Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Song of Solomon 3:1

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

1. By night ] Lit. In the nights. In Psa 16:7 the same phrase is translated “in the night seasons,” and some understand it here of the night hours. But in none of the few passages in which the plural llth occurs, is it used in this sense. In all it refers to more nights than one, not to the several parts of one night. It would therefore seem that she means to say, that one night after another she dreamt that she missed and sought her lover. More than once that had come to her, so that more than one night must have passed before she told the dream.

on my bed ] This means that the dream came to her when she was in her bed. The repetition of I sought expresses well the continued and repeated searching always ending in failure, which is so characteristic of dreams and so painful. The place where she first looked for him is left indeterminate as it often is in dreams.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Chap. Son 3:1-5. A Dream

Almost all commentators agree that we have here a dream narrated to some persons, in which the Shulammite seems to herself to have sought her lover in the city and failed to find him. Those who take the dramatic view think of it as narrated to the women of the court. Oettli’s view is that the Shulammite expected her lover to return at sunset. He did not come, and so her agitated heart sought him in this dream, which she tells to her companions, adding the refrain already used in Son 2:7, which deprecates the stirring up of love before it arises spontaneously. Ewald, who regards the end of ch. 2 as dealing only with a waking dream, and not a real incident, thinks of this as a narrative of what she remembered to have dreamed during her sad night in the king’s palace. Delitzsch again, who thinks of the lover as Solomon, considers the dream to be one that came to her night after night, when she had become doubtful of the king’s love for her. Budde’s view is one that entirely contradicts his theory that lovers could not meet and have such intercourse as is depicted in the book before marriage. He makes this a strong point in his criticism of the dramatic theory, yet here he says of this section, “The bride speaks. She narrates a dream she had as a girl, for what she narrates can be understood only as a dream. She had so loved her husband for a length of time that she dreamt she was married to him.” Martineau, because of a misunderstanding of the passage and on other insufficient grounds, would strike out the verses altogether. In any case they describe a dream, and of all the suggestions as to the occasion Oettli’s seems the best.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

By night – i. e., In the night-hours.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Son 3:1-3

I sought Him, but I found Him not.

Hidings of God

Prophetically these verses may be taken as delineating the sorrow of the first disciples at the departure of Christ from the earth. Between Easter Day and Pentecost the infant Church was very much as here described. We would not, however, limit the application of this passage to the apostolic age. It has its fulfilment, we believe, again and again. The leading idea is that of a temporary estrangement, real or imaginary, between Christ and His people, during which they seek Him but cannot find Him.

I. There would be nothing remarkable in the Redeemer denying the consolations of His Presence to those who were careless about Him. The remarkable point suggested by the text is that there is such a thing as desiring ,God and being disappointed. Now it would seem to be an ordinary feature in God s providence to withdraw occasionally from the saints, in order to increase that very craving after Him which He declines to gratify. He suspends His operations in their behalf until what we call the last moment (Joh 2:4; Joh 6:5-6). Again and again have dangers and distresses thickened round about the Church. The heathen have furiously raged together. The kings of the earth have stood up, and the rulers taken counsel together. The tyranny of despotic monarchs has well-nigh crushed the Church at some periods: at others, heresies have prevailed so widely that the whole community has appeared tainted. This was the case with Arianism in the fourth century. They who maintained sound doctrine cried unto the Lord, and apparently in vain. They sought Him, but they found Him not. And this is no solitary instance. How often has it happened with those who have gone to bear the cross into heathen lands! They have laboured and toiled, and caught nothing. For months and years they have preached, and made no converts. Nor is it difficult to perceive that all this is a discipline to the souls of the faithful; nay, not only a discipline, but a test of the reality of their faith. How could the fervour of a mans heart be proved, if he was heard at the first petition? How could the depth of the souls yearning after the Divine Being be manifested, if He was to be found as soon as sought for? Again, it is not unusual to find persons complaining that they are at times quite unable to experience pleasure or consolation in religious exercises. They go through the service of the Church without once being able to realize the presence of God, or the solemnity of what they are about. Their hearts respond not to the words of thanksgiving or of prayer. Everything seems heavy, wearisome, and cold. People are frequently discouraged when they find their souls thus chilled and lifeless–utterly unable to rise to the level of their work; but if you get possessed of the principle which we are illustrating, there will be no need for this discouragement. We are not always to blame when we are listless and cold in Church. If we do not try or desire to be otherwise, of course the fault is our own; but if we try to be devout and cannot, it may be only that God is dealing with us–that He is subjecting us to a discipline which He sees necessary. For example, He may be teaching us not to rely upon warm emotions–not to build overmuch upon feelings, however good.

II. Now from the foregoing considerations there flows a very solemn thought. We have said that, as well to individuals as to the Christian Church at large, the Redeemer applies a sort of discipline in modifying at times or altogether withholding the consolations of His Presence. What follows? Why, that He must personally engage Himself about every soul. The spirit of each man and woman is a separate planet in the spiritual system whose summer and winter, whose storms and sunshine are regulated by Deity alone. Hence the full meaning of that passage in which Christ Jesus is called the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls. It intimates that the human soul is so fine and subtle a thing that none but He can supervise and tend it. From the moment of our new birth He takes us in hand. Every trial and temptation has been appointed by Him; every annoyance and disaster has been weighed out by Him. His seat is in heaven, yet is His hand upon each one of us. He shrouds Himself from the gaze of the seraphim, but He is about the path and bed of every child in this assembly. And this is what we would have you learn secondarily from the text, I sought Him, but I found Him not. His withdrawing Himself is a proof of His individual care. When anything happens out of the common course, it speaks to us of God. When with all our exertions we fail to find Christ, it is evidence that He is working in and about us. We recur to the main lesson involved in what has been said, which we desire especially to enforce. It is this. We are not to expect to find always great delight in the path of duty; we are not to be anxious about our feelings, if our actions are right. Daily service and weekly communion will often be attended coldly, and as we fear without heart. It must be so. It is the tendency of repetition to diminish ecstatic emotions; still we are to go on steadfastly on our road. The spiritual life is very like the natural, it has its bright days and its gloomy, its calm and its storm, its hours of exultation and depression. Let us take each as it comes, doing our work in each with care and sobriety and perseverance. Yet a little while and these variations shall be no more. We are travelling onward to a land where the sun never goes down, and the noise of the waterfloods is never heard. (Bp. Woodford.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

CHAPTER III

The bride mentions the absence of her spouse, her search after

him, and her ultimate success, 1-5.

A description of the bridegroom, his bed, chariot, &c., 6-11.

NOTES ON CHAP. III

Verse 1. By night on my bed I sought him] It appears that the bridegroom only saw the bride by night: that on the night referred to here he did not come as usual. The bride troubled on the account, rose and sought him, inquired of the city guards, and continued to seek till at last she found him, and brought him to her apartment, So 3:2-4.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

By night on my bed; either,

1. In a time of tribulation, which is commonly signified by the night, and sometimes by a bed, as Rev 2:22. Or,

2. When I expected to find him; for the husband who by his occasions is oft forced to be absent from his wife in the day time, but at night returns to her, and beds with her. Or,

3. When others compose themselves to rest and sleep, my thoughts were troubled and my affections were working towards him, and I was very desirous to enjoy him.

I sought him; I sought for Christs gracious and powerful presence, in and by the word, and prayer, and meditation. I sought him: this repetition notes her perseverance and unweariedness in seeking him.

But I found him not; for he had withdrawn himself and the manifestations of his love from me, either because I had not sought him diligently, or because I had abused his favour, or to try and exercise my faith, and patience, and love, and other graces.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

1. By nightliterally, “Bynights.” Continuation of the longing for the dawn of the Messiah(Son 2:17; Psa 130:6;Mal 4:2). The spiritual desertionhere (Son 2:17; Son 3:5)is not due to indifference, as in So5:2-8. “As nights and dews are better for flowers than acontinual sun, so Christ’s absence (at times) giveth sap to humility,and putteth an edge on hunger, and furnisheth a fair field to faithto put forth itself” [RUTHERFORD].Contrast Son 1:13; Psa 30:6;Psa 30:7.

on . . . bedthe secretof her failure (Isa 64:7; Jer 29:13;Amo 6:1; Amo 6:4;Hos 7:14).

lovethno want ofsincerity, but of diligence, which she now makes up for by leavingher bed to seek Him (Psa 22:2;Psa 63:8; Isa 26:9;Joh 20:17). Four times (So3:1-4) she calls Jesus Christ, “Him whom my soul loveth,”designating Him as absent; language of desire: “He lovedme,” would be language of present fruition (Re1:5). In questioning the watchmen (So3:3), she does not even name Him, so full is her heart of Him.Having found Him at dawn (for throughout He is the morning),she charges the daughters not to abridge by intrusion the period ofHis stay. Compare as to the thoughtful seeking for Jesus Christ inthe time of John the Baptist, in vain at first, but presently aftersuccessful (Luk 3:15-22;Joh 1:19-34).

found him notOh, forsuch honest dealings with ourselves (Pro 25:14;Jdg 1:12)!

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth,…. The day being not yet broke, the night of Jewish darkness still on the church, and the shadow of the ceremonial law as yet stretched upon her; and having some knowledge of Christ by types and prophecies, desires more, and seeks it in the use of means: though the words may be taken in a more large sense, and represent the state and condition of the church and of all true believers in any age, and at one time as well as another; who, when their beloved is absent, it is “night” with them; as Christ’s presence makes day, his absence makes night; and it was now night with the Church, either of affliction, or of darkness and desertion, and indeed of both. The word is plural, “by nights” i; one night after another, successively, she sought her beloved; which both expresses the continuance of her state, and her diligence and constancy in seeking Christ. The place where she sought him was “her bed”; not the same as in So 1:16; which was both Christ’s and hers, and where a different word is used; but this was purely her own: either a bed of affliction, when good men usually seek the Lord, Isa 26:16 Ho 5:15; or rather of carnal ease and security, in which she continued, and rose not up from it to seek her beloved; which shows the cold, lukewarm, lazy frame she was in, and formal manner in which she sought him, and so succeeded not: however, he was stilt the person “whom [her] soul loved”, cordially and sincerely, though not so fervently as she had done; true love, though it may be abated, cannot be lost;

I sought him, but I found him not; because she sought him not aright; not timely, nor fervently and diligently, nor in a proper place; not in her closet, by prayer, reading, and meditation, nor in public ordinances, she afterwards did; but on her bed.

i , Sept. “per noctes”, V. L. Junius Tremeilius, Piscator “in noctibus”, Pagninus, Montanus, Tigurine versions, Marckius, Michaelis.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

1 On my bed in the nights

I sought him whom my soul loveth:

I sought him, and found him not.

She does not mean to say that she sought him beside herself on her couch; for how could that be of the modest one, whose home-bringing is first described in the next act – she could and might miss him there neither waking nor sleeping. The commencement is like Job 33:15. She was at night on her couch, when a painful longing seized her: the beloved of her soul appeared to have forsaken her, to have withdrawn from her; she had lost the feeling of his nearness, and was not able to recover it. is neither here nor at Son 3:8 necessarily the categ. plur. The meaning may also be, that this pain, arising from a sense of being forgotten, always returned upon her for several nights through: she became distrustful of his fidelity; but the more she apprehended that she was no longer loved, the more ardent became her longing, and she arose to seek for him who had disappeared.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

The Love of the Church to Christ.

      1 By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.   2 I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.   3 The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?   4 It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.   5 I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.

      God is not wont to say to the seed of Jacob, Seek you me in vain; and yet here we have the spouse for a great while seeking her beloved in vain, but finding him at last, to her unspeakable satisfaction. It was hard to the Old-Testament church to find Christ in the ceremonial law, and the types and figures which then were of good things to come. Long was the consolation of Israel looked for before it came. The watchman of that church gave little assistance to those who enquired after him; but at length Simeon had him in his arms whom his soul loved. It is applicable to the case of particular believers, who often walk in darkness a great while, but at even time it shall be light, and those that seek Christ to the end shall find him at length. Observe,

      I. How the spouse sought him in vain upon her bed (v. 1); when she was up and looking about her, grace in act and exercise, though her beloved was withdrawn, yet she could see him at a distance (ch. ii. 8), but now it was otherwise. She still continued her affection to him, still it was he whom her soul loved, that bond of the covenant still continued firm. “Though he slay me, I will trust in him; though he leave me, I will love him. When I have him not in my arms, I have him in my heart.” But she wanted the communion she used to have with him, as David when he thirsted for God, for the living God. She sought him, but, 1. It was by night on her bed; it was late and lazy seeking. Her understanding was clouded; it was by night, in the dark. Her affections were chilled, it was on her bed half asleep. The wise virgins slumbered in the absence of the bridegroom. It was a dark time with the believer; she saw not her signs, and yet she sought them. Those whose souls love Jesus Christ will continue to seek him even in silence and solitude: their reins instruct them to do so, even in the night season. 2. She failed in her endeavour. Sometimes he is found of those that seek him not (Isa. lxv. 1), but here he is not found of one that sought him, either for punishment of her corruptions, her slothfulness and security (we miss of comfort because we do not seek it aright), or for the exercises of grace, her faith and patience, to try whether she will continue seeking. The woman of Canaan sought Christ, and found him not at first, that she might find him, at length, so much the more to her honour and comfort.

      II. How she had sought him in vain abroad, v. 2. She had made trial of secret worship, and had gone through the duties of the closet, had remembered him on her bed and meditated on him in the night-watches (Ps. lxiii. 6), but she did not meet with comfort. My sore ran in the night, and then I remembered God and was troubled,Psa 77:2; Psa 77:3. And yet she is not driven off by the disappointment from the use of further means; she resolves, “I will rise now; I will not lie here if I cannot find my beloved here, nor be content if he be withdrawn. I will rise now without delay, and seek him immediately, lest he withdraw further from me.” Those that would seek Christ so as to find him must lose no time. “I will rise out of a warm bed, and go out in a cold dark night, in quest of my beloved.” Those that see Christ must not startle at difficulties. “I will rise, and go about the city, the holy city, in the streets, and the broad-ways;” for she knew he was not to be found in any blind by-ways. We must seek in the city, in Jerusalem, which was a type of the gospel-church. The likeliest place to find Christ is in the temple (Luke ii. 46), in the streets of the gospel-church, in holy ordinances, where the children of Zion pass and repass at all hours. She had a good purpose when she said, I will arise now, but the good performance was all in all. She arose, and sought him (those that are in pursuit of Christ, the knowledge of him and communion with him, must turn every stone, seek every where), and yet she found him not; she was still unsatisfied, uneasy, as Job, when he looked on all sides, but could not perceive any tokens of the divine favour (Job 23:8; Job 23:9), and the Psalmist often, when he complained that God hid his face from him, Ps. lxxxviii. 14. We may be in the way of our duty and yet may miss the comfort, for the wind bloweth where it listeth. How heavy is the accent on this repeated complaint: I sought him, but I found him not! like that of Mary Magdalen, They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him, John xx. 13.

      III. How she enquired of the watchmen concerning him, v. 3. In the night the watchmen go about the city, for the preservation of its peace and safety, to guide and assist the honest and quiet, as well as to be a check upon those that are disorderly; these met her in her walks, and she asked them if they could give her any tidings of her beloved. In the streets and broad-ways of Jerusalem she might meet with enough to divert her from her pursuit and to entertain her, though she could not meet her beloved; but she regards none in comparison with him. Gracious souls press through crowds of other delights and contentments in pursuit of Christ, whom they prefer before their chief joy. Mary Magdalen sees angels in the sepulchre, but that will not do unless she see Jesus. Saw you him whom my soul loveth? Note, We must evince the sincerity of our love to Christ by our solicitous enquiries after him. The children of the bride-chamber will mourn when the bridegroom is taken away (Matt. ix. 15), especially for the sin which provoked him to withdraw; and, if we do so, we shall be in care to recover the sense of his favour and diligent and constant in the use of proper means in order thereunto. We must search the scriptures, be much in prayer, keep close to ordinances, and all with this upon our heart, Saw you him whom my soul loveth? Those only who have seen Christ themselves are likely to direct others to a sight of him. When the Greeks came to worship at the feast they applied to Philip, with such an address as this of the spouse to the watchmen, Sir, we would see Jesus, John xii. 21.

      IV. How she found him at last, v. 4. She passed from the watchmen as soon as she perceived they could give her no tidings of her beloved; she would not stay with them, because he was not among them, but went on seeking, for (as Ainsworth observes) the society neither of brethren, nor of the church, nor of ministers, can comfort the afflicted conscience unless Christ himself be apprehended by faith. But soon after she parted from the watchmen she found him whom she sought, and then called him him whom my soul loveth, with as much delight as before with desire. Note, Those that continue seeking Christ shall find him at last, and when perhaps they were almost ready to despair of finding him. See Psa 42:7; Psa 42:8; Psa 77:9; Psa 77:10; Isa 54:7; Isa 54:8. Disappointments must not drive us away from gracious pursuits. Hold out, faith and patience; the vision is for an appointed time, and, though the watchman can give us no account of it, at the end it shall itself speak and not lie; and the comfort that comes in after long waiting, in the use of means, will be so much the sweeter at last.

      V. How close she kept to him when she had found him. She is now as much in fear of losing him as before she was in care to find him: I held him, held him fast, as the women, when they met with Christ after his resurrection, held him by the feet, and worshipped him, Matt. xxviii. 9. “I would not let him go. Not only, I would never do any thing to provoke him to depart, but I would by faith and prayer prevail with him to stay, and by the exercise of grace preserve inward peace.” Those that know how hard comfort is come by, and how dearly it is bought, will be afraid of forfeiting it and playing it away, and will think nothing too much to do to keep it safe. Non minor est virtus quam qurere parta tueri—As much is implied in securing our acquisitions as in making them. Those that have laid hold on wisdom must retain her, Prov. iii. 18. Those that hold Christ fast in the arms of faith and love shall not let him go; he will abide with them.

      VI. How desirous she was to make others acquainted with him: “I brought him to my mother’s house, that all my relations, all who are dear to me, might have the benefit of communion with him.” When Zaccheus found Christ, or rather was found of him, salvation came to his house, Luke xix. 9. Wherever we find Christ we must take him home with us to our houses, especially to our hearts. The church is our mother, and we should be concerned for her interests, that she may have Christ present with her and be earnest in prayer for his presence with his people and ministers always. Those that enjoy the tokens of Christ’s favour to their own souls should desire that the church, and all religious assemblies in their public capacity, might likewise enjoy the tokens of his favour.

      VII. What care she was in that no disturbance might be given him (v. 5); she repeats the charge she had before given (ch. ii. 7) to the daughters of Jerusalem not to stir up or awake her love. When she had brought him into her mother’s house, among her sisters, she gives them a strict charge to keep all quiet and in good order, to be very observant of him, careful to please him, and afraid of offending him. The charge given to the church in the wilderness concerning the angel of the covenant, who was among them, explains this. Exod. xxiii. 21, Beware of him and obey his voice; provoke him not. See that none of you stir out of your places, lest you disturb him, but with quietness work and mind your own business; make no noise; let all clamour and bitterness be put far from you, for that grieves the Holy Spirit of God,Eph 4:30; Eph 4:31. Some make this to be Christ’s charge to the daughters of Jerusalem not to disturb or disquiet his church, nor trouble the minds of the disciples; for Christ is very tender of the peace of his church, and all the members of it, even the little ones; and those that trouble them shall bear their judgment, Gal. v. 10.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

SONG OF SOLOMON CHAPTER THREE

A DREAM SEQUENCE

Verses 1-5 are thought to be a dream sequence of the Shulamite in which she views herself as already married to the beloved shepherd and awakens in the night to find him missing from their bed. She goes about the city seeking him but finds him not. She inquires of the watchmen but they have not seen him. Soon thereafter, she finds him and brings him into her mother’s house, charging the daughters of Jerusalem, as in Son 2:7, that they not awake him until he pleases. The reference to her mother’s house suggests Shunem as the city in her dream.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

THE CHURCH IN CHRISTS EYES

Song of Solomon 3-8.

THE reader of this volume will recall that in the introduction, taken bodily from Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, we quoted Origen and James as having said that the Jews forbade the reading of this volume by any man until he was thirty years old.

But recently I had in my pulpit a blessed minister of the Gospel, a man of deeply spiritual mind, who is in his sixty-fifth year, and when I asked him what he thought of the Song of Solomon, he answered instantly, Up to the present I have never dared to attempt its interpretation.

As is said in the introduction, It certainly needs a degree of spiritual maturity to enter aright into the holy mystery of love which it allegorically sets forth. To such as have attained this maturity, to whatever age they may have reached, the Song of Solomon is one of the most edifying of the Sacred Writings.

Since the commencement of this series, the Book has constantly grown upon us, until we regret our decision to contribute so few chapters to the same. However, the plan laid out for the forty volumes that make up this work is such that we cannot rearrange at this date. We proceed however, with the consciousness that scores of its suggestive texts are either passed over in entire silence, or touched but superficially, in this brief treatment.

Taking up, therefore, this extensive Scripture lesson of five chapters, we prefer to discuss them

under the following suggestions: Christ Beholds Great Beauty in His Bride, Her Indifference is Truly Heart-Breaking, But Her Neglect is Soon Forgotten and Forgiven.

CHRIST BEHOLDS GREAT BEAUTY IN HIS BRIDE

Behold, thou art fair, My love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead.

Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them.

Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks.

Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men.

Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.

Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.

Thou art all fair, My love; there is no spot in thee.

The figures employed are rural and oriental. It will be remembered that in the New Testament Christ turned to nature again and again for illustrations. His parables involve the sower and the seed, the tares, the mustard seed, the laborers in the vineyard, the wicked husbandmen, the seed growing secretly, the lost sheep, the unprofitable servants, and so forth.

Here also the open country makes matchless contributions. The doves eyes, the silken black hair of the goats, the flock of freshly sheared and washed white sheep, the thread of scarlet , the pomegranate, the two young roesall of these are figures of the beauty found in the features of His Brideher eyes like the doves eyes; her hair like the goats hair; her white teeth like the washed and even shorn sheep; her lips like the thread of scarlet, her temples like the pomegranate, and so forth.

It is a suggestive thing (and yet one that finds easy explanation, since Christ was God, and hence all wisdom was with Him) that He employed figures, the meaning of which time does not destroy nor world-changes deleteriously affect.

Figures from city life are not so lasting as those of country life. In cities, changes are too rapid and radical. But not so with the open spaces of natures face. To this hour there is not a parable of the New Testament that is not clearly, and even easily, understood; and to this good hour also the figures here found are of ready comprehension. The doves eyes are soft, kindly and beautiful; the black hair of the oriental goat is silken indeed; the even shorn and freshly washed flock of sheep are to this day the figures of white and splendid teeth; the thread of scarlet a hint of healthy and beautiful lips; and the pomegranate a picture of temples shining through the locks.

It is a habit of true love to see in nature likenesses of physical and mental graces; and, though the language of these six verses may seem to some exorbitant, they are to the eyes of affection, suggestive but inadequate.

His affection is such as sees no faults.

Thou art all fair, My love; there is no spot in thee (Son 4:7).

Possibly among the New Testament chapters few are so uniformly popular as 1 Corinthians 13.

It is a dissertation on love. In that discussion Paul says love thinketh no evil. In fact, loves eye is blind to defects in its subject. There may be short-comings, but it does not dwell upon them.

It is glorious to believe that Christ beholds only the beauty of the Church; that to Him she is all fair; that He overlooks her defects, and sees her as she shall eventually be, the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. There can be little doubt that the seven Churches of Asia were rather poor specimens of spiritual life, faulty and defective in the last degree, and yet, how much of beauty He beheld in them! At Ephesus He commended the works, and labor and patience; of the people of Smyrna He dwelt upon their works, and tribulation, and poverty; and of Pergamos, their works in an evil station and their exemplary discipline; at Thyatira He thought of their works, and charity, and faith, and patience; at Sardis He sought out the few who had not defiled their garments and promised them that they should walk with Him in white; at Philadelphia He rejoiced that they had kept the Word of His patience and promised to keep them against the hour of temptation; and even at Laodicea, where so little was commendatory, He counselled them to buy of Him gold tried in the fire, that they might be rich; and white raiment that they might be clothed. There were defects in each of these Churches, glaring and terrible. He only called attention to them to correct them, and gave the major portion of each Letter to commendation. Love thinketh no evil.

The fellowship of love is the Lords desire.

Come with Me from Lebanon, My spouse, with Me from Lebanon: look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions dens, from the mountains of the leopards.

Thou hast ravished My heart, My sister. My spouse; thou hast ravished My heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck.

How fair is thy love, My sister, My spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!

Thy lips, O My spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.

A garden inclosed is My sister, My spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,

Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:

A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon (Son 4:8-15).

It might almost seem a strange thing for Christ to crave fellowship. In His Deity one would imagine He would find a sufficiency; such infinite fullness, such perfect conscience, such conscious power, such wisdom that one would suppose He had no need of anything outside of His perfect Self. But the Scriptures do not so present Him.

The greatest and best of men love their fellows. They crave fellowship and seek companionship.

He chose twelve that He might be in a college fraternity, and out of the Twelve He selected three as His intimates. There was never a crisis in His life that He did not long to have the three share the same with Him. Possibly of all the pathetic things recorded of Jesus, the Master, none more pathetic than His appeal to these three that they watch with Him in the hour of His great agony, and His pathetic disappointment at finding them sleeping when the sorrows that rolled over His soul were such that even human companionship seemed a partial but necessary antidote.

We do not believe that we are straining the text a bit when we say,

Come with Me from Lebanon, My spouse, with Me from Lebanon.

Thou hast ravished My heart, My sister, My spouse; thou hast ravished My heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck.

How fair is thy love, My sister, My spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!

Thy lips, O My spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.

A garden inclosed is My sister, My spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,

Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices;

A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon,

is a cry for the fellowship of love.

He indulges in a riot of words to express the craving for affection.

Ive found a Friend; oh, such a Friend!

He loved me ere I knew Him;

He drew me with the cords of love,

And thus He bound me to Him.

And round my heart still closely twine

Those ties which naught can sever,

For I am His and He is mine,

For ever and for ever!

Ive found a Friend; oh, such a Friend!

He bled, He died to save me;

And not alone the gift of life,

But His own Self He gave me;

Naught that I have my own I call,

I hold it for the Giver:

My heart, my strength, my life, my all,

Are His, and His for ever!

Ive found a Friend; oh, such a Friend!

So kind, and true, and tender,

So wise a Counsellor and Guide,

So mighty a Defender!

From Him, who loves me now so well,

What power my soul can sever?

Shall life? or death? shall earth? or hell?

No! I am His for ever!

HER INDIFFERENCE IS HEART-BREAKING

She sleeps while He knocks and waits.

I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my Beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to Me, My sister, My love, My dove, My undefiled: for My head is filled with dew, and My locks with the drops of the night.

I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?

My Beloved put in His hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for Him.

I rose up to open to my Beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock.

I opened to my Beloved; but my Beloved had withdrawn Himself, and was gone: my soul failed when He spake: I sought Him, but I could not find Him; I called Him, but He gave me no answer (Son 5:2-6).

What a picture this of the Church! How many congregations all across this country sleep; and for that matter, in every country these sleeping churches are found. A noted statistician called attention a year or two ago to the circumstance that in three denominations in America over eleven thousand churches had not seen a single soul saved in a twelfth month. Sleeping!

It reminds us of Holman Hunts famous painting of Christ knocking at the door. The door had rusty hinges, and the vines had grown over it showing how long it had been closed; and the fact that it did not open is a further indication of the certainty that only death reigned within.

This is not only a picture of the church at its best; but sad to say, it is a picture of the best of the church, under some conditions. Unquestionably James, Peter and John were the choice spirits in the apostolic college; if anybody could be looked to, to watch, when needed, they were the ones, and on that very account they were selected for that awful night of His betrayal and arrest. And yet, while the diabolical deed of Judas is being carried out these three choice spirits slept.

We have a custom, I fear, of imagining ourselves more awake in this church than we are. The circumstances that no year goes by without seeing a considerable number of souls brought to Christ, leads us to feel that we are not asleep; but, alas, for the facts that we have to face upon a little reflection. Hundreds of our members in this church never speak to a single person on spiritual matters; and even those of us who are looked upon as leaders, are often sound asleep at the time when our opportunity of service is not only greatest but most sorely needed.

We have a notion that there is a dual sense to Solomons proverb:

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:

Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,

Provided her meat in the summer, and gathered her food in the harvest.

How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?

Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:

So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.

There is a spiritual poverty that is even greater than the financial, and there is a soul-lethergy that exceeds that of bodily indolence. Think of the time that Jesus

Took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray.

And as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and glistening.

And, behold, there talked with Him two men, winch were Moses and Elias:

Who appeared in glory, and spake of His decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem.

But Peter and they that were with Him were heavy with sleep (Luk 9:28-32).

How strange, you say! How almost unthinkable that men should sleep under such circumstances! Asleep! at a time when they were called to pray and yet were asleep; at a moment when Heavenly visitors were present; and still more, asleep through the very hour of Christs glorification.

Doubtless these things are recorded as our warning; and yet it must be confessed that we learn not from them. It is little wonder that Paul wrote to the Thessalonians of the Coming of the Lord,

But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that Day should overtake you as a thief.

Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.

Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.

For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.

But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation (1Th 5:4-8).

We speak sometimes of a revival. What does it mean? It really means a waking up of the Church. How greatly is that needed! Of all the Prophets of the Old Testament Isaiah is truly the evangel. It is interesting to run through his Volume and see how often he calls upon the people of God to awake, anticipating the day of the Lords Coming,

Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise (Isa 26:19). And then his appeal to his people, Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city. * * Shake thyself from the dust. * * For thus saith the Lord, Ye have sold yourselves for nought (Isa 52:1-3). Then still further, Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.

Not once, but often do we hear some man in impassioned prayer calling upon God in this language: O wake us up! and there is occasion.

James Montgomery must have been dwelling upon the very language of the Prophet Isaiah when he wrote:

Awake, awake; put on thy strength,

Thy beautiful array;

The day of freedom dawns at length,

The Lords appointed day.

