Redeeming the Bride Part 2: Drinking the Cup
Published by Rob Skiba June 1, 2014 at 5:21 AM
Yeshua’s Bitter Cup
Did you ever notice that Yeshua was betrayed for the price of a woman?
LEVITICUS 27:
1 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When a man shall make a singular vow, the persons shall be for the Lord by thy estimation.
3 And thy estimation shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto sixty years old, even thy estimation shall be fifty shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary.
4 And if it be a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels.
In Zechariah, we see that YHWH was insulted by this estimation of His value:
ZECHARIAH 11 (NASB):
12 I said to them, “If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!” So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages.
13 Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.” So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the Lord.
This, of course, was a prophetic foreshadowing of the price at which Yeshua was valued:
MATTHEW 26 (NASB):
15 and said, “What are you willing to give me to betray Him to you?” And they weighed out thirty pieces of silver to him.
MATTHEW 27 (NASB):
3 Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,
4 saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” But they said, “What is that to us? See to that yourself!”
5 And he threw the pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary and departed; and he went away and hanged himself.
6 The chief priests took the pieces of silver and said, “It is not lawful to put them into the temple treasury, since it is the price of blood.”
7 And they conferred together and with the money bought the Potter’s Field as a burial place for strangers.
8 For this reason that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day.
9 Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one whose price had been set by the sons of Israel;
10 and they gave them for the Potter’s Field, as the Lord directed me.”
In my previous note concerning Redeeming the Bride, We already established that Yeshua was the Bridegroom, who loved His bride and gave Himself for her, but there is so much more to the story! Not only did He give Himself, but He also took the place of the adulterous bride and drank of the cup that she deserved. Numbers 5 gives us the details:
NUMBERS 5:
11 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
12 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man’s wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him,
13 And a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept close, and she be defiled, and there be no witness against her, neither she be taken with the manner;
14 And the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled:
All through the Old Testament, we see that Israel provoked her Husband YHWH to jealousy. Well, in the Torah (YHWH’s marriage contract), we see an interesting ritual that would be performed if a jealous husband suspected his wife had been unfaithful to him:
15 Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and he shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon; for it is an offering of jealousy, an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance.
16 And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the Lord:
17 And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water:
18 And the priest shall set the woman before the Lord, and uncover the woman’s head, and put the offering of memorial in her hands, which is the jealousy offering: and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse:
19 And the priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the woman, If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse:
20 But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband:
21 Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The Lord make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the Lord doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell;
22 And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen.
23 And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water:
24 And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse: and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter.
25 Then the priest shall take the jealousy offering out of the woman’s hand, and shall wave the offering before the Lord, and offer it upon the altar:
26 And the priest shall take an handful of the offering, even the memorial thereof, and burn it upon the altar, and afterward shall cause the woman to drink the water.
27 And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that,if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people.
28 And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed.29 This is the law of jealousies, when a wife goeth aside to another instead of her husband, and is defiled;
30 Or when the spirit of jealousy cometh upon him, and he be jealous over his wife, and shall set the woman before the Lord, and the priest shall execute upon her all this law.
31 Then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity.
This is nothing short of absolutely amazing! Remember what Yeshua prayed in the Garden?
MATTHEW 26:
38 Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.
39 And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.
40 And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour?
41 Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
42 He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.
43 And he came and found them asleep again: for their eyes were heavy.
44 And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.
45 Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
For most of my life, I thought “this cup” was simply an idiom for the “cup of suffering” that is the horrific pain of crucifixion (something from which anyone would pray to not have to “drink”). After studying the book of Numbers and comparing it with related portions from the Prophets and New Testament, I have come to believe there is a deeper meaning to this “cup” Yeshua asked to pass from Him.
We all know He was the “sinless Lamb” who took away our sins. But consider again the fact that He said He had come for the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24) who is His adulterous Bride. She is the one who deserved the cup of bitter water, that would make her thighs rot and belly swell. That was her just punishment… that He took upon Himself! In order to take her sin, He had to take her punishment. This is exactly what He did and crucifixion was precisely the form of execution that would make what was to be the prescribed punishment occur: thighs rotting and belly swelling.
Crucifixion is by far the worst form of execution. Seneca, a Roman philosopher who lived at the time of Jesus, provided a quote, which very well describes both the horror of crucifixion as well as the effects of the Numbers 5 curse:
Can anyone be found who would prefer wasting away in pain dying limb by limb, or letting out his life drop by drop, rather than expiring once for all? Can any man be found willing to be fastened to the accursed tree, long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly wounds on shoulders and chest, and drawing the breath of life amid long drawn-out agony? He would have many excuses for dying even before mounting the cross. (Dialogue 3:2.2)
When someone is crucified, his nailed feet carry the weight of his body. The outstretched and nailed wrists, expanded the chest making it very difficult for the victim to breathe. In order to do so, the person must push up on their nail-pinned feet (causing excruciating pain), in order to exhale. Furthermore, as he did this, it caused his elbows to rotate and his nailed wrists to twist. This, of course, would cause terrible pain in both his hands and feet. Thus, every breath would literally become another symphony of pain, eventually leading to severe muscle cramping, exhaustion and finally asphyxia, ultimately causing the death of the victim.
Thighs wasting away:
Belly swelling:
Yeshua was on that cross for six long hours doing this horrific routine of pressing up and down on the nails for every breath He took during that time! Unless otherwise hastened, a crucified person usually died from exhaustion. Can you imagine how the strength in his thighs would have literally wasted away (rotted) in that time? In addition, we know that He had congestive heart failure. This would have caused His belly to literally swell.[1] It should be noted however, that the fact He yelled out just prior to His death proves He did not die from suffocation. He literally died from a broken heart: A ruptured heart or aorta most likely being the cause of Yeshua’s sudden death.[2] And so it was that the Groom drank of the cup of bitter waters, sparing His adulterous Bride from the just punishment she deserved.[3]
Romans 8:1
8 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
John 8:
10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
His love for you is more than we can even begin to imagine. If that doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, and an increased desire to love Him all the more, I don’t know what would.
– Rob Skiba
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