Bride or daughter-in-law names a marriage or family relationship, with the passage identifying the actual person or explicit comparison. Naomi addresses Ruth and Orpah as her daughters-in-law after their husbands have died, blessing the loving devotion they have shown to the dead and to her.
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Reader summary
Full entry for כַּלָּה (H3618) · Open the biblical lexicon
Bride or daughter-in-law names a marriage or family relationship, with the passage identifying the actual person or explicit comparison. Naomi addresses Ruth and Orpah as her daughters-in-law after their husbands have died, blessing the loving devotion they have shown to the dead and to her.
The BSB source-word alignment has 34 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include my bride (6), of the bride (4), his daughter-in-law (3), Your daughter-in-law (3), daughters-in-law (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 11:31. Its strongest book concentrations include Ruth (7), Song Of Solomon (6), Jeremiah (5), Genesis (4).
Bride or daughter-in-law names a marriage or family relationship, with the passage identifying the actual person or explicit comparison. Naomi addresses Ruth and Orpah as her daughters-in-law after their husbands have died, blessing the loving devotion they have shown to the dead and to her. Isaiah compares rejoicing in the Lord's salvation with a bride adorning herself.
Jeremiah promises that bride and bridegroom voices will again be heard in the restored land. Family grief, stated adornment and renewed communal joy therefore require different readings. The noun does not make a woman morally perfect, define her whole worth by marriage or guarantee the same household outcome for every widow. Hear her name, relationship and the passage's purpose.
A bride comparison must retain what the text actually compares, without turning every garment, marriage or family circumstance into an identical theological symbol.
Naomi's bereaved daughters-in-law, a bride's adornment in salvation praise and restored wedding voices have different stated roles. Literal relationships and expressly assigned comparisons must remain distinguishable rather than defining every woman's worth or future.
Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you loving devotion, as you have shown to your dead and to me.
Naomi addresses her two bereaved daughters-in-law and asks the Lord to show them loving devotion as they have shown it to the dead and to her; the grief and kindness remain concrete.
I will rejoice greatly in the Lord, my soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation and wrapped me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom wears a priestly headdress, as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
A bride's adornment is one expressly stated comparison in rejoicing over the Lord's garments of salvation and righteousness, not a moral ranking of women's appearance.
The sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those bringing thank offerings into the house of the Lord, saying: ‘Give thanks to the Lord of Hosts, for the Lord is good; His loving devotion endures forever.’ For I will restore the land from captivity as in former times, says the Lord.
Bride and bridegroom voices join joy and thanksgiving in the Lord's promise concerning Judah's restored places, preserving the named land and community rather than a personal marriage guarantee.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Bride as ideal completeness; the word etymologically implies perfection, wholeness, and covenant union
Bride as ideal completeness; the word etymologically implies perfection, wholeness, and covenant union
a bride (as if perfect); hence, a son's wife BDB: daughter-in-law Usage: bride, daughter-in-law, spouse.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
כַּלָּה is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Naomi speaks to Ruth and Orpah from a household marked by death. She calls them daughters-in-law and recognizes the loving devotion they have shown, asking the Lord to treat them with that same kindness. The relationship remains meaningful in grief rather than making the women disappear behind the loss of their husbands. Other passages use a bride in an explicit comparison: Isaiah's adornment belongs to rejoicing over salvation, while Jeremiah's heard wedding voices belong to promised restoration of the land.
Those pictures should not replace the actual named women or become a universal script for marriage. Ruth's later birth and Naomi's renewed household belong to their narrated account, not a guarantee that every widow will receive the same outcome. The word helps readers recognize a relationship or assigned image while the passage supplies its purpose, care and limits.
Ruth.1.8
The Hebrew range includes bride and daughter-in-law, with the relationship determined by the sentence and account. The word does not assert that every bride is morally perfect. A bride in a prophetic comparison remains the particular image the passage assigns, rather than the identity of every named woman or family member.
Revelation 21:1-3 explicitly describes the holy city, New Jerusalem, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. That Greek visionary comparison can be studied beside Isaiah's stated adornment image without identifying every Hebrew bride as the city or reducing real women's lives to symbols that erase their actual relationships and needs.