A ceremony by which a man and a woman enter into matrimony. The term itself occurs only once in the OT (Song 3:1) and rarely in the NT (Matt 9:15; Mark 2:19; Luke 5:34; Matt 22:8-12). The nuptial celebrations consisted of a procession from the house of the bride to the bridegroom’s home (Matt 25:6; the latter may have been symbolized by a tent). Both parties were beautifully dressed and ornamented (Isa 49:18; Jer 2:32; Ps 45:14-15), and the bride wore a veil (Song 6:7), which she took off only in the nuptial chamber, a custom that may make intelligible Leah’s mistaken identity in (Gen 29:21-25). The NT uses weddings and wedding feasts as symbols for the joy of God’s kingdom (Matt 22:1-14; Luke 14:16-24). Similarly, in (Matt 9:14) Jesus says that joy and feasting like that of a wedding are more appropriate responses than fasting to the current manifestation of God’s presence among his disciples. A similar affirmation of joy in community is present in the account of Jesus’s first manifestation of his divine power, at the wedding feast in Cana (John 2:1-11). Finally, in (Rev 19:6-21), the heavenly banquet is described metaphorically as the “marriage supper of the Lamb” (v. 9).
