LIKE A BRIDEGROOM COMING OUT OF HIS CHAMBER… “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other...” Psalm 19:1-6.

In this powerful passage, the sun’s circuit paints an awe-inspiring picture of the reliability and perfection of God’s word and His testimony in our physical world. And it also includes the incredible imagery of the Bridegroom coming out of His “tent”, also translated “tabernacle”, which should grab our attention. The word “circuit” in Hebrew (Tekufah) from the root Nun.Quf.Pe. meaning "to go around", describes a path taken which returns to the same point in time or space.

The physical circuit of the sun in the heavens will be completed at the time of the vernal or spring equinox occurring March 19 at 11:06 pm EDT in the northern hemisphere. After this point the daylight hours begin to outweigh the dark hours, and the sun can truly be said to have begun another renewed cycle, or year: a year beginning with the Bridegroom leaving his tabernacle in the heavens, “like a champion rejoicing to run his course”.

The ancients had one important thing in their favor which enabled them to easily observe these phenomenal truths we overlook in God’s creation: TIME. Back then, plenty of folks lived almost 1000 years, and without electricity, had eons of time to sit, night after night, month after month, year after year, century after century, and observe the constellations as they progressed across the sky, the sun as it rose and set, the moon as it appeared in its four quarters.

And remember, they had not-too-distant ancestors who had come to know God in the Garden of Eden and passed their experiences down to them. Though these folks didn’t have God's written word to guide them, they understood and depended on Him as Creator, and eagerly received and celebrated His Word expressed to them in the vast expanse of the world He had created.

"Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years." Genesis 1:14. Jeremiah 31:35 and Psalm 136:7-9 state these lights are the sun, moon and stars.

Our Creator formed the stars and their specific, named groupings in the constellations. (Gen 1:14; Job 9:8-9; 26:13; 38:31-33; Amos 5:8). “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?” Job 38:31-32

The Pleiades is a star cluster approximately 400-light-years distance from Earth, near the constellations of Orion and Taurus. The cluster includes seven bright stars that are easily seen with the naked eye, gravitationally bound together. One can only imagine how Job knew that!

Every year this star group appears in close proximity to the newly visible crescent moon -- just after sunset, in the spring, at the beginning of the FIRST biblical month. "Seek him that made the seven stars and Orion, and turned the shadow of death into the morning, and made the day dark with night: that called for the waters of the sea and poured them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name” Amos 5:8.

The Jewish philosopher Philo, who lived at the time of Jesus, also understood the importance of the language of the heavens. “Moses puts down the beginning of the vernal equinox as the first month of the year, attributing the chief honour, not as some persons do to the periodical revolutions of the year in regard of time, but rather to the graces and beauties of nature which it has caused to shine upon men . . . Accordingly, in this month, about the fourteenth day of the month, when the orb of the moon is usually about to become full, the public universal feast of the Passover is celebrated . . ." (Philo, On The Life Of Moses II, Section XLI (41) (222-224).

Eusebius, a Greek historian of the 3rd century AD also wrote, "… it was also known to the Jews anciently, and before [Messiah], and was chiefly observed by them, as we may learn from Philo, Josephus, and Musaeus; and not only from these, but also from those still more ancient, i. e. the two Agathobuli, commonly called the master, and of Aristobulus, that most distinguished scholar, who was one of the seventy that translated the holy scriptures from the Hebrew. These. . . say that all ought to sacrifice the Passover alike after the vernal equinox, in the middle of the first month." Ecclesiastical History Popular Edition. p. 313

The first light of the next new moon following the vernal equinox announces the first day of the new year. God's New Year is anticipated to begin with the next new moon on the evening of April 9. The first month of God’s New Year heralds the anniversary of the Death, Burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, as Almighty God appointed in Leviticus 23, and recorded in all 4 of the Gospels during the Passover celebration and the week-long Days of Unleavened Bread, collectively known as the season of Passover.

We have the incredible opportunity to celebrate these days as God appointed them on His timetable for mankind. But mere observation and recognition of God’s appointments on any date does not deliver the spiritual understanding for which they were created. To understand the imagery of the Bridegroom coming out of His chamber as Jesus leaving the throne room, and heading to earth, we must be able to view the heavens in the Spirit, not with the wisdom of the world.

“This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit… But we have the mind of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 2:13-14,16.

“In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other...” Psalm 19:1-6.