StrongerBible

numphē

νύμφη

GreekG3565bride, daughter-in-law

Appears 8 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 10:35Luk 12:53 (2×)Jhn 3:29Rev 18:23Rev 21:2Rev 21:9Rev 22:17
Root family
Names & words formed with this
Word studyNOOM-faynoun

What numphē means

the young married woman a wedding brings into a family: the bride beside her husband, or a son's wife in his parents' household

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

Greek names this woman with one word, and which English word fits depends on who is looking at her. Put her beside the man she is marrying and she is the bride, the woman at the center of the wedding, the counterpart of the bridegroom (νυμφίος). Put her inside her husband's family home and the same word means the son's wife, what English calls the daughter-in-law, the one Jesus pictures set against her mother-in-law (πενθερά) in a household pulled apart.

That double use is not a quirk of Greek. It matches the Hebrew word it usually stands in for (כַּלָּה), and it matches how families actually lived. A son did not move out to start a separate home, so from her wedding day the young wife was at once a bride to him and the new woman of his parents' house. English has to pick one label or the other, but one word held both.

In the New Testament the wedding side dominates, and it quickly reaches past ordinary weddings. Only the song over fallen Babylon uses the word for everyday married life, where the voices of groom and bride go silent in a ruined city. Elsewhere it carries a picture: John the Baptist says the bride belongs to the bridegroom and that he is only the friend standing by, glad to hear his voice, and Revelation closes by showing the holy city coming down from God dressed like a bride, naming her the wife (γυνή) of the Lamb, and letting her voice join the Spirit's invitation to come.

Nuances

1aa bride at a wedding: the woman being married, paired with the man she marries
TranslatabilityDirect
Rev 18:23
1bthe bride as a picture: the people God has joined himself to, shown as the woman being married
TranslatabilityDirect
Jhn 3:29Rev 21:2Rev 21:9Rev 22:17
1ca daughter-in-law: a son's wife, named by her place in her husband's parents' household
Mat 10:35Luk 12:53 (2×)

What scholars say about numphē

BDAG treats νύμφη as a single lexeme with two senses, "bride, young wife" and "daughter-in-law," the second well attested in Koine documentary papyri (Moulton and Milligan, s.v.) and continuous with classical usage (LSJ, s.v., where the word additionally denotes a nymph, a sense absent from the New Testament). The New Testament distribution is narrow: five of the eight occurrences fall in Revelation, while Matthew 10:35 and Luke 12:53 take the word from the citation of Micah 7:6, where it corresponds to Hebrew כַּלָּה and to the Septuagintal wording, and John 3:29 supplies the one Gospel use in a wedding image. Joachim Jeremias (TDNT 4:1099-1106, on the νύμφη/νυμφίος word group) sets the bridal imagery against the prophetic depiction of the LORD as the husband of Israel and argues that the bridegroom sayings draw the messianic community into that nuptial picture. On Revelation, David Aune (Revelation 17-22, WBC 52C) and G. K. Beale (The Book of Revelation, NIGTC) examine the identification of the bride with the new Jerusalem in 21:2, 21:9, and 22:17, where city and people are deliberately fused; the disagreement there concerns the referent of the image, not the lexical sense of the noun.

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. νύμφηlexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. νύμφηlexicon
  • J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. νύμφηlexicon
  • J. Jeremias, "νύμφη, νυμφίος," TDNT 4:1099-1106dictionary
  • David E. Aune, Revelation 17-22, WBC 52C (1998)commentary
  • G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation, NIGTC (1999)commentary

All attested forms of νύμφη

accusative f s

νύμφην

Mat 10:35, Luk 12:53, Jhn 3:29, Rev 21:2, Rev 21:9

nominative f s

νύμφη

Luk 12:53, Rev 22:17

genitive f s

νύμφης

Rev 18:23