Wife
The wife in Scripture is at once a covenant partner, a household builder, and a sign. She is named the matching helper at the world's first absence — "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a matching helper for him" (Ge 2:18) — and her very flesh is reckoned a piece of the man's: "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she will be called a woman, because she was taken out of a man" (Ge 2:23). From that union flows the founding rule that "a man [will] leave his father and his mother, and will stick to his wife: and they will be one flesh" (Ge 2:24). The pages that follow show her as beloved, hated, loyal, contentious, faithful, unfaithful, fruitful, barren, devout, idolatrous — and finally as a figure for the Lamb's redeemed people.
A Matching Helper, One Flesh
Yahweh's verdict on the man alone is "not good"; the wife answers it. She is bone-of-bone and flesh-of-flesh, and the marriage rule is leaving and sticking and becoming one flesh (Ge 2:18, 23, 24). Sirach echoes the founding picture: "He who acquires a wife has the highest possession, A help meet for him, and a pillar of support" (Sir 36:24); "Without a hedge a vineyard is laid waste, And without a wife [a man is] a wanderer and homeless" (Sir 36:25). Nave's gathers her under the call HELP and FRUITFUL VINE: "Your wife will be as a fruitful vine, In the innermost parts of your house" (Ps 128:3). The blessing belongs to "the [able-bodied] man . . . Who fears Yahweh" (Ps 128:4).
The judgment after the fall does not undo the union, but reorders it: "I will greatly multiply your pain and your conception; in pain you will bring forth sons; and your desire will be to your husband, and he will rule over you" (Ge 3:16).
The Wife Procured
The Old Testament shows wives being procured, purchased, and even seized. Abraham swears his slave to "not take a wife for my son of the daughters of the Canaanites" (Ge 24:3); Isaac repeats the charge to Jacob (Ge 28:1). The wife is brought home and loved: "Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife. And he loved her" (Ge 24:67). Jacob serves seven years for Rachel, "and they were like a few days in his eyes, for the love he had to her" (Ge 29:20).
A father may procure a wife for his son — "Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar" (Ge 38:6) — or one family may sue another, as Hamor sues for Dinah: "Get me this damsel as wife . . . The soul of my son Shechem longs for your⁺ daughter" (Ge 34:4, 8). The slave-wife is hedged by law: if a master "espouses her to himself" or to his son, "her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, he will not diminish," and if he fails, "she will go out for nothing, without silver" (Ex 21:8-11). Marriages can be redemptive purchases — Boaz: "Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, I have purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead on his inheritance" (Ru 4:10) — or political instruments, as when Alexander gives "his daughter Cleopatra" to Ptolemy and "celebrated her marriage at Ptolemais, with great glory, after the manner of kings" (1Ma 10:58; cf. 1Ma 10:54; 1Ma 11:12). They can even be obtained by violence, as the sons of Benjamin "took wives, according to their number, of those who danced, whom they carried off" (Jdg 21:23). And under levirate law, "the wife of the dead will not be married outside to a stranger: her husband's brother will go in to her" (De 25:5; cf. Ru 3:9).
Marriage was hedged from outside the covenant. "You will not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan" (Ge 28:1); "neither will you make marriages with them" (De 7:3); Joshua warned the same against the surviving nations (Jos 23:12). Ezra and Nehemiah enforced it after the exile: "do not give your⁺ daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters to your⁺ sons" (Ezr 9:12); "I contended with them, and cursed them, and struck certain of them . . . You⁺ will not give your⁺ daughters to their sons" (Ne 13:25). The standard precedent was Solomon, "beloved of his God," who nevertheless was caused to sin by foreign women (Ne 13:26).
The Worthy Wife
Proverbs writes the longest portrait. "A worthy woman who can find? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband trusts in her, And he will have no lack of gain" (Pr 31:10-11). She "seeks wool and flax, And works willingly with her hands" (Pr 31:13); she "rises also while it is yet night, And gives food to her household" (Pr 31:15); she "considers a field, and buys it" (Pr 31:16); she "stretches out her hand to the poor" (Pr 31:20); "her husband is known in the gates" (Pr 31:23); "she opens her mouth with wisdom" (Pr 31:26); "she looks well to the ways of her household, And does not eat the bread of idleness" (Pr 31:27); "her sons rise up, and call her blessed; her husband [also], and he praises her" (Pr 31:28); "Grace is deceitful, and beauty is vain; [But] a woman who fears Yahweh, she will be praised" (Pr 31:30).
