In the first century, when a young Jewish man reached marrying age and his family selected an appropriate wife for him, the young man and his father would meet the young woman and her father to negotiate the “bride price”, the figurative cost of replacing a daughter. The price was usually very high.
With negotiations complete, the custom was for the young man’s father to pour a cup of wine and hand it to his son. His son would turn to the young woman, lift the cup and hold it out to her, saying, “This cup is a new covenant in my blood, which I offer to you.” In other words, “I love you, and I”ll give you my life. Will you marry me?”
The young woman had a choice. She could take the cup and return it and say no. Or she could answer without saying a word — by drinking the cup, her way of saying, “I accept your offer, and I give you my life in response.”
On the night of the Last Supper, Jesus and His disciples sat together celebrating Passover. The disciples knew the liturgy very well, they had celebrated Passover all their lives. When it came time to drink the third cup of wine, the cup of redemption, Jesus lifted the cup as the disciples would expect and offered traditional Sedar thanks, which are used to this day, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, for giving us the fruit of the vine.” And then He offered it to them but said something they probably did not expect: “This cup is a new covenant which I offer to you.”
There are many meanings to that statement, but one of them, in common, ordinary language, was, “I love you, and the only picture I can think of that will describe the power of my love for you is the pure love of a husband for his wife.”
It is hard to know what those disciples thought that night. Maybe a few chuckled a bit at the picture of Jesus making a marriage proposal, which must have seemed totally out of place in a Passover Seder. And yet, they may have understood Jesus’ willingness to die, be buried and eventually raised to say, “I love you, and as my Father promised your fathers, I’ll pay the price for you.”
Whenever Christians celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we must be mindful of Jesus’ offer. He still says, “I love you.” He still says, “I offer you my life. Will you be my bride?” The taking of the cup is a solemn moment, for it is in that moment that one looks to the Heavenly Father and says, “Yes, I accept your love, and I give you my life in response.”
- By Ray VanderLann, “His Body His Blood”
7 comments
Skip to comment form
Is it recorded in the Bible (as an example) that a bride-to-be was actually handed a cup to either say yes or no concerning the wedding?
Author
I’m not sure, Adam. I can’t recall anywhere.
What source did you use for this 1st century Jewish wedding custom? I’m interested to read more about it
Author
Hello, Phil.
I apologize for the delay in getting back to you about this. My original source is listed at the end of the article, and several other websites make the same connection between the third cup in the Passover, the words spoken by Jesus, and an ancient Jewish engagement ceremony.
However, after reading your comment, I decided to look into it further. And I have to admit—neither my source nor the websites I mentioned cite any truly credible sources. So, I’m not sure what to say. Honestly, I’m tempted to take this post down, as I don’t want to simply repeat things I’ve heard and take them at face value. Christians do enough of that. But for some reason, this post gets more hits than others on my website, so I’ll leave it up and hope that someone with deeper knowledge—or the time to do some real research—comes along.
In the meantime, in my own (admittedly shallow) digging, I heard there is an out-of-print book called The Ancient Jewish Wedding by Jamie Lash, which supports my original connection. However, I’m unsure of its scholarly credibility. I also reached out to a Jewish scholar who specializes in ancient customs, but I haven’t heard back from him yet.
Maybe, in time, this post will have a new and better update to offer.
Thank you for your response, Pamela!
I agree, many of the Christian writings on this that I’ve seen online seem to repeat the same information. So I decided to look on Google Scholar for more reliable (or at least vetted) sources. I found a number of very detailed and informative articles and chapters on the subject. They more or less confirm everything that I have read on websites and articles such as yours.
I would be interested to hear if the Jewish scholar you reached out or any other people more educated on the topic offer any additional insight on this!
Author
Yes, Phil, I just found it in my Spam folder recently. He’s not heard of anything that supports it. Maybe something will come up someday, either way.
Thank you for your honesty in how you answered the above questions. I hope to see someone confirm your original connections. Either way, thank you for walking humbly before the Lord and man.