Bride

Bride is used in Scripture both in the ordinary sense of a woman about to marry or newly married, and as a rich theological metaphor for the community of the redeemed. In ordinary usage, the adornment of a bride with jewels and the joy of a bridegroom over his bride serve as images of divine delight over restored Israel (Isa. 49:18; 61:10; 62:5). The bride of the Song of Solomon, seeking and celebrating her beloved, has been read throughout Jewish and Christian tradition as an allegory of the soul or the community in its relationship to God.

John the Baptist describes himself as “the friend of the bridegroom” who rejoices at hearing the bridegroom's voice (John 3:29), and Jesus' parables of the wedding banquet and ten virgins (Matt. 22:1–14; 25:1–13) develop the marriage metaphor eschatologically. Paul describes the church as a pure virgin presented to Christ (2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:25–32), and Revelation's climactic vision is of “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2, 9). The bride metaphor encompasses both the covenant relationship of God and his people and the eschatological consummation toward which all history moves.