The same book stacks shorter sayings of the same kind. "House and riches are an inheritance from fathers; But a prudent wife is from Yahweh" (Pr 19:14). "Whoever finds a wife finds a good thing, And obtains favor of Yahweh" (Pr 18:22). "A worthy woman is the crown of her husband; But she who brings shame is as rottenness in his bones" (Pr 12:4). "Every wise woman builds her house; But the foolish plucks it down with her own hands" (Pr 14:1). "A gracious woman obtains honor" (Pr 11:16). Sirach repeats the picture from the husband's view: "A good wife, blessed is her husband, The number of his days is doubled" (Sir 26:1); "A worthy wife cherishes her husband, And he fulfills the years of his life in peace" (Sir 26:2); "A good wife is a good portion; She will be given as a portion to those who fear the Lord" (Sir 26:3); "The grace of a wife delights her husband, And her understanding fattens his bones" (Sir 26:13). "Three things my soul has desired . . . The concord of brethren, and the friendship of neighbors, And a wife and a husband suited to each other" (Sir 25:1).
Sirach also keeps the rule against contempt: "Do not despise a prudent wife; And a well-favored [wife] is above rubies" (Sir 7:19); "Do you have a wife? Do not be disgusted by her. But a woman who is an enemy, do not trust in her" (Sir 7:26). And he warns against jealousy: "Do not be jealous of the wife of your bosom; Or else you will teach evil concerning yourself" (Sir 9:1).
Domestic Work
The wife's craft is domestic and economic together. Sarah kneads cakes when guests come — "Quickly prepare three seahs of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes" (Ge 18:6) — and Rebekah's mother arranges goats so Rebekah can prepare "savory food" for Isaac (Ge 27:9). The daughters of Israel are "perfumers, and . . . cooks, and . . . bakers" (1Sa 8:13). The skilled women of the wilderness "spun with their hands" the fabric of the tabernacle (Ex 35:25). Ruth gleans through the day in the field (Ru 2:7). The Proverbs 31 wife "makes linen garments and sells them, And delivers belts to the merchant" (Pr 31:24). Martha is "cumbered about much service" while Mary sits at the Lord's feet, and the Lord praises Mary's "good part" (Lu 10:40, 42).
The Beloved Wife and the Hated Wife
Scripture does not flatten love. "Isaac . . . took Rebekah, and she became his wife. And he loved her. And Isaac was comforted after his mother's death" (Ge 24:67). Jacob "loved Rachel," and the seven-year service "were like a few days in his eyes, for the love he had to her" (Ge 29:18, 20). But "Yahweh saw that Leah was hated, and [by his Speech] he opened her womb. But Rachel was barren" (Ge 29:31), and Leah names her sons out of that grief: "For now my husband will love me . . . Yahweh has heard that I am hated" (Ge 29:32-33).
Wives may be loyal across that fault line. Rachel and Leah throw in with Jacob against their own father — "Aren't we accounted by him as foreigners? . . . now then, whatever God has said to you, do" (Ge 31:15-16). Ruth, widowed, sticks to her mother-in-law where Orpah turns back: Orpah "kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth stuck to her" (Ru 1:14). Naomi's own wifehood ends bitterly — "And Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died; and she was left, and her two sons" (Ru 1:3) — and her recovery comes through Ruth's redemption-marriage in Boaz.
Sirach widens the angle to the unhappy marriage. "Hands that hang down, and palsied knees For a wife that does not make her husband happy" (Sir 25:23); "In the midst of his friends her husband sits, And involuntarily he sighs bitterly" (Sir 25:18). The contrary case is just as plain: "Better than both is a discreet wife" (Sir 40:23); "Better than both is a loved woman" (Sir 40:19); "Blessed is the husband of an understanding wife" (Sir 25:8); "And moreover, if there is in her a gentle tongue, Her husband is not from among the sons of men" (Sir 36:23).
The Contentious Wife
Proverbs lays down a strand the wisdom tradition will not let go. "A foolish son is the calamity of his father; And the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping" (Pr 19:13). "It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, Than with a contentious woman in a wide house" (Pr 21:9; repeated Pr 25:24). "It is better to dwell in a desert land, Than with a contentious and fretful woman" (Pr 21:19). "A continual dropping in a very rainy day And a contentious woman are alike" (Pr 27:15). The earth itself trembles under "an odious woman when she is married" (Pr 30:23).
Zipporah's flint-and-foreskin reproach to Moses — "Surely a bridegroom of blood you are to me" (Ex 4:25) — stands at the head of this strand. Delilah's persistent pressing on Samson is the picture of nagging weaponized: "she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, that his soul was vexed to death" (Jdg 16:16).
Vows, Jealousy, and the Suspected Wife
A wife's vows are not solitary. "If she is [married] to a husband, while her vows are on her . . . and her husband hears it, and holds his peace . . . then her vows will stand"; but "if her husband disallows her in the day that he hears it, then he will make void her vow which is on her" (Nu 30:6-8). "Every vow, and every binding oath to afflict the soul, her husband may establish it, or her husband may make it void" (Nu 30:13). The statutes are "between a man and his wife, between a father and his daughter" (Nu 30:16).
