurrection from the altar on the Temple Mount. Isaac emerged from the embrace of YHVH Yireh, the One Who would provide the sacrifice and arrange for Isaac's bride, his cheik Rebekah. Isaac would inherit the promise of Abraham and Sarah, to father and mother many nations. Isaac's "field" yielded a hundredfold[1]even in a year of famine![2]This is in addition to the multiplied flocks and herds. From that threshingfloor and the flocks and herds, one brings a tithe at Sukkot, the Feast of the Nations.
It is also the time of dwelling in temporary sukkot, recalling that the Israelites entered into Sukkot of Glory when they left Egypt. It is also known as "Clouds of Glory."[3]The Israelites were "ingathered" to the protective Presence of Adonai, a foretaste of Abraham's cheik, the comfort of Sarah, the Presence of Adonai to the children and bride.
There is a repetition of themes and experiences among the lives of Sarah, Joseph, and Esther. The most obvious theme will be the thread of Sukkot: addition and gathering, myrtle [of the four species in the lulav], many nations.[4] While Sarah dies at 127 years of age, Esther (Hadassah, myrtle) is a mother over many nations, 127 provinces, to be exact.
Another name for the Feast of Sukkot is the Feast of Ingathering, or Asif. You can hear the root word asaf in Asif as well as in Joseph's Hebrew name, Yosef. Not so coincidentally, when a righteous person dies, he is "gathered to his people." In Genesis 25:8, Abraham is gathered, ye-asef, to his people, and his sons Isaac and Ishmael bury him in the Cave of Machpelah, and Scripture reminds us, "...and Sarah his wife." There is an aspect of death that is prophesied in keeping the Feast of Asif, Sukkot, the Clouds of Glory. It is experiencing Abraham and Sarah's cheik for a little while.
Abraham and Sarah's cheik are the place of ingathering the righteous into the sukkah of the Glorious Presence, the Shekhinah. Shekhinah is from shakan, which means to dwell. A like expression is Glory, kvod,which describes the "heaviness" of that Presence that filled both the Mishkan and the Mikdash, the Tabernacle and the Temple, the Tent and the House. The cloud of incense in the Tent and the House represents the prayers of the righteous souls who are in the cheik of the altar temporarily, but will be resurrected permanently.
On six days of Sukkot in the Temple, long willow branches were brought up to the outer altar and stacked against its side so that the tops drooped over the altar, forming a small sukkah. The Israelites would circle the altar, blow the trumpet, and say, "Please, YHVH, bring salvation now; please, YHVH, bring success now!" But on the seventh day of Sukkot, Hoshanah Rabbah (The Great Hosanna), the Jews circled the altar seven times proclaiming, "Beauty is yours, O altar! Beauty is yours, O altar! To YAH[5]and to you, O altar! To YAH and to you, O altar!"[6]
Wait a minute...why are they calling the altar "Beautiful" as if she is a person?
Hold onto your willow and myrtle branches, and we'll get there.
Abraham's purchase of the Cave of Machpelah was for it to be a "holding" (
achuzat-kever: holding-tomb) for his dead (Ge 23:4). It was a permanent purchase of physical property, but it was recognition that even the physical burial was only a "holding" place for those to be buried in his cheik. When Avimelekh takes his group of friends and requests the continuation of the covenant oath between him and Abraham with Isaac, Isaac consents. Avimelekh and the group say, "We have indeed seen...let us make a covenant with you."
In this case, achuzat
means a group of friends who join in the covenant with Isaac's father Abraham and continue it with his descendants. Those friendly to Abraham's descendants can also be considered a "holding" of Abraham's, for Rashi comments, "They are held together." A well of water was found there, and it was named Be'er Sheva, or well of oath. Have you ever noticed how often living water confirms an oath? It was in the field of Gerar, associated with Avimelekh's city of Gerar, that Isaac reaped a hundred-fold, the number of the centurion, Abraham's age when Isaac was born. This hints that the beautiful altar can include those "held together" with Abraham.
Although "beauty" is rightly ascribed to Adonai, those who worship around the altar ascribe beauty to the altar itself on the final day of Sukkot with increasing intensity. If the outer altar is synonymous with Abraham and Sarah's cheikim, the righteous souls to be resurrected from the temporary tent of Sukkot to the permanent House of the Temple, then the Seventh Day of Sukkot becomes doubly significant. By the last day of Sukkot, the Bride is beautiful! She's ready for another transition, this time to the Golden Altar. She'll go from glory to glory.
Isaac alludes to the golden incense altar in his increasing prayers for his bride Rebekah to conceive a child. Rebekah was put into Sarah's tent as a child (according to rabbinic tradition), but now she is grown and lovely. The two types, bride and child, are represented in her, the virtuous child now grown to a virtuous woman. Offspring will validate her righteousness.