Rebuild thy walls, thy bounds enlarge,

And send thy heralds forth;

Say to the south, Give up thy charge,

And Keep not back, O north!

She responds only when it is too late.

I opened to my Beloved; but my Beloved had withdrawn Himself, and was gone: my soul failed when He spake: I sought Him, but I could not find Him; I called Him, but He gave me no answer.

The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me.

I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my Beloved, that ye tell Him, that I am sick of love (Son 5:6-8).

He has gone! How often in human history it has been so! The antediluvians were wakened at last! But, alas, too late! The storm of judgment had broken; the flood was at its full. The last dread enemy, death, was victor, the Lord was gone.

San Pierre wakened at last; but not until its citizens were all dead beneath the ash heap of the exploded mountain.

San Francisco wakened at last. But not until its heart had either been swallowed up by the earthquake, or licked clean by fire.

Father Ryan, the poet priest, would forgive me I know for changing and accommodating some words from his pen which must express the loneliness of that heart that knew Christ and loved Him, but slept through all His appeals and drove away His presence:

Gone, and there is not a gleam of you,

Tour face has floated into the far away.

Gone! and we can only dream of you.

Dream as yon fade like a star away;

Fade as a star in the sky from us,

Vainly we look for your light again;

Hear ye the sound of a sigh from us?

Come, and our hearts will be bright again.

Come! and gaze on our faces once more

Bring us the smiles of the olden days;

Come! and shine in your place once more,

And change the dark into golden days.

Gone! gone! gone! joy is fled from us

Gone into the night of the nevermore,

And darkness rests where you shed for us

A light we will miss for evermore.

Originally this was spoken of earthly friends; but it has its truest meaning when applied to the Heavenly Ones.

Cowper perhaps has voiced this experience as no other uninspired writer has done; and yet voiced it as every backslidden Christian has felt it.

Where is the blessedness I knew

When first I saw the Lord?

Where is the soul-refreshing view

Of Jesus and His Word?

What peaceful hours I then enjoyed!

How sweet their memory still!

But they have left an aching void

The world can never fill.

Return, O Holy Dove, return,

Sweet messenger of rest;

I hate the sins that made Thee mourn,

And drove Thee from my breast.

Cowper concluded his poem with the only language that will ever conclude this slumber, this sense of loneliness, this unspeakable loss, and with the very language that nine out of ten present-day Christians should employ, namely:

The dearest idol I have known,

Whatever that idol be,

Help me to tear it from Thy throne,

And worship only Thee.

The world sleeps and one day it will awake; but alas, too late! It will awake to a ruined universe, to an earth shaken in every part by fire and earthquake, to a day when the sun shall be black as sackcloth, and the moon as blood, and the stars have fallen, and the heaven itself has departed as a scroll, and every mountain and island has been moved out of its place; then its kings and its great men and rich men and chief captains shall hide themselves in the rocks of the mountains and say to the mountains, Fall on us, and hide us, for the great day of His wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand?

This picture of a departed Christ is followed by a strange, and yet very natural suggestion:

The Church, His Bride, defends Him against all competitors (Son 6:1-4). Strange we never prize love at its best until we have lost it; nor esteem the lover as he deserves until he is gone. So it is with our Divine Lover. When He is with us daily we accept it as a matter of course and fail to appreciate the fullness of His affection. What wife ever saw a husbands virtues in the full light until he was taken away; what Christian ever esteemed the ineffable Person and Presence of Christ as He deserved, until by some sin or spiritual drowsiness His companionship was lost!

Doubtless the five foolish virgins had some appreciation of the bridegrooms presence and also of the feast that had been prepared for the occasion; but the full sense of their loss was never felt until they knew the door was closed; and admission to his presence and the appointments of joy and rejoicing were denied them.

You say it is very strange that one who thought her Lover as the Chiefest of ten thousand should have slept while He knocked and slumbered until He slipped away.

But strange as it seems to us, our. conduct is not less selfish, nor even less sinful, nor does our belated language contribute to the glories of His Person. Our extravagant terms of personal affection do not excuse, in the least, the daily indifference to His calls; and more than one of us have had to endure the fears of His lost love, and to search long and diligently for His presence as a result of our own sinful sluggishness and wicked slumbers.

However, as we pursue this study, another feature of His matchless character comes to the surface.

HER NEGLECT IS FORGIVEN AND FORGOTTEN

Her beauty ravishes His heart. In Son 6:4-10, He voices this thought. In response to her statement that He is chiefest among ten thousand and the One Altogether Lovely. He answers, Thou art beautiful, O My love. There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number. My dove, My undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. * * Fair as the moon, clear as the sun. And He for whom the Bride sought not, turns about and seeks instead, calling, Return, return, * * that we may look upon thee.

In my work as a minister I have married a great many couples. Occasionally it is easy to see why the bride has been sought out. Her beauty is evident to all; her graces of person are most manifest. But on thousands of occasions it is not so; only the husbands eyes could see beauty in some brides. But evidently the true husband, who has given his heart with his hand, must behold that beauty whether others can see it or not. Such is the influence of love.

When we think on Gods people and know them intimately enough to understand their deficiencies we marvel all the more that Christ, Gods only Son, and the King of Glory, finds in them attractive features. The explanation is not so much in either their attractiveness or their accomplishments as it is in the manifestation of His affection.

That is why the poet could write:

Glorious things of thee are spoken,

Zion, city of our God;

He whose Word can neer be broken

Formed thee for His own abode.

Lord, Thy Church is still Thy dwelling,

Still is precious in Thy sight;

Judahs Temple far excelling,

Beaming with the Gospels light.

Her absence is His anguish.

I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley, and to see whether the vine flourished, and the pomegranates budded.

Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib.

Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee. What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies (Son 6:11-13).

We know that the individual Christian suffers when he or she feels that there is no further communion between his soul and Christ.

But is it not certain that Christ suffers still more? Undoubtedly Peter, James and John were ashamed of their neglect when once they were wakened out of slumber and knew that they had failed Christ in the hour of His greatest need. But was their suffering comparable to that through which He passed as in the garden great drops of sweat were on His brow; and in the wisdom that was His own, He understood that they had failed Him in that awful hour?

Christ was human and as such He craved human fellowship. What man or woman is there who is normally and Divinely constituted, and yet can live contentedly without the conscious love of lifes choice one?

Again and again it has been my duty to lay away either husband or wife after a long period of fifty or sixty or more years of walking together; and I have noticed that when that walk has been intimate and sweet, the old man or the old woman thus left alone, longs for the end and is happy when it comes. Beyond question that is due to the circumstance that he believes that this fellowship will be renewed in another land; and to live alone after one has gone, makes life a desert and Heaven a land of rejoicing. Who doubts that Divine love is as much more intense than human love as the Divine thoughts are high above the human ones, and that Christ Himself is anguished whenever the members of His Bride, the Church, are indifferent and are practically out of communion with Him.

If one would take the time to read Son 7:1 to Son 8:7 he would discover that

HER POSSESSION IS HIS PLEASURE

It would seem as we pass from chapter six to seven that His cry, Return, return! has not been in vain.

The language that follows indicates her presence, and consequently, pleasure. The statement of the Bride, I am my Beloveds indicates the same. Love is strong as death. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it, are sample sentences of the mutual expressions that follow.

I wonder if people, in general, have noticed what has often impressed me, namely, how we can measure the pulse of affection by the language that r is unconsciously employed to express the same? Older friends, who have long walked together, quite often introduce the spouse as Mr. or Mrs. Smith or Jones; but not so with the young husband or wife.

Their introduction is on another basisThis is my husband, This is my wife, with the emphasis upon the possessive pronoun. That is a natural expression of a keen sense of possession, of pride and joy in the same.

That possessive pronoun also has played conspicuous place in both Old and New Testament. On the one side it voices the believers affection for Christ; and equally on the other, Christs affection for the Christian. Beyond all question, the Psalmists love to Christ reached no higher expression than the twenty-third Psalm; and in that Psalm his language is, The Lord is my Shepherd. Perhaps hundreds of times this single phrase will be found in that Book of the Psalm, My God. It is the language of love, and it is also appropriating faith, and it is justified by the Divine attitude.

Jesus said, As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you: continue ye in MY love. If ye keep My Commandments, ye shall abide in MY love. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, rather, can we not say with the Apostle, We are persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

The Missing One Found

Chapter 3 Son. 3:1-5

PROBABLY A DREAM RELATED BY SHULAMITE TO THE DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM

By night on my bed
I sought him whom my soul loveth;
I sought him, but I found him not.
I will rise now, and go about the city;
In the streets, and in the broadways thereof,
Will I seek him whom my soul loveth.
I sought him, but I found him not.
The watchmen that go about the city found me; to whom I said:

Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?
It was but a little that I passed from them,
But I found him whom my soul loveth.
I held him, and would not let him go,
Until I had brought him into my mothers house,
And into the chamber of her that conceived me.
I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,
By the roes and by the hinds of the field.
That ye stir not up nor awake my love,
Till he please.

This section probably the narration of a dream, given in a song by Shulamite in presence of the Daughters of Jerusalem or Ladies of the Court. By night (Hebrew, nights) on my bed, &c. (So Dan. 4:10; Dan. 4:13). A dream cometh by the multitude of business; and Shulamites, from the occupation of her thoughts with the prospect of the approaching nuptials, and the preparations for them. Indicates how her waking thoughts were possessed by her Beloved, here again characterized by her as he whom my soul loveth, as already in Chap. Son. 1:7; and reveals her great desire to enjoy his society, and her fear lest anything should occur to prevent it. From the passage, viewed in its spiritual aspect, observe

1. Natural that believers, especially in the ardour of their first love, should have their thoughts much occupied with Christ, and that as a consequence He should be present to them even in their dreams. Their experience expressed by the prophet: With my soul have I desired Thee in the night: yea, with my spirit within me will I seek Thee early (Isa. 26:9).

2. The believers great desire, when it is well with his soul, for the presence and fellowship of the Saviour whom he loves; and his great concern not to lose it, or do anything that may occasion its loss.

3. Times when the believing soul is warranted and constrained to open up to others the treasures of her spiritual experience, and to narrate both her conflicts and her victories, her sorrows and her joys (Psa. 66:16).

4. The fellowship of Christ not always and uninterruptedly enjoyed by the believer in this world. Many causes of its interruptiona corrupt nature, a tempting devil, and a world lying in wickedness.
5. Dark seasons and dull frames no proof of a Christless state. Christ always present with a believer, but not always sensibly so. Our union with Christ not affected by our want of communion with Him. Our interest in His love not dependent on our feelings, but on His faithfulness.
6. A precious mercy to be aroused to seek an absent Christ.
7. The mark of a living and loving soul, not to be satisfied with an absent Saviour.

8. Seeking Christ to be diligent and earnest, in order to be successful. The soul to stir itself up to take hold of God when He appears to be absent (Isa. 64:7). Christ not always readily found when missed. Not readily found in order to increase our earnestness in seeking, and our carefulness in retaining Him. A missing Christ makes prized ordinances.

9. Suitable means to be employed and inquiry made, in order to find a missing Christ. The part of a true pastor to direct inquiring souls. That direction to be sought and found both in private conference and in attendance on the public ordinances of Gods house (Joh. 12:21; Psa. 27:4). The likeliest place to find the missing Jesus was in His Fathers house (Luk. 2:46). Christ to be found in the streets and broad ways of the city, not in the blind by-ways outside of it.(Henry).

10. Ministers to know Christ themselves in order to direct others to Him. A Christless minister a poor guide to a Christ-seeking soul. Ministers expected by their people to be familiar with Christ, and with the exercises of those who are earnestly seeking Him.
11. Ministers to be accessible to their people, and to be diligent in their duty. The watchmen that go about the city found me.
12. Earnest and diligent search after Christ not long unsuccessful. It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found Him, &c. Christ not far from a faithful ministry and an earnestly seeking soul.
13. Means to be employed, but not rested in. I passed from them. The seeking soul to go beyond the minister. Means and ministers, like finger-posts, pointing to something beyond them. Ordinances only means. Angels unable to satisfy Mary at the empty sepulchre. The Bride hastens past the servant to the master.

14. Inexpressible joy in finding a missing and sought-for Saviour. I found Himthe language of exultation. Like Archimedes in the bathI have found it, I have found it. So Andrew and Philip in regard to the Messiah (Joh. 1:41; Joh. 1:45). So the wise men rejoiced in the Star (Mat. 2:10).

15. Care to be taken by those who have found Christ in order to retain Him. I held him, &c. The language

(1) Of love and affection to the Saviour (Rth. 1:16).

(2) Fear and jealousy of losing Him.
(3) Earnest resolution to hold Him. Implies on Christs part

(1) An apparent inclination to depart (Gen. 32:26; Luk. 24:28; Mar. 6:48).

(2) Gracious condescensionthe Almighty allowing Himself to be held by a creature.
16. Believers who find Christ, and enjoy His fellowship, to endeavour that others also may profit by it. I brought him to my mothers house. Both natural and spiritual kindred to be made partakers of the benefit. A proof that Jesus is dear to ourselves when we seek to make Him known to others. A family or congregation to be the better by any member of it that rejoices in a found Saviour. Only a present and enjoyed Christ the life of a Church or congregation.
17. Watchfulness, resolution, and care necessary, on the part of the believer, to avoid whatever may disturb his enjoyment of Christs presence and fellowship; and on the part of the Church, to avoid whatever may grieve him away from its ordinances. I charge you, &c. Danger of disturbing a found and present Christ especially to be apprehended from the daughters of Jerusalem. The flesh Christs greatest enemy, whether in the believers own heart or in the Church or congregation.
18. Easy to provoke Christ to withdraw from the soul or the Church while He is visiting it. By the roes and by the hinds of the field,the most timid creatures, and most easily disturbed and frightened away.

Observe from the whole passage in regard to

A Missing Saviour.

I. The PERSON who misses him. One who loves him. I sought him whom my soul loveth. The character of a believer and a regenerated soul that he loves Christ. He loves Him

(1) Sincerely, with his soul; not in mere sentiment or profession.

(2) Ardently, with warmest affection; his soul loves Him. Christ loved with the soul the proof of a soul that loves Christ. Christ only loved by a new nature. The carnal mind enmity to God, and so to Christ. Love to Christ generated by the Holy Spirits revelation of him to the soul in his preciousness as a Saviour. The soul that loves Christ most ready to miss Him, and most pained at losing Him. That only missed which has been prized and possessed. The condemnation and curse of men who have heard the Gospel that they do not love Christ (Joh. 3:19; 1Co. 16:22).

II. The MEANS employed to find him.

(1) Diligent attendance on public ordinances: These ordinances the streets and broadways of the city of the great King. Christ to be found in these. Wherever two or three are gathered together, &c. (Mat. 18:20). Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, &c. For whoso findeth me, findeth life, &c. (Pro. 8:34-35).

(2) Private inquiry of spiritual guides. Pastors and teachers appointed by Zions King to direct anxious souls to Himself. Remember them which have the rule (margin, are the guides) over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God, &c. (Heb. 13:7-8; Heb. 13:17).

(3) Searching the Scriptures. The written Word the standing direction of inspired guides. The voice of the watchmen of Zion heard in the Bible. The Scriptures testify of Christ. None long in finding Christ who search for Him in the testimony of the Gospel.

(4) Earnest prayer for divine light and guidance (Psa. 43:3). Shulamite turns from the watchmen to the King himself (Son. 3:4).

III. The RESULT of the search. Christ found. I found him whom my soul loveth. Such success is

(1) certain. Promised by Him that cannot lie. Then shall ye seek me and find me, when ye search for me with all your heart (Jer. 29:13). If thou criest after knowledge, &c. Then shalt thou find the knowledge of God (Pro. 2:3-5.

(2) Speedy. It was but a little, &c. Before they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear (Isa. 65:24). I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself, &c. My bowels are troubled for him. (Jer. 31:18-20).

IV. The IMPROVEMENT of the success. Threefold.

(1) A holding him fast, so as not again to lose Him. I held Him, &c. That likely to be most carefully treasured and kept which has been once lost and found again. A believer not more known by finding Christ than by his care to keep Him when He is found. Care to be taken to retain a mercy as well as to obtain it. Care to retain Christ as precious in his sight as anxiety to obtain Him. And equally necessary. Enough in the world, the flesh, the devil, and the carnality of the daughters of Jerusalem, to render such care necessary.

(2) An endeavour to make others partakers of the blessing. Our mothers house to share the benefit of a found Christ. A living believer rejoicing in a found Christ, a blessing to a whole congregation. The found treasure not to be hid. Many shall see it, and fear and trust in the Lord. Come and hear, All ye that fear God; and I will declare what he hath done for my soul (Psa. 40:3; Psa. 66:16). Our kindred not to be forgotten. Go home to thy friends and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee (Mar. 5:19).

(3). Watchfulness and resolution to guard against anything that might shorten Christs fellowship and presence. I charge you, &c. Spiritual blessings to be held with a vigilant eye and a resolute hand. A cooling of first love sufficient to grieve a loving Saviour, and to endanger the continuance of the candlestick (Rev. 2:4-5).

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

TEXT 3:15

c.

Relation of a Dream, Son. 3:1-4

d.

Adjuration to Court Ladies, Son. 3:5 (second)

1.

On my bed night after night I sought him whom my soul loves;

I sought him but did not find him.

2.

I must arise now and go about the city;

In the streets and in the squares.

I must seek him whom my soul loves.
I sought him but did not find him.

3.

The watchmen who makes the rounds in the city found me,

And I said, Have you seen him whom my soul loves?

4.

Scarcely had I left them

When I found him whom my soul loves;
I held on to him and would not let him go,
Until I had brought him to my mothers house,
And into, the room of her who conceived me.

5.

I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,

By the gazelles or by the hinds of the field,
That you will not arouse or awaken my love,
Until she pleases.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS 3:15

72.

Is there anything in the previous verses that might suggest the cause of this dream? (What about a promise unfulfilled?)

73.

Why the oft-repeated phrase whom my soul loves?

74.

In what city was her search?

75.

What were the duties of the city watchmen?

76.

Do you think the watchmen helped her in her search?

77.

Why bring her beloved to her mothers house?

78.

What reason is there in mentioning her conception?

79.

Who or what is not to be awakened until the proper time?

80.

What is the meaning of this verse?

PARAPHRASE 3:15

Shulammite to Court Ladies:

1.

By night on my bed I kept dreaming

(That) I sought him whom I dearly love;
I sought him but I found him not.

2.

(Thought I) I will get up and go about the city,

Into the streets and open spaces.
I will seek him whom I love dearly.
I sought him but I found him not.

3.

The watchmen who patrol the city found me;

(I asked), Have you seen him whom I love dearly?

4.

Hardly had I passed on from them,

When I found him whom I love dearly,
I clung to him and would not let him go
Until I had brought him to my mothers house,
Into the apartment of her that bore me.

5.

I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,

That ye arouse not nor stir up love
Until itself is pleased to awaken.

COMMENT 3:15

Exegesis Son. 3:1-5

The women of Solomons harem are here told of a reoccurring dream. Perhaps it is occasioned by what is not shared with themthat her lover failed to return as promised (Son. 2:17). It is of some passing interest to observe that the term bed or couch of Son. 1:16 is a day couch. Repetition in dreams is a common occurrenceIn a time of anxiety frustration in dreams would reflect such a state of mind.

We are not told the name of the city but it would be natural to assume it was Shunemit could have been Jerusalem. She is to make a thorough, if not frantic search. Up and down the streets and into the larger areas of the intersections and city gates she searches hither and thither. Anywhere where persons congregate she will go looking between and among all she meets. She will look at each one for the familiar dear form of her beloved. The night watchmen appearsurely they will knowthey can help meI will ask themShe describes her beloved to them (or perhaps they know him by name if it is in the town of Shunem) Have you seen him? We are not told of their responsewe would assume they did not know from what follows. She had no sooner left them than she suddenly sees him and in an instant she is in his arms. She clings to him with the tenacity and joy of the lost is found!
Why did she bring him to her mothers house? Perhaps this represented the place of securitysafety and permanence. The mention of her mothers house would seem to confirm the thought that her mother was a widow.
This might also support the thought of the concern of her brothers for her safety. Some commentators suggest that this is a description of the consummation of the marriage. We see no need for such a conclusion.

We ask the reader to please refer to our comments on Son. 2:7 for the meaning of Son. 3:5. This verse is again repeated in Son. 8:4. In our day of the billion dollar sale of pornography we need to read and understand this verse more than thrice.

Marriage Son. 3:1-5

Does my wife dream of me? If she does what is the nature of such dreams? If her dreams are filled with anxiety it could be because we do not dream more often of her. We want our comments to be as practical as at all possible. We have found the following expression so very much to the point.
Bill Lawrence is 38 years old. He has a pretty wife, two beautiful children, and is considered one of the outstanding preachers in his city. Bill and June were married while Bill was still in seminary. Their first child was born during his senior year. June never completed her college education but took a job to help Bill through seminary. Bill is an effective preacher and is greatly respected by both his assistant and the congregation. He works hard on his sermons. His church is growing.
Bills wife will leave him next week.
Bob Ramsom is the executive director of Christian Commitment Abroad which he founded 22 years ago. He has travelled all over the world and is a much sought-after speaker. After a shaky start, CCA began to grow rapidly about ten years ago. Much of its growth is due to Bobs high level of commitment and his willingness to give himself unstintingly to the work of Christ.
Bob doesnt know it, but he left his wife eight years ago. WHERE ARE YOU?
Where are you as a Christian leader? Where does your commitment lie? Could it be that you, too, are one of those, perhaps without even knowing it, who has left his wife?

How do you sort it all out? Where do your Christian priorities lie? How does one find a balance between commitment to the task and commitment to ones family? THREE PRIORITIES
In one of our earliest Christian Leadership Letters, (March 1973), we laid out what we consider to be three levels of Christian commitments, three levels of priority. Simply stated they are:

First: Commitment to God and Christ
Second: Commitment to the Body of Christ
Third: Commitment to the work of Christ

We picture these as foundation stones, one built upon another. We begin with the initial commitment to God through His Son. But the visible evidence of this vertical relationship with God is found in this second priority of horizontal relationships with the sons and daughters of God. The Bible calls us away from a Western individualism back to a biblical corporate unity. It is on this foundation and within the framework of this body-like relationship that the work of Christ is to be carried out. It was he who gave gifts to mankind . . . He did this to prepare all Gods people for the work of Christian service, in order to build up the body of Christ (Eph. 4:11-12, TEV).

These priorities cannot be exclusive of one another. All three are needed. One of the conditions for effectively carrying out the work of Christ is the relationship that exists within the body. If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are My disciples (Joh. 13:35, TEV). WHERE IS YOUR WIFE?

We are addressing ourselves here as Christian leaders, and especially as married men. Where does your wife fit in these priorities? Certainly of all the relationships described in the Bible the highest and most mystical is the relationship found in marriage. Paul could only compare it to the relationship of Christ and His Church (Eph. 5:21-33). The disruption of this relationship can have tremendous spiritual consequences. Peter tells us that interruption of the relationship can even interfere with our prayers (1Pe. 3:7).

Is your ministry as a Christian Leader built upon a foundation of a strong marriage relationship, or does it move forward in spite of that relationship. (Christian Leadership Letter, March 1977).

Before our wife wakes up and finds her nightmare is true, lets change the cause.

Communion Son. 3:1-5

Communing with God on our bed is no new unusual thought. Daniel was given a vision upon his bed. Cf. Dan. 2:28-29; Dan. 4:5; Dan. 4:10; Dan. 7:1. The Psalmist says, Let the saints exult in glory: Let them sing for joy upon their beds. Psa. 149:5. As we close our eyes for rest it should be a time when we take His yoke upon us that we might find rest for our souls as well as our bodies. A total yielding to the presence and interest of our wonderful Lord should precede our slumber. There are times of concern when sleep flees from us. It is at such times we need Him most of all. We are glad to affirm that He has not left us. Any feeling of desertion or separateness is not because He has left. There is no need to seek Him in the streetsnor to make inquiry of others as to His whereabouts. He is right where we left Him. Return to your place of disobedience and confess your sin and be cleansed. He will be found again just on the other side of genuine repentance.

FACT QUESTIONS 3:15

123.

To whom are these words addressed? Why?

124.

Why this troubled dream?

125.

There are two types of beds described in this book. What are they? (Cf. Son. 1:16 and Son. 3:1)

126.

In which city does she see her lover in her dream?

127.

What was the task of the watchmen? Why ask them?

128.

Why take him to her mothers house

129.

What dreams could our wives have of us? Discuss.

130.

Discuss the article When Did You Leave Your Wife?

131.

Show how these verses can relate to our communing with our Lord upon our bed. Discuss.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

III.

(1) A reminiscence (elaborated in Son. 5:2 seq.) of the intensity of their love before their union, put by the poet into his ladys mouth. She arises from dreams of him, and goes to find him.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

1. By night When night veils all things, and the soul is driven in upon itself, fond memory brings the light of other days, and our emotions, especially of tenderness and anxiety, become stronger. Even should be prefixed to this verse, and still be inserted before sought. She looked anxiously at her lattice, but he did not appear. “Next to love’s joys, are wakeful, anxious fears.”

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The Young Maiden Dreams That She Has Lost Her Beloved ( Son 3:1-5 ).

THE YOUNG MAIDEN’S FIRST NIGHTMARE.

Son 3:1-4

‘By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loves, I sought him, but I did not find him. I will rise now, and go about the city, In the streets and in the broad ways, I will seek him whom my soul loves, I sought him, but I found him not. The watchmen that go about the city found me, “Have you seen him whom my soul loves?” It was but a little that I passed from them, When I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go, Until I had brought him into my mother’s house, And into the inner room of her who conceived me.”

But there is always a consequence to such a refusal. Having turned him away, she discovered that when nighttime came, she had a nightmare. She dreamed that she sought her beloved and did not find him. And as a result she panicked and determined that she would seek him, and not stop until she had found him. So in her dream she left her comfortable country home, and went into what was to her the strangeness and foreignness of the city, and there in its streets and its broad ways she sought him whom her soul loved. But search as she would she still did not find him.

Eventually she was discovered wandering around the streets by the watchmen on their rounds, and she pleaded with them, ‘Have you seen him whom my soul loves’. Surely everyone must know him? And it was not long after she left them that she found him whom her soul loves, presumably with the assistance of the watchmen. Then she clung to him desperately and would not let him go, and she refused to release him until she had taken him to the only place where she felt they could be safe and alone together, to her mother’s house and the place of her birth. He must be hers for ever. This dream, contains all the intensity and absurdity of a nightmare, while revealing the real desire of her heart.

It was ever God’s desire that Israel might one day realize her folly in turning Him away, and nothing would have delighted Him more than to be sought out by them in this way by those with a genuine desire to please Him. But that too was only a dream. Outwardly there sometimes appeared to be a passionate concern for Him, but it did not become an inward reality. And as the centuries that were coming, and especially the coming and rejection of Jesus, would reveal it did not come from a genuine and moral heart. And so they are left wandering the streets of the city through the centuries, ever searching and never coming to a knowledge of the truth (2Ti 3:7), for if they are ever to find Him it can only be through responding to the King Whom they have rejected.

But it is not only Israel who have been ready to turn the Lord away, and leave Him waiting. Many others, even Christians, do the same, even some who were once fervent. However, if they are really His elect He will not leave them in that unhappy position. They too will have a ‘nightmare’. At some stage God will awaken them to what they are doing. So they too need to learn from this dream of the need for them to come to Him or to return to their first love (Rev 2:4) and seek for Him and find Him, so that they can take Him home to live with them. Indeed, for those who will receive Him He is ever near. As He said to the church at Laodicea, ‘Behold I am standing at the door and knocking, if anyone hear My voice and open the door I will come in to him, and will sup with him and he with Me’ (Rev 3:20). There is no excuse for our not having Him with us. It is up to us then to open the door into our homes and lives, and let Him enter so that we can have continual fellowship with Him, eating and drinking with Him. And how grateful we should be that He has provided us with ‘watchmen’ to help us in our search, first the prophets, then the Apostles, and then faithful preachers. Thank God for the watchmen. And once we have found Him again we must make sure that like the young maiden we hold on to Him and refuse to let Him go until we are sure that He is once more living with us permanently.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

SECTION 2.

The Follow Up Visit By Her Beloved, And Her Subsequent Nightmare ( Son 2:8 to Son 3:5 ).

In this section we now have described in vivid terms a picture of how the young maiden’s beloved seeks her out and calls her to come away with him into the countryside. The courtship is advancing and he is here not acting as a king but as a lover. And while she does not respond, for it would not have been seemly for a maiden of her quality to go off alone with her lover, she delights in the assurance it brings her of their love. However, that night the fact that she has had to gently rebuff him results in her having a nightmare that she has lost him, and so in her dream she commences a desperate journey to seek him out, which again ends with an adjuration to the daughters of Jerusalem not to awaken his love until it pleases.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Love is Tested: The Pain of Separation Literal Interpretation – Son 3:1-5 describes the pain of separation when love is at its height leading up to the wedding. Love becomes so strong that it even becomes difficult so sleep at night.

In Son 1:7 the Shulamite woman was searching for her Lover. She will search for him a number of times in this Song. The purpose of each search is to find rest. She will look for him during the phase of Courtship in Son 1:7. She will look for him again during the phase of Engagement in Son 3:1-4. She will search for him during the phase of Maturing Marriage in Son 5:6-7, until she learns his ways and becomes confident in his devotion towards her and learns that he abides in the garden among the lilies (Son 6:1-3). She will eventually learn that true rest will be found in yielding to his plan for her life, which is communion with him in the garden, and labouring in her own vineyard (Son 8:10).

Duane Garrett interprets Son 3:1-5 to mean that the young lady has decided to give herself totally to her Lover. [146] In other words, she has made the decision to marry him. He says this text stresses the “mental anxiety” that a young girl experiences prior to marriage. She is no longer at rest in her bed of rest, which the king built for her in Son 1:16-17. Her passion for more time with him causes her to lose sleep.

