The Second Voyage, Part 3

Seeing the covenant significance of the bride's price

06/23/2025

We wade across the center aisle of church from the bride’s side to meditate on matters from the groom’s side. Every groom feels he must pass a test to win the hand of his beloved; in point of fact, he longs for the chance. The pop band the Proclaimers sang about this chivalrous sentiment: “I would walk five hundred miles / And I would walk five hundred more / Just to be the man who walked a thousand / Miles, to fall down at your door.”

We find a more classic test of love in Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice. Various eligible bachelors solicit fair Portia’s hand in marriage, but first they must pass the “the casket test.” Portia’s deceased father has left detailed instructions that each supposed suitor must select from three caskets. The test is devised to weed out arrogant, selfish, or vain partners for Portia. You fathers really should read more Shakespeare.

The first casket box is covered in gold and bears the inscription: “Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire” (II, vii, 37). The implied question is: are you like “many men” or do you have a unique strength of character? The second casket of silver states cryptically: “Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves” (II, vii, 23). That is, do you egotistically think you deserve the best, or assess yourself more humbly?

The third casket is coated in unattractive lead and reads: “Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath” (II, vii, 16). Put practically, you must give everything and expect nothing in return - who would choose that? Stop reading if you don’t want to know the test results, but all suitors fail except humble and heroic Bassanio. Let us pause to ponder why Bassanio believes lead best symbolizes love:

So may outward show be least themselves, /

The world is still deceived with ornament /

…

Therefore then, thou gaudy gold /

Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee. /

Nor none of thee, [silver] thou pale and common drudge /

‘Tween man and man. But thou, thou meager lead, /

Which rather threaten’st than does promise ought, /

Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence, /

And here choose I. Joy be the consequence! (III, ii, 75-76, 103-110).

Holding his breath Bassanio opens the leaden casket relieved that Portia’s portrait smiles back. Bassanio graduated from suitor to spouse.

What Shakespeare calls the casket test, Scripture labels the bride’s price. We who live in modern Western culture may not immediately grasp the significance of the bride’s price. Why not? Because today it is the bride who pays the price to marry the man. Her family forks over the funds to pay for the ceremony, music, photography, dress, the venue, etc.

But in the Bible and the ancient near east, the roles were reversed and the groom paid the bride’s price by some heroic feat or personal sacrifice. Consider this extraordinary example: in 1 Samuel 18. King Saul says to David, “[T]he king desires no other the price for the bride [my daughter Mical] than the foreskins of one hundred Philistines” (1 Sm 18:25).

That is, Saul wanted David to add insult to injury by not only conquering the Philistines, but circumcising them. Was David offended by such a request? Quite the contrary, we read two verses later: “David arose and went with his men and slew two hundred Philistines” (1 Sm 18:27). Saul pressed David to walk 500 miles and David eagerly walked 1000 to prove his love for Mical.

Moreover, when the groom in the Bible stands as covenant-mediator, he represents primarily God’s marital interests and not merely his own. Now, is there any other suitor out there seeking humanity’s hand in marriage besides God? As the Church Lady from Saturday Night Live rhetorically reminded us: “Hmmm, could it be…Satan?!”

The bride’s price in salvation history, thenceforth, consists of rescuing her from her Satanic suitor, and returning her to God, her rightful Lover. But more often than not, the unrepentant bride runs back into Satan’s arms. But don’t be too hard on Eve: every time we sin, the modern bride of Christ backslides exactly like the original biblical bride.

Pondering deeply this notion of the bride’s price reveals another crucial aspect of the story of Scripture. How often we hear the words “redemption” and “salvation," and immediately our minds conjure up images of Jonathan Edwards surreal sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”? We unreflectively think, “I want to be redeemed or saved so that I don’t burn in hell for all eternity!”

And that infernal image is certainly an accurate description of some aspects of redemption and salvation. However, it does not exhaust its meaning, nor does it penetrate its true depths which can only be found in the eternal Father’s heart. Rather every time you hear the word “redemption” or “salvation” in the Bible, in the liturgy, or in personal prayer, think of “the bride’s price.”

The bride’s price, then, helps us catch the peculiar trajectory and plot twists of Scripture writ large from the first pages of Genesis to the last verses of Revelation. Tragically such insights escape us modern westerners because the roles of bride and groom are reversed in who pays the price (the dowry) for the wedding. Indeed, it is hard for Christians in our modern milieu to learn many of the lessons the Bible tries to teach us.

Further, we should not forget that each covenant-mediator remains a fallen man, and therefore also forms part of the fickle bride. As such, he must overcome his own inner resistance – remember concupiscence? – to God’s overtures of love. St. Augustine deftly described this double duty, stating: “For you I am a bishop, with you I am a Christian.” That solidarity with sinful humanity proves to be a fatal flaw in every covenant-mediator, save the last, Jesus.

Like Portia’s suitors tempted by the gold and silver caskets, the first five covenant-mediators – Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David – admirably succeed in expanding the bride to her proper proportions, but still finally fail to pay the bride’s price. Only the sixth mediator, Jesus, the God-Man, pays the full price to redeem the bride by paying “the pound of flesh”, that is, his human nature nailed to a tree.

Praised be Jesus Christ!