Genesis 25:21 says that Isaac entreated (
va-yehtar) Adonai because she was barren, and Adonai allowed Himself to be entreated
(va-yeh-ater) by Isaac. Rashi comments,
This means he entreated much through prayer...I say that any form of the root atar is
an expression of 'beseechment' and 'increasing.' Similarly, the cloud of incense means the profusion of the rising of smoke...Similarly, 'You multiplied your words upon me.' (Rashi to Genesis 25:21)
Jacob (Israel) later alludes to this speaking quality of the altar when he says,
And
let us arise, and go up to Bethel; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.
[7]
Beth-el is the House of God. It is the location where Jacob saw the portal for the angels to travel between Heaven and Earth. Jacob says they must first "arise" to form the altar, a hint to resurrection. Prior to this, though, Jacob built houses for his family and sukkot for his cattle.
There is no dwelling in a sukkah on the Eighth Day, Shmini Atzeret, only rejoicing in the transition to a permanent resurrection to serve in the House.
Moses' inherited Abraham's cheik, highlighting another context for the word, which is a nursing child. Moses became like Abraham, teaching Abraham's descendants about their Father Abraham's "bosom," the Presence of Adonai:
Was it I who conceived all this people? Was it I who brought them forth, that You should say to me, 'Carry them in your bosom [cheik] as a nurse carries a nursing infant, to the land which You swore to their fathers'? (Nu 11:12)
Significantly, Rebekah is sent to Isaac accompanied by her nurse. Yeshua also links Abraham's bosom to Moses:
Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried... (Lk 16:22)
Seeing that he cannot cross from Hades to Father Abraham's cheik, the rich man requests that Lazarus arise from the dead to warn his five brothers.
But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.' But he said, 'No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!' But he said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.'" (Lk 16: 29-31)
Abraham even addresses the rich man as "Child" and mentions the comfort of the cheik, recalling Sarah and Rebekah's tent:
But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. (Lk 16:25)
The rich man forfeited the embrace of Father Abraham and Mother Sarah in the Lower Garden, the place where righteous souls await resurrection. Yeshua reminds his listeners that the resurrection from the dead is so strongly preached in Moses (the Torah) and the Prophets, that if one can't believe from those two witnesses, even one who arises from the dead will not convince them. Abraham's cheik is preached by the sign in Moses' cheik.
So "wife, bride" and "child" are two important occupants of Abraham's cheik. There is one other important location of the cheik, the holy altar. Three times, Ezekiel describes the bottom level of the altar as a cheik. Here's an example:
And these are the measures of the altar after the cubits: The cubit is a cubit and an hand breadth; even the bottom (H2436/cheik) shall be a cubit, and the breadth a cubit, and the border thereof by the edge thereof round about shall be a span: and this shall be the higher place of the altar. (Eze 43:13 KJV)
In Revelation, John drops hints that the altar's cheik was synonymous with the righteous souls gathered in and sending up the cloud of incense with multiplied, increasing words. The bride and the children are gathered at the cheik of the altar before the Throne:
When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. (Re 6:9)
Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. (Re 8:3)
Then the sixth angel sounded: And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, (Re 9:13)
Then I was given a reed like a measuring rod. And the angel stood, saying, "Rise and measure the temple of God, the altar, and those who worship there. (Re 11:1)
And I heard another from the altar saying, "Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments." (Re 16:7)
Part of fathering and mothering the nations was to provide for their resurrection as well. The patriarchs, Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah, were buried at Hebron in the Cave of Machpelah, the traditional entryway back to the Lower Garden, the resting place of souls in the embrace of Abraham and his cheik Sarah, who represents the Comfort of the Shekhinah while they wait, grow, study, and pray increasing prayers.
There in the Lower Garden, tradition tells us, Adam greets the soul with joy, and the soul sits down for a meal with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That's quite a multiplication of bread in Abraham's cheik Sarah!
The soul is received into Abraham and Sarah's cheik like a nursing child, and there while the soul awaits resurrection, he or she grows and is prepared to be the Bride of Messiah and presented before the Throne.
The souls under the altar in Revelation are in Adonai's embrace, awaiting the resurrection of all righteous souls so that the full Bride can be completed and presented to the King.
This is a small portion of the weekly online live Torah study. Additional insights into Moses' bosom, leprosy, the four horses, blasphemy of the cheik, and the departed glory give full context.
[1]
Rashi comments to Genesis 26:8 that the reason the increase was counted was so that Isaac could tithe to the poor who were suffering from the famine. He was dwelling in the Land, so therefore, he tithed even before the Torah was formally issued to his descendants.
[3]
Scherman & Zlotowitz, Eds., 2005, pp. 26-31
[4]
The detailed explanations of their similarities will be in Creation Gospel Workbook Seven.
[5]
Abbreviated form of the most sacred Name of God.
[6]
Scherman & Zlotowitz, p. 67.