[146] Duane Garrett, Song of Songs, in Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 23B (Dallas, Texas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), in Libronix Digital Library System, v. 2.1c [CD-ROM] (Bellingham, WA: Libronix Corp., 2000-2004), comments on Song of Solomon 3:1-5.

Figurative Interpretation – The preceding acts of separating oneself from the cares of this world and learning to commune with God has the transforming effect of developing an intense longing in one’s heart for communion with God and His Word. Figurative interpreted, Watchman Nee suggests Son 3:1-5 represents the time when the Lord’s presence subsides in order to allow the believer to feel uncomfortable enough to begin seeking God’s face of his own will. [147] Just as the Shulamite quickly finds her lover, Jesus knows our limits and allows Himself to be soon found. The Shulamite’s efforts to bring her lover into her bedchamber represent our efforts to maintain a feeling of the Lord’s constant presence again, which was recently lost. However, this journey of faith requires God’s children to walk at times without a sense of His tangible presence. At this phase in spiritual growth, a child of God must find rest in allowing the Lord’s presence to come and go at God’s own will and timing. The believer is being trained to walk by faith with or without the feeling of His divine presence. For example, Andrew Wommack tells the story of how he experienced forty days of supernatural, divine encounters at an older teenager. When this experience ended, he began to wonder what he had done to cause these encounters to subside. He later understood that he had no more influence of turning them off than he had in turning them on to begin with. It was entirely orchestrated by the Lord. Soon afterwards, Andrew was drafted into the military and served about a year and a half in Vietnam. During this time he was placed in military barracks with others. The walls of these barracks were plastered with pictures of unclothed women. This forced him to spend his entire day with his head in the Bible. He read the Bible twelve hours a day in an effort to keep his eyes and mind off of those dirty pictures. He makes the point that this second uncomfortable experience did more in growing him spiritually than the short season of divine encounters, since it forced him into God’s Word intensely for the first time in his life. [148]

[147] Watchman Nee, Song of Songs (Fort Washington, Pennsylvania: CLC Publications, c1965, 2001), 56-7.

[148] Andrew Wommack, Gospel Truth (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Andrew Wommack Ministries), on Trinity Broadcasting Network (Santa Ana, California), television program.

Son 3:1 By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

Son 3:1 Comments – The word “night” is found in the plural in the Hebrew text. Therefore, the text is literally translated, “by nights.” Duane Garrett explains that the KJV phrase “by night” is better understood to mean “in the nights,” or “night after night.” [149] The concept of repetition is meant. He understands this verse to describe a young maiden who longs to lay with her lover each night she goes to bed. Although she does not expect him to be there prior to marriage, she nevertheless longs for him during this time of solitude and rest. Garrett says her “yearning and agitation” are emphasized here in this verse.

[149] Duane Garrett, Song of Songs, in Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 23B (Dallas, Texas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), in Libronix Digital Library System, v. 2.1c [CD-ROM] (Bellingham, WA: Libronix Corp., 2000-2004), comments on Song of Solomon 3:1.

Son 3:2 I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

Son 3:3 The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?

Son 3:3 “The watchmen that go about the city found me” Word Study on “The watchmen” Strong says the Hebrew word “watchmen” “ shamar ” ( ) (H8104) is a primitive root meaning, “to hedge about, protect, attend to.” The Enhanced Strong says it is used 468 times in the Old Testament, being translated in the KJV as “keep 283, observe 46, heed 35, keeper 28, preserve 21, beware 9, Mark 8, watchman 8, wait 7, watch 7, regard 5, save 2, misc 9.”

Comments – Isaiah and Ezekiel use the word “watchman” to refer to those whom God has appointed to watch over His people, those who are to preach the Word of God to the people (Isa 52:8; Isa 62:6, Eze 33:7).

Isa 52:8, “Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the LORD shall bring again Zion.”

Isa 62:6, “I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence,”

Eze 33:7, “So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me.”

Son 3:3 Figurative Interpretation – Under the Old covenant, a Jew had to look beyond the instructions of the Law and understand its original purpose was to bring a man to the Lord. Paul said in Galatians that the Law was given to the Jews as a way of guiding them to Christ. She will encounter these watchmen again in Son 5:7, but this time they will strike her. This means that after the Resurrection of Christ the Law was no longer man’s instructor, and those who still clung to the Law also persecuted those who accepted Christ as the fulfillment of this very Law.

Son 3:4 It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

Son 3:4 Word Study on “chambers” Strong says the Hebrew word “chambers” “cheder” ( ) (H2315) means, “an apartment, bed chamber, inner chamber innermost.” The Enhanced Strong says it is found 38 times in the Old Testament, being translated in the KJV as “chamber 21, inner 4, bedchamber + 4296 3, bedchamber + 4904 3, inward parts 2, innermost parts 2, parlours 1, south 1, within 1.” It is used one other time in Son 3:4.

Son 3:4, “It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.”

Son 3:4 Literal Interpretation The Shulamite found him and brought her beloved to her most intimate place, which was her mother’s bed chamber. Since she was still a virgin maiden, this was also her dwelling place.

Figurative Interpretation “It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth” – We think that we have “found” the Lord. But in actuality, He has allowed Himself to be found by us. He does this to cause our faith to be tested so that it grows. God has set watchmen over Israel and the Church to guide the people. However, every person must encounter the Lord for himself, and not become dependent upon the Jewish priests and Church leaders for guidance. Only those who passionately desire the Lord will look beyond the priesthood and Church leaders to find a personal encounter with Christ. This phase of the Beloved’s life (Son 2:8 to Son 3:5) has been this time of separation that has given her “dove’s eyes,” or the spiritual insight to understand her need for a personal encounter with Christ. “I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me” – Watchman Nee interprets this phrase to mean that “her self-life was mingled with her spiritual desires”. [150]

[150] Watchman Nee, Song of Songs (Fort Washington, Pennsylvania: CLC Publications, c1965, 2001), 61.

Son 3:5 I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.

Son 3:5 Word Study on “the roes” Strong says the Hebrew word “roe” “ tseb-ee’ ” ( ) (H6643) means, “prominence; splendor (as conspicuous); also a gazelle (as beautiful).” The Enhanced Strong says it is used 39 times in the Old Testament, being translated in the KJV as “roe 9, roebuck 5, glory 8, glorious 6, beautiful 1, beauty 1, goodly 1, pleasant 1.” This Hebrew word is used 5 times in the Song of Songs (Son 2:7; Son 2:9; Son 2:17; Son 3:5; Son 8:14). Of all the animals in the ancient Orient, the deer symbolized grace and beauty. In Son 2:9; Son 2:17; Son 8:14 this word is used metaphorically of the Lover, who figuratively represents Christ. It may refer to Christ in Son 2:17; Son 8:14.

Son 3:5 Word Study on “love” Strong says the Hebrew word “love” “ahabah” ( ) (H160), means, “love.” The Enhanced Strong says this word is used forty (40) times in the Old Testament, being translated in the KJV as “love 40.” It is found 11 times in the Song of Solomon (Son 2:4-5; Son 2:7; Son 3:5; Son 3:10; Son 5:8; Son 7:6; Son 8:4; Son 8:6-7 [twice]), with one of these uses as a substantive to refer to her lover (Son 7:6).

Comments – The possessive personal pronoun “ my ” is not found in the original Hebrew text. The translators of the KJV added it as a means of clarifying their interpretation of the verse to say that Shulamite woman was telling the daughters of Jerusalem not to awaken her lover.

Son 3:5 Comments – Son 2:7 serves as a final verse to one of the five divisions of the Song of Solomon. There are three other identical verses in the Song of Solomon that serves to mark these divisions (Son 2:7, Son 3:5, Son 8:4).

Son 2:7, “I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.”

Son 3:5, “I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.”

Son 8:4, “I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, until he please.”

In these verses the beloved charges the daughters of Jerusalem not to stir up the passions of love until it is time. She bases this plea upon the example in nature of the wild gazelles and does of the field. She uses this example because gazelles and deer were considered the most beautiful creatures of the forest, yet they were the most elusive and hard to find. In contrast, domesticated animals and livestock lacked the beauty, but were easily tamed. As God made these animals beautiful, but elusive in this dispensation of man’s fall, these creatures will one day be tamed and companions for us in heaven. In a sense, it is not time for these creatures to be tamed.

In the same way, the beloved is telling the daughters of Jerusalem that catching love and enjoying its pleasures is like catching a beautiful deer. It may appear to be something much to be desired, but it is as elusive as the deer of the forest. This Shulamite woman has discovered that passion during the early stages of courtship is a difficult emotion to manage and does not give her the rest and peace that she expected it to give her; for passion binds someone and does not turn him loose. As much as a romantic love affair appears desirable, she warns the other virgins to wait for God to bring it to pass in His time; otherwise, it will overwhelm someone and cause more harm than good.

In other words, true rest is not found in the strong passions of courtship (Son 1:2 to Son 2:7), nor, as she will later discover, in her engagement (Son 2:8 to Son 3:5), nor in her wedding (Son 3:6 to Son 5:1), nor in the state of marriage (Son 5:2 to Son 8:4). But she will find out that true rest can only be found in yielding herself to her husband and bearing fruit within a marriage (Son 8:10).

Regarding the themes that are repeated in each of these phases of love, we find that the beloved suffers from lovesickness during the courtship (Son 2:5) and does not find rest. During the engagement she suffers from being separated from her lover (Son 3:1-4) and does not find rest. During the wedding she suffers from having to abandon her freedom and desires as a single person in order to walk in unity with her husband (Son 5:2-8). During the development of her marriage she must deal with the desire to have her husband’s undivided attention (Son 8:1-4).

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Engagement (Scene 2: The Shulamite’s House) (Separation or Sanctification) Literal Interpretation – The second song (Son 2:8 to Son 3:5) reflects the season of engagement, or betrothal, that takes place in a relationship of growing love. In the African culture the wife brings her lover to her parent’s home and introduces him. This event is called an introduction, and a man is free to take her to his home at any time afterwards. However, in the Middle Eastern culture this event is considered the betrothal that precedes the wedding. In the opening scene (Son 2:8-15) the Shulamite hears the voice of her beloved woos her and asking for her love. In Son 2:16 to Son 3:5 we have the Shulamite’s response to her lover’s call. She accepts (Son 2:16-17) and then experiences the pain that results from being separated from the person who is about to become her husband (Son 3:1-5). Love becomes so strong that it even becomes difficult to sleep at night. At this point in love’s journey she has not entered into rest.

Figurative Interpretation The second song opens with the Shulamite being wooed from her bed rest by her lover. Figuratively speaking, this song represents the call of the Lord for a believer to separate himself from the world and sanctify himself as one who is betrothed to Christ (2Co 11:2). Within the context of Songs, a believer’s call to sanctification is described as someone who is called apart for communion with God. This time of separation is important for every believer. We see in the life of Moses that he stayed in the desert forty years before entering in to divine service. Paul the apostle spent three years in Arabia before serving the Lord. Queen Esther spend one year separating herself and preparing herself to be presented before the king and to serve him.

If a believer stays at the king’s banqueting table and never grows in devotion the Lord, then his love will never be tested as genuine. For example, when David fled Jerusalem because of Absalom, many of his servants join in this rebellion. These servants had fed at the king’s table for years; but their heart was not with the king. The rebellion served as a test of David’s servants. Love must be tested, and this is what God is doing by calling us from our place of rest. He is testing our devotion to Him.

We find another example in the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve were feasting in God’s blessings in the Garden. In order to test their love and devotion to Him, God gave them one commandment to avoid the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Unfortunately, Adam and Eve yielded to their own fleshly desires and disobeyed God’s command and failed the test of love.

Outline – Note the proposed outline of this section:

1. Scene 1 A Time of Courtship Son 2:8-17

a) The Bridegroom’s Call Son 2:8-15

b) The Bride’s Response Son 2:16-17

2. Scene 2 – Love is Tested Son 3:1-5

Historical Background of Oriental Betrothal The next stage of love is the period of engagement, which is symbolized in Son 2:8 to Son 3:5. The oriental Jewish culture called it “betrothal.” John Gill, in his comments on Mat 1:18, gives us the account and manner of the Jewish custom of betrothing by quoting Maimonides:

“Before the giving of the law, if a man met a woman in the street, if he would, he might take her, and bring her into his house and marry her between him and herself, and she became his wife; but when the law was given, the Israelites were commanded, that if a man would take a woman he should obtain her before witnesses, and after that she should be his wife, according to Deu 22:13 and these takings are an affirmative command of the law, and are called ‘espousals’ or ‘betrothings’ in every place; and a woman who is obtained in such a way is called ‘espoused’ or ‘betrothed’; and when a woman is obtained, and becomes ”espoused”, although she is not yet ‘married, nor has entered into her husband’s house’, yet she is a man’s wife.” ( Mishneh Torah, vol 16: Hilchot Ishot c.1.sect. 1,2,3) [124]

[124] John Gill, Matthew, in John Gill’s Expositor, in e-Sword, v. 7.7.7 [CD-ROM] (Franklin, Tennessee: e-Sword, 2000-2005), comments on Matthew 1:18.

Deu 22:13, “If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her,”

Albert Barnes says that the Jewish custom was to have an interval of ten to twelve months between the contract for marriage, or betrothal, and the actual wedding. During this interval, the virgin was betrothed, or espoused, to her future husband. This engagement was as strong as the marriage itself. [125]

[125] Albert Barnes, The Gospel According to Matthew, in Barnes’ Notes, Electronic Database (Seattle, WA: Hendrickson Publishers Inc., 1997), in P.C. Study Bible, v. 3.1 [CD-ROM] (Seattle, WA: Biblesoft Inc., 1993-2000), comments on Matthew 1:18.

In Deu 22:22-29, the Law of Moses considered a virgin who has been betrothed to a man as being bound under the same laws as a wife. If another man lay with such a betrothed virgin, then death is the penalty. If the virgin is not betrothed when a man lays with her, then the penalty is weakened to a monetary fine. The only way that this relationship between a man and his betrothed virgin can be broken is by a writing of divorce, since he was considered her husband (Mat 1:19).

Deu 22:23-24, “If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour’s wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.”

Mat 1:19, “Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily.”

We see the strength and bond of the act of betrothal in the story of Jacob and Laban. After seven years of labor, Jacob demanded his “wife” from Laban, her father (Gen 29:21).

Gen 29:21, “And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her.”

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Reverses and New Hopes for the Church.

The Church in Difficulties

v. 1. By night on my bed I sought Him whom my soul loveth, she contemplated ways and means of finding Him whom she had apparently lost; I sought Him, but I found Him not, the Lord’s visitation of grace had seemingly come to an end.

v. 2. I will rise now and go about the city in the streets, on the marketplaces, and in the broad ways, the chief avenues of the city ; I will seek Him whom my soul loveth. I sought Him, but I found Him not.

v. 3. The watchmen that go about the city, the nightly guardians of the public safety, found me; to whom I said, Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth? literally, “Whom my soul loves, have ye seen?” the question being inserted without introduction, even without the common particle of questioning, to show the extreme anxiety of her heart.

v. 4. It was but a little that I passed from them, she had scarcely passed from the watchmen, but I found Him whom my soul loveth; I held Him, grasping Him in an eager embrace, and would not let Him go until I had brought Him into my mother’s house and into the chamber of her that conceived me, that being the thought which she had, to lead her Bridegroom into the women’s apartments, to open her home and her heart to Him.

v. 5. I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, the gazelles, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up nor awake My love till he please, “till it please,” 2, 7, for the words are evidently those of the Bridegroom, who in His joy over this renewed proof of the bride’s love, has her comfort and encouragement in mind.

The Church Militant is here described as she appears in the midst of the storms, battles, and trials of this world. Night has fallen after the beautiful spring day described in the previous section, and the Church is surrounded by so many and such grievous difficulties that she deems herself forsaken by the Lord. He, on His part, hides His mercy for a while, in order to stimulate her to the most careful search. She finds nothing but empty spaces, a dead religion of works, a spiritless piety, many and serious offenses. Even the watchmen, the leaders of the Church, are infected with the general lethargy and take no interest in the search for the Lord, in a living Christianity. History shows that this condition obtained more than once, not only in the ancient Church, but in the modern as well. But the Lord has not utterly forsaken His bride; He permits Himself to be found, He turns back His countenance in mercy to His Church. His conduct thus stimulates the faith and love of the Church, and she declares her allegiance to Him in terms of the highest affection, while lie, on His part, grants her a period of rest and refreshment, lest she be tempted above that she is able, 1 Corinthians 10, 13.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

Son 3:1

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. The bride is probably relating a dream. The time referred to is the close of the day on which she had been visited by her lover. She is retired to rest, and dreams that she searches for the beloved object in the neighbouring city (cf. Job 33:15). It is another way of telling her love. She is always longing for the beloved one. She had been waiting for him, and he came not, and retired to rest with a heart troubled and anxious because her lover did not appear as she expected at the evening hour. The meaning may be “night after night ()” (cf. So Son 3:8), or the plural maybe used poetically for the singular. Ginsburg observes that “by night on my bed” is opposed to midday couch (cf. 2Sa 4:5), merely to express what came into her thoughts at night in her dreams or as the result of a dream. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the bride intends to represent herself as suffering from self-reproach in having grieved her lover and kept him away from her. In that case the typical meaning would be simple and direct. The soul grieves when it is conscious of estrangement from him whom it loves, and the sense of separation becomes intolerable, impelling to new efforts to deepen the spiritual life.

Son 3:2

(I said) I will rise now, and go about the city, in the streets and in the broad ways; I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. Delitzsch renders, “So I will arise, then.” The words of the maiden are quite inconsistent with the hypothesis of a shepherd lover, for in that case she would seek him, not in the streets, but outside the city. Some think the city referred to is Jerusalem, with its markets and streetsthe royal city (cf. Pro 7:11). If it is a dream, it will be unnecessary to decide to what city the words refer. The idea of the speaker would seem to be either that she was at the time within the walls of the city referred to, or that she was in some dwelling near. But a dream is not always consistent with the real circumstances of the dreamer. Taking it as a reminiscence of first love, it seems better to understand the city as only imaginary, or some neighbouring town in the north.

Son 3:3

The watchmen that go about the city found me: (to whom I said) Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? The simplicity of these words is very striking. They confirm the view that the bride is recalling what occurred in her country life. The watchmen make no reply, and do not treat her ill, as in the dream related in So Son 5:7, where they are keepers of the walls, and smite her and wound her. In a small country town she might have been recognized, or known to be really in trouble. But such incidents must not be pressed too much in a poem. The allegorical view finds considerable support in the fact that it is difficult on any hypothesis exactly to explain the language as descriptive of real occurrences. In such instances as Psa 127:1 and Isa 52:8 the reference to watchmen in the city shows that such a metaphor would be familiarly understood. Whether adopted from Solomon’s Song or not, the figure of a city watched and guarded, and the people of God as watching for the glory of Zion, was common in the prophetic writings. The soul seeking for its object and for the restoration of its peace calls in the aid of the faithful guardians of the holy city, the friends alike of the Saviour and of those who desire to be his.

Son 3:4

It was but a little that I passed from them, when I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me. This verse plainly points to the search referred to in the previous verse being limited to the neighbourhood of Shulamith’s home. The lover was not far off, though he had delayed his coming. Possibly it is a real occurrence which is related. In that case we must suppose that the night was not very far advanced. But the hypothesis of a dream is the most natural explanation. The word cherer, which is used of the house, denotes the inner part, penetralia. The modesty of the last clause is very beautiful. The mother would, of course, at that time be in her sleeping chamber. There alone would the maiden receive her lover at such a time. The mother would gladly welcome the young man, and thus the love which Shulamith declares is set upon the ground of perfect chastity and homely purity. The object of this little episode introduced by the bride into her song as she lies in the arms of Solomon is to show that, ecstatic and intense as her devotion is, it is not the lawless affection of a concubine, but the love of a noble wife. The religious emotions are always presented to us in Scripture, not as wild fanaticism or superficial excitement, but as pure offering of the heart which blends with the highest relations and interests of human life, and sanctifies home and country with all their ties and obligations. The mother and the child are one in the new atmosphere of bridal joy. No religion is worthy of the name which does not bring its object into the chamber of her who conceived us. We love all that are bound with us in life not the less, but the more, because we love Christ supremely. We revere all that is just and holy in the common world the more, and not the less, because we worship God and serve the Lord. What a rebuke to asceticism, monasticism, and all unsocial religion!

Son 3:5

I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awaken love, until it please. This is the refrain which divides the poem. We thus perceive that the whole of the preceding passage has been uttered by the bride in the presence of the ladies. There is no occasion to connect a refrain very closely with the words which go before it. Like the ancient Greek chorus, it may express a general sentiment in harmony with the pervading feeling of the whole composition. In this case it seems to be a general note of praise, celebrating the preciousness of pure, spontaneous affection. There have been several beautiful and celebrated imitations of this first part of Solomon’s Song, though they all fall far short of the original. Paul Gerhard has caught its spirit; Laurentius has copied it in his Advent Hymn. Watts, in bk. 1:66-78 of his ‘Divine gongs;’ ‘Lyra Germanica;’ Schaff’s ‘Christian Song;’ and Miss Havergal, in some of her compositions, will furnish examples. Delitzsch quotes an ancient Latin imitation

“Quando tandem venies, meus amor?

Propera de Libano, dulcis amor!
Clamat, amat, sponsula. Veni, Jesu;
Dulcis veni Jesu.”

This ends Part II; which sets before us the lovely beginning of this ideal love. We must then suppose that the writer imagines himself in Jerusalem, as though one of the court ladies, at the time that Solomon the king returns from the north, bringing with him his bride elect. We pass, therefore, from the banqueting chamber, and recall the scenes which accompanied the arrival of Shulamith at Jerusalem. The remainder of the poem is simply the celebration of married love, the delight of the bridegroom in the bride and of the bride in her husband. The whole book concerns a bride, and not one who is about to be made a bride. Here the dream which is introduced is not the dream of a lover awaiting the beloved one, but the dream of a young wife whose bridegroom tarries. The third part is the nuptial rejoicings; the fourth part is the reminiscence of love days or of the early married life; and the fifth part, which is a conclusion, is a visit of Solomon and his bride to the country home of the latter, pointing to the depth and reality of the influence which this pure maiden had upon his royal nature.

Verse 3:6-5:1

Part III. NUPTIAL REJOICINGS.

Son 3:6

Who is this that cometh up out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the powders of the merchant? This may be taken as spoken by a single voice, one of the ladies or inhabitants of Jerusalem, or it may be regarded as the exclamation of the whole population going out to see the splendid sighta gorgeous procession coming towards the city. “Who is this coming?” (, feminine); that is, “Who is this lady coming?” There could be no difficulty in discerning that it was a bridal procession which is seen. Curiosity always asks, “What bride is this?” “Who is she?” not, “Who is he?” A maiden from Galilee is being conducted to Jerusalem; the procession naturally passes through the valley of the Jordan (Ghor). There is splendour and majesty in the sight. It must be some one coming to the royal palace. The censers of frankincense are being swung to and fro and filling the air with fragrant smoke. Columns of dust and smoke from the burning incense rise up to heaven, and mark the line of progress before and after. “The spices of Arabia” were famous at all times. Hence the names of the perfumes are Arabic, as murr, levona, and the travelling spice merchant, or trader, was Arabic (cf. the Arabic elixir). We can scarcely miss the typical colouring in such a representationthe wilderness, typical of bondage and humiliation, sin and misery, out of which the bride is brought; the onward progress towards a glorious destination (see Isa 40:3; Hos 1:1-11 :16; Psa 68:8). The Church must pass through the wilderness to her royal home, and the soul must be led out of the wilderness of sin and unbelief into everlasting union with her Lord.

Son 3:7

Behold, it is the litter of Solomon; three score mighty men are about it, of the mighty men of Israel. The litter, or palanquin, is easily recognized. The word is mittah, which is literally “bed,” or “litter,” but in the ninth verse we have another word, appiryon, which is a more stately word. “the royal car.” It is the bringing home of the bride which is described. In the forty-fifth psalm the idea seems to be that the bridegroom betook himself to the house of the parents and fetched his bride, or that she was brought to him in festal procession, and he went forth to meet her (see 1 Macc. 9:39). That was the prevailing custom, as we see in the parable of the ten virgins (Mat 25:1-13). In this case, however, there is a vast difference in rank between the bride and bridegroom, and she is brought to him. The long journey through the wilderness is implied in the mention of the bodyguard (cf. Isa 4:6; Isa 25:4). The intention evidently is to show how dear the bride was to Solomon. His mighty men were chosen to defend her. So the Church is surrounded with armies of guardian attendants. Her Lord is the Lord of hosts. The description reminds us of the exquisite lines in Shakespeare’s ‘Antony and Cleopatra,’ in which he describes the lovely Egyptian in her barge “like a burnished throne,” lying “in her pavilion (cloth of gold, of tissue),” with the smiling cupids on each side, while

“… from the barge,
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs.”

(Act 2, sc. 2)

The word mittah, “a bed, or litter,” comes from a root “to stretch out,” and is also used of a bier (see 2Sa 3:21). The idea is that of a portable bed, or sitting cushion, hung round with curtains, after the manner of the Indian palanquin, such as is still found in the Turkish caiques or the Venetian gondolas. It was, of course, royal, belonging to Solomon, not to any nobleman or private person; hence its magnificence. The bearers are not named. The bodyguard, consisting of sixty chosen men, forming an escort, were one tenth part of the whole royal guard, as we see from 1Sa 27:2; 1Sa 30:9. Delitzsch suggests that in the mention of the number there may be a reference to the twelve tribes of Israel60 being a multiple of 12. The term, “mighty men,” is explained in the next verse as warriors, that is, men “held fast by the sword” ( ), i.e; according to Hebrew idiom, men practised in the use of the sword; so it is explained by some; but others take it as meaning that they “handle the sword;” hence our Revised Version.

Son 3:8

They all handle the sword, and are expert in war: every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night. The guard of warriors round the litter secured the bride from any sudden alarm as she travelled through the wilderness, and so gave her quiet rest. The journey from Shunem to Jerusalem would be about fifty miles in a direct course, and it was therefore necessary to pass at least one, if not two, nights on the way; the course being through a wild and solitary region. The Church of God may be often called to pass through dangers and enemies, but he that loveth her will provide against her destructionshe shall have rest in the love of. her Lord. He will surround her with his strength. “My peace I give unto thee”provided by me, coming from myself, the fruit of my self-sacrificing love.

Son 3:9, Son 3:10

King Solomon made himself a palanquin of the wood of Lebanon. He made the pillars thereof of silver, the bottom thereof of gold, the seats of it of purple, the midst thereof being paved with love, from the daughters of Jerusalem. The palanquin is described, that the attention may be kept fixed awhile on the bridal procession, which, of course, forms the kernel of the whole poem, as representing the perfect union of the bride and bridegroom. The Greek versions translate : the Vulgate, ferculum. We read in Athenaeus (Son 5:13) that the philosopher and tyrant Athemon showed himself on “a silver-legged with purple coverlet.” There probably is some connection between the Hebrew appiryon and the Greek phoreion, but it is exceedingly doubtful if the Hebrew is merely a lengthened form of the Greek. Delitzsch derives the Hebrew from a root parah, “to cut or carve” anything of wood. The Greek would seem to be connected with the verb , “to bear,” “carry.” The resemblance may be a mere coincidence. The rabbinical tradition is that the Hebrew word means “couch, or litter.” Hitzig connects it with the Sanscrit paryana, meaning “saddle,” “riding saddle,” with which we may compare the Indian paryang. “bed.” Others find a Chaldee root for the word, , “to run,” as currus in Latin, or from a root , “to shine,” i.e.” to be adorned.” At all events, it would not be safe to argue the late date of the book from such a word as appiryon, on account of its resemblance to a Greek word. The “wood of Lebanon” is, of course, the cedar or cypress (1Ki 5:10, etc.). There may be a covert allusion intended to the decoration of the temple as the place where the honour of the Lord dwelleth, and where he meets his people. The frame of the palanquin was of wood, the ornaments of silver. The references to the high value set upon silver, while gold is spoken of as though it was abundant, are indications of the age in which the poem was composed, which must have been nearly contemporaneous with the Homeric poems, in which gold is spoken of similarly. Recent discoveries of the tomb of Agamemnon, etc; confirm the literary argument. The palanquins of India are also highly decorated. The daughters of Jerusalem, i.e. the ladies of the court, in their affection for King Solomon, have procured a costly tapestry, or several such, which they have spread over the purple cushion. Thus it is paved, or covered over, with the tokens of lovewhile all love is but a preparation for this supreme love. (For the purple coverings of the seat, see Jdg 5:10; Amo 3:12; Pro 7:16.) The preposition in the last clause is rendered differently by some, but there can be no doubt that the meaning is “on the part of,” that is, coming from. The typical interpreter certainly finds a firm ground here. Whether we think of the individual believer or of the Church of God, the metaphor is very apt and beautifulwe are borne along towards the perfection of our peace and blessedness in a chariot of love. All that surrounds us speaks to us of the Saviour’s love and of his royal magnificence, as he is adored by all the pure and lovely spirits in whose companionship he delights.

Son 3:11

Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon, with the crown wherewith his mother hath crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart. This seems to be an appeal to a larger company of those who will rejoice in the bride and her happiness. The daughters of Zion are perhaps intended to represent the people generally as distinguished from the ladies of the court, i.e. let all the people rejoice in their king and in his royal bride. The mention of the royal mother seems to point to the beginning of Solomon’s reign as the time referred to. The crown, or chaplet, with which the proud mother adorned her son, was the fresh wreath round a young king’s head, a wedding coronet, no doubt made of gold and silver. It was not the crown placed on the head of Pharaoh’s daughter, which would not be so spoken of. According to the Talmud, the custom remained even to later times. There can be no doubt of Bathsheba’s special delight in Solomon (see 1Ki 1:11; 1Ki 2:13). We must not, of course, push too far the typical interpretation of such language, which may be taken as the poetical form rather than the spiritual substance. And yet there may be an allusion, in the joy and pride of Bathsheba in her son’s gladness, and the consummation of his nuptial bliss, to the Incarnation and the crowning glory of a Divine humanity, which is at once the essential fact of redemption, and the bright expectation which, on the head of the Saviour, lights up eternity to the faith of his people.

