Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
John 3:29
The friend of the bridegroom. A defined role in Jewish weddings, not a figure of speech.
John 3:29, in every translation this tool compares.
Best man. If a culture has that role, nobody needs it explained. If it does not, the sentence sounds like sentiment.
Because the phrase is a job with duties rather than a metaphor for a close friend, and John the Baptist is describing his own function by naming an office everyone present recognised.
Every version reads friend of the bridegroom.
ὁ φίλος τοῦ νυμφίου
The shoshbin in Jewish practice arranged the wedding, acted for the groom, and stood at the chamber door waiting for the groom's voice. The joy at hearing that voice is the duty completing, not an emotion being described.
English best man exists but carries none of the legal or custodial duties, so the point of the analogy weakens.
When a figure of speech in the Bible names a social role, look up the role. Many biblical metaphors are institutions to their first hearers.
No English version renders it differently; the phrase itself isn't in question, only whether readers know the office standing behind it.
- Jewish wedding custom of the shoshbin
- Judges 14:20 uses the companion role
- Matthew 9:15 uses the wedding guests differently
