Jewish Wedding Customs Reveal the Messiah and His Bride!

I promised on my recent blog that I would make another post about the Jewish Wedding, so here it is. I recommend the booklet by Richard Booker, "Here Comes the Bride." The following article is taken from this important writing. You can easily see how this correlates with our salvation and our identity as the "Bride of Messiah."

There are three phases of the Jewish wedding: the betrothal phase, the wedding phase, and the celebration phase. God shows His deep love for us in these phases. God wanted the man to acquire a wife publicly and ask her father for his daughter's hand in marriage by means of a "marriage contract," really a COVENANT, a blood covenant. The father might choose the groom or enlist the services of a matchmaker.

The young man draws up a contract (covenant), called a Ketubah, and presents it to the young woman and her father. The young man proposes a bride price to the father to get his permission to marry his daughter. This is a compensation for the financial liability of raising a daughter (she couldn't do the hard work a son could).  If the father accepts the contract and the bride price, the young man pours a cup of wine for his beloved. If she drinks the cup, she is saying "yes!"

The bridegroom has brought gifts for her, which she will use as she waits for the wedding.  Before the wedding the bride has a ceremonial cleansing, called a Mikveh, denoting a purifying through baptism. Now they are betrothed, which means they are legally married. In the West it might be called an engagement period. The consummation of the marriage comes in the celebration phase.

As the young man leaves the house of the beloved, he announces that he is going to prepare a place for her. Then he will come get her! This place is usually a room he builds onto his father's house. It is called the chuppah and represents the wedding chamber. It may take a full year to complete it. The man's father is the one who decides when it is ready. The young man may say when questioned about the time, "I don't know, only my father knows."

While the bridegroom is gone, the bride is making herself ready, using the gifts he has given her. Whenever she leaves her house she wears a veil, signifying she is "spoken for." She has been bought with a price.

The bride never knows the exact time the groom is coming, so she has to be ready at all times. It was the custom for the bride to keep an oil lamp beside her bed, along with her veil and other belongings. Her bridesmaids also wait while making sure they have plenty of oil for their lamps. The groom may come like a "thief in the night" and steal away the bride!

When the day comes for the wedding, the groom and close friends make their way to the bride's house. As they get close to her house they give a shout and blow a shofar (ram's horn) to alert the bride. The groom and his friends charge right into the house and carry off the bride and her maids! The neighbors hear the commotion and look outside, but the bride is wearing a veil, so they don't know who she is! In a week she will return with her veil off, and they will know!

When the bride and groom reach his father's house, they go into the wedding chamber for a seven-day honeymoon. They consummate the marriage. The groom's best friend has been waiting near the door. The new husband takes the honeymoon sheet stained with blood and gives it to him. The friend then shows those who have gathered to celebrate the evidence that the two have become one. This signifies the marriage covenant is established.

The invited guests have been having a party during the seven days of the honeymoon until the newly weds emerge from their wedding chamber. There is a lot of singing and dancing, and a joyous feast follows, the marriage supper. When the party is over, the couple goes to their own house. The bride discards her veil, and the neighbors know her identity. They also rejoice and celebrate the marriage!

NEXT BLOG: GOD TAKES A BRIDE, ISRAEL