HOMILETICS

Son 3:1-5

The dream of the bride.

I. THE ABSENCE OF THE BELOVED.

1. The bride‘s distress. In the last chapter the bride related to her female friends some of the incidents of her early love; here she seems to be relating a dream of those same well remembered days. The whole narrative, like that of So Son 5:2-8, has a dream-like character. The circumstances are not such as would be likely to occur in real life; but the longing, the wandering, the search, represent in a vivid truthful way the images of dreams. She was lying asleep on her bed; her thoughts were full of the absent bridegroom. “I sought him,” she says,” but I found him not.” We notice the dream-like repetition, the dwelling upon phrases. Four times in these five verses we have the fond description of the bridegroom, which occurred for the first time in So Son 1:7, “him whom my soul loveth.” Twice we have the utterance of unsatisfied longing, “I sought him, but I found him not.” She was sleeping, but (as in So Son 5:2, “I sleep, but my heart waketh”) her thoughts were busy and active. Her whole heart was given to her beloved. Those oft-repeated words, “him whom my soul loveth,” imply a very deep affection, a great love. The believer remembers God in the watches of the night. The psalmist says, “In the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life;” and again, “I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search” (Psa 42:8; Psa 77:6). If our heart is given to the heavenly Bridegroom, we shall think of him as we lie on our beds; our first waking thoughts will be of him. Alas! our love for Christ is not like the bride’s love in the Song of Songs. How few of us can in truth speak of the Saviour as “him whom my soul loveth”! The bride dwelt upon those words as the simple truth, the sincere expression of her feelings. We dwell upon them, too; but, alas! with a sense of much coldness and ingratitude, a remembrance of much insincerity and unreality.

“God only knows the love of God;

Oh that it now were shed abroad

In this poor stony heart!

For love I sigh, for love I pine;

This only portion, Lord, be mine,

Be mine this better part.”

The Christian dwells on the words, longing for grace to make them his own, the utterance of his inmost heart. Here is the spiritual value of the Song of Songs. We see what a great love is; how it absorbs the heart and fills the soul. Such should be our love to Christ; such should be our “songs in the night” (Job 35:10). The bride sought her beloved in the visions of the night. We seem sometimes in our dreams to be going on long trackless journeys, wandering ever in search of something we know not what. So the bride could not find him whom her soul loved. Such are sometimes the experiences of the Christian soul. So Job once complained, “Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even unto his seat! Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him” (Job 23:3, Job 23:8). The Lord has said, “Seek, and ye shall find;” “Every one that seeketh findeth.” But he has also said, “Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able.” Those who seek shall surely find at last; but the seeking must be diligent seeking, patient, persevering; there must be striving too, struggling to Overcome obstacles, wrestling against the spiritual enemies who would bar our way. It is not enough to seek by night on our beds; there must be effort, sustained effort, not mere dreamy aspirations; and that not only by night, not only in the hour of darkness: “in the day of my trouble I sought the Lord” (Psa 77:2). We must seek the Lord always; in the hour of health and strength, in the days of our youth; giving him our best, doing all things to his glory. Such seeking will surely find him.

2. The search. “I will rise now,” she says. The Hebrew tense is cohortative. She is addressing herself, arousing herself. Dreaming as she is, she feels that this is not the way to seek; she must leave her bed, she must rise. Perhaps she remembered the bridegroom’s words spoken in the freshness of their first love: “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.” She seems to rise; in her dreams she goes about the city in the streets, seeking him whom her soul loved. We must arise and seek the Lord; we must not lie still in careless slumber; we must seek him wherever his providence has set us, whether in the quiet country or in the bustling, crowded city. We may find him in any place, provided it be one where a Christian may safely tread; in any employment, provided it be lawful and innocent; in the city, in the streets, and in the broadways.

“There are in this loud stunning tide

Of human care and crime,
With whom the melodies abide
Of the everlasting chime;
Who carry music in their heart
Through dusky lane and wrangling mart,
Plying their daily task with busier feet,

Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat.”

Still the bride found not the beloved; she repeats her first lament like a plaintive refrain: “I sought him, but I found him not.” The soul does not always find the Lord at once when it first feels its need of the Saviour. We try one plan after another; we make effort after effort; but for a time all our efforts are vain. We know that he may be found, that others have found him and have felt the blessedness of his love. But the search seems long fruitless. God would have our search to be sincere, thoughtful, earnest. Therefore he tries our faith. He proves us, as once he proved Abraham; as the Lord Jesus tried the faith of the Syro-Phoenician woman. Again and again she sought his help, but for some time there was no response; silence at first, then what seemed to be a stern refusal. Still she persevered, she urged her prayer; her case was like that of the brideshe sought him, but she found him not. We must follow her example, remembering the Lord’s teaching, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint. We must imitate the bride in her dream, and seek on, though for a long season our search may seem unsuccessfulthough we find him not.

II. THE ULTIMATE SUCCESS OF THE BRIDE‘S SEARCH.

1. She meets the watchmen. The watchmen found her (as again in So Job 5:7). Sheasks them the question which was so near her heart, “Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?” They were going about the city; they might be able to guide her to the object of her search. But they were like the watchman of Psa 127:1-5, waking but in vain for the bride’s purpose, unable to help her. It is not always that Christian friends, or the ministers of God’s holy Word and sacraments, who “watch for our souls” (Heb 13:17), can help us in our search for Christ. We ask them, we seek their help; it is right to do so; sometimes they can help us. But each soul must find Christ for itself. “Work out your own salvation,” St. Paul said to the Philippians; and that, “not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence” (Php 2:12).

2. She finds the bridegroom. The watchmen could give her no good tidings; but she did not faint; she did not return home or throw herself down in despair; she continued her search alone. She would search on till she found the beloved of her soul. And her search was rewarded at last. “It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth.” God is not far from us even in the hour of deepest gloom, when we seem to strain our eyes through the darkness, and can see no light. If we seek him earnestly we shall surely find him at the last; for he, we know, is seeking us. The Lord Jesus Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost. He seeketh the lost sheep until he find it. He giveth his life for the sheep. Then we may be quite sure that he who loved us with such a love, a love stronger than death, will not suffer any penitent soul that seeketh him in faith, in sorrow for the past, in earnest painful longings for forgiveness, to lose its way, to wander on without finding, to inquire everywhere without result, “Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?” He will surely manifest himself according to his blessed promise, as he did to the two disciples who on the first Easter Day were mourning for their lost Master, and would not be comforted by the words of the women who “had seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive.” He will come in his gracious love, and then our heart will burn within us as he manifests himself, and our eyes shall be opened, and we shall know him; and that knowledge is eternal life (Joh 17:3).

3. She brings him to her home. The long wanderings of the dream were over. She had found him whose love filled her waking thoughts, of whom her dreams were full when she slept. She would not let him go. The anguish of that long, almost despairing search should not be in vain. She held him fast, and brought him to her own home, into its inmost chambers. The soul that once has found Christ clings to him with the strong embrace of faith. He may “make as though he would go further” (Luk 24:28), to try our faith, that we may feel our need of him. But as the two disciples then “constrained him, saying, Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent,” so the soul holds him and will not let him go. The soul, weak as Jacob was weak, struggles with the strength that the sense of weakness gives. “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.”

“Yield to me now, for I am weak,

But confident in self-despair:

Speak to my heart, in blessings speak;

Be conquered by my instant prayer:

Speak! or thou never hence shalt move,
And tell me if thy name is Love.
My prayer hath power with God: the grace

Unspeakable I now receive;

Through faith I see thee face to face,

I see thee face to face, and live!

In vain I have not wept and strove:
Thy nature and thy name is Love.”

This noble hymn of Charles Wesley’s expresses the feelings of a soul that has found Christ. We must not let him go, not for any perplexities, not for any temptations. St. Paul tells us that no difficulties can draw us back from him if we really give him our heart. “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38, Rom 8:39). Then we must cling very closely to him, not letting go any one desire to serve him better and to love him more. We must stimulate every such desire into activity by actual self-denying effort. We must try with all our heart to realize his presence always, at all times and in all places, in our business, our amusements, our intercourse with friends and relations, as well as in the hour of private prayer or public worship. We must try with conscious effort to please him always; seeking, indeed, to serve him much, like Martha, but still more to please him perfectly, like Mary. And we must bring him into our home, into the very inmost chambers of our heart, opening them all to him, dedicating them all, every purpose of ours, every hope, every aspiration, to him, beseeching him to accept our imperfect offering, to make our hearts his temple, to fulfil in us his blessed promise, “If any man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode [our dwelling, our abiding place] with him” (Joh 14:23). And now we have again the adjuration of So Php 2:7. The bride has related her dream to the daughters of Jerusalem. The subject of that dream was lovepure and innocent love; its sorrows and its joys; separation and blessed reunion. It is a sacred thing. The daughters of Jerusalem were to listen in silent sympathy; they were not to praise or to blame; they were not to endeavour to stimulate or increase the love of bride or bridegroom; they were to leave it to its free spontaneous growth in the heart. Human love is a holy thing. The love that is between Christ and his Church, the love that is between the Lord of our redemption and every elect soul, is holier yet by far. It is not to be much talked of; it is to be treasured in the heart; it is the inmost spring of that life which is hidden with Christ in God. It must not be stirred by irreverent talk or disclosure; it must rest unseen “till it please”till the fit time shall come for speaking of its blessedness.

Son 3:6-11

The espousals.

I. THE APPROACH OF THE BRIDE.

1. The question. “Who is this?” We have here one of those refrains which form a striking characteristic of the song. The question, “Who is this?” (the pronoun is feminine, “Who is she?”) is three times repeated (Son 3:6; So Son 6:10; Son 8:5). It indicates always a fresh appearance of the bride. Here the words seem to be chanted by a chorus of young men, the friends of the bridegroom. They are struck with admiration at the beauty of the bride, and the royal state bestowed upon her by the king. She is coming up to Jerusalem from the distant Lebanon country, here described as the wildernesswhich word in the Hebrew Scriptures often means, not a desert, but a thinly populated country, fit for feeding flocks, a pasture land. She comes like pillars of smoke perfumed with myrrh and frankincense. Perfumes are burned around her in such profusion that pillars of smoke appear to attend her progress. The marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. She is prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. She comes up from this lower world to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. The incense of adoration and thanksgiving rises as she moves onward. She is the holy Catholic Church, the great congregation of Christian people dispersed throughout the whole world. But the Church is made up of individual Christian souls. And that the Church may come as a whole to Christ the Bridegroom, each soul must come personally, individually. The soul cometh up out of the wilderness, out of the far country, where the world, the flesh, and the devil rule; up to Mount Zion, to the city of God, where is the true temple, where God is worshipped in spirit and in truth, where he manifests himself to them that seek him. And the prayer of the faithful, as they draw ever nearer, is set forth in God’s sight as the incense, and the lifting up of their hands as the evening sacrifice. The Lord is pleased, in his infinite condescension, to regard our poor prayers when lifted up in faith as holy incense (Rev 8:3, Rev 8:4), because the great High Priest is praying for us. Our poor prayer joins itself through the power of faith with his prevailing prayer, and therefore rises up before the throne as a pillar of sweetest incense smoke, acceptable to God through Christ. The thought that God is pleased so to honour the prayers of the faithful, that he condescends to seek such worship, worship offered up in spirit and in truth, makes prayer a very sacred thing. The approach of the Christian soul to God is very solemn. The soul cometh out of the wilderness, away from its old haunts; it is ascending up to Mount Zion, to the presence chamber of the King of heaven; it must come with reverence and godly fear, remembering that God’s presence is very awful as well as very blessed; it must come with the perfume of holy thoughts and heavenly aspirations, with the offering of prayer and praise rising up like the smoke of holy incense before the mercy seat.

2. The bed of Solomon. The chorus calls attention to the litter (for such seems here to be the meaning of the word) in which the bride is borne in her progress to the royal city. “It is his litter,” they say. They add the royal name itself, “Behold his litter, which is Solomon’s,” to give emphasis to the honour bestowed upon the bride. The king has sent his own litter to convey his bride to the palace, the palanquin in which he himself was carried. It was King Solomon’s; it is the bride’s, for the king has given it to her. God has given us all things, St. Paul says (Rom 8:32). If only we are Christ’s, then all things are oursthe world, life, death, things present, things to come (1Co 3:21, 1Co 3:22). And the Lord himself says, “The glory which thou gavest me, I have given them” (Joh 17:22). It is his will that his chosen should be with him where he is. He gives them now all that is necessary to convey them thither. “God rode upon a cherub” (Psa 18:10). The Lord will “send his angels and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Mat 24:31). The angels carried the soul of Lazarus into Abraham’s bosom. But we may learn here another very solemn lesson. The litter of Solomon bore the bride up to Mount Zion; the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ brings the Christian soul to heaven. The Lord was lifted up upon the cross. Several ancient writers tell us that in Psa 96:10 the earliest reading was, “The Lord hath reigned from the wood.“ The cross is his throne; it drew, and still draws, all faithful souls to him; it has lifted him up to reign over the hearts of all the best and truest. It behoved him first to suffer, and then to enter into his glory. “He humbled himself even unto the death of the cross; wherefore God also hath highly exalted him” (Php 2:9). And he brings his elect to God by the same way which he trod himself. The cross lifts the Christian soul to God.

“Nearer my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee;

E’en though it be a cross

That raiseth me.”

The Christian is “crucified with Christ” (Gal 2:20). He is lifted up by the cross of atonement, the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then by the cross of spiritual self-sacrifice, the cross borne with Christ, into the very presence of the King. Nothing else can bear him thither. He must pray, “Thy will be done,” before he asks, “Give us this day our daily bread.” He must learn from the suffering Lord the inner meaning of his own holy prayer. “Not my will, but thine be done.” He must remember that the cross is the cross of Christ; that the Lord, who was himself lifted up upon the cross, sends the cross to his followers to lift them also upwards; that, purified and refined by holy self-denials, and by suffering meekly borne, they may at length be with him where he is, and behold his glory, and sit with him in his throne (Rev 3:21).

3. The guard. The king had sent his own guard to escort the bride to her new home. King David had a guard of thirty mighty men; Solomon, it seems, had double the number. All were expert in war; all bore the sword because of fear in the night. From Psa 10:1-18, especially Psa 10:7-10, we learn that parts of Palestine were in David’s time dangerous from bands of brigands. The king had cared for the safety of the bride; the escort was not given her merely for honour. So now the Lord giveth his angels charge over his people to keep (to guard) them in all their ways; so now “the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them” (Psa 91:11; Psa 34:7). They “shall not be afraid for the terror by night” (Psa 91:5), for “they that be with us are more than they” that be against us (2Ki 6:16). The description of the armed guard reminds us that we too have to fight the good fight of faith, that we have to wrestle “against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness” (Eph 6:12). We have to take to ourselves the panoply of God, the armour of light; like the mighty men of Israel who guarded the bride, we must take “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” That sword will save us from the “fear of the night,” because it is “through patience and comfort of the Scriptures” that we have hope (Rom 15:4). Thus the Holy Scriptures are not only the sword of the Spirit; they furnish us also with hope, the hope of salvation, which is the helmet of the Christian warrior. To gain that sword and that helmet we must study the Word of God in faith; that living faith which (St. Paul tells us) is the shield whereby we may “quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” If we do our part, quitting ourselves like men, fighting manfully under the banner of the cross, we need fear no evil. Our angel guard, sent forth because of them that shall be heirs of salvation, called in Holy Scripture “their angels,” because they have charge over them, as well as God’s angels, because he is their God and King, will ever encamp around us and keep us till we appear before God in Zion.

II. THE KING GOES FORTH TO MEET THE BRIDE.

1. The chariot of the king. The bride approaches in a litter sent for her by the king. Solomon himself goes forth to receive her in his car of state. He had had it made according to his own plans, with that artistic skill and magnificence which were characteristic of him. It was made of the fragrant and imperishable cedar wood brought from Lebanon, the country of the bride. Its decorations were of the richestgold and silver, and the costly Tyrian purple; in the midst was a tesselated pavement, a gift of love from the daughters of Jerusalem. The bride, the Lamb’s wile, shall have the glory of God (Rev 21:9, Rev 21:11). When she is “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” then, we are told, “the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God” (Rev 21:3). When Christ, the true Solomon, the Prince of Peace, shall bring his bride, the Church, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the foundation of peace, he will manifest himself to her in his glory. Now he is interceding for us, that then we may be with him where he is, that we may behold his glory. Then, if we are his indeed, we shall see him as he is, and shall be made like unto him (1Jn 3:2). It was a great thing for the poor bride from the Lebanon to be brought into the court of the king whose magnificence filled the Queen of Sheba with wonder and delight. But “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” (1Co 2:9). None can tell the blessedness of those happy souls who, having washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, “shall see the King in his beauty” (Isa 33:17); shall sit with him in his throne amid the glories of the golden city; shall see his face, and his Name shall be in their foreheads. Heart of man cannot conceive the exceeding great joy of that moment of most entrancing bliss, when the heavenly Bridegroom shall bring home the Church, his bride. King Solomon issued out of Jerusalem in royal pomp to meet his betrothed. When the marriage of the Lamb is come, “the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1Th 4:16, 1Th 4:17).

2. The glory and great joy of the king. The chorus calls upon the daughters of Zion to go forth and see the splendour of the royal espousals. King Solomon has brought home his bride; his heart is glad; his mother has crowned him with the royal diadem; he is happy in the love of his bride. The Prophet Isaiah comforts Zion with the blessed promises that “as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee” “Thou shalt no longer be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah [‘my delight is in her’], and thy land Beulah [‘married’]: for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married” (Isa 62:4, Isa 62:5). So the Lord “Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for her; that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word,: that he might present her to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that she should be holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:25-27). It was for the joy set before him that Christ endured the cross (Heb 12:2). The Lord bringeth home the lost sheep rejoicing. He saith, “Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep that was lost” “Rejoice with me!“ And they do rejoice, the Saviour of the world and the holy angels round his throne. The Lord’s exceeding great love for our poor dying souls makes the salvation of those souls very precious in his sight. Nothing can show the depth and tenderness of the blessed love with which he yearned for our salvation except the great agony of Gethsemane, the awful anguish of the cross. Therefore the day of the resurrection of the blessed will be a day of joy in heaven. “Let us be glad, and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready” (Rev 19:7). He is King of kings, and Lord of lords; on his head are many crowns (Rev 19:12, Rev 19:16). His virgin mother saw him once wearing the crown of thorns; now he wears the crown of boundless sovereignty. He had come down from heaven to seek his bride; now she is with him in his glory. “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied” (Isa 53:11).

HOMILIES BY S. CONWAY

Son 3:1-5

Love’s dream.

It is a dream that is told of in these verses. It was natural for her who tells it to have dreamt such a dream. Lifting up the story to the higher level of things spiritual, what these verses say suggests

I. CONCERNING DREAMS GENERALLY. They are often revelations of life and character. Sometimes they are mere folly, the misty vapours exhaled by a gross and over-fed body. But at other times, as here, they have a deeper meaning. They show the manner of a man’s life, the bent of his inclinations, the character of his soul. Our dreams never play us false. The motives that govern their acts are the motives that govern ours. A man dreams about the sins he loves too well; about the sorrows that haunt his life; about the joys on which his heart is set. Dreams have played a large part in God’s governance of men. They often show us what we should avoid and what we should seek after. Though some are foolish, we cannot afford to despise them as if all were so.

II. CONCERNING THIS DREAM. In both its stages it reveals the fervent love of the dreamer.

1. It began sorrowfully. She thought she had lost her beloved (Son 3:1, Son 3:2). This the deepest of distresses to the renewed soul (cf. Psa 77:1-4). If heaven would cease to be heaven, as it would were Christ’s presence withdrawn, how much more must this life be all dark and drear if we have him not! And she tells how she sought him.

(1) In the city, amid the business and turmoil of men. But it is but little that he is there. They would most probably crucify him if they found him, so deadly is the hate the world hath for him. It is not true that virtue needs only to be seen to be loved. As our Lord was dealt with, so would it be.

(2) And in the assemblies, in society. And we cannot be surprised that he was not there. Society! does that word summon up the idea of a community who would cherish Christ’s presence?

(3) But even the watchmen could not tell her of him. How wrong this! Zion’s watchmen, and not know where Christ is to be found! They had found her, and very likely found fault with her, but they could not help her to find him. Such pastors there are, and to them “the hungry sheep look up, and are not fed.” We can picture the soul’s distress when these failed her. To have gone to the house of God hungering for direction Christwards, and to come back with none at allthat is a sorrow not unknown nor slight. But her dream did not end so.

2. It ended joyfully.

(1) Her beloved revealed himself to her. She “found him.“ But what is our finding other than his showing? (cf. the four findings of Christ told of in Joh 1:1-51.). How often when we have “passed from” Sundays and services and sermons, and have not found Christ, he is found of us in some other season, place, and circumstances! If he be found of them that seek him notas he says he ishow much more will he fulfil his word, “They that seek me shall find me”!

(2) And she clave to him. “I held him,” etc. The soul thus holds her Lord by her prayers, her trust, her communion, her service, her self-surrender. These grasp the Beloved, and will not let him go.

(3) And she will be content with nothing less than the full assurance of his love (Son 3:4). We should resolve to have a religion that makes the soul happy. The religion that does not do this does but little at all. Cf. the elder son in the parable of the prodigal, he had a religion, but it was all gloom. Let us not be satisfied so. And if we seek, and find, and cleave, and so continue as set forth here, the joy of the Lord shall be ours.

III. CONCERNING THE AWAKING. Son 3:5 shows that she is awake, and conscious of the love of her beloved, and would not be torn therefrom until he pleased (cf. on So Son 2:7). But, awake, the soul finds that what was sad in her dream was but a dread, but what was joyful is an abiding reality. We cannot lose Christ really, though we may think we do; and the soul that seeks him shall find him.S.C.

Son 3:3

The watchmen.

In this verse very much that it concerns Christ’s ministers to give heed to is suggested.

I. THE WATCH THEY HAVE TO KEEP. Christ’s ministers are meant (Isa 52:8; Isa 62:6; Eze 33:7). Their watch is to be over themselves, over their teaching, over the Church of God.

II. THE REASON OF THEIR APPOINTMENT. It is night, when men sleep, when the foe takes advantage; hence the need of watchmen (Isa 21:11, Isa 21:12).

III. THE DUTY THEY HAVE TO DISCHARGE. “To go about the city.” The ways and windings of the human heart. The highways of the Word of God. The streets of the city of God, the Church. They need to be acquainted with all these.

IV. WHAT THEY WILL MEET WITH. Such as they found here. They “found me;” that is, a wearied and sorrowful soul. They find such through their preaching or their pastoral work (1Co 14:24, 1Co 14:25). So souls are found. True watchmen are sure to find such.

V. THE QUESTION THEY WILL BE ASKED. (Cf. Joh 12:21, “Sir, we would see Jesus.”) This the suggestion of what we read here. “Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?” And this is what such souls need; and the more they are directed to him, the more will the watchmen be valued and their word heeded. This is what our congregations want from us, and the question which in reality they put to us.

VI. THE IMPORTANCE OF THEIR ANSWER. Had they told her where he was whom she sought, she would have passed from them with gratitude and joy; as it was, because they could not tell her, she went away in deep distress. Such issues depend upon their word. It is good when they have seen Jesus for themselves. It is better when they can direct seeking souls to him. But it is sad indeed if they have neither seen him nor know how to direct inquirers to him. So was it with these watchmen; so let it not be with us.S.C.

Son 3:6-11

Solomon in all his glory.

(For explanation of details in these verses, see Exposition.) We have set before us here such glory as pomp and splendour, strength and power, great riches and sensual pleasure, could give. All that in which Solomon delighted, and for which his name became famous. Now, these things suggest

I. A GREAT TEMPTATION. They were so:

1. To Solomon, for he yielded to it. All that these things could do for him he enjoyed to the full. The tradition of “Solomon and all his glory” came down through the centuries that followed. And the like things are a great temptation to men now. What will they not do for them? They were the last of the temptations with which Satan tempted our Lord. And to the good, the temptation of them lies in the suggestion that was doubtless made to the mind of our Lordso much good may be done by them; they will so help in establishing the kingdom of God. His mind was, we may well believe, absorbed with the question how the great work he bad come to do, the establishment of this kingdom, could be accomplished. And here was the point and force of this temptation. To yield to it would have been as if he had fallen down and worshipped the evil one. Hence he spurned both it and him. And still “in the multitude,” not of “words” only, but even more of riches, “there wanteth not sin.” Therefore these things are not to become the object of desire in a good man’s soul.

2. They were designed to tempt her of whom this song tells. Solomon would dazzle her with his splendour and wealth, and so would make her “forget” her “kindred” and her “father’s house;” for the king desired her beauty. And in like manner the same temptation is held out still. For the sake of these things what sacrifices are made of loyalty and truth and goodness! She resisted by the might of her affection for her “beloved;” the power of her true love enabled her to overcome. And only the presence in our hearts of a higher love, and, best of all, the highest, even the love of God, will drive out and overcome all lower and evil love.

II. A GREAT LACK. There is nothing in all this glory of pomp and wealth which marks the presence of those Godward riches which alone are real; nothing to satisfy the soul of man or to help it in its life. The soul might starve, as Solomon’s did, in spite of all this glory; and, on the other hand, the soul can prosper well though it can call none of this glory its own. We cannot help desiring earthly richesthey are designed in due measure to attract and stimulate us; and they will do us no harm if we are careful, all the while we seek them, to be rich towards God; to possess, as we may, “the unsearchable riches of Christ.” But poor and miserable is that soul, though he have all Solomon’s glory, if he have not these.

III. A VIVID TYPE. This is what expositors in all ages have mostly seen in the pomp these verses describe. Some have seen a setting forth of the glory of Christ on his return to heaven. He comes up out of the wilderness of this dreary world. The incense of praise, fragrant and precious, is given to him. He is borne in stately triumph (cf. Psa 24:7-10). He is attended by his angel guards. He has prepared a place for them that love him, and will receive them unto himself. All who love him are to go forth and behold his glory. Thus the triumph of Jesus, the King of Zion, is shown forth. Others have read in these verses the unseen glory of the redeemed soul. He comes up out of the wilderness, as Lazarus was carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom. The entrance into glory is with joy and praise. Angel guards surround. The King hath prepared a place, a thronehis own throneon which the redeemed with their Lord shall sit. LoveChrist’s lovehas paved all the way. The vision of Christ in his glory which the redeemed shall enjoy. In such ways as this have devout souls found this Scripture full of profit; in this or in other ways may we find it likewise.S.C.

HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES

Son 3:1-4

The search for the true King.

When once the Spirit of truth has begun his work in the heart, there is a strong yearning after Jesus. In fulfilling his mission as the Revealer of Christ, the Spirit excites within us intense longings to have the friendship of Jesus. We take this as clear proof that a work of grace has begun in us if we feel that none but Christ can satisfy. Now we can part with all we have to obtain this goodly pearl. As the man who had inadvertently slain a fellow flees with lightning speed toward the city of refuge, feeling that the blood avenger is at his heels, so the convicted sinner has an eye for only one objectChrist. This persistent search for the Saviour is a token for good. The tree that does not easily languish in summer drought, but grows, blossoms, unfolds its fruit, has most certainly deep roots in the soil; so, if under manifold discouragements we steadily seek after Christ, we may be sure that we are planted in the soil of grace by the Lord’s right hand. Three main thoughts are in this text.

I. JESUS SOUGHT. “I sought him whom my soul loveth.”

1. True love to Christ glows brightly ever, in his absence. Genuine love is of all things the most unselfish. We love him not so much for the benefit to be obtained; we love him because he is lovable. Having once known him, we cannot restrain our love. To give the shrine of the heart to another would be self-degradation, idolatry. On this account it may be that Jesus keeps away. He sees some growing rivalry within. He sees some need for our self-purging. He wants the soul to realize a deeper need. He wants to make his love more prized. Many worthy reasons has Jesus for hiding himself. ‘Tis a temporary winter in order to bring about a more prolific harvest. So, whether we have any assurance of his love or not, we will love him; we will seek after him.

2. The absence of Jesus makes midnight for the soul. “By night I sought him.” If Jesus has been our Sun of Righteousness, then his departure makes our night. All the things relating to the spiritual world are dark to us if Jesus be absent. We cannot see the face of our Father. We cannot read our titles clear to the heavenly inheritance. There is no growth of holy virtues in us. We cannot run the heavenly race. It is a time of wintry darkness and wintry barrenness if Jesus keeps away. No artificial light can take the place of Immanuel.

3. There is sound resolution. The soul has reached a noble resolution. “I will rise now.” Some resolutions which we make are worthless. They are made under excited feeling, or from a passing fear, or they are the outcome of a shallow nature, which lightly esteems a pledge. But a resolution made in the strength of God is a firm step taken in advance. It is the first step in a series; for the strength of God is behind it. Genuine resolution never waits. It moves onward at once. No sooner had the prodigal boy resolved to return, than “he arose and came to his father.” So here the bride says in the same breath, “I will seek him I sought him.” The future is instantly translated into the present. Good resolution is not a pillow to sleep on; it is a horse which we should instantly mount.

4. There is active and persistent search. No journey is too great if we can only find our Beloved. Thousands travel every year over hot sands to Mecca in the hope of getting nearer to Mohammed, and so gaining his empty favour. Sharp privations are gladly endured in order to purchase this worthless merit. Gold seekers will voyage to the antipodes, and will run a thousand risks to obtain the virgin ore. Then does not highest wisdom impel us to seek the “unsearchable riches of Christ”? Shall the common adventurers of earth put us to shame? We must seek everywhere, in all likely places. If in one search we have been disappointed, we must try another. Columbus was not easily daunted when he was on the search for a new continent. Many noble lives have been sacrificed in the effort to find a searoute over the North Pole. Joseph and Mary did not easily abandon the search for the child Jesus. Pressed down with sorrow, they sought him in one company after another, nor gave up their effort until they found the lad.

“The subtle chemist can dissect
And strip the creature naked till he find
The callow principles within their nest.
What hath not man sought out and found

But his dear God?”

