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Bible - OT - Song of Songs: Sister-bride

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The word for “bride” (kallah) has a strange career in the Old Testament. Up through 1 Chronicles 2:4, it exclusively means “daughter-in-law.” In the six uses in Song of Songs, it is translated as “bride,” and after the Song the prophets use the word almost exclusively to mean “bride” (cf. the exceptions in Ezekiel 22:11 and Micah 7:6).

Does this mark out a progression in Israel’s history with Yahweh? Is the canon as a whole following the sequence of the allegory of Ezekiel 16, where Yahweh first adopts Israel as daughter and then takes her as bride?

And, is the repeated “sister-bride/daughter-in-law” of the Song of Songs a hint of Trinitarian theology – a clue that Yahweh is to Israel Father and Brother, adoptive Parent and Bridegroom?

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 6:26 am

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Bible - OT - Song of Songs: Sister-bride

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