Jesus’s use of the bridegroom imagery is usually connected to the divine bridegroom in the OT through systematic or biblical theological categories. This article argues that Matthew’s use of Hosea 6:6 in Matt 9:13 is an indicator that readers should understand Jesus’s bridegroom metaphor in Matt 9:15 as a claim to occupying the same role as the divine bridegroom of Hos 2:16. By following two lines of reasoning—the unity of Matt 9:9–17 and the literary and textual connections between Hos 6:6 and Hos 2:16—this paper will seek to demonstrate this high Christological claim was intentional in Matthew’s account.
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