Jesus/Judaism/marriage

# 10
Jesus, Judaism, and marriage

Since marriage is normal and holy in Jewish thought, why then was Jesus never married? Good question! We don’t have sufficient wisdom to explain why he didn’t marry. We can only speculate based on a similar situation as found in the naviim (prophets).

Pirkei Avot 5:24, had mentioned: at eighteen for marriage.

In Jeremiah 16:1-13, that prophet was forbidden to marry by the Lord. He must devote himself to the task of preaching God’s judgment. Some teachers assert that the negative nature of such a ministry could only produce severe unhappiness for a wife as well as her mate. Jeremiah’s entire life and about 41 years of ministry were burdened with the knowledge that God would soon bring an end to Jerusalem and cast away the covenant people.

Jeremiah’s ministry caused him much sorrow, and he became known among the people as a weeping prophet. The Lord spoke to him in Jeremiah 16:2, saying; "You shall not take a wife, neither shall you have sons or daughters in this place." We speculate that God foresaw what suffering and sorrow would come to a wife and children, and spared some suffering by commanding Jeremiah not to marry.

Jeremiah, being a prophet, was aware of coming grievous deaths, unburied bodies laying like dung upon the earth, and the terrible impact of sword and famine upon the people. He chose also not to marry. He rather mourned for all the great evils that would befall his people. God had said that He would take away His peace from this people, even lovingkindness and mercies. In that situation, and because of all the judgment, marriage seemed out of the question.

Similar reasons may be why Jesus did not marry. Various verses in the Christian Bible show that Jesus had a sense of destiny that involved much sorrow and suffering. He mentioned suffering at the hands of the Gentiles (Mark 9:31, Mark 10:33-34), and rejection by the scribes and elders, who would eventually turn him over to Gentiles. He foreknew what was to come in those things.

Hebrews 5:7-8, relate how as a son he prayed and supplicated with strong crying and tears unto God. But he obeyed the Divine will, and submitted to the higher order, when his will was not permitted to prevail (see Matthew 26:39).

Near the moment of his death on the cross by Roman crucifixion, he saw fit to commend his mother into the care of John the beloved in John 19:26-27, rather then into the care of one of his four literal brothers. Imagine, if he had been a married man! What a complicated scenario.

The school-leaving age in the scheme of a Jewish child’s education is twenty. But according to the pattern mentioned in Pirkei Avot 5:24, the age for marriage is eighteen. Sources say that during the first years of marriage, the student-husband usually lived with, and was supported by his wife’s parents.

In Genesis 1: 28, it is reported that God spoke to Adam: p’ru ur'vu umil’u et ha-aretz.
Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth...In Hebrew thought, this is the first of 613 commands in the Torah. That positive command to man, became a point of contention among Jews, since Jesus did not perform it in the procreative sense by taking a wife.

The first man Adam had neither human father or earthly mother, but Luke 3:38 names that Adam as a "son of God." Gabriel had declared that Jesus would be called son of the highest (ben El Elyon). Adam took a wife and bare children in his own image, but the second Adam took no wife and begat no literal children.

In Judaism marriage is holy and a good thing. Jewish marriages are usually arranged on a Tuesday, simply because it says in the Torah on the third creative day, that God saw that it was "good"- mentioned 2 times on that day (Genesis 1:10 and Genesis 1:12). Thus, because of the twice mentioned "good," on that third creative day, Tuesdays are great for marriage.

A wife was considered "good" also, and the Hebrew wording of Genesis 2:18: eh-eseh lo ayzer k’negdo, "I will make him a helper against him" (K.J. Version= help meet for him), is explained in Rashi’s Commentary on Genesis 2:18: man’s mate is either his helper, if he is fortunate, or against him, if he is not (Minchas Yehuda; Sifsei Chachamim).

In reference to the creation of woman, the statement "I will make," is in direct contrast to the creation of man, which wrote "let us make" (in our likeness and image). The plural sense of meaning as alluded to by the sages as meaning that man, woman, and God’s procreative ability vested in human kind is the "us." Genesis 5:3 seems to bear it out, inasmuch as it is written there that Adam begat a son in his own likeness after his image; and called his name Seth.

Jesus never married a wife or begat literal sons and daughters. But the Christian Bible identifies those who come to God by him, as sons of God (John 1:12-13, Hebrews 2:10, 1John 3:1-2).