5. First disappointments will not deter us. “I sought him, but I found him not.” The earnest seeker after Christ is not easily daunted. The first hindrance will not depress him, nor the second, nor the twentieth. Delays in finding Jesus only whet his appetite, and spur him on to fresh search. Failure in finding Christ is in no sense a detest. It is a gain in knowledge. It is helpful in experience. It is part of the process in the attainment of success. Difficulties make the man. If one road does not lead to righteousness and rest, another road will; for there is a road. And Christ is watching us carefully to see if we are faint hearted. The first experiment to utilize electricity for illuminating a city did not succeed, nor the second; yet mechanicians persevered until they reached the goal. And every awakened sinner is resolved to find Christ, or to die in the attempt. Our own blunders, as a rule, are the cause of delay.

6. There will be inquiry for Christ from qualified persons. “The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?” These watchmen fifty represent the pastors of the Church. They know the haunts and habits of the Prince. They know the proneness of man’s heart to err. They know the subtleties of the adversary and the deceitfulness of sin. Therefore a faithful pastor is a good guide for seeking souls. These under-shepherds are ever on the look out for Christ-seekers. We read, “They found me.” Then they were searching for such. This is their business. As a man who has navigated a ship a hundred times through an intricate rocky channel makes the best pilot, so they who have themselves found Christ and walk daily with him are best qualified to lead wanderers into his fold. Shrink not from asking counsel. Avail yourself of every help.

II. JESUS FOUND. “I found him whom my soul loveth.”

1. Jesus uses consecrated men to bring his chosen ones into his presence. Those who know him best are honoured to be chamberlains in his palace, and to introduce guests to his banquet table. His employment of us in this sacred and noble work is an unspeakable honour. A consecrated man is sure to become a guide to others, whether he fill an office in the Church or not. The pious women who talked with each other of Christ in the cottage porch at Elstow led John Bunyan into the friendship of Christ. As men who have travelled through a terra incognita erect guide posts for those who may follow, so every friend of Christ will find a heavenly pleasure in guiding wayward feet into the right way. Never was Paul the apostle a nobler man than when he put into words the burning desire of his heart, “I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”

2. Diligent search is always rewarded. If, in self-diffidence, we follow the light of Scripture, sooner or later we are sure to succeed. “Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord.” Men have searched long for the philosopher’s stone and for the secret of perpetual motionhave searched long, and searched in vain. But no sincere lover of Christ yet sought him and failed to find him. Not more surely may you expect a harvest where you have sown good seed than success from seeking Christ. It prevails with the uniform regularity of law. “Then shall we find him when we seek him with all the heart.” When there is a seeking sinner and a seeking Saviour, they are sure to meet ere long. Calvary is an old trysting place.

3. Genuine love appropriates Christ. “I held him.” We naturally value anything a great deal more if we have taken many pains to acquire it. A jewel is valued for its rarity as well as for its intrinsic beauty. There is but one Christ; hence when we find him we hold him fast. But in what way can we hold him? We hold him by frequent communing with him. We hold him fast when we hourly try to please him. We hold him if our love is strong and fragrant. We hold him if in our heart garden there are ripe fruits of holiness. We hold him if there is harmony of purpose, will, and life. He loves companionship.

4. Every attempt of Jesus to depart is energetically resisted. “I would not let him go.” In this way Jesus often tests our love. We have displeased him, and he rises to depart. Then will we confess the evil thing? Will we make some fresh self-sacrifice in order to detain him? He is not easily offended. He hateth putting away. But he loves to see in us a delicate sensitiveness of feeling. He delights to find a tender and childlike affection. It is for our highest good that he should be appreciated. As he did at Emmaus he sometimes deals with us: “he made as though he would have gone further; but they constrained him.” And now he gladly yields to our constraints. It brings him delicious joy to feel the embraces of our love. If he can only strengthen and elevate our love, he has conferred on us the very highest good. If love grows, every grace will grow. If love grows, we grow like Christ. And this is love’s firm resolve, “I would not let him go.”

III. JESUS MADE KNOWN. “Until I had brought him into my mother’s house.”

1. We wish our best friend to accompany us everywhere. The genuine disciple desires to take Jesus with him into every circle and into every occupation. He is not content to have Jesus only on sabbath days and on special occasions. He wants Jesus always at his sideyea, better, always in his heart, he has no friend whom he cannot introduce to Jesus. He has no occupation, no recreation, he wants to keep from the eye of Jesus. Into every chamber of the house Jesus is welcome. He is a fitting Guest for every room, a fit Companion on every journey, a fitting Partner in every enterprise. We do all things in the name of Jesus.

2. This language suggests benevolent effort for our households. Love is generous. Having found such spiritual treasure in Jesus, we want every member in our household, viz. children, parents, servants, to share in the “unsearchable riches.” “I brought him into my mother’s house.” Happy the man who can testify that! If we are under tremendous obligations to earthly parents, how can we better discharge the debt than by making them partakers of Christ?

3. This language suggests our usefulness to the Church. As we give to the imagery of this book a spiritual interpretation, so may we properly regard our mother’s house as the Church on earth. This is our true Alma Mater. We bring the Bridegroom with us into the Church. We cannot enjoy our piety alone. We inspire the whole Church with a nobler life. Our sacred love to Jesus is a contagion. Others feel the heavenly charm, and they desire to have Jesus too. And from the Church the benefit extends to the whole world. Would that all men knew our Lord!D.

Son 3:6-11

The King coming to his capital.

In Asiatic lands wheeled carriages were rare, and are rare still. This is accounted for by the absence of roads. To construct and maintain roads through a hilly country like Palestine required more engineering skill than the people possessed; and further, there was a general belief that to make good roads would pave the way to military invasion. Hence all over Palestine the pathways from town to town were simply tracks marked out by the feet of men and beasts. Over the level plain of Esdraelon Ahab might ride in a chariot; but if Solomon brought up wheeled chariots from Egypt he had a prior undertaking, viz. to make a road from Beersheba to the capital. Therefore travelling princes rode in a covered palanquin, which served to screen from the hot sun by day, and became a bed at night. Owing to the scorching heat, much of the journey would be taken during the cool hours of night, and hence the need for a strong bodyguard. Before the rapt imagination of the sacred poet such a scene passed. The stately procession arrested his attention, and he asks, “Who is this?” What great king is this? Such is the poetic imagery. Now, what is the religious instruction? It is the march of Christ through the agesa march beginning with the wilderness and terminating, with his coronation in the new Jerusalem. Though he has been long hidden, the day is coming when the King of Zion shall be revealed to the eyes of men, and he shall “be admired by all who love his appearing.”

I. OBSERVE THE MARCH OF CHRIST TO HIS GLORIOUS THRONE.

1. His lowly beginning is indicated. “He cometh out of the wilderness.” This is how he appeared to the onlooker. His prior state was hidden from mortal eye. So far as men saw, Jesus began his strange career in the cattle manger of a stable. The world to him was a wilderness, void of all attractiveness. In this respect he followed the fortunes of ancient Israel, for they too had first the wilderness, then the “land flowing with milk and honey.” When Jesus began his mission, human life was a veritable wilderness. The beauty and joy of Eden had departed. On every side raged jealousies, hatreds, strifes. The civilized world was under the iron despotism of Rome. The prophets of God had ceased to speak. Hope of a golden age had almost died out, except in a few believing hearts. The glory of Greece and Tyre had waned. The human race was on the verge of reckless despair. Our earth was reduced to a desert.

2. Christ‘s coming was fragrant with heavenly hope. Even in the loneliest desert there are some living plants, and these ofttimes possess aromatic essences. The shrubs are storehouses of fragrant spice. The sweetest perfumes come from the Arabian desert. Such things abate the mischief of noxious miasma. Rare perfumes refresh the senses, and betoken noble rank. The mightiest King did not despise the sweet odours of myrrh and frankincense. So neither did Jesus Christ treat with contempt the simple virtues and courtesies of the people. Ha stooped to learn from the lips of Jewish rabbis. He gave his benediction to the wedding feast. He was pleased with the gratitude of a poor leper. He commended the brotherliness of the despised Samaritan. He accepted the hospitality of peasant women. He praised the generosity of a poor widow. A sweet and refreshing savour pervaded all his words, all his deeds. From his cradle to his grave he was perfumed with frankincense and myrrh.

3. His coming was a conspicuous thing. The procession was seen afar off. Possibly the flame of torches during the night march sent up in front and in rear huge pillars of smoke. Or possibly clouds of dust from that dry soil rose from the feet of the host, and in that clear, transparent air was seen thirty or forty miles awayeven from the hills of Zion. Anyhow, the procession is seen from a distance. Curiosity is aroused. Many eyes are turned to the novel spectacle, and the question leaps from lip to lip, “Who is this?” So, too, the progress of Jesus through our world has excited the wonder of successive generations. When he read the Scripture in the rustic synagogue of Nazareth, men asked, “Who is this?” When he fed the five thousand on the mountain side, or ruled nature with a nod, they asked, “Who is this?” When, on the Day of Pentecost, the whole city was thrilled with astonishment, men asked, “Who is this?” At Corinth, at Ephesus, at Antioch, when multitudes left their idols for the new faith, men asked, “Who is this, whose onward march is so kingly, so triumphant?” And still they ask in the bazaars of India and in the temples of China, “Who is this?” His march is the march of a Conqueror: the King of kings, because he is the Prince of Peace.

II. OBSERVE HIS BODYGUARD.

1. This is a token of peril. But the peril is not that of open war. If a bannered host should oppose his march, he would meet it with his invincible forces. Michael and all the powers of heaven would fight his battle. It is not open war. The foes in the desert are Ishmaelites; They seek for plunder. They make sudden and covert attack in the night. So has it been in the progress of our Immanuel. From the band of his own disciples the traitor came, and came by night. The priests of Jehovah were his worst foes. Professed friends, like Ananias and Sapphira, have stabbed his cause in secret. The persecutors of his gospel have usually laid their plots in the dark. Atheists and hypocrites have been his bitterest foes. The enemies to the cause of heavenly truth still lie in ambush.

2. Variety of service can be rendered to our gracious King. There were some who bore on their shoulders his palanquin; some who carried torches; some who perfumed his Person; some who wielded swords in his defence. And various service is needed still. If one cannot be a general on the battlefield, he may be an armour bearer. He who cannot fight in the ranks can be a sentinel at the gate or a watchman on the tower. The child wanting yet in martial strength may be fleet of foot as a messenger. If too old for field service, we can be mighty at the throne.

3. The life guards are well equipped. “They all hold swords.” And in the service of Immanuel the sword is keen and has a double edge. In the olden time a Damascus blade had great renown; but the sword of truth is forged and furbished in heaven, and has a penetration which is irresistible. If once we get this sword of truth into a man’s conscience, it does exploits there. The tongues with which we speak winsomely and graciously of our King is a two-edged weapon. The pen is mightier than the sword, and the tongue of fire is mightier than the pen. The Word of the Lord is invincible.

4. All service is useful in this King‘s progress. It made the march a more imposing spectacle. It silenced the murmurers and the scorners. Does Jesus Christ require human service? He has chosen such plans of warfare as require various agencies of man. He prefers to work through feeble and imperfect men, for thereby he confers blessing on friends and on foes at once. Through exercise our spiritual energies become more robust. Through service our faith and love are tested. The more fervid zeal we bring to our Master’s cause, the more honour crowns his head. We serve the King, we serve the human race, we serve ourselves, at one stroke. Loving service is the richest spiritual perfume.

III. NOTE HIS PALANQUIN. It is made of cedar wood from Lebanon; the bed is gold, the pillars are silver, the curtains are resplendent with imperial purple.

1. This carriage, or palanquin, may fitly represent for us the covenant of grace. In this our Immanuel rides triumphantly. In order to set this forth so as to impress the dull senses of humanity, the most precious things of earth are used as metaphors. As cedar is the richest and hardest among timber, as gold and silver are the costliest of metals, as the purple colour was selected for royalty, these material splendours feebly adumbrate the eternal covenant of redemption. Nothing on earth can adequately express it. It is notable for its antiquity; notable for its rarity; notable for its splendour; notable for its usefulness. As the palanquin must be made worthy of a king, the covenant of grace is well worthy of our God. To save is his eternal purpose.

2. The curtains were the handiwork of virgins. “Worked by the daughters of Jerusalem.” All through the East, women are despised, down-trodden, treated as an inferior race. If in Western lands women are ennobled and honoured, it is wholly due to the grace of our King. So from the very beginning Jesus intimated that the service of women would be acceptable. He was dependent on an earthly mother’s care. Once and again, women ministered to him “of their substance.” The deed which he predicted should be known throughout the world was the deed of a woman. Women gathered round his cross in sweetest sympathy, while others laughed and jeered. Women performed the last acts of care for his dead body. Women were the first to greet him on the resurrection morn. “In Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female.”

3. These curtains and carpets are adorned with emblems of low. Our version says, “paved with love.” It should rather be, “inwrought with symbols of love.” Just as in our day men use the form of a heart, or the figure of a fire, to denote warm and genuine love, so some device of love was interlaced in the manufacture of these curtains by the deft fingers of devoted women. It is not more true that we rest in Christ’s love than the converse, he rests in our love. “If any man love me, he will keep my commandments: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and will make our abode with him.” To the same effect we read, “that Christ may dwell in your hearts.” Love has a thousand devices for expressing itself.

IV. MARK THE ADORATION WHICH BEFITS THE KING. “Go forth, ye daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon.” In some respects David was the type of Christ. “He was despised and rejected of men,” and yet a mighty king. But, in respect to the magnificence of his kingdom and the peacefulness of his reign, Solomon better prefigures Jesus.

1. To appreciate Jesus as King we must know him. “Go forth, then, and behold him.” Look into his excellences. Examine his claims to Kingship. Note carefully the unstained purity of his character. Behold his hands, bearing the marks of the nailsmarks of love! Behold his feet, firm “as fine brass; as if they glowed in a furnace,” and set upon the serpent’s head. Behold his heart, still pulsating with everlasting love for the fallen sons of men. Learn well all his kingly qualities; for no true loyalty, no complete consecration, can spring up in us until we know him.

2. Note especially that he is crowned. He is appointed to this supreme throne as the world’s King by the Eternal Father. “By the right hand of God he is exalted.” Yet the symbols of his reign we place upon his head. On his head are already “many crowns.” Every ransomed sinner is another ornament in the diadem of our King. Never did king wear such a crown as this. He is crowned already with world wide renown. Every thorn in that crown, which impious mockers thrust upon his brow, is now transmuted into a ray of peerless glory. Today kings and princes bow before him, and already his “enemies lick the dust.” From a hundred empires the shout ascends, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!” We do not hail and welcome him simply as the Victim of the cross; we bow to him as our soul’s true King.

3. This coronation of Jesus is attended with gladness of heart. It is not always so. Sometimes the heir to a nation’s crown is very unfitted to wear it. He is too young to sustain its cares. He would prefer a life of pleasurable ease. Or the crown itself may be disgraced. The throne is planted with sharpest thorns. The empire is reeking with discontent. That coronation may be no better than a crucifixion. Not so with King Jesus. To be crowned means success for his great redemptive mission. “For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross.” As his grief was unexampled, so shall be his joy. The globe shall be his empire. Because his capacity for joy is infinite, his joy shall rise until the Capacious heart is fall. The joy will be eternal, because the triumph can never be reversed.D.

HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON

Son 3:1

The soul’s love.

This whole book is a glorification of love; it teaches that human love, if true, is sacred, ennobling, and inspiring; it shows the excellence of human love, that it is worthy of being the emblem of that love which is spiritual and Divine. As St. John has taught us, “He that loveth not knoweth not God: for God is love.” The Object of the Christian’s love is Christ, in whom the love of God has been revealed and communicated to us.

I. THE GROUNDS OF THE SOUL‘S LOVE TO CHRIST. The soul that loves the Redeemer is not prompted by blind, unreasonable impulse; such love as that expressed in the language of the text is rational and justifiable.

1. The soul loves Christ for his own Divine, unapproachable excellence, for what he is in himself. He is worthy above all to be thus loved. With an “intellectual love,” as the English Platonist phrased it, does the illumined and living soul love him who is the Effulgence of the Father’s glory and the Revelation of the Father’s heart.

2. The soul loves Christ in gratitude for Divine compassion, ministry, and sacrifice. The cycle of Christian doctrine concerning the Person and mediation of the Redeemer is an exhibition as much of God’s love as of his holiness and his wisdom. What our Saviour has done for us is an appeal to the soul which awakens the response of grateful affection.

3. The soul loves Christ because of the revelations of Divine friendship made to the individual nature. The language of the Canticles is rich in portraying the personal element in the relation between the Lord and humanity as redeemed by him. And every Christian is prompted to affection by those intimate displays of Divine affection which experience records in the recesses of the spiritual nature.

II. THE PROOFS OF THE SOUL‘S LOVE TO CHRIST. An emotion such as this cannot take possession of the mind, and dwell in the mind, without becoming a principle, controlling and inspiring the nature, and prompting to manifestations of marked, decisive import.

1. The soul keeps him whom it loveth in perpetual memory.

2. The soul takes an ever-growing delight in his society; places the highest happiness in spiritual fellowship with Christ.

3. The soul proves the sincerity of its love to Christ by treasuring up his precepts, by seeking to live under the inspiring influence of his presence and character, by yielding to him a cheerful, constant, and unquestioning obedience. Whom the soul loveth the hand serveth, the tongue witnesseth unto, the whole life honoureth by obeying and glorifying.T.

Son 3:2-4

The soul’s guest rewarded.

The romantic incident here poetically related has usually been regarded as a picture of the experiences through which many a soul is permitted to pass during this state of probation and Divine discipline.

I. THE SOUL‘S SEARCH.

1. The appreciation of Christ involved in this quest. Men seek for gold because they value it; they dive for pearls and dig for precious stones. Multitudes are indifferent to the Saviour because they know him not; because their spiritual susceptibilities are not awakened. But those to whom he is chief among ten thousand cannot be satisfied until they possess him and enjoy his fellowship.

2. The quest may be both earnest and prolonged. The desire for highest good is amongst the noblest and purest of all human characteristics. And seeking is good, even though finding be better. A search which is sincere and patient is in a sense its own reward. And there are those whose spiritual experience can only thus be justly described. It is a low view of human nature which looks upon such high quest with contempt; which takes for its motto, Nil admirari“Not to desire or admire.” The young and ardent will do well to make the search after God’s truth, after God himself, the occupation of their life.

II. THE SOUL‘S DISTRESS.

1. Seeking does not always issue in speedy finding. The soul may seek with a mistaken purpose, or in the wrong way, or with a misguided aim, or at the wrong time, i.e. too late.

2. The absence of the sought Saviour is the cause of distress and complaint.

“This is the way I long had sought,
And mourned because I found it not.”

There is no repose for the heart until Christ be found. “Cor nostrum inquietum est, donec requiescat in te,” says St. Augustine”Our heart is restless till it rests in thee.” There is something of mystery in the providential arrangement that the lot of man should so often be one of seemingly fruitless search and disappointed endeavour. Yet this is discipline for which many have had reason to give thanks; it has called forth courage, it has braced to patience, it has stimulated aspiration, it has sweetened success.

III. THE SOUL‘S DISCOVERY.

1. A delayed discovery. The soul has followed hard after him. The moment of revelation has been again and again deferred. The call has been loud, but has met with no answer but the echo.

2. A promised discovery. The word has gone forth from heaven, “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found.” The promise has been proclaimed by Christ himself, “Seek, and ye shall find.” He does not say, “Seek ye my face in vain.”

3. A gracious discovery. “I found him whom my soul loveth.” How condescending the revelation! How joyful the sight, the apprehension, the hope’s fulfilment!

4. A discovery which the soul uses for its own lasting satisfaction. As the bride in the poem “held” her spouse, grasped him by the arm in the fulness of her joy, and “brought him into the house,” there to enjoy his society, so when the soul finds Christ it finds in him One who satisfies every deep craving of its nature. And to find him is to retain him, not as a wayfaring man who tarrieth for a night, but as an inmate never to be displaced from the heart, a friend to go no more out forever.T.

Son 3:6-11

The bridal entry.

The pomp of Oriental poetry is nowhere more dazzling and imposing than in this passage, where is depicted the procession of the royal bride, who is escorted with magnificent accompaniments, and welcomed into the metropolis with universal and cordial joy. Expositors have seen in this gorgeous picture a description of the dignity and beauty of the Church, the bride of Christ. The incense rising in perfumed clouds heralds the approach of the bridal procession. The palanquin which contains the bride is of the cedar of Lebanon; silver pillars support its canopy of gold, and the hangings and drapery are of costly purple. The palanquin itself is the provision of the king’s munificence, and the ornaments are the gift of the wealthy ladies of Jerusalem. Accompanying the festive procession is an escort of armed and valiant warriors, not only for security, but for state and dignity. The royal bridegroom meets and joins the cortege, having upon his head the crown of festivity and happiness, for it is the day of his gladness of heart. The daughters of Jerusalem go forth from the city to join in the welcome, and to swell the number and add to the dignity and attractiveness of the bridal train. “Which things are an allegory.”

I. THE CHURCH IS SUMMONED TO QUIT THE WILDERNESS OF THE WORLD, AND BECOME THE BRIDE OF CHRIST.

II. THE CHURCH IS INVESTED BY DIVINE LIBERALITY WITH ALL THAT CAN CONTRIBUTE TO HER SPIRITUAL GLORY.

III. THE CHURCH IN HER PASSAGE THROUGH EARTH IS ACCOMPANIED WITH THE INCENSE OF DEVOTION AND OF SERVICE.

IV. THE CHURCH IS ENVIRONED WITH DIVINE PROTECTION.

V. THE CHURCH IS THE OBJECT OF CHRIST‘S AFFECTION AND THE OCCASION OF HIS JOY.

VI. THE CHURCH IS REGARDED BY ANGELIC INTELLIGENCES WITH THE DEEPEST INTEREST AND SATISFACTION.

VII. THE CHURCH IS ASSURED OF AN ETERNAL HOUSE IN THE FAVOUR AND COMMUNION OF THE DIVINE KING.T.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

SECOND SONG

The first meeting of the lovers, related by Shulamith who has returned to her home.

Son 2:8 to Son 3:5

FIRST (AND ONLY) SCENE:

SHULAMITH (ALONE).

8 Hark!14 my beloved; lo! here he comes,

leaping15 over the mountains,

bounding over the hills.

9 My beloved is like a gazelle

or a young hart.16

Lo! here he stands behind our wall,17

looking through18 the windows,

glancing through the lattices.19

10 Answered my beloved and said to me:

Up,20 my dear, my fair one and go forth!

11 For, lo! the winter is past,

the rain is over, is gone.

12 The flowers appear in the land,

the time for song21 has arrived,

and the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land.

13 The fig-tree spices22 its green figs

and the vines are in bloom,23 they yield fragrance,

24 up! my dear, my fair one and go forth!

14 My dove, in the clefts25 of the rock,

in the recess of the cliffs,26

let me see thy form,27 let me hear thy voice,

for thy voice is sweet and thy form is comely.

15 Catch28 us foxes,

little foxes, spoiling vineyards;
for our vineyards are in bloom.

16 My beloved is mine, and I am his,

who feeds among the lilies.

17 Against29 the day cools, and the shadows flee

turn thee, my beloved, and be like
a gazelle or a young hart
on the cleft30 mountains.

(She sleeps and after some time awakes again:)

III. 1 31On my bed32 in the nights33

I sought him whom my soul loves;
I sought him but I found him not.

2 I will rise now and go about in the city

in the markets and in the streets;34

I will seek him whom my soul loves.
I sought him but I found him not.

3 Found35 me the watchmen, who go about in the city;

36Whom my soul loves, have ye seen?37

4 Scarcely38 had I passed from them,

when I found him whom my soul loves.
I grasped him and would not let him go,
until I had brought39 him into my mothers house,

and into the chamber of her that conceived40 me.

5 I41 adjure you, ye daughters of Jerusalem,

by the gazelles or by the hinds of the field,
that ye wake not and that ye waken not
love until it please.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. It is the fixed opinion of almost all the more recent interpreters that this act contains two monologues or sonnets sung by Shulamith alone, and nothing more; and this is verified by all the particulars that it contains. The attempt of Magnus and Delitzsch to strike out as spurious the formula of citation Son 2:10 and so to gain a dialogue form for the first and larger division (Son 2:8-17) is wrecked not only by the evidence of genuineness afforded by all MSS. and ancient versions in favor of these words, but also by the closing verses of the section (Son 2:15-17) which correctly interpreted represent her lover as present only to the imagination of Shulamith or to her memory, which vividly recalled him. Whether the two monologues are regarded as two distinct scenes, (as is commonly the case), or the scene is allowed to remain the same in both without change and only a pause of some length is interposed between them (Ewald, Hitz., Hahn,) is on the whole but an unessential difference. For a pause after Son 2:17 is as undeniable and as universally admitted as is the peculiar character of the second sonnet Son 3:1-5, which as the narration of a dream (with the apostrophizing of the daughters of Jerusalem therewith connected) is sharply and distinctly sundered from the preceding monologue, though this too is of a narrative character. As to what takes place between the two monologues or scenes, we may either suppose (with Ewald and others) a prolonged meditation and silence on the part of Shulamith, exhausted by the foregoing lively expression of her longing desire for her lover, or, as intimated in the above translation, that she sinks into a brief slumber, which brings before her in a dream the lover for whom she so ardently longs, and thus in the moment of her awaking recalls to her remembrance a like dream from the early days of her love, which she hereupon relates. No sufficient proof of this assumption can, it is true, be brought from the context. Yet it undoubtedly has more in its favor than, e.g., the hypothesis proposed by Umbreit, Rocke, Vaihinger, Renan and several of the older writers, that Shulamith utters the words Son 2:8-17 in a dream, and then, after awaking, she relates (to the women of the harem around her) a dream which she had previously had, Son 3:1 ff., in order to prove her changeless love to the friend to whom her heart was given. The language in Son 2:8-17 has, to be sure, a certain dreamlike vagueness, rather than the character of a strictly historical narration. But this is sufficiently explained by the highly excited fancy of the singer, which brings up the past before her, as though she were experiencing it anew, and which in this lyrical recital, that is any thing but dry narration, here and there springs over what intervenes between the separate particulars of the action, especially in Son 2:9 and between Son 2:14-15.

2. It is, however, far more difficult to determine the scene or the situation, and the external-surroundings of the speaker during this act, than to decide upon the form and style of the discourse. The adherents of the shepherd-hypothesis, who here conceive of Shulamith as continuing at Jerusalem in the royal harem, and expressing her longing for her distant lover, can urge, it is true, in favor of this the repetition of the address to the daughters of Jerusalem at the close of the section (Son 3:5), but are not able to explain why the description in Son 2:8-17 presupposes an undoubted country scene, with mountains, hills, vineyards, flowery fields, etc., or why it is a simple monologue of the beloved, and neither Solomon nor the daughters of Jerusalem utter a word. Bttchers view, therefore, seems to have something in its favor, that the locality of the action was a royal country house not far from Jerusalem, where Shulamith was detained a solitary prisoner. And the one circumstance at least that according to Son 2:8 ff. the scene appears to be in the country, might be conveniently combined with the assumption that Shulamith here continues to stay in the royal pleasure-grounds south of the capital, and that Solomon has only left her again for a while for some unknown reasons. But Shulamiths place of abode plainly appears to be one further removed from Jerusalem, and in fact to be located in the region of her home. For 1) the mention of her mothers house, with its wall and its latticed window (Son 3:4; Son 2:9) makes it probable that she is there. 2) We are also led to the very same result by , in our land, Son 2:12, the mention of the vineyards in bloom, Son 2:13; Son 2:15, as well as the , Son 2:17, whether this difficult expression be rendered separating mountains, or cleft mountains, or spice mountains (see in loc.). 3) Shulamith brought in solemn pomp to the wedding by her royal bridegroom, as described for the first time in the following act, Son 3:6-11, presupposes that she had before been staying again in her parents house; for it is from thence that according to the custom of the ancient Hebrews, the bride must always be brought (comp. 1Ma 9:37; 1Ma 9:39; Mat 25:1, etc.). 4) That Shulamith came from northern Palestine to Jerusalem for her marriage with Solomon, is also rendered highly probable by the mention of Lebanon in what her newly espoused says to her, Son 4:8; and further, the coming up of the bride out of the wilderness, as described in Son 3:6, in her entry into the capital, might point to a coming from the north, and not out of the wilderness of Judah, which lay south of Jerusalem (comp. in loc.). Accordingly the parental residence of the bride, or its vicinity is, with Dpke, Heiligstedt and Delitzsch, to be regarded as the scene of this passagethat is to say, Shunem or some neighboring locality in the tribe of Issachar north of Mount Gilboa, or on the south side of Little Hermon. How Shulamith came thither again from the royal residence, whether peaceably dismissed to her home by agreement with her bridegroom, or conducted thither by himself in order to be subsequently brought with solemn pomp to the wedding, is not clearly explained in the piece. Only every thought must be excluded of a possible flight of the virgin from the royal harem to her home, for she exhibits her longing for her royal lover in undiminished strength, and this too not as though it had arisen from regret at her too hasty flight from him (comp. Delitzsch, p. 99 f.).As regards the time of the action, it appears to follow from the way that, Son 2:11-13, the winter is described as past, and the fair spring-time as come, that an interval of some months had elapsed between the summer or autumn scene of the preceding act (Son 1:14; Son 1:16 f.; Son 2:3 ff.) and the present, or more briefly, that the entire rainy season lies between Son 2:7 and Son 2:8 (Hitz.). But as that charming description of opening spring belongs to a narration, and furthermore to a poetic and ideal narration of what Solomon said to his beloved on his first meeting with her, no conclusion can be drawn from it in respect to the time of this action. And neither the winter in Son 2:11 nor the nights in Son 3:1 (according to Hitzig the long winter nights!) afford any support for that opinion, which would charge upon the poet too great a violation of the Aristotelian demand of the unity of time. On the contrary, there is nothing in the way of assuming with Ewald, Bttcher, Del. and most of the later interpreters, an interval of but a few days between Acts 1, 2 (which certainly need not be narrowed down to the space of a few hours, as, e.g., Vaihinger assumes), nor of regarding the entire action of the piece generally as taking place in the course of a single spring, and occupying, at the utmost, a few weeks.42 Comp. on Son 7:13.