Suspicion of unfaithfulness has its own ordeal. "If the spirit of jealousy passed over him, and he is jealous of his wife, and she is defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy passed over him, and he is jealous of his wife, and she is not defiled" (Nu 5:14), the priest sets her before Yahweh and makes her drink "the water of bitterness that causes the curse" (Nu 5:18-24); if she is defiled, "the water that causes the curse will enter into her [and become] bitter, and her body will swell, and her thigh will fall away" (Nu 5:27); if not, "she will be innocent, and will conceive seed" (Nu 5:28).
Adultery and the Defiled Bed
The seventh word at Sinai is short: "You will not commit adultery" (Ex 20:14). Leviticus carries the penalty: "the man who commits adultery with another man's wife . . . the adulterer and the adulteress will surely be put to death" (Le 20:10). Job knows the adulterer "waits for the twilight, Saying, No eye will see me" (Job 24:15). Paul lists adulterers among those who "will not inherit the kingdom of God" (1Co 6:9), and Peter speaks of "eyes full of adultery, and that can't cease from sin" (2Pe 2:14). Romans uses the wife's bond as a parable for the law: "while the husband lives, she is joined to another man, she will be called an adulteress: but if the husband dies, she is free from the law" (Ro 7:3).
Sirach gives the wife's-side picture in the same key. The straying husband says, "Who sees me? Darkness is around me, and the walls hide me" (Sir 23:18); "So also a wife who leaves her husband, And brings in an heir by a stranger" — "First, she is disobedient to the law of the Most High, Second, she trespasses against her own husband, Third, she commits adultery through her fornication, And brings in children by a stranger" (Sir 23:22-23). The eye of the unfaithful woman is "in the lifting up of her eyes . . . known by her eyelids" (Sir 26:9), and her looseness is sketched bluntly: "she sits down at every tent peg, And opens her quiver to any arrow" (Sir 26:12). The catalogue of shames includes "a father and a mother of whoredom" (Sir 41:17), "looking upon a woman who is a whore," "gazing on a woman who has a husband," and "being busy with his maid, And . . . violating her bed" (Sir 41:21-22). Sirach's counsel is preventive: "Do not come near to a strange woman; Or else you will fall into her snares" (Sir 9:3); "Do not give your soul to a prostitute; Or else you will turn away your inheritance" (Sir 9:6); even table-fellowship with another man's wife is forbidden, "Or else you will incline your heart to her" (Sir 9:9).
David's seizure of Bathsheba is the canonical wreckage. He saw her bathing, heard "Isn't this Bathsheba . . . the wife of Uriah the Hittite?", and "sent messengers, and took her" (2Sa 11:3-4). Joseph's refusal of Potiphar's wife is the canonical refusal: "his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph; and she said, Plow me" (Ge 39:7).
The Idolatrous Wife and the King-Maker Wife
Some wives turn the husband's heart away. "When Solomon was old . . . his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart wasn't perfect with Yahweh his God" (1Ki 11:4); "And so he did for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods" (1Ki 11:8). Nehemiah names this as warning: "Didn't Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? . . . nevertheless foreign women caused even him to sin" (Ne 13:26). Jezebel is the type: "there was none like Ahab, who sold himself to do that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up" (1Ki 21:25). When Jehu comes she paints her eyes and looks out at the window; the eunuchs throw her down at his command, and the dogs eat her flesh in Jezreel as Yahweh had said (2Ki 9:30-37).
Other wives stand against their husbands' folly with success. Vashti refuses to be paraded — "the queen Vashti refused to come at the king's commandment by the chamberlains" (Es 1:12) — and the empire's anxious decree is precisely that "all the wives will give to their husbands honor, both to great and small," so "every man should bear rule in his own house" (Es 1:20-22). Abigail, "of good understanding and beautiful," intercepts David in his rage at her husband Nabal: she rides out unannounced ("she didn't tell her husband Nabal," 1Sa 25:19), falls before David, and asks the iniquity to be laid on her — "On me, my lord, on me be the iniquity" (1Sa 25:24-25; cf. 1Sa 25:3, 14-25). Rizpah keeps watch over her sons' bodies until water is poured from heaven (2Sa 21:10). Ezekiel's "desire of the eyes" is taken from him at a stroke as a sign — "yet you will neither mourn nor weep" (Eze 24:16).
