Ruben Zimmermann, «Nuptial Imagery in the Revelation of John», Vol. 84 (2003) 153-183
In this article is argued that the nuptial imagery of the Book of Revelation is not limited to chapters 19 and 21 but rather runs throughout the book. While the imagery is certainly most pronounced in the final part of the book, it also appears in the letters to the churches (bridal wreath in Rev 2,10; 3,11), in the scene depicting the 144,000 as virgins (Rev 14,4-5), and is encountered again in Rev 18,23 (silencing of the voice of bridegroom and bride) and Rev 22,17 (summons of the bride) at the end of the book. Thus the wedding metaphors can be seen as one of the structural patterns of Revelation as a whole directly in contrast to the metaphors of fornication.
exist independently next to each other. This is interesting in so far as the female figure of the city of Zion now approaches the male concept of the messiah. This female figure of Zion already has a traditional significance as self-reliant unity and can not therefore be simplified into an indentification with her inhabitants or the people of God.
Who, however, is the bridal city in Rev 19-21? If, according to Rev 19,8, the gown of the bride is associated with the righteous deeds of the saints, perhaps the chosen ones, the faithful, are concretely the 144,000 that stand as a symbolic number for the perfected people of God. Indications of the same kind are given by the metaphoric tradition of the JHWH-Israel-marriage to which the people of God appear as a bride and counterpart of God. In addition, several representations of the urbane aspect of the bridal city, such as the twelve names of the apostles on the foundation stones (Rev 21,14), speak for such a classification. Can the bride thus be identified with the Christian church as an eschatological people of God, as many researchers postulate56? The gown of the bride is not identical with the bride. Further the bride and the church remain separate in so far as the bride and the wedding guests (Rev 19) and the bridal city and its inhabitants (Rev 21) are clearly differentiated57. The ambivalence in identifying the image, seen already in the Zion-bride tradition, is adopted in Rev, obviously unchanged. The bridal city is most closely linked to the skill of the chosen ones, or the church, and can even be seen partially as a code for the completed church of salvation. On the other hand the relationship between the community and the bridal city is declared not in the sense of a symbolic identity but as a relationship. In this way, the independent character of the bridal city is preserved in relation to her bridegroom as well as to her inhabitants/wedding guests. The holy bridal city is thus not simply a collective term for the sum of her inhabitants but rather has an independent existence that becomes the counterpart of the bridegroom58.