Our Lord was Jewish and He did things like a Jew. If we consult the Jewish law and custom, we find many of the motivations for particular actions of our Lord. The Jews had their own peculiar ways, based on the Old Covenant, and the Lord followed those traditions in choosing a bride. The bride is the Christian Church. In Isaiah 61:10, Isaiah spoke of the bridegroom and the bride in this way- "I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels."

Revelation reveals that Yeshua (Hebrew for Jesus) is coming again as a Bridegroom and King. At this very moment, He is longing for the day when He will gather His bride into Himself. This union has been in the heart of God since the beginning.

The Bible tells us of the marriage of God to Israel and the marriage covenant He kept, even though His people did not. (See Jeremiah 31:32) It also tells of a new marriage covenant for both the Jews and the Gentiles. The New Testament is God's marriage covenant to the church. The Jewish bridegroom was to present a katubah, a written contract explaining what the groom would give the bride and how he would provide for her, to the father of the bride.

In ancient Israel, brides were chosen by the father of the bridegroom. This is what Jesus meant in John 15:16 when he said, "You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you." 1 John 4:19 says, "We love Him because He first loved us." And, John 3:16 says, "God so loved.....". Many times the bride had not seen her husband to be, but found out about him through a servant of the father of the bridegroom. We have not seen Jesus, but God's servant, the Holy Spirit, has revealed Him to us. We love Him sight unseen. "Whom having  not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory." (1Peter 1:8)

Deuteronomy 24:1 says, "a man took or acquired a wife.." In Hebrew, this is a business term. The price was paid to the father of the bride, both to compensate him for the loss of a worker and to show how much the groom valued the bride. The word for wife (be'ulah) means "owned one." husband (ba'al) means "owner or master." This seems cruel and unjust in today's culture, but it was actually way above the pagan standards for those days. If a man wanted a wife, he simply took her, had intercourse with her, and she was his wife. God introduced sanctity and permanence into the marriage relationship and the "bride price" was part of raising the standard of righteousness. God introduced the marriage system at Sinai. Women now had value and were to be cherished.

When Yeshua died, paying the ultimate bride price, He said: "It is finished." (John 19:30) The word that He spoke as His final thought is from the Hebrew root ka'lal which means to complete, make perfect or finish. It is the same root of the word bride (kallah). Was His bride his last thought as He paid the ultimate price for her?