Mothers, Mothers-in-Law, Widows
The wife is also the mother of her household, and her cares run from joy to grief. "A woman when she is in travail has sorrow, because her hour has come: but when she is delivered of the child, she remembers no more the anguish, for the joy that a man is born into the world" (Jn 16:21; cf. Is 13:8; Is 42:14; 1Th 5:3). Rachel travails on the road to Ephrath with hard labor (Ge 35:16). Hagar sets her child a bowshot away in the wilderness "lest [she] see the child's death" (Ge 21:16). Jochebed seals an ark of bulrushes for Moses (Ex 2:3). The mother whose son is the living before Solomon yields rather than see him cut: "Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and in no way slay him" (1Ki 3:26). The Shunammite's son dies on her knees at noon (2Ki 4:19-20). Yahweh swears by the mother's compassion: "Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, these may forget, yet [my Speech] will not forget you" (Is 49:15). Rachel still weeps for her sons in Ramah and "refuses to be comforted . . . because they are not" (Je 31:15).
The mother-in-law appears in the gospel and the loyalty-story. "Now Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever; and right away they tell him of her" (Mr 1:30); Ruth turns from Orpah's parting kiss and sticks to Naomi (Ru 1:14).
The widow keeps her wifely identity. Yahweh sends Elijah to a widow at Zarephath: "Arise, go to Zarephath . . . I have commanded a widow there to sustain you" (1Ki 17:9). A "wife of the sons of the prophets" cries to Elisha that "your slave my husband is dead" and that her sons are about to be taken for debt (2Ki 4:1). In the gospel, the widow of Nain's only son is being carried out at the gate (Lu 7:12); a poor widow casts in two lepta (Mr 12:42); the importunate widow wears down the unjust judge (Lu 18:3-5). Paul's church orders sustain the same office: a widow enrolled is to be "the wife of one man, well reported of for good works; if she has brought up children, if she has used hospitality to strangers" (1Ti 5:9-10), and younger widows are urged to "marry, bear children, rule the household" (1Ti 5:14).
Pauline Order: Subjection, Love, Mutual Due
The New Testament keeps the household grammar of the Old. Paul writes that "the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man" (1Co 11:3), that "the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man . . . for neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man" (1Co 11:8-9). Yet he rounds the rule: "Nevertheless, neither is the woman without the man, nor the man without the woman, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, so is the man also by the woman; but all things are of God" (1Co 11:11-12).
The marital due runs both ways. "Let the husband render to the wife her due: and likewise also the wife to the husband. The wife does not have power over her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband does not have power over his own body, but the wife" (1Co 7:3-4). Mutual deprivation is allowed only "by consent for a season, that you⁺ may give yourselves to prayer" (1Co 7:5). Separation is forbidden by the Lord — "A wife is not to separate from a husband . . . And, A husband is not to leave a wife" (1Co 7:10-11) — and a believing partner is not to leave an unbelieving one who consents to dwell with her (1Co 7:12-14). The wife is bound for as long as her husband lives (1Co 7:39).
The Ephesians household-code is the controlling NT picture: "Wives, [be in subjection] to your⁺ own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church . . . Husbands, love your⁺ wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it . . . He who loves his own wife loves himself" (Eph 5:22-25, 28). The Genesis line returns: "For this cause will a man leave his father and mother, and will stick to his wife; and the two will become one flesh" (Eph 5:31). "Let each one of you⁺ also love his own wife even as himself; but the wife should fear her husband" (Eph 5:33). Colossians states it briefly: "Wives, be in subjection to your⁺ husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your⁺ wives, and do not be bitter against them" (Col 3:18-19). Peter fills it out: wives in subjection, with adornment "the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptible [apparel] of a meek and quiet spirit" (1Pe 3:4), Sarah obeying Abraham as the prototype (1Pe 3:5-6); and husbands "dwell with [your⁺ wives] according to knowledge, giving honor to the woman, as to the weaker vessel, as being also joint-heirs of the grace of life; to the end that your⁺ prayers not be hindered" (1Pe 3:7).
The pastoral letters bring this into office and household training. The deacon's wife — and women in office — must be "grave, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things" (1Ti 3:11). Older women are to "train the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, [to be] sober-minded, chaste, workers at home, kind, being in subjection to their own husbands, that the word of God not be blasphemed" (Tit 2:4-5). Paul's eschatological qualification is that "the time is shortened, that from now on both those who have wives may be as though they had none" (1Co 7:29), and so "he who is married is careful for the things of the world, how he may please the wife . . . and is divided" (1Co 7:33-34).
Yahweh as Husband, the Lamb's Wife
The deepest figure runs through the prophets. "For your Maker is your husband; Yahweh of hosts is his name" (Is 54:5). "As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so will your God rejoice over you" (Is 62:5). "Return, O backsliding sons, says Yahweh; for I am a husband to you⁺" (Je 3:14). "I will betroth you to me forever; yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, and in justice, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies" (Ho 2:19).
The figure closes in Revelation. "Let us rejoice and be exceedingly glad . . . for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready" (Re 19:7). The Epistle to Diognetus, on the visible church in the world, says it plainly of these wives and husbands: "They marry, as do all. They do not throw away what is born, but acknowledge the children" (Gr 5:6).