3. Ch.2, Son 2:8-9.

Son 2:8. Hark! my beloved.Literally, the voice [or sound] of my beloved, , to which abrupt expression it is or is heard is to be supplied as in Isa 40:3; Isa 40:6 (Mat 3:3); 2Ki 6:32. [It is rather an exclamation, to which no verb need be supplied, see GreensHeb. Chres. on Isa 40:3; Isa 40:6]. And the following expression, lo! there he comes, etc., shows that it is not the words of the bridegroom (Hengstenberg, after Michaelis and many of the older writers), but his coming itself or the sound of his coming and bounding over the mountains and the hills, in short his steps, which are indicated by , comp. Son 5:2; Gen 3:8; 1Ki 14:6. That Shulamith was shortly expecting her lover, may be probably inferred from this exclamation of hers which may be supposed to have been occasioned by some noise in which she thought she heard the steps of him for whom she longed. But that which further follows is not a description of his arrival, which now actually ensues (Magn., Del.), nor a mere airy fancy sketch or dreaming description of what her friend would say and do, if he were now actually to come (Umbr., Hitz., Vaih., etc.see No. 1, above), but a vivid reminiscence of the way that he had actually come to her the first time and of the loving conversation which had then taken place between him and her by the wall of her parental home. It was the more natural for the bride to be thus vividly transported to the past, as she was hourly expecting her bridegroom back again at the very spot where he had then met with her for the first time.43Leapingbounding (). From this description of her lovers first coming to Shulamith, which is further illustrated by the following figures of the gazelle and the young hart, we may perhaps conclude that Solomon while hunting on Mount Gilboa, or in its vicinity, saw his beloved there for the first time, and formed a connection with her in the manner ideally described in what follows.

Son 2:9. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young hart.Hitzig calls in question the genuineness of these words, with no other grounds of suspicion than such as are purely subjective. They are designed more particularly to illustrate and justify in their application to her lover the somewhat bold and in themselves not very intelligible terms leaping, and bounding. And this they manifestly do in so far as they call attention to the fact that he resembles those fair and noble animals not in his speed and agility merely, but generally in the charming grace and loftiness of his whole bearing. Comp. passages like 2Sa 2:18; 1Ch 12:8; Pro 6:5, where speed alone is the tert. comp. in this figure, with Psa 18:34; Hab 3:19; Pro 5:19, where the other qualities of these animals are also taken into the account.Lo here he is, standing behind our wall. Judged by the analogy of other passages, in which it is found, the word here used does not mean the wall about the vineyard but the wall of the house, to which the mention of the window immediately after also points.44 Our wall, because Shulamith means the house belonging to her family, in or near which she now is again [or which she so well remembersTr.]; comp. Son 8:8 our sister, and our vineyards Son 2:15.Looking through the windows, glancing through the latticesliterally, from the windows, from the lattices. It is a matter of indifference from which window he looks into the interior; it was only worth while to affirm in the general that he looked in from the region of the windows, that is from without. Window (), and lattice (according to the Targ. Jos 2:15; Jos 2:18 equivalent to , of the same meaning also with Jdg 5:28; Pro 7:6, as well as with Hos 13:3; Ecc 7:3) are plainly only different names for the same thing, of which however the latter expression is the more special or precise; for the lattice properly closed the aperture of the window and consequently was that through which he must have looked, comp. 2Ki 13:17. literally, blooming (comp. Isa 27:6; Psa 132:18 and especially Psa 72:16, where occurs of men blooming out of the earth) does not express a transient appearing or a quick and stolen glance, but evidently describes the blooming and radiant appearance of her lover, who is also called white and red, Son 5:10. He blooms in through the window (comp. Michaelis: roseum suum vultum instar floris jucundissimi per retia cancellorum ostendens) is a pregnant expression, and reminds one of Gen 49:22, where Joseph is described as a young fruit tree of luxuriant growth, whose daughters run over the wall.45

4. Solomons first greeting to Shulamith, Son 2:10-14.

Son 2:10. My beloved answered and said to me. In opposition to the doubts of Magnus and Delitzsch regarding the genuineness of these words, see above No. 1. In respect to in the opening of a discourse and consequently in the sense of beginning to speak (not answering Hengstenberg), comp. Deu 21:7; Deu 26:5; 2Ch 29:31; Isa 14:10; Job 3:2, and , which is frequently so used in the New Testament.46 Arise, my dear, my fair one, and go forth,viz., out of the housenot out of the city into the country, as the adherents of the shepherd-hypothesis suppose, who think the shepherd utters these words to Shulamith in her captive condition (similarly also Weissbach).47

Son 2:11. For lo, the winter is past. (for which the Kri to fix the correct pronunciation instead of as it might possibly be read) denotes, as also in Aram., the winter and that on the side of its cold, as the parallel expression (comp. Ecc 12:2; Job 37:6) denotes the same on the side of its moisture, that is to say, as the rainy season ( time of rain, Ezr 10:9; Ezr 10:13). The winter as the cold season of the year necessarily keeps people in the house; whence the allusion to its being past adds force to the solicitation to come out of the house.

Son 2:12. The flowers appear in the land, literally, are seen () in the land. On the rapidity with which the spring with its new verdure and its blooming attire usually follows the winter in the East, comp. Hasselquist, Reisen, p. 261.The time of singing has arrived. is not the time for pruning vines, as the old translators explained it, after the analogy of Lev 25:3 f.; Isa 5:6; for in Son 2:13; Son 2:15 the vines are represented as already in blossom, the time for pruning them was therefore long since past; but it is the time of singing, of merry songs. By this, however, we are not to understand the singing of birds (Ibn Ezra, Rashi, E. Meier), but conformably to Isa 25:5 (), Isa 24:16; Job 35:10; Psa 119:54; 2Sa 23:1, etc. (), the glad songs of men, such as spring usually awakens, especially in the life of shepherds and country people (comp. Jdg 21:20 f.).And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land,viz. in Palestine, the land of Solomon and and Shulamith. This does not by any means require us to regard Shulamiths country lover as the speaker, although it favors the assumption that the scene of the narrative lay in the country rather than in the city. The turtle-dove () as a bird of passage (Jer 8:7) is a fit representative of spring, and it need not therefore symbolize the Holy Spirit (Targ.), nor the meek (Hengstenb.), nor Israel in general (Hahn).

Son 2:13. The fig tree spices its fruit. As means not the early figs but the late figs, i.e. the small fruit of the fig tree which continues to grow during the winter, and does not ripen until spring (Septuag. , Vulgate, grossi), and as signifies, Gen 1:2; Gen 1:26, to spice, to perfume, this verb must here too have the sense of spicing and denote that aromatic sweetness which figs attain about the time of their ripening (comp. Schubert, Reise III. p. 113). We must reject, therefore, both the putting forth of the ancient versions (Sept., Aq., Vulg., Syr.), and the signification of reddening or browning, preferred by Ewald, Hitzig, Renan, etc.; for the late figs are of a violet color even during the winter, when they are still unfit to eat (comp. Meier and Weissbachin loc.).And the vines are in blossom, literally, are blossom. a substantive, which occurs again Son 2:15; Son 7:13, and whose etymology is very obscure (comp. Velth., Ewald and Hitzigin loc.), can mean nothing but blossom, vine blossom either here or in the other two passages; and this is confirmed by the ancient versions (Sept., Vulg. florere, Symm.; also the Syr. on Isa 17:11). It plainly makes no difference in the sense whether we translate the vines are blossom (comp. e.g.Exo 9:31), give fragrance (as is commonly done) or the vines in blossom, i.e. since they are blossoming, yield their fragrance (see e.g.Weissb. comp. Delitzsch). With regard to the fine delicious fragrance of the vine blossom comp. also Sir 24:23.

Son 2:14. My dove in the clefts of the rock.No pause is observable between Son 2:13-14 (Hitzig; comp. Weissbach). The tenderly caressing and alluring language continues without change. Solomon here entitles his beloved a dove in the clefts of the rock, because, as appears from Son 2:9, the bars of the latticed window still separate him from her. The allusion to her dove-like innocence and her lovely form is altogether subordinate, but must nevertheless not be left wholly out of the account as e.g.Weissbach insists; for dove is undoubtedly a tender pet-name, comp. Son 6:9, and even Son 1:15. The allegorical interpretation, which sees in the dove persecuted innocence (Hengsten.), or even the righteous hiding himself in the gaping wounds of Christ (Theodoret, Greg. the great, J. Gerh.) has clearly no exegetical justification.48In the secret of the cliffs, literally in the hiding-place of the ladder of rock, of the steep rocky precipices, for this appears to be the meaning of the word here used. The expression evidently serves only to finish out the figure employed immediately before of the clefts of the rock concealing the dove. No conclusion can be based upon it respecting Shulamiths place of residence, as though it actually were a rock-bound castle (Bttcher), or were in Solomons lofty palace upon Zion (Ewald, Hitzig, Vaih., etc.)49 The present description would rather appear to indicate (comp. above No. 2) that Shulamiths country home was surrounded by a mountainous and rocky region (Delitzsch).Let me see thy form, denotes in this poem not barely the face (this Solomon already saw through the lattice) but the entire form, comp. Son 5:15, also Gen 12:11; Gen 24:17; Gen 39:6.Let me hear thy voice. Evidently an invitation to sing, with which Shulamith complies in Son 2:15.The following fortifying clause reminds of the similar one in Son 2:9, a.

5. Shulamiths answer.

Son 2:15. That this verse is a little vintagers song or at least the fragment of one, and that Shulamith sings it in answer to the request of her lover in Son 2:10-14 is regarded as settled by most of the recent interpreters since Herder. Only the allegorists, as Hengstenberg, Hahn, etc. see expressed in it Shulamiths fear of the foes of Gods vineyard (i.e. heretics according to Hengstenberg, [so Cov., Patr., Poole and the generality of English Commentators], pagan Hamites according to Hahn.); and Ewald inappropriately puts the words into the mouth of the lover, who thus makes the connection again with what he had said in Son 2:13. That we rather have here a separate ditty or fragment of a song, is shown not only by the plural form of address, but also by the accumulation of rhymes (, , ,). And that this ditty is sung by the bride, not by the bridegroom, appears from its contents, which seem perfectly suitable for the keeper of a vineyard (see Son 1:6), but not for her lover, be he king or shepherd.50 It is, however, arbitrary and preposterous to assume with Hitzig and Renan, that Shulamith sings this sonnet at one of the windows in the harem at Jerusalem in order to inform her lover from her old home, who was in the vicinity of the place of her abode, in nearly the same way that Richard Cur de Lion betrayed the place of his captivity to Blondel, his faithful minstrel, by singing the refrain of a song familiar to them both. The whole situation too is not in the remotest manner adapted to such a romantic and sentimental meaning and design of the sonnet. Its context rather indicates plainly enough that it still belongs to Shulamiths narrative of her first meeting with her lover, and consequently is neither more nor less than her answer to his request to come out to him and to sing to him,an answer, which whether actually given by her in just these words or not, at all events concealed a delicate allusion to her lover under a popular veil artlessly employed and half in jest, and intimated to him that she was not disinclined to let him take part henceforth in her care for the security of her vineyard. If she really sang these words, she did so while opening or the doors of her house to admit her lover who stood without before the wall, or while she stepped out to him singing and smiling (comp. Delitzschin loc.)Catch us foxes, little foxes, spoiling vineyards. The foxes deserve this name, not because they attack the ripe grapes themselves (Theocr. Id. I. 46, ff; V. 112), but because by their passages and holes they undermine the walls of the vineyards and injure the roots of the vines; and they also gnaw the stems and young shoots.51 It was important, therefore, in the spring when the vines were blossoming, to protect the vineyards from these uninvited guests; and the more so, since the spring is the very time of the coming forth of the young foxes from their kennels. The predicate little refers to young foxes (comp. Gen 9:24; Gen 27:15; 1Ki 3:7), not to the diminutive size of the animals which nevertheless do so much damage [so Harmer, Good, Williams]; in that case the smaller variety of the jackal, which is known by the name of adive, would be specially intended by (Hitzig). But as the jackal is always called or (Job 30:29, Mic 1:8) in every other passage in which it is mentioned in the Old Testament, whilst is the constant designation of the fox proper, we are not justified here in departing from this usual meaning of the expression, comp. Oedmann, Sammlungen II. 38; Winer, Real-Wrterbuch, Art. Fchse, also P. Cassel on Jdg 15:4. Moreover the expressions little foxes and destroying vineyards are simply related as in apposition to the principal object ; and both this and the words named as in apposition are without the article, because it is not the foxes universally, but just foxes, vineyard-destroying foxes that are to be taken. Hitzig seeks without necessity to base upon this absence of the article before his translation hold for us, ye foxes, etc., which he makes equivalent to wait, ye foxes, Ill give it to you!For our vineyards are in bloom, literally and our vineyards are in bloom; comp. in respect to this specifying and, and in fact, which here has a specially motive character, Ecc 1:15; Ecc 8:2; Jdg 6:25; Jdg 7:22; Mal 1:11, and in general Ewald, 340, b. By the expression the singer takes up again what had been said, by her lover, Son 2:13, a, whether she altered her ditty in conformity with it, or that expression in the mouth of Solomon recalled to her mind this vernal song with the like-sounding refrain; this latter view is evidently the more natural.

6. Conclusion of the first monologue. Son 2:16-17.

Son 2:16. My beloved is mine and I am his.This declaration that she has become the property of her beloved and he hers, that they have mutually surrendered themselves to one another (comp. Son 6:3; Son 7:11), does not continue Shulamiths answer to the greeting of Solomon, Son 2:10 b14 (Delitzsch, Weissbach, etc.), but after her account of her first meeting with him, which terminates with Son 2:15, she takes up again the expression of her desire for her absent lover uttered in Son 2:8-9, by asserting in the first instance that though still absent, he was inseparably bound to her.52Who feeds among the lilies.Manifestly a figurative expression for who, wherever he abides, spreads radiance, joy and loveliness about him, or in whose footsteps roses and lilies ever bloom.53 With reference to the figurative nature of this form of speech as a fixed and favorite poetical phrase, comp. its recurrence with two different applications, Son 4:5 and Son 6:3. Shulamith had already represented her royal lover as feeding his flock, Son 1:7.

Son 2:17. Against the day cools and the shadows flee.Contrary to the division of the verses, as well as to the analogy of Son 6:3, Herder, Amm., Kleuker, Dpke [so Coverdale, Doway] connect these words with the participial clause at the close of the preceding verse. Feeding among the lilies till the day grows cool would yield a very tame and trivial thought, whilst, on the other hand, the following solicitation, turn thee, etc., can scarcely dispense with some more particular statement of the time up to which or about which it should be complied with. Upon (literally, enduring till, waiting till)=until, whilst, by the time that, comp. the like forms of expression, Gen 24:33; Gen 27:45; Exo 22:26; 1Sa 1:22; 1Sa 14:19, etc.; also Son 1:12 above, where, it is true, the connection demands a somewhat different translation. Shulamith evidently begs her lover to return to her before the coming on of the shades of evening (before the day wholly cools, and the ever lengthening shadows melt quite away in the darknesscomp. Job 14:2). By evening, at the latest, and before night, he should come over the mountains to her swift as a gazelle, as at that first time when she had seen him bounding over the summits and the hills (Son 2:8).54Turn thee and be like,etc. neither qualifies adverbially, resemble hereabouts a gazelle, etc. (Weissbach); nor is it an invitation to her friend already present to ramble with her upon the mountains in the neighborhood (Delitzsch); nor equivalent to turn back again, as though it were intended to call back one who had shortly before been near her and who was going away (Bttcher); but simply=turn thyself hither, direct thy steps hither (comp. 1Sa 22:18; 2Sa 18:30). The Vulgate quite correctly, therefore, as regards the sense, revertere; so also the Syr., Luth., etc.The call upon him to resemble the gazelle is evidently connected with the description given of her lover in Son 2:8. She wishes that her lover would now soon return, as she saw him then, swiftly and gracefully, like the sudden appearing of a noble deer on the mountain height.On cleft mountains.This translation of the difficult is especially favored by the of the Sept. The usual signification of , piece, severed portion (Gen 15:10; Jer 34:18-19, etc.) lies at the basis of it; and both the name of the place, , Bithron, the designation of a mountain ravine east of the Jordan, 2Sa 2:29, and the Greek , fissure, cleft, offer themselves at once as confirmatory analogies (comp. Gesen., Lex., also Vaih., Renan and Delitzschin loc., riven mountains). Commonly, on mountains of separation, i.e., on the mountains that separate us (comp. Luther, auf den Scheidebergen; Merc., Ewald, Hitzig, also the Targ., Ibn Ezra and Jarchi) [so Ginsburg]. Peculiarly Weissbach on the spice-mountains (or Bathrum heights, comp. Vulg., super montes Bother, and Theodoret, who, as well as the Syr., translates similarly ); by this he supposes to be meant Shulamiths breasts perfumed with aromatic betel-leaves, i.e., with , malabathrum=Syr., bathrum. But such an adducing of the , mountains of spices mentioned in Son 8:14, and that as identical in signification with the mountain of myrrh and hill of frankincense mentioned in Son 4:6, i.e., with the fragrant breasts of his beloved (?), is in the present instance manifestly destructive of the sense and repugnant to the connection, and would besides yield an absolutely lascivious sense, which the expressions in question do not have in the two passages alleged.

Footnotes:

[14][Wic. heading: The voice of the church of Christ. Mat.: The voice of the church. Cov.: Methink I hear the voice of my beloved. So Cran., Bish.]

[15]Whilst the verb suggests his long leaps, as he springs, comp. Isa 35:6; Psa 18:30; Zep 1:9, the verb (an older form for and related to the to press together, as well as to to gather; in the Piel to cause to draw together) lets us, as it were, see the gazelles, with which the lover is compared, as in galloping they draw their feet together again, after being stretched so wide apart. Weissb.

[16][Ains.: a fawn of the hinds]

[17] according to the Targ. on Jos 2:15 equivalent to wall occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament except in the Chaldee forms Dan 5:5, and (plur.) Ezr 5:8.

[18][E. Ver.: forth at. Cov.: better in at. Words.: spying in at the windows.]

[19][Cov.: peepeth through the grate. Ains.: flourishing through the lattices.]

[20]The two-fold to thee after arise and after go, throws back the action, as it were, upon its subject and thus serves to impart to the language an easy, colloquial and kindly character, comp. Son 1:8, also Son 2:11; Son 2:13; Son 2:17; Son 4:6; Son 8:14. Weissbach correctly remarks that it is chiefly verbs of motion to which this kindly or or is added. [Mat.: The voice of Christ.]

[21][E. Ver.: singing of birds, which Harmer refers especially to the nightingale. Wic.: cutting. Cov.: the twisting time. Doway: pruning, so Thrupp and Weiss. Poole: cutting or cropping for nosegays.]

[22][So Noyes. Cov.: bringeth forth. E. Ver.: putteth forth. Good, Ginsb.: sweeten. Williams: ripen. Fry: embalm. Weiss: perfume. Thrupp: mature.]

[23][Wic.: flowering. Cov.: blossoms, so Fry, Noyes, Thrupp. Doway: flower. E. Ver.: tender grapes; so Good, Weiss, Ginsb. Williams: tender buds.]

[24][Wic.: The voice of Christ to the church.]

[25] appears here as well as in Obad. Son 2:3; Jer 49:16, which are probably derived from the passage before us, to be not rocky heights, lofty refuges on top of the rocks, (Schult., Gesen., Hengstenb., Weissb., etc.,) but rather fissures, clefts in the rocks (comp. Ewald and Hitzig in loc.) For the latter figure manifestly agrees better with the present situation, (see Son 2:9) and may also have a better etymological basis (comp. Arab. to split.)

[26] (from kindred to. ) comp. Ezek. 38:29, the only other passage in which the word occurs.

[27]On the form as a singular, comp. Ewald, 256 b, [Greens Heb. Gramm. 221, 7 a.]

[28][Wic.: The voice of Christ to the church against heretics. Mat.: The voice against the heretics.]

[29][Adopted from Thrupp.]

[30][E. Ver. marg: division, but in the text: Bether, as though it were a proper name which Patrick identifies with Bethel; Ainsworth and Poole with Bithron; and Clarke with Beth-horon. Cov.: simply; mountains omitting Bether. Bish., Cran.: wide mountains. Parkhurst, Williams: craggy mountains. Burrowes: a region cut up or divided by mountains and valleys, rough, craggy and difficult to cross. With.: our secluded hills.]

[31][Wicliffes heading: The voice of the church gathered together of Gentiles. Mat.: The voice of the church which is chosen out of the heathen.]

[32][Wic.: little bed.]

[33][So Ains., Wic., by nights. Mat., E. Ver., by night.]

[34] plur. of , as from [Greens Heb. Gramm. 207, 1. f.] related to to run (whence also leg) denotes places where people run, bustling public places, hence the Sept. correctly . Comp. Ecc 12:4-5; and Pro 7:8.For streets () comp. Pro 1:20; Pro 7:12. Without sufficient proof from the language Weissbach claims for this latter expression the meaning markets, open squares, and for the former the meaning streets. [Wic.: by towns and streets. Cov.: upon the market and in all the streets. Genev.: by the streets and by the open places. E. Ver. in the streets and in the broad ways. Patrick: are the lesser thoroughfares in the city or the streets of lesser cities; as are the greater, wider streets, or rather the streets of the royal capital city.]

[35]On to strike upon any one, find, meet him, 1Sa 10:3; Song Son 5:7.

[36][Wic. The church saith of Christ to the apostles. Mat.: The church speaking of Christ.]

[37]The interrogative particle is omitted before the verb , because it is at so great a remove from the beginning of the clause. Comp. Ewald, Lehrbuch, 314 a, b.

[38]On ( with veritatis) as much as a little. Comp. Isa 1:9.

[39]On the form for see Hitzig in loc. [Greens Heb. Gram., 160, 2.]

[40] synonym of as Hos 2:5.

[41][Wic.: The voice of Christ to the church. Mat.: The voice of Christ.]

[42] [If Shulamith is here describing her first meeting with her royal lover, there is no reason why she might not remember and relate it as fully as is here done, without the necessity of being transported for the purpose from Jerusalem to Shunem, even supposing that to have been her original home. Especially as her adjuration of the daughters of Jerusalem, Son 3:5, is a more evident proof of her still being in the royal capital, than any which Zckler has been able to bring to the contrary. He seems to have made the mistake of confounding the locality of a past event narrated with the place of the narrator. It may be a necessity to the dramatic hypothesis to get her back again to Shunem, after her residence with the king in his palace, in order that she may come thence in solemn pomp to her marriage at a subsequent period. But this scarcely warrants the drawing of so large a conclusion from so slender a premise.

The advocates of the idyllic hypothesis find here a distinct song, describing a visit paid by the lover to the fair object of his affections, without being at any pains to trace a connection between it and what had preceded. Taylor thinks that this belongs to the second day of the marriage feast; the bride from her window in the palace is attracted by the sound of a hunting party (Son 2:15); the bridegroom, who is one of the party, looks up and addresses her. Withington supposes some time to have elapsed since the preceding scene. The bride had gone up to Jerusalem, and after a stay there had gone back to the country, and was to remain there until the season came of her husbands rustication, which would naturally be in the spring. Burrowes: The beloved had left the spouse; these words describe his return. Wordsworth connects this scene directly with the immediately preceding verse, the slumber of the bridegroom there described being equivalent to his absence or withdrawal: The patience of the bride, after long waiting, is rewarded by the joyful sight of the bridegroom bounding over the hills. Ginsburg, with his peculiar modification of the shepherd-hypothesis, describes the situation as follows: The Shulamite, to account for the severity of her brothers, mentioned in Son 2:6, relates that her beloved shepherd came one charming morning in the spring to invite her to the fields (814); that her brothers, in order to prevent her from going, gave her employment in the gardens (15); that she consoled herself with the assurance that her beloved, though separated from her at that time, would come again in the evening (16, 17); that seeing he did not come, she, under difficult circumstances, ventured to seek him and found him (Son 3:1-4).Tr.]

[43][There is no propriety in sundering this from what follows. The succeeding verses evidently continue or explain this opening exclamation. If it belongs to the present, so does the entire description which it introduces. If the coming of the beloved here narrated is past, her exclamation on hearing the sound of his approach is past also.Tr.]

[44][Harmer supposes the reference is to a kiosk or eastern arbor, and quotes the Letters of Lady Montague, who speaks of them II. p. 74 as enclosed with gilded lattices, round which vines, jessamines and honeysuckles make a sort of green wall.]

[45][Wordsw.: Literally, sprouting and blooming like a flowering shrub or creeper, whose blossoms peep and glance through the trellis or lattice work of a window, and giving brightness and loveliness to the apartment.]

[46][Wordsw.: Here is an anticipation of the phrase so often applied in the gospels to Christ, who answered even the thoughts of His hearers.]

[47][It can scarcely be anything but a slip when Withington puts these words into the mouth of the bride: He hears her distant voice: Rise up, my love, etc.Tr.]

[48] Harmer says, on the authority of Dr. Shaw: Doves in those countries, it seems, take up their abodes in the hollow places of rocks and cliffs. Wordsw. suggests that the comparison is to a dove fleeing to the clefts of the rock for refuge from the storm. Good quotes as parallel the following simile from Homers description of the wounded Diana, Il. xxi. 493.

As when the falcon wings her way above,
To the cleft cavern speeds the affrighted dove,
Straight to her shelter thus the goddess flew.]

[49][So Harmer, who supposes an allusion to her apartments in a lofty palace of stone. Good: The common version, secret places of the stairs is erroneous. The mistake has obviously originated from a wish in the translators to give a literal interpretation to this highly figurative phraseology. Stairs may well enough apply to the royal fair-one as a bride, but not as a dove.]

[50] [Good, Burrowes, Noyes, Adelaide Newton, Withington, Thrupp, make this the language of the bride; Patrick, Poole, Ainsworth, Henry, Scott, Taylor, Fry, Clarke, Wordsworth the language of the bridegroom. Ginsburg puts it in the mouth of Shulamiths brothers. Williams is led by the plural form of the pronouns both of the first and second persons to suppose that the chorus of virgins is here addressing the companions of the bridegroom. The ingenious suggestion that these words may be borrowed from a popular song, which here receive a new meaning from their connection, agrees well with this peculiarity in the form of expression and also with the intimation in the preceding verse.

Wordsw.: He commands her to look well to her vineyard. He calls it our vineyard; it is his as well as hers. Withington, (after Taylor, who thinks this verse a summons to a chase) sees in it an allusion to the sports and employments of the care-worn king in his seasons of relaxation.]

[51][Patrick: Aristophanes in his Equites, compares soldiers to foxes; spoiling whole countries as they do vineyards.]

[52][Williams: These verses stand perfectly distinct from the preceding. Others endeavor to establish a direct connection with the foregoing verses. Thus Taylor paraphrases: I am all obedience to his requests; it shall be my happiness to accomplish his desires. And Wordsworth in its spiritual application: The Church thankfully catches up the expression our vineyard; and rejoices that not only have they one vineyard, but that He is hers and she is His.]

[53][Good, with an entire misapprehension of the figure intended: So sweet is his breath, that surely he feedeth among the lilies. Ginsb.: Who tends his flock in the meadows abounding with flowers. A figure for the best pastures, according to Williams, for in such lilies appear to have grown spontaneously; or for sweet and lovely pastures, according to Poole, where there is not only herbage to feed them, but lilies to delight them. Fry suggests as the connection between the clauses of the verse: let him drive his flock to pasture in the flowery meads and I will accompany him. Ainsworth, Henry, Words. and others find in the lilies a figurative reference to the bride herself as the object of his fond attachment, and one who had been compared to a lily among thorns, Son 2:2.]

[54][Good: Till the day breathe. The expression is truly elegant and poetical. At midnight all nature lies dead and lifeless. The shadows, however, at length fly; the morning breathes and nature revivifies. The intrinsic excellence of the metaphor has seldom been understood by our commentators, who have almost all of them referred it to the day breeze of the country, or at least to that peculiar current of air which is often found existing in most climates at the dawn. Williams: Return, my beloved, and remain with me until the day breathe. Noyes: This is understood by many of the morning. But the more recent commentators refer it to sunset or the evening. Wordsw.: Before the first cool gales of the evening.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

DISCOURSE: 850
PERSEVERANCE CROWNED WITH SUCCESS

Son 3:1-4. By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth; I sought him, but I found him not. I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mothers house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

ONE peculiar excellence of the Song of Solomon is, that it delineates with admirable beauty and precision the workings of the believers soul under all the varieties of Christian experience. In the first conversion of the soul, God communicates his blessings unsolicited, unsought; so that it may be justly said, He is found of them that sought him not [Note: Isa 65:1.]: but in our subsequent walk with God, we may sometimes find occasion to complain, I sought him, but I found him not. Thus it was with the Bride in the passage before us: and her conduct under these circumstances is instructive, as the issue of it is encouraging to the Church of God in all ages. In our remarks on the Brides experience, we shall notice,

1.

Her persevering exertions

When it is said, By night on my bed I sought him, we are not to take the words in a literal, but figurative sense, as expressing the cold and listless way in which the Bride had sought her Beloved: and it is no wonder that, when sought in such a way, he did not vouchsafe to manifest himself unto her. Disappointed in her hopes, she rose, and went about the city, seeking him in the streets and broad ways, accounting no time unseasonable, no labour too great, for the attainment of an object so dear to her as a sight of her Beloved. Still however her labour was in vain: she sought him, but found him not. And thus the Lord Jesus Christ still frequently for a season suspends the manifestations of his love, and leaves in darkness the soul that seeks him. This he does,

1.

