son-in-law: a man who has married a family's daughter and so joined that family by marriage
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
This word names a man by his marriage tie: he has married into a family, and from that family's side he is their son-in-law. So the men who married Lot's daughters, Samson married to a woman of Timnah, and David married to Saul's daughter are all called by this term.
The same word can widen from a single marriage to a whole household. King Ahaziah is called the son-in-law of the house of Ahab because his family was bound to that dynasty by marriage, which made the tie as much political as personal.
The feminine counterpart is כַּלָּה, the bride or daughter-in-law, and both words rest on the idea of joining families through marriage, the action named by the related verb חָתַן.
Nuances
1aa daughter's husband; a man married into a family
Gen 19:12Gen 19:14 (2×)Jdg 15:6Jdg 19:51Sa 18:181Sa 22:14Neh 6:18Neh 13:28
1bone bound to a royal house by marriage; allied to a dynasty as its son-in-law
TranslatabilityApproximate
2Ki 8:27
2
bridegroom: a man on or near his wedding day
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
The same word also names the man at the center of a wedding, the bridegroom. Here the picture is celebration: the bridegroom striding out of his chamber like the rising sun (Psalm 19:5), or rejoicing over his bride (Isaiah 62:5).
The prophets pair "the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride" as shorthand for ordinary joyful life. When God threatens to silence that sound he means the end of weddings and gladness (Jeremiah 7:34; 16:9; 25:10), and when he promises its return he means restoration (Jeremiah 33:11).
Exodus uses the word in a famously obscure phrase, "bridegroom of blood," whose sense scholars still argue over. That difficult use is set apart as its own sense below.
Nuances
2aa bridegroom; a newly married or soon-to-be-married man, often pictured in festive joy
2bthe disputed phrase "bridegroom of blood" in the circumcision episode
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyObscure
Exo 4:25*Exo 4:26
Exo 4:25
What the word means in the phrase "bridegroom of blood" (Exodus 4:25-26), and whom Zipporah addresses.
contestedThe word keeps its ordinary marriage sense, so the phrase means "bridegroom (or kinsman) of blood": Zipporah claims Moses, or the endangered child, as bound to her through the blood of circumcision.; B. S. Childs, The Book of Exodus (Old Testament Library, 1974)
contestedThe word here reflects a separate root attested in cognate languages for circumcision (compare Arabic khatana "to circumcise"), so the term belongs to the circumcision rite rather than being plain "bridegroom."; W. H. C. Propp, Exodus 1-18 (Anchor Yale Bible, 1999)
Names the man who marries into a family, the son-in-law defined by his tie to his wife's father and household.Gen 19:141Sa 18:18Neh 13:28
Names the man in his wedding role, the bridegroom, and stretches into a figure of a young man's vigor and joy, as when the sun strides out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber.Psa 19:5
Both
Both name a newly married person at a wedding, the one masculine and the other feminine, and Scripture pairs them in the stock picture of wedding gladness, whose silencing signals judgment.Jer 7:34Jol 2:16
Each word leads a double life, naming both a figure at the wedding and a relative joined to the household by marriage, so that one term carries the wedding day and the lasting family tie together.Gen 19:14Rut 1:22
Names the woman who marries into a family, the daughter-in-law bound to her husband's parents and their household, as Ruth was to Naomi and Tamar to Judah.Rut 1:22Gen 38:11Lev 18:15
Names the woman as the bride, the cherished beloved of the wedding songs and the bride decked out in her ornaments.Sng 4:9Isa 49:18Jer 2:32
בַּעַלhusband seen as master and owner of the household, where this word frames the man by the marriage tie itself rather than by authority over it
Names a person, the man at the center of the wedding, who can be spoken to and watched as he acts: he strides out of his room, he rejoices over his bride, he is summoned along with the gathered people.Psa 19:5Jol 2:16Isa 62:5
Reaches far past the wedding day into a permanent family tie, marking a man as son-in-law to his wife's father and household for as long as the connection lasts, including the political alliances such marriages created.Gen 19:14Jdg 15:61Sa 18:182Ki 8:27Neh 13:28
Because it names a man rather than an event, it becomes a stock picture for radiant joy, used for a person dressed in splendor and for God's own delight in his people.Isa 61:10Isa 62:5
Both
Both belong to the language of one wedding celebration, a public event the whole community turns out for and remembers as a high point of gladness, whether by naming the man everyone has come to see or the day they have come to see him on.Jol 2:16Jer 7:34Sng 3:11
Names the occasion rather than anyone in it, a wedding fixed as a particular day that can be pointed to and remembered, the day the king's mother set the crown on him and the day his heart was glad.Sng 3:11
ḥatan in the other biblical languages
νυμφίοςGreek“bridegroom”the Greek word for bridegroom; unlike the Hebrew it means only the wedding-day figure and never doubles as "son-in-law"
חתן most often names a man as son-in-law, bound by marriage into his wife's family, a standing relationship rather than the wedding day itself.Gen 19:141Sa 18:18Jdg 15:62Ki 8:27
The Hebrew word carries the puzzling idiom Zipporah speaks over Moses, calling him a bridegroom of blood, a use tied to the covenant of circumcision that has no Greek counterpart.Exo 4:25Exo 4:26
Both
Both name the bridegroom, the man rejoicing at his own wedding, and both anchor vivid pictures of wedding joy.Isa 61:10Jhn 3:29
Both stand in the set phrase joining the voice of the bridegroom to the voice of the bride as the very sound of celebration, so that silencing it signals a land laid waste.Jer 7:34Rev 18:23
νυμφίος names only the bridegroom, the man at his own wedding, and its home is the wedding feast with its guests and celebration; it never reaches out to a wider marriage relationship.Mat 25:1Jhn 3:29
In the Gospels the bridegroom becomes a title for Jesus, whose presence turns the moment into a feast and whose being taken away turns it into mourning.Mat 9:15Mrk 2:19Luk 5:34
What scholars say about ḥatan
Standard lexica treat חתן as a single noun from the root meaning to contract a marriage, realized as either the daughter's husband (son-in-law) or the man at his wedding (bridegroom); BDB and HALOT list both senses under one entry, with the extended dynastic use in the phrase "son-in-law of the house of Ahab" (2 Kgs 8:27). The prophetic pairing of חתן with כלה for bridegroom and bride is a stock formula for communal joy (Jer 7:34; 16:9; 25:10; 33:11; Joel 2:16). The one genuinely contested use is the phrase חֲתַן דָּמִים in Exodus 4:25-26, where commentators divide over whether the noun keeps its ordinary marriage sense or reflects a distinct root cognate with Arabic khatana "to circumcise," and over the referent of Zipporah's words; Childs and Propp survey the range without a settled consensus.
Sources
HALOT, s.v. חתןlexicon
BDB, s.v. חתןlexicon
B. S. Childs, The Book of Exodus (Old Testament Library, 1974)commentary
W. H. C. Propp, Exodus 1-18 (Anchor Yale Bible, 1999)commentary