To correct our lukewarmness

[Lukewarmness in his people is most offensive to him [Note: Rev 3:16.]; and, when indulged, grieves his Spirit, and provokes him to hide his face from us. He has told us in the Prophets, that we must not expect to find him, unless we seek him with our whole hearts [Note: Jer 29:12-13.]. How solemn is that warning which he has given in his Gospel; Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able [Note: Luk 13:24.]. What wonder is it therefore if he punish our sloth by a long suspension of his visits, and make us to eat of the bitter fruit of our own ways? By such a dispensation he plainly says to us, Hast thou not procured this unto thyself, in that thou hast forsaken me, when I led thee by the way? Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God [Note: Jer 2:17; Jer 2:19.].]

2.

To stimulate our desires after him

[Our souls ought to pant after him, as the hart after the water-brooks; yea, they should break for the very fervent desire which we have towards him [Note: Psa 119:20.]. But if a listless and inoperative wish would suffice, we should never exert ourselves as we ought. Had the Bride succeeded by seeking her Beloved on her bed, she would never have risen to seek him in the streets of the city: and, if we could attain in a way of self-indulgence the rewards of self-denying exertion, we should be too ready to say to our souls, Soul, take thine ease. But our Lord has told us, that his favour is not to be sought in such a way as that: he has said, that the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence; and that the violent must take it by force: and he withholds from us the manifestations of his love, on purpose that he may quicken us in our pursuit of him, and stimulate us to put forth into activity the devoutest energies of our souls [Note: Hos 5:15.].]

3.

To endear his presence to us

[To the temporary loss which the Bride had sustained must be ascribed the zeal with which she afterwards held fast her Beloved: and we well know how the Courts of the Lord were endeared to David by his long banishment from them, under the persecutions of Saul, and during the rebellion of Absalom. And, no doubt, in proportion as we are led into deep waters, will be our gratitude for deliverance from them [Note: Psa 40:1-3.]: in proportion as we have passed through the afflictive scenes of David, will be the zeal and ardour with which we shall henceforth make boast of our great Deliverer: Who is so great a God as our God [Note: Psa 77:1-4; Psa 77:13.]? When we feel that we have had much forgiven us, we shall love much.]

The Bride however used not her exertions in vain; as we see by,

II.

The successful issue of them

[In her search after her Beloved, she inquired of the watchmen, whether they had seen him, or could give her any intelligence respecting him. And, soon after she had parted with them, she found him. By the watchmen, we understand the ministers of God, who watch for souls, whose special commission is, to strengthen the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees, and to say to the fearful heart, Fear not; your God will come and save you [Note: Isa 35:3-4.]. And it should seem that it was in following her directions she attained her end. But, however this might be, we see clearly from her example, that persevering endeavours shall be crowned with success.]

This is expressly promised by God himself
[Exceeding strong is that declaration of our blessed Lord; Ask, and ye shall have; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened [Note: Mat 7:7-8.]. It is not said indeed that the answer shall be given, as it was to Daniel, in the very act of prayer: but it is secured from the first moment that we ask in faith; and it shall be given in the best manner, and at the fittest time; according as the Prophet Hosea has said; Then shall ye know, if ye follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and the former rain, unto the earth [Note: Hos 6:3.]. The vision is for an appointed time: and if we wait for it, it shall come, and not tarry an instant beyond the time fixed in the counsels of unerring wisdom [Note: Hab 2:3 and Heb 10:37.].]

It is also confirmed by actual experience
[The poor Canaanitess who was so urgent in her supplications to Christ to come and heal her daughter, met with a denial; and such a denial as seemed to preclude any hope of ultimate success; He answered her not a word. The Disciples then interceded for her, and requested, that she might be dismissed with a favourable answer, if it was only to prevent her from wearying them with her entreaties: yet they also were refused, and in such a manner as effectually to silence them: I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Still however she would not give up all hope, but with deeper prostration than before renewed her petition: but the answer she received was more discouraging than before, in that it blamed her presumption in hoping to participate in any respect the blessings which were designed only for Gods peculiar people: It is not meet to take the childrens bread, and cast it unto dogs. Who would believe, that, after all this, she should persevere in her request, and succeed at last? Yet so she did [Note: Mat 15:22-28.]: and such shall be the success of every child of man that continues instant in prayer. To this effect our Lord assures us, in a parable which was spoken for the express purpose of encouraging persons to pray and not faint. A poor widow, we are told, obtained redress from an unjust judge through mere dint of her importunity: and from thence we are taught to draw this inference; And shall not God avenge his own elect who cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you, that he will avenge them speedily [Note: Luk 18:1-8.]. Here then we are warranted in affirming that the Brides success shall be realized in us, if only, like her, we rise to the occasion, and press through every impediment to the enjoyment of our God. God never did, nor ever will, say to any, Seek ye my face in vain.]

But that we may profit more fully by the example of the Bride, let us notice,

III.

The use she made of her success

Having found her Beloved, she held him and would not let him go, till she had brought him into her mothers house, where she hoped her communion with him would be more intimate, and free from interruption. And thus should we also,

1.

Exert ourselves to retain the Saviour with us

[There is a holy violence which we are permitted to use, like that of Jacob, who wrestled all night with the Angel, and said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me [Note: Gen 32:24-28.]. But how often, for want of this, is our enjoyment of the Saviour short and transient, like the early dew, or the morning cloud that passeth away! We should stir ourselves up to lay hold on him; and, if he would leave us, we must constrain him, as the disciples at Emmaus did, to take up his abode with us [Note: Luk 24:28-29.]. We should dread nothing so much as the loss of his presence: and knowing what a holy and a jealous God he is, we should strive with all imaginable care to hold him fast, and avoid every thing which may grieve his Spirit, and provoke him to depart from us.]

2.

Seek to enjoy the most intimate communion with him

[The Church, which is the Mother of us all [Note: Gal 4:26.], may be considered as the place to which the Bride strove to bring her Beloved. And we also, both in the closet and the Church, should seek such manifestations of his love, as cannot be enjoyed in the noise and bustle of the world. In all the ordinances of his grace, and at his holy table especially, we should labour to ensure his presence; since without him they are only as wells without water, which fill with shame and confusion the thirsty soul [Note: Jer 14:3.]. Nor be satisfied with any small communications of his grace and peace: seek the largest possible measure of them, even to be filled with all the fulness of God. In a word, so dwell in him, and let him dwell in you; and so be one with him, and let him be one with you; that you may even now, in communion with him, have an earnest of the blessedness of heaven, even of that joy, all fulness of which is at his right hand for evermore.]

From her example, let us learn,
1.

To fix our hearts supremely on the Lord Jesus Christ

[Four times does the Bride designate him by this character, Him whom my soul loveth. Let him be familiarized to us also under the same endearing name. O let him be in our estimation fairer than ten thousand, and altogether lovely; so that, if he interrogate us as he did Peter, Lovest thou me? we may be able to make the same appeal to him as Peter did, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.]

2.

Not to indulge sloth in our pursuit of him

[The idle soul shall suffer hunger; but the diligent soul shall be made fat. What darkness have many brought upon their souls by their unwatchfulness! Peter was warned by our Lord to watch and pray, that he might not enter into temptation. But Peter slept; and, though repeatedly awaked and reproved, gave way to sloth again, the instant he was left to himself. What advantage Satan took of him, we all know, and what were the bitter fruits of his supineness. Let us be sober and vigilant. Let us not pray upon our bed, as regardless whether we are heard or not, but let us stir up ourselves to lay hold on Christ; and then cleave unto him with full purpose of heart. If we would succeed in our pursuit of heavenly joys, we must not only pray, but watch unto prayer with all perseverance.]

3.

Not to yield to despondency, because we find him not so present with us as we could wish

[We are very apt to be impatient under the hidings of his face, and to conclude, that he has utterly forsaken us. This was the fault of the Church in the days of old: but God expostulated with her, and reproved her [Note: Isa 40:28-31.] and assured her, that she was so indelibly engraven on the palms of his hands, that he could not possibly forget her [Note: Isa 49:14-16.]: he might indeed forsake her for a moment, but with everlasting kindness would he have mercy upon her [Note: Isa 54:7-8.]. If then similar fears arise in your breast, say as David did, after he had unhappily given way to them, This is mine infirmity [Note: Psa 77:7-10.]. Be assured, that God, who is faithful to his promises, will never leave you nor forsake you [Note: Heb 13:5-6.]: that if you seek him, he will be found of you [Note: 2Ch 15:2.]: and that in due season you shall reap, if you faint not [Note: Gal 6:9.].]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

CONTENTS

The church is here in a season of sharp exercises: seeking, but not immediately finding her Lord. She relates the conflicts she sustained in her pursuit and enquiry after Jesus. Having at length, found him, she rejoices in the discovery. The chapter closeth with an account of the King’s glory.

Son 3:1

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

We left the spouse of Christ in the close of the preceding chapter, in a very comfortable, and even rejoicing state; for she was sitting down under the confidence that she was her beloved’s, and her beloved was her’s. But we have a great change of circumstances in the opening of this chapter. Evidently Christ had withdrawn himself, and the church was sensible of it. A great instruction ariseth from hence, which all the followers of the Lord should be earnest to learn. When the Lord, at anytime hides his face from the house of Jacob, it is specially with a view to make his people know his value, and more earnestly to prize his presence; and, though he seemeth to withdraw and hide himself; yet, it is but to excite their greater desires after him. And I beg the Reader particularly to remark with me, that the church being made sensible of her Lord’s departure, and determining to seek him, becomes at once a plain proof that there was no change in Jesus’s love; for, by his grace, he was still working upon her heart to seek him. And I beg the Reader also to remark, that the church’s going forth to seek Christ, was as plain a proof that dark seasons and dull frames do not altogether make dead the life of God in the soul. Jesus was still Him, whom her soul loved; though, if needs be, the soul is in heaviness through manifold temptations. Reader! though it be night often, when our souls are wanting fresh communion with Jesus, and we return from seeking after him without success, yet, it should support our minds during the trying hour, that Jesus’s love, and our covenant interest in Christ, do not depend upon what we feel, but upon what Christ is. Read that precious scripture, for it is a sweet one; Joh 13:1 . Jesus having loved his own which are in the world, he loveth them unto the end.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Seeking the Beloved

Son 3:1

We so often ask and do not receive: we so often seek and do not find. And yet our Lord, the Eternal Truth and the Eternal Wisdom says, ‘Every one that asketh, receiveth, and he that seeketh, findeth’. How can these things be?

I. The very words of the Bride here will help us. When did she seek? ‘By night:’ that is, in the time of affliction. ‘By night:’ that is, not before the night. When everything then went well and; smoothly, she did not seek: when fearfulness and trembling came upon her, and a horrible dread overwhelmed her, then, as the Psalmist says, ‘In her trouble she called unto the Lord, and complained unto her God’ Well: and it is much to do that; but it is not the highest kind of seeking. No; it was not seeking her Lord early; and, therefore, no wonder that He did not answer early.

II. But we go on. ‘By night on my bed I sought.’ There we get the true answer. This idle, halfhearted seeking this seeking which is without trouble this seeking which is not seeking: this will never find; And yet how apt we all are you know it in your own consciences to fall into this! To take a little trouble when only the greatest will do: like King Joash, to smite three times and then to stop.

III. How does it go on? ‘I will rise.’ The very exact thing that has to be done. ‘Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.’ You must set about your work in real earnest; pray, if not oftener, at least more heartily; search and try your ways more carefully; and, mind I will rise by and by will not do. I will rise now, the Bride says. This is the excellent determination; and now, I dare say, we shall find it crowned with success.

Let us see: ‘I will rise now, and seek Him Whom my soul loveth. I sought Him;’ but this is strange, too; for the verse ends: ‘I sought Him, but I found Him not’. This is more perplexing than the other. Let us try and make out now it is.

First I sought Him where? ‘I will go about the city, in the streets, and in the broad ways, I will seek Him Whom my soul loveth.’ Ah, that is not where He is to be found! The cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the lusts of other things we know what they do: they choke the word. You know how one of the greatest saints has told us that we are to seek for our Lord:

I seek for Jesus in repose

When round my heart its chambers close.

See how Hezekiah, in the time of his distress, found God. When Isaiah came unto Him and said Thus saith the Lord, set thine house in order, for thou shalt die and shalt not live. What did he do? Two things. In the first place, he turned himself to the wall; he shut out all cares, thoughts, business, but that of prayer; and, then, he wept sore. Retirement and repentance that was how he gained what he sought that is how we must gain what we seek.

J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Song of Songs, p. 127.

References. III. 1-5. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xliii. No. 2516. III. 4. Ibid. vol. xlii. No. 2485. III. 4, 5. Ibid. vol. xviii. No. 1035. III. 6-11. Ibid. vol. viii. No. 482. III. 7, 8. J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Song of Songs, p. 137. III. 9, 10. Ibid. pp. 151, 364. III. 10. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xix. No. 1134. III. 11. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. iii. p. 311. Talbot Greaves, The Joy of Jesus, Sermons, 1655-1884. IV. 6. J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Song of Songs, pp. 159, 172. A. G. Mortimer, Life and its Problems, p. 13. IV. 7. R. E. Hutton, The Crown of Christ, vol. i. p. 561. IV. 10, 11. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v. No. 282. IV. 12. Ibid. vol. xxxiii. No. 1957. IV. 12 and 15. Ibid. vol. viii. No. 431. J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Song of Songs, p. 184. IV. 14. J. Pulsford, Infoldings and Unfoldings of the Divine Genius, in Nature and Man, p. 1.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

Sowing and Reaping

Song of Son 2 and Song of Son 3

There is something very remarkable in the sweet words, “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away” ( Son 2:13 ). Wherever we find these words we should be gratified with their music, their simplicity, their human tenderness. When we apply them to Jesus Christ they are invested with new and large significance. Jesus Christ is always calling his Church away to some higher altitude, to some greener pasture, or by some quieter stream. The Church is always under inspiration. This is not the time for rest, finality; this is the time for marching, advancing, learning, putting into practice what we learn, and obeying the voice of one unseen but well known, calling us to go forward, though we are apparently going into thick darkness and into troubled seas. When did Jesus Christ ever say, You have made all the progress you can make: sit down and rest evermore; for there is nothing more that can be learned; at least, there is nothing more for you to acquire? That is not the voice of Jesus. We should contradict any one instantly and strongly who made the declaration that Jesus Christ had said, Men have now come to the end of their learning and their beneficence. Blessed is he who hears his Lord always saying, Arise, come away: you have not seen all yet; the real beauty is yet to be shown, the great harvest-field has yet to be reaped; you have hardly begun to live. Arise, come away, halt not, fear not; I have many more things to tell thee, and when thou art able to bear them thou shalt hear them one by one. It is a cheerful voice, and a voice that cheers. It is full of vivacity not the sharpness or shrillness that merely excites and arouses, but the deep music that expresses joy, and that always promises a larger blessing as yet in store. When we sit down, and say, This is the end; when we dismiss our energy; when we cease to put on our strength, then know that if we were once temples of God we have been forsaken by the living One. We must prove our Christianity by our progress; our love of Christ by understanding the present day, the immediate times, and responding to contemporaneous demands with cheerful alacrity and encouraging abundance: to-morrow will be an unread book; we must peruse it with the learning we have acquired to-day. Every morning brings with it some message from Christ, and that message is always an inspiring one, calling us to some new duty, some humble task, some great endeavour, some painful sacrifice.

Is it then all sunshine? Do we leave behind us all discipline? or is there a voice of warning to be attended to? Let us read these words: “Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: tor our vines have tender grapes” ( Son 2:15 ). There is nothing fanciful in regarding these “foxes” and “little foxes” as representing spiritual enemies or difficulties peculiar to our situation and capacity. The little foxes spoil the vines, the grapes. What are these little foxes? Which of us is guilty of some great heresy? who can stand up and say he belongs to the party of the great and violent apostasy? who will rank himself with those who openly blaspheme against heaven? Not a man. Who will charge himself with glaring crimes, with obvious and intentional rebellion against God? We do not err in that direction. These would indeed be great foxes, great displays of depravity a depravity that overleaps itself by its very extravagance and vulgarity. We need have little fear of ourselves along that line; we have lived too long and seen too much to commit ourselves to such gross profanity. But what of the little foxes the irregularities, the nameless indulgences, the self-consideration, the endless omissions? Who makes some great speech infamous in its conception and its rhetoric? No man at all connected with the sanctuary of God. But what about the little bitter speeches that spoil family communion, the petty criticisms, the malignant, half-concealed allusions, the reminiscences that are all sting, the odd sentences that give the hearer heartache all day? and what of concealed selfishness that worst kind of all, that gloves its hand, that cloaks its personality, that apes the attitude and speech of generosity; a calculated selfishness that touches and retires, that asks as if not asking, that claims as if not asserting, but persistently pursues its own policy and its own advantage? There, if the question be pressed severely, we shall fall at one stroke, and be taken captive instantly and completely.

Have we got rid of the larger evils? Then attention must be directed to what are known as minor evils the little foxes, the little blotches upon the character, the small aberrations that require an eye of spiritual criticism to see that they are aberrations at all. We can draw a rough circle with a practised hand, but lay the compass upon it, and then see how defective it is when brought under the judgment of a true geometry. So we may in life do many things tolerably well, wonderfully well, so well as to attract attention and elicit commendation, but when the compasses of the sanctuary are laid upon our circles, the best of them is but a rough polygon; it is no circle at all. Yet to the eye it looks quite right. But what is the eye of the body? What can it see? What can it judge? It is dependent upon atmosphere and distance, and at the very best it is a lame judge of straight lines or circular lines. We must be judged by the spirit of the sanctuary, by the genius of the altar, by the Holy Ghost, and then so judged there is fire enough in the criticism to burn us as with the scorching of hell.

“Our vines have tender grapes.” In our life there are budding thoughts. Do we know what we do when we destroy a blossom? Who can measure the disaster? Who can compute the loss? It is in blossoming and budding time that we have to take great care: then the frost tells heavily, then the cold wind is very cruel, and the toiling insect seems to carry everything before it. So many of us have been cruelly used at budding time. We have had beautiful blossoms of character. Who cannot remember these? Once we nearly prayed; at one time men took notice of us that there was a new element in our character, and they expected us to become religious; but some little fox destroyed the tender grape, or some great enmity was discovered, and it fell upon us like a cold wind; some senior professor snubbed us, was unkind to us, did not understand us, so the blossom was taken away, and where the blossom is destroyed what fruit can there be? Take care of first impressions, little budding thoughts, tender blossoms of moral aspiration, for in these are the beginnings of good character. Take care of the little things, the apparent trifles; the great main lines of character may be left to other influences and to broader culture. So then if we are called away to sunny places, to paradises, to fruitful gardens, there is difficulty, there is danger, and there is a need of discipline.

Again in chapter Son 3:8 we have the same idea “Every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night.” Who expected to find these words in a love-song? We thought we had passed all the hard books of Scripture, and had now come into a garden of delights, a very paradise of love; yet here are military words. Who can escape the military and disciplinary part of life? To have a sword may be ornamental, to have a sword in the daytime may look well; but what of the sword never taken off, ready at night-time, ready for all the messengers of darkness? What about this aspect of life? Yet who does not know it? Who is not aware of the fact that he must never take his sword off night or day? Why not? Because of the unexpected visitations which distress our life, because of temptations which give no notice of their coming, because we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world. That is why! Do we part with our sword? Do we say, Surely at night-time there can be no need for the sword, so we will lay it aside, and commit ourselves to rest, and to dream, and sweet converse? The enemy overhears us; the enemy knows who has the sword on and who has laid the sword away. He is a wise enemy skilful, penetrating, sagacious, unslumbering; we cannot fight him in our own wit and skill and strength; we need all heaven’s help to strike that foe fatally on the head. So whilst we have been enjoying the beauty of the song, its rare music, and have simply given ourselves up to the swinging rhythm of the singer, we must now obey the same inspiration, and if it was worth while to follow him when he spoke highly and sweetly concerning love and treasure and peace and joy, we must also obey him when he speaks of care and watchfulness and discipline. And as for this night-time, has God no care of it? Are there any Christian references to night-time in the New Testament? “At midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh”: “The Son of man will come as a thief in the night.” Has not God made use of the night-time? When did the song which we associate with the gospel make itself heard by the sons of men? At midnight there was an angel, and with the angel a great host, and the song sung in that star-time was, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.” Do not think, therefore, that God has no sanctuary in the darkness; do not suppose that God retires from the providence of life at sundown, and takes no heed of it until the sun rises again. If the enemy is abroad at night so is God; he neither slumbers nor sleeps; he gives no rest to his eyelids. The darkness and the light are both alike unto thee, thou living, all-seeing God. So we must keep the two sides of the case clearly before us. The enemy seems to rule the night, but he does not in reality. It would sometimes appear as if the field of darkness were left wholly to the great foe: not one single cloud of it but is under the dominion and hand and care and love of God. “Clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne.” He comes down upon the clouds; the clouds are the dust of his feet. Let no man, therefore, imagine that night indicates God’s having forsaken the earth; it indicates rather the curtaining-in of the earth when it lies down to sleep in his infinite arms.

Notice another beautiful expression “Behold king Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him” ( Son 3:11 ). Does that always mean something beautiful? Not always, as history has abundantly and painfully testified. Mothers have given crowns they had no right to give. Bad women have promised kingdoms to their husbands, and have succeeded in conferring those kingdoms upon them without title that could be justified, without one tittle of righteousness marking the whole process. Yet who has such right to give a crown to a son as a mother? What other crown is worth having? Behold, King Solomon, with the crown that his mother crowned him with. The image is beautiful, instructive, encouraging. What chances the mother has! she is always near; she sees when the gate of the mind is ajar, and she can enter in, as it were, stealthily, with all the quietness and tenderness of patient love. How soon she can begin! No other workman can be upon the ground so early as the mother. What questions are put to her! What answers she may return! Yet how soon is she forgotten! Who remembers Bath-sheba except in connection with shame? Surely it required some one to speak of her in connection with the coronation of her son. Life is a mixed quantity: we are bad, yet sometimes we pray; we sin much, yet to-morrow we may touch the divine arm, and see the King in his beauty; now scorched with hell, now blessed and calmed with all heaven’s peace. True, we could go back and find out painful things in every history; but who cares to do this mean work? Who would live in such criticism? Has the man, the woman, ever done any beautiful thing, spoken any sweet word, gone out in sacrifice? has he, has she, been patient; thoughtful, unselfish, forgiving? In the name of reason, conscience, righteousness, let us magnify these instances, and allow all other matters to fall away into forgetfulness.

“The crown wherewith his mother crowned him” ( Son 3:11 ) the crown of love of truth, love of honour, love of service; other crowns are trivial, other crowns are tinsel. The great Napoleon once said, “Who rocks the cradle rules the world.” When that is believed in all the scope of its significance we shall see reformation without injustice, revolution without violence, the quiet dawn which always typifies the greatest of renewals and the greatest of beginnings. When Plato saw a child do wrong he went instantly and rebuked the parent. Truly he was a wise philosopher! Plato did not speak to the child; he did not imagine the child had invented some new depravity; he did not say, Thou art a genius in evil, thou hast found out quite a novel wickedness, and therefore I must address thee in thy personality. Without heeding the child he went and rebuked the parent. What a grasp of true wisdom he had! what a conception of the mystery of heredity! He was right. How can the parent draw himself up with pharisaic pride and rebuke the child? The child is but the man reduplicated; the child owes its birth to the man who rebukes him. Is your child a drunkard? So were you, or, if not you, the one behind you. This child of yours never invented the game of intemperance: he is not a discoverer in the art of wickedness. But you say you never were a drunkard? Wait. Be not quite so sure of that. Not perhaps in the open, obvious, vulgar sense of the term; but recall what you have done in that way, how you accustomed yourself to almost miracles in the way of drinking and self-indulgence. You did it little by little; the process did not seem to tell upon you; or there were circumstances in your case which mitigated the effect of the poison as to the public eye and as to your own consciousness, but all the while the mischief went on, and it comes up in that son who gives you heartache day by day. Are your children incapable, nervous, irritable, difficult to manage and govern? Blame yourselves. You wasted your constitution in your youth. The child inherits what you laid up. Every nervous fit is something you ought to be sorry for, and something for which you ought to apologise to the child. There are many murders committed without any blood being shed. When will people know that every thought they think tells upon the next generation: that every bad thought that passes through the brain repeats itself in the coming time? When will men remember that they cannot stay out late at night doing evil things without the black seed coming up in a black harvest? You look at the child and say you are surprised, for you began this practice and that practice when you were in your teens; if it is a poison, it is a very slow poison, for it has had no effect upon you. Supposing that you have been rough enough, hard enough, to bear the process yourself, yet see the full effect of the thing in those who have come after you: the process does not end with you; it only began mayhap in your instance: you must follow it out to your children, and if you see them incapable, nervous, irritable, worldly, drunken, beastly, do not pull yourself up in some haughty pharisaic attitude and begin to lecture them fall down in the dust, and say, God be merciful to me a sinner: I have murdered children! Blessed be God, the law tells also upon the other side. Every noble thought you think has an effect upon the little child. Every generous deed you did comes up in beauty on that child’s sweet face; the child never would have had such a visage but for your beneficence, pureness, religiousness; if you had prayed less the child’s countenance would have been less suggestive of the highest significance. “The way of the Lord is equal.” If we have done evil, evil we shall reap; if we have done good, our harvest shall be an abundance of good in return: “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” You have it not in your power, it may be, to leave your child gold. Thank God for the child that has little gold left. It is almost certain temptation; it is almost probable ruin. Bless God that the little child has to count its fingers, and see how many it has which it can employ as instruments of honest labour. But you can leave your child a beautiful example; you can so live that the child will be able to say, I never knew him do a mean thing; I never knew her carried away with vanity and folly; I have always known both the old folks sweet, kind, patient, longsuffering: God bless them. Epitaph they may have none in the churchyard, but they have an epitaph written upon the tablets of my heart. To work for such a speech is task enough for any angel.

One greater than Solomon is crowned. We read that on his head are many crowns. He deserves them all. He is Lord of all

As for us, this is the rule: No cross, no crown; no sword, no sceptre; no storm, no calm. Thus a new view of the song comes before us. Hitherto we have been enjoying it as a piece of music; now we must listen to it as a law, a call to duty, a warning, and yet a promise. If we suffer with Christ we shall also reign with him. “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.” That is enough. We will think of the music, and think of the discipline; we will remember the beauty, and not forget all the service; we will think of the promise, and know that the promise lies on the farther side of the cross, and that they who bear the cross well shall wear the crown evermore.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

(See the Song of Solomon Book Comments for other methods of interpreting the Song of Solomon)

XXX

AN INTERPRETATION OF THE SONG OF SOLOMON AS AN ALLEGORY

According to the first verse, the title of this book is “The Song of Songs,” and the author was Solomon. The Vulgate has the title, Canticum Canticorum, from which comes the title, “Canticles,” by which it is sometimes called and to which the references in some English versions are made. This title, as it appears here, implies that it is the choicest of all songs, in keeping with the saying of an early writer that “the entire world, from the beginning until now, does not outweigh the day in which Canticles was given to Israel.”

The parts of the book are marked with a refrain, thus: I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, By the roes, or by the hinds of the field, That ye stir not up, nor awake my love, Until he please, Song of Son 2:7 ; Song of Son 3:5 ; Song of Son 8:4 .

It will be noted that the second line in Song of Son 8:4 is omitted, perhaps, because it had been given twice before and the shortened form suited better the purpose of the author here.

It is well at this point to fix in mind the representative characters of the book, so as to make clear the interpretation and application. In this allegory the Shulammite may represent souls collectively, but more aptly applied to the individual soul seeking Christ. The daughters of Jerusalem represent the church. Solomon represents Christ, and the watchmen represent the spiritual leaders, such as priests, prophets, and preachers.

The prologue expresses the desire of a soul for Christ, a prayer to be drawn to him, conversion, and a consciousness of unworthiness.

In Part I the soul is instructed to seek its lover at the feeding places of the flock, or places where Christ meets his people; as, in meetings, etc., and upon their meeting they express their love for each other in which the soul is represented as being completely enraptured by its first love to Christ.

In Part II we have the beautiful serenade in which Christ is represented as entreating this new convert to come away and separate herself from her people and everything that might cause alienation. But upon neglect to heed this entreaty the little foxes, that is, little sins creep in and alienation is the result. So she sends him away till the cool of the day so characteristic of the soul that is neglectful of its early Christian duties. But soon she goes out to seek him another characteristic of the sheep that has wandered away from its shepherd and the flock. As she goes out to seek him she meets the city watchmen and inquires of them likewise the soul thus realizing its need at this point makes inquiry of spiritual leaders. She soon finds him and brings him to her mother’s house, thus representing the soul that has not left its former associations.

In Part III we have the procession of Solomon coming out to her to take her to his own home. Here he praises her, wooes her, and pleads with her to come away from her old associations. She is won and agrees to go with him, but when he knocks at the door she is half asleep and does not open to him. Her indifference brings about another alienation, and he leaves. Soon she arises to open, but, alas! he has grown tired of waiting and has gone away. She seeks him again, but the preachers (city watchmen) make it hard for her this time, upon which she appeals to the members of the church (daughters of Jerusalem) and they test her with a question, whereupon she declares her appreciation of him in a most glowing description of him. Then they submit the second test by asking another question as to his whereabouts. Here she understands perfectly as to his abiding place, which she shows them. While this is going on he draws near, speaking of his love. Surely, it is a sweet thought that, while we are talking about Christ and praising him, he draws near and is mindful of us, though we have suffered the little foxes to do their work and have not heeded every knock upon the door by our Lord. As he is thinking and speaking of her he sees her in the distance and exclaims, Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, Fair as the moon, Clear as the sun, Terrible as an army with banners?

After telling where he had been he pleads again, very earnestly, for her return. In the remaining part of this division they converse with each other and he wooes her again and she agrees to leave all and go with him into the fields and villages.

In Part IV the daughters describe them as they proceed toward his house, conversing with each other of love in which she shows love to be the strongest thing in the world.

The Epilogue contains the vows of the woman to do her part and applies beautifully to the loyalty of the soul espoused to Christ.

Now, I call attention to the prayers of the Shulammite which indicate the conflict and progress of the Christian life. These are as follows: Draw me; we will run after thee: The king hath brought me into his chambers; We will be glad and rejoice in thee; We will make mention of thy love more than of wine: Rightly do they love thee. (Song of Son 1:4 ) Tell me, O thou, whom my soul loveth, Where thou feedest thy flock, Where thou makest it to rest at noon: For why should I be as one that is veiled Beside the flocks of thy companions? (Song of Son 1:7 ) Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; Blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, And eat his precious fruits. (Song of Son 4:16 ) Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; Let us lodge in the villages. (Song of Son 7:11 ) Set me as a seal upon thy heart, As a seal upon thine arm: For love is strong as death; Jealousy is cruel as Sheol; The flashes thereof are flashes of fire, A very flame of Jehovah. (Song of Son 8:6 )

Two of the most beautiful passages in the book are the Serenade, which pictures all nature calling to activity, and the passage on Love and Jealousy, showing love to be “The Greatest Thing in the World.” These passages are well adapted to the theme of the book and furnish an appropriate closing for our discussion on “The Poetical Books of the Bible.” THE SERENADE My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past; The rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; The time of the singing of birds is come, And the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land; The fig-tree ripeneth her green figs, And the vines are in blossom; They give forth their fragrance, Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, In the covert of the steep place, Let me see thy countenance, Let me hear thy voice; For sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely. The Song of Son 2:10-14

LOVE AND JEALOUSY

Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thine arm: For love is strong as death; Jealousy is cruel as Sheol; The flashes thereof are flashes of fire, A very flame of Jehovah. Many waters cannot quench love, Neither can floods drown it: If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, He would utterly be condemned. The Song of Son 8:6-7

QUESTIONS

1. According to Song of Son 1:1 , what is the title and who is the author of The Song of Solomon?

2. How are the parts of the book marked?

3. Whom does the Shulammite represent?

4. Whom do the daughters of Jerusalem represent?

5. Whom does Solomon represent?

6. Whom do the watchmen represent?

7. What is the spiritual interpretation and application of the Prologue?

8. What is the spiritual interpretation and application of Part I?

9. What is the spiritual interpretation and application of Part II?

10. What is the story and spiritual application of Part III?

11. What is the interpretation of Part IV?

12. What are the contents of the Epilogue and its application?

13. What are the prayers of the Shulammite?

14. What to you are the moat beautiful passages in the book and in what consists their beauty?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Son 3:1 By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

Ver. 1. By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth. ] She had not a name good enough for him, she therefore makes use of this powerful periphrasis. Before he had been “her beloved,” but now “the love of her soul,” because now he had withdrawn himself. It was night with her now; she “walked in darkness, and had no light,” as Isa 50:10 , and as before daybreak the darkness is greatest, so was it now with the woeful spouse. She was indeed upon her bed of ease, but to her in this case it was a little ease, a bed of unrest; her soul was tossed and troubled with solitary seeking, longing and looking after him whom “her soul loved.” “By night,” therefore, or “night after night,” sundry nights together, as some read it, “she sought and sought,” being constant, instant, and indefatigable in the search; she sought him early and earnestly, with utmost attention and affection, with her “whole heart and soul,” Jer 29:13 according to the measure of her love to him, which was modus sine modo, as Bernard hath it. Now whatsoever a man loves, that he desires, and what he desires, that he seeks after, especially if he apprehend some singular worth in it. “In Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Col 2:3 He is “better than rubies,” saith Solomon, “and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared unto him.” Pro 8:11 Hence the good soul seeks him as eagerly as the mammonist seeks silver, the ambitionist honour, the famished man bread, the condemned prisoner a pardon, or as one that seeks for a lost jewel, he overlooks all till he hath found it; Christ I must have, saith she, whatever it cost me – this gold cannot be bought too dear. She longeth sore, as David did, saying, “Oh that one would give me of the water of the well of Bethlehem!” 1Ch 11:17 Oh for a blessed armful of the babe of Bethlehem! such as Simeon once had; give me Christ or else I die. None but Christ, none but Christ. All is but dung and dross to Christ. Php 3:8 God offered Moses an angel to go along with them in the wilderness; he would have no angel, nor stir a step unless God himself would conduct them. Barak would not march without Deborah, &c.

I found him not, ] i.e., I had not so full a presence nor so fast hold of him as I desired. He had got behind the wall or the window, as in the former chapter, and, Joseph like, concealed his love out of increasement of love, as also that he may stir up strong affections after him in the hearts of his people, for he well enough knows how to commend his mercies to us, as Laban did his daughter Rachel to Jacob – by holding us off – by suspending us for a season. Even barren Leah, when unloved and unlooked on, becomes fruitful; and the drowsy spouse, when she misseth her beloved, becomes restless till she have recovered him. “In their affliction they will seek me early.” Hos 5:15 Affliction excites devotion, and makes the saints seek again with a redoubled diligence, as here. See Psa 78:34-35 . It fares with the best sometimes as it did with St Paul and his company in the shipwreck, Act 27:20 when they saw neither sun nor stars for many days and nights together. In this dismal and disconsolate condition, if they can but cast anchor and pray still for day, Christ will appear (as here, Son 3:3 ), and all shall clear up; the day will dawn, and the daystar appear in their hearts. “Mourning lasteth but till morning,” Psa 30:5 and “the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: it will surely come, it will not tarry.” Hab 2:3 But what shall we do in the meanwhile? may some say. How shall we sustain our spirits, since “hope deferred makes the heart sick?” “Though it tarry, wait for it,” saith the prophet. Have patience, and learn to “live by faith. The just shall live by his faith.” Son 3:4 We are usually too hasty, and do antedate the promises. Neither will any reason satisfy us, unless we may have all Christ’s sweetness at once, and at present. Excellent is that discourse that Mr Bradford the martyr makes in a consolatory letter to a good woman that was troubled in conscience. a You are not content, saith he, to kiss Christ’s feet, with Magdalen, but you would be kissed even with the kisses of his mouth. You would see his face, with Moses, forgetting how he biddeth to seek his face, Psa 27:8 yea, and that for ever, Psa 105:4 which signifieth no such sight as you desire to see in this present life, which would see God now face to face, whereas he cannot be seen but covered under something, yea, sometime in that which is clean contrary unto God, as to see his mercy in his anger, &c. How did Job see God, but, as ye would say, under Satan’s cloak? &c. You know that Moses, when he went to the mount to talk with God, he entered into a dark cloud; and Elias had his face covered when God passed by. Both these dear friends of God heard God, but saw him not. But you would be preferred before them. See now, my dear heart, how covetous you are. All, be thankful! be thankful! But, God be thanked, your covetousness is Moses’ covetousness. Well, with him you shall be satisfied. But when? Forsooth when he shall appear, &c. God would have his people discontentedly contented with what measures of grace and feelings they have attained unto, and to know that tota vita boni Christiani sanctum desiderium est, b the whole life of a good Christian is a holy desire after more, and that those very pantings, inquietations, and dissatisfaction cannot but spring from truth of grace and some taste of Christ.

a Acts and Mon., 1490.

b Bernard.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Song of Solomon Chapter 3

Son 3 .

We have seen how faithful is the Bridegroom’s attention to that Zion whom He loved and chose, and will in the end reclaim from all her long folly and from the hand of all her foes; and that the making of her heart true and responsive to His love is the object of this book. That there is a principle common to every believing heart, and so to the church as a whole, is certain and important, so it is with scripture generally. But it is as important to discern that Christ’s special relationship here is with the Jewish bride for the earth, as in the Pauline Epistles and the Revelation with the church, the Lamb’s wife for the heavens, though now rightly anticipated and enjoyed in the Spirit on earth. Truth has suffered through the same unbelieving ignorance, which has for ages since the apostles blotted out these immense differences, and merged O. and N. Testaments in the confusion of heaven and earth, Israel and the church, the present and the future, in one vague and undefined object of mercy from the beginning to the end of time, in collision with all scripture, to the enfeebling of truth, to the darkening of divine purposes and love, and to the sad marring of the affections, worship, and walk of faith, especially in Christians.

To us all is sovereign grace reigning through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. The consequence is that believers, whether from Jews or Gentiles, are brought out of darkness into God’s marvellous light by the gospel, and, resting on redemption in Christ through His blood, are sealed with the Holy Spirit; as by the same Spirit they are baptised into one body and made God’s habitation (Eph 1:2 ). The Christian, the church, thus blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ, is responsible to walk accordingly, together no less than as individuals. If souls go back, it is fatal, as we see in Heb 10 , whatever the grace that restores the repentant faithful; if there is public corruption maintained in pride under the plea of unity, as in Babylon and her daughters, there is no restoration but divine judgment.

With Israel it is wholly different. Her backsliding and rebellion under the law, the Jewish rejection of the Messiah, inexcusable as all was, are wholly different from the apostacy after redemption and the presence of the Spirit sent down from heaven. The Lord will come to take His own who await Him to the Father’s house, when apostate Christendom and the mass of the Jews will ripen for judgment, which the Lord will execute as the second and displayed act of His advent, after working by grace in both Israel and the Gentiles separately (not in one body as now), as we see in Rev 7 and elsewhere, to prepare earthly witnesses of His saving mercy before the beginning of the millennial age. Thus both heaven and earth are to have appropriate denizens, the O. T. saints and the church on high in their glorified bodies, saved Jews and Gentiles in their natural bodies, the living demonstration of His blessed power as a King reigning in righteousness, when the Man of God’s right hand receives the kingdom that all the peoples may serve Him. The God of peace will bruise Satan under the feet of His saints.

But as long as the church is being called and formed for heavenly glory, the veil lies on Israel’s heart: whensoever it shall turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away (that is, in the interval during which the church is caught up, and before the Lord appears with His saints in glory). This interval has divine light cast dispensationally on it, largely in Daniel, and in the Revelation yet more. The Psalms richly express the working of conscience and heart in them, their hopes and their distress Godward, when converted but not brought into settled peace till they see the Lord and have the Spirit poured on them, as we have had since Pentecost. But it is a great error to confound that first and real work of grace, in which souls to be fully blest are born of God, with the rest and deliverance which only come through learning our own powerlessness as well as guilt and need, and thereon finding all met in Christ and His redemption. The Song of Songs supplies another lack, the bringing of the Israel of God, the earthly bride, into the sense of Messiah’s personal relation and love to the people of His choice.

It need not be said that we have what is analogous in that bridal affection, so feebly developed among us, the saints since apostolic days, though we are already one spirit with the Lord before He come and the marriage of the Lamb celebrated on high. Hence, as we have in the N. T. no special book of psalms and hymns provided for us but are capacitated to pour them forth from hearts filled with the Spirit, so we have not like Israel the need of a book analogous to Canticles for kindling and strengthen our affections, as they will find here supplied in the most direct way. The sad truth is that Israel was married to Jehovah, as the prophets remind the people (Isa 54 ; Jer 3 ), and their unfaithfulness is branded therefore, not like the N. T. Babylon as prostitution, but as adultery (so in Hos 3 and elsewhere), however His grace may by-and-by deal with Israel not as a guilty widow but as a woman forsaken and a wife of youth.

Hence then the painstaking labour of the Holy Spirit both in the Psalms and the Canticles to lead the godly remnant into all exercises of heart, not only as saints, but in their proper relationship to Messiah. But hence too its necessary form for Zion, after so grievous a breach, for that renewal of blessedness, which was never truly known of old, and which will stand assuredly as long as the earth lasts, the results of which pass not away but abide when the new heavens and new earth are come in the full and final sense.

“On my bed, by night

I sought him whom my soul loveth;

I sought him, but I found him not.

I will rise now and go about the city;

In the streets and in the broad ways

I will seek him whom my soul loveth;

I sought him, but I found him not.

The watchmen that go about the city found me-

Have ye seen him whom my soul loveth ?-

Scarcely had I passed from them,

When I found him whom my soul loveth;

I held him and would not let him go,

Until I had brought him into my mother’s house,

And into the chamber of her that conceived me.

I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem,

By the gazelles or by the hinds of the field,

That ye stir not up nor awake [my] love,

Until he please.

Who is this, that [fem.] cometh up out of the wilderness

Like pillars of smoke,

Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense,

With all powders of the merchant?

Behold his litter, Solomon’s own:

Threescore mighty men are about it,

Of the mighty of Israel.

They all handle the sword, experts in war.

Each hath his sword on his thigh

Because of fear in the night.

King Solomon made himself a palanquin

Of the wood of Lebanon.

Its pillars he made of silver,

The base of gold, its seat of purple,

The midst of it being paved [with] love

By the daughters of Jerusalem.

Go forth, daughters of Zion,

And behold king Solomon

With the crown wherewith his mother crowned him

In the day of his espousals,

And in the day of the gladness of his heart” (vers. 1-11).

It was not the day, but in hours of darkness the Beloved was sought. The heart truly turned to Him. So the Lord had warned, Ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of Jehovah. And she must know herself better to value Him aright. It is not the lesson of heart which the church, the Christian, knows in Him come and fully revealed through accomplished redemption. Yet souls now often pass through similar vicissitudes, because they put themselves under law instead of knowing that we, having died with Christ, are justified from sin (as well as our sins), our old man crucified with Him that the body of sin might be annulled that we should no longer serve sin. Whence we, Christians, are to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. But the godly Jews here in view are in no such peace. Even when, after passing from the watchmen to whom she appeals she does find the Beloved, we are not to conceive it more than anticipatively in the Spirit of prophecy, as with others of old. It is not to the church but to Israel that the Son is born (see Rev 12 )

But there is progress after the second charge; and the vision is seen of the earthly bride coming out of the wilderness on one side, and on the other a greater than the Solomon of old in the delight of His heart for the day of His espousals.

Israel, however, is the mother whether of the Bridegroom or of the bride: not the church, which is never set forth in that relation, but solely as the Lamb’s bride. We do hear of Sarah as the free mother of the heirs of promise in contrast with the bondmaid Hagar gendering to bondage. But this is another order of thought, where the church as such does not enter. It was the catholic system which confounded the two and spoke of “our holy mother” the church; as the Roman Catholic went farther astray and made her not mother only but “mistress” in human vanity and pride.

Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Son 3:1-4

1On my bed night after night I sought him

Whom my soul loves;

I sought him but did not find him.

2’I must arise now and go about the city;

In the streets and in the squares

I must seek him whom my soul loves.’

I sought him but did not find him.

3The watchmen who make the rounds in the city found me,

And I said, ‘Have you seen him whom my soul loves?’

4Scarcely had I left them

When I found him whom my soul loves;

I held on to him and would not let him go

Until I had brought him to my mother’s house,

And into the room of her who conceived me.

Son 3:1 night after night This is PLURAL in the Hebrew, which refers to recurrent dreams. One theory is that Son 3:1-4; Son 5:2-8 are dreams which the Shulammite had. It is quite normal to have fearful dreams the night before an important event. The other theory is that she is dreaming of a local lover back home in the north of Israel. I personally like the second option.

Son 3:2 There are three COHORTATIVE VERBS:

1. arise – BDB 877, KB 1086, Qal COHORTATIVE

2. go about – BDB 685, KB 738, Poel COHORTATIVE

3. seek – BDB 134, KB 152, Piel COHORTATIVE

Whoever it was she was looking for (whom my soul loves, Son 3:1-4), she finds him in Son 3:4. These three VERBS speak of:

1. potential action (i.e., dream)

2. actual action (she actually went into the streets looking)

Since I think that there is a northern, local lover involved in the story line, this could refer to her actually searching in her northern village for her lover. It is not until Son 3:6 (i.e., the third poem, a totally separate unit) that Solomon’s entourage approaches.

the city This can refer either to Jerusalem (i.e., the harem) or to the girl’s hometown in northern Israel (cf. Son 3:4).

Son 3:3 the watchman Watchmen (BDB 1036, KB 1581, Qal PARTICIPLE) were placed as sentinels on the walls of ancient cities as well as keepers of the gate.

Son 3:4 This verse describes her joy (i.e., I held on to him, BDB 28, KB 31, Qal PERFECT) in finding her lover! The problem comes in the last two lines. Are they synonymous parallelism or step parallelism? Also, how do we explain a secret, local lover being brought publically to the maiden’s home?

If there is a plot line (and I am not convinced there is), then the words must be reinterpreted:

1. as a future longing

2. as a euphemism of intimacy

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

Chapter 3

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loves: I sought him, but found him not. I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Did you see him whom my soul loves? It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loved: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me. I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please. Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, and with the powders of the merchant? Behold his bed, which is Solomon’s; there are three ( Son 3:1-7 )

And that would be the marriage chariot that he made, the nuptial bed. “Behold his bed, which is Solomon’s; there are,”

sixty valiant men around it, the valiant men of Israel. They all hold their swords, being expert in war: and every man has his sword upon his thigh because of the fear in the night. King Solomon made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon. He made the pillars thereof of silver, the bottom thereof of gold, the covering of it of purple, the midst thereof being paved with love, for the daughters of Jerusalem. Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold king Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart ( Son 3:7-11 ). “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Son 3:1-3. By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?

The same question over and over again only that. one thought, Where is he? Ministers were nothing; streets of ordinances were nothing; what the soul wanted was to find a personal Christ, and to have personal fellowship with him.

Son 3:4. It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go,

Jacobs wrestlings are succeeded by Jacobs vows.

Son 3:4. Until I had brought him into my mothers house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

Fellowship that is sweet to me must be sweet to others of my brethren; therefore, will I bring him to the church, and tell to all the assembled people how sweet, how delightful he is to my soul.

Son 3:5. I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.

This exposition consisted of readings from Son 2:1-7; Son 3:1-5.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Son 3:1-5

Son 3:1-5

THE SHULAMITE’S DREAM

Son 3:1-5

“By night on my bed

I sought him whom my soul loveth

I sought him, but I found him not.

I said, I will arise now and go about the city;

In the streets and in the broad ways,

I will seek him whom my soul loveth:

I sought him, but I found him not.

The watchmen that go about the city found me:

To whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?

It was but a little that I passed from them,

When I found him whom my soul loveth:

I held him, and would not let him go,

Until I had brought him into my mother’s house,

And into the chamber of her that conceived me.

I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,

By the roes, or by the hinds of the field,

That ye stir not up, nor awaken my love,

Until he please.”

The question regarding this paragraph is whether or not it relates an actual event, or the Shulamite’s dream of searching for her lover. “This passage and Son 5:2-7 are usually interpreted as dream sequences. “The maiden relates a bad dream she had experienced. “She is probably relating a dream.

Nevertheless, this dream substantiates the statement that prevails in the whole book that the love-struck maiden’s lover is a shepherd, not king Solomon. By no stretch of imagination could it be supposed that the maiden would have taken the king of Israel into her mother’s bedroom, not even in a dream. Another function of this dream is that it stresses the physical absence of the Shepherd lover, Christ’s absence from his Church until the Resurrection.

Son 3:5 is the quadruple refrain that appears in the Song. (See a comment on this above, under Son 2:7. The next paragraph represents the glittering blandishments of Solomon as a type of worldly temptations to the Church. The wealth, extravagance, ostentation and pride in this was an eloquent type of such allurements.

Exegesis Son 3:1-5

The women of Solomons harem are here told of a reoccurring dream. Perhaps it is occasioned by what is not shared with them-that her lover failed to return as promised (Son 2:17). It is of some passing interest to observe that the term bed or couch of Son 1:16 is a day couch. Repetition in dreams is a common occurrence-In a time of anxiety frustration in dreams would reflect such a state of mind.

We are not told the name of the city but it would be natural to assume it was Shunem-it could have been Jerusalem. She is to make a thorough, if not frantic search. Up and down the streets and into the larger areas of the intersections and city gates she searches hither and thither. Anywhere where persons congregate she will go looking between and among all she meets. She will look at each one for the familiar dear form of her beloved. The night watchmen appear-surely they will know-they can help me-I will ask them-She describes her beloved to them (or perhaps they know him by name if it is in the town of Shunem) Have you seen him? We are not told of their response-we would assume they did not know from what follows. She had no sooner left them than she suddenly sees him and in an instant she is in his arms. She clings to him with the tenacity and joy of the lost is found!

Why did she bring him to her mothers house? Perhaps this represented the place of security-safety and permanence. The mention of her mothers house would seem to confirm the thought that her mother was a widow.

This might also support the thought of the concern of her brothers for her safety. Some commentators suggest that this is a description of the consummation of the marriage. We see no need for such a conclusion.

We ask the reader to please refer to our comments on Son 2:7 for the meaning of Son 3:5. This verse is again repeated in Son 8:4. In our day of the billion dollar sale of pornography we need to read and understand this verse more than thrice.

Marriage Son 3:1-5

Does my wife dream of me? If she does what is the nature of such dreams? If her dreams are filled with anxiety it could be because we do not dream more often of her. We want our comments to be as practical as at all possible. We have found the following expression so very much to the point.

Bill Lawrence is 38 years old. He has a pretty wife, two beautiful children, and is considered one of the outstanding preachers in his city. Bill and June were married while Bill was still in seminary. Their first child was born during his senior year. June never completed her college education but took a job to help Bill through seminary. Bill is an effective preacher and is greatly respected by both his assistant and the congregation. He works hard on his sermons. His church is growing.

Bills wife will leave him next week.

Bob Ramsom is the executive director of Christian Commitment Abroad which he founded 22 years ago. He has travelled all over the world and is a much sought-after speaker. After a shaky start, CCA began to grow rapidly about ten years ago. Much of its growth is due to Bobs high level of commitment and his willingness to give himself unstintingly to the work of Christ.

Bob doesnt know it, but he left his wife eight years ago. WHERE ARE YOU?

Where are you as a Christian leader? Where does your commitment lie? Could it be that you, too, are one of those, perhaps without even knowing it, who has left his wife?

How do you sort it all out? Where do your Christian priorities lie? How does one find a balance between commitment to the task and commitment to ones family? THREE PRIORITIES

In one of our earliest Christian Leadership Letters, (March 1973), we laid out what we consider to be three levels of Christian commitments, three levels of priority. Simply stated they are:

First: Commitment to God and Christ

Second: Commitment to the Body of Christ

Third: Commitment to the work of Christ

We picture these as foundation stones, one built upon another. We begin with the initial commitment to God through His Son. But the visible evidence of this vertical relationship with God is found in this second priority of horizontal relationships with the sons and daughters of God. The Bible calls us away from a Western individualism back to a biblical corporate unity. It is on this foundation and within the framework of this body-like relationship that the work of Christ is to be carried out. It was he who gave gifts to mankind . . . He did this to prepare all Gods people for the work of Christian service, in order to build up the body of Christ (Eph 4:11-12, TEV).

These priorities cannot be exclusive of one another. All three are needed. One of the conditions for effectively carrying out the work of Christ is the relationship that exists within the body. If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are My disciples (Joh 13:35, TEV). WHERE IS YOUR WIFE?

We are addressing ourselves here as Christian leaders, and especially as married men. Where does your wife fit in these priorities? Certainly of all the relationships described in the Bible the highest and most mystical is the relationship found in marriage. Paul could only compare it to the relationship of Christ and His Church (Eph 5:21-33). The disruption of this relationship can have tremendous spiritual consequences. Peter tells us that interruption of the relationship can even interfere with our prayers (1Pe 3:7).

Is your ministry as a Christian Leader built upon a foundation of a strong marriage relationship, or does it move forward in spite of that relationship. (Christian Leadership Letter, March 1977).

Before our wife wakes up and finds her nightmare is true, lets change the cause.

Communion Son 3:1-5

Communing with God on our bed is no new unusual thought. Daniel was given a vision upon his bed. Cf. Dan 2:28-29; Dan 4:5; Dan 4:10; Dan 7:1. The Psalmist says, Let the saints exult in glory: Let them sing for joy upon their beds. Psa 149:5. As we close our eyes for rest it should be a time when we take His yoke upon us that we might find rest for our souls as well as our bodies. A total yielding to the presence and interest of our wonderful Lord should precede our slumber. There are times of concern when sleep flees from us. It is at such times we need Him most of all. We are glad to affirm that He has not left us. Any feeling of desertion or separateness is not because He has left. There is no need to seek Him in the streets-nor to make inquiry of others as to His whereabouts. He is right where we left Him. Return to your place of disobedience and confess your sin and be cleansed. He will be found again just on the other side of genuine repentance.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

ADDRESSES ON THE SONG OF SOLOMON

by H. A. Ironside, LITT. D. Author of Notes on Hebrews, Lectures on Romans, Colossians, Revelation, etc., etc.

Loizeaux Brothers, Inc. Bible Truth Depot A Non-Profit Organization, Devoted to the Lords Work and to the spread of the Truth Copyright @ 1933 CHAPTER THREE SONG OF SOLOMON 3:1

I sought him whom my soul loveth; I sought him, but I found him not (Song of Solomon

3:1). THE third chapter of this exquisite book is divided into two parts; the first comprises verses 1 to 5, and the second, the balance of the chapter, verses 6 to 11. The opening section which we now consider sets before us communion interrupted and renewed.

We are not told just what it was that had disturbed the fellowship of the lovers. It may have been the absence of the Beloved, resulting in a temporary lethargic condition on the part of his espoused one. Possibly the entire section is to be treated as a dream. In fact, this seems the most likely explanation. But dreams often reflect the disturbed state of the heart. A dream cometh through the multitude of business (Ecc 5:3). The opening verse depicts the restlessness of one who has lost the sense of the Lords presence. What saint has not known such experiences? David once exclaimed, Lord, by Thy favor Thou hast made my mountain to stand strong; Thou didst hide Thy face, and I was troubled (Psa 30:7). This withdrawal of the light of His countenance is not necessarily in anger. Sometimes it is admonitory. It is loves way of bringing the soul to a realization of something cherished or

allowed that grieves the Holy Spirit of God. Or it may be the testing of faith to see whether one can trust in the dark as well as in the light Rutherfords experience is depicted thus:

But flowers need nights cool sweetness, The moonlight and the dew; So Christ from one who loved Him, His presence oft withdrew.

To His disciples He said, when He announced His going away, Ye believe in God, believe also in Me. That is to say, As you have believed in God whom you have never seen, so when I am absent believe in Me. I will be jus as real-and just as true-although to sight unseen. For though the soul lose the sense of His presence nevertheless He still abideth faithful. He never forsakes His people though He seems to have withdrawn and He does not manifest Himself. This is indeed a test of faith and of true-hearted devotion. We say, Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but there is often greater truth in the old proverb, Out of sight, out of mind. When the Lord as a boy stayed in the temple, even Mary and Joseph went on supposing Him to be in the company, not realizing the true state of affairs.

Here the bride feels her loss. She seeks for him; he is not there. There is no response to her cry. For her, rest is impossible with this awful sense of loneliness upon her. She must seek until she finds; she cannot be contented without him. Would that this were always true of us! But, alas, how often we go on bereaved of the assurance of His presence, yet so insensate that we scarcely realize our loss. Here there is energy-determination-action! She must find him who is all in all to her. Love abhors a vacuum. Only the sense of his presence can fill and satisfy her heart.

In her dream-or possibly in reality-she leaves her mountain home and goes forth in search of the object of her deep affections. To the city she wends her way, and wanders about its streets and peers into every hidden place, looking only for him! But at first her search is unrewarded. In fact it is not until she bears witness to others of his preciousness that he gladdens her vision. Note the terms used: I sought him; I found him not; I will seek him; I found him not.

The watchmen, guarding the city at night, are surprised to see a lovely and yet apparently respectable woman going about at such an hour. But she turns eagerly to them ere they can reprove her, crying in the distress of her soul, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? The abrupt question conveyed little information in deed. To the prosaic guardians of the peace, it must have sounded almost incoherent. But to her it was all that was necessary. There was only one for whom her soul yearned. Surely they too would know his worth! But, from them, she gets no response.

Leaving them, she has scarcely gone from their sight ere she comes upon the object of her search. In an ecstasy of rapture she lays hold of him, and clinging to him as to one who might again vanish away, she brings him into her own home where she first saw the light of day.

The more the passage is pondered, the more evident it seems to be that all this happened in a dream. But it tells of the deep exercises of her soul. She misses him; she cannot be happy without the sense of his presence. Her only joy is found in abiding in his love. She finds him when she seeks for him with all her heart.

This is what gratifies him. And so again we have the refrain of satisfied love. I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up nor wake my love until she please (ver. 5), for, as previously mentioned, the expression here is in the feminine in the Hebrew language. Nothing gives our Lord more delight than to find a heart that joys in Him for what He is in Himself. Too often we think rather of His gifts, the gracious favors He bestows. It is right and proper that these should stir us to thanksgiving; but it is as we get to know Himself and to joy in His love that we really worship in blissful communion.

The bride eyes not her garments,

But her dear Bridegrooms face; I will not gaze at glory,

But on my King of Grace! Not at the crown He giveth,

But on His pierced Hand; The Lamb is all the glory

Of Immanuels land.

The latter part of the chapter is of an entirely different character, and sets forth the truth of union rather than of restored communion. It is a little gem, complete in itself. The espoused one has waited long for the return of the shepherd whose love she has prized above all else. His promise to return for her has been cherished and relied upon, even though at times his continued absence has made the heart sick with yearning and even overwhelmed the drooping spirit with fear. But never has she really lost confidence in his plighted word. Eagerly she has awaited the fulfillment of his promise.

One day all the simple folk of the countryside are astir and filled with interest and wonder as they behold a grand procession wending its way along the highway up from the glorious city of God. Outriders and trumpeters on prancing chargers herald the approach of a royal equipage. Who is this that cometh? This is the question raised by every onlooker. Whose progress is this? Who travels in such grandeur and splendor? One can imagine the scene, and none can blame the curious conjectures as the peasants of the hills gaze with wonder upon the advancing cavalcade. In the Hebrew the question is really, Who is she that cometh? It is a bridal procession. But who is the honored maiden called to share the love of the King? Evidently at first they look in vain for a sight of her. Everything proclaims a nuptial parade, but no bride is really seen.

The bridegroom, however, is clearly in evidence. It is the son of David himself. In excited admiration the wondering people exclaim: Behold his bed, which is Solomons! The royal conveyance is recognized. Sixty valiant soldiers guard their king as he journeys through the country. Clad in armor, each with his sword ready to defend his sovereign against any lurking traitorous foes, they move on in orderly array, as the excitement among the shepherds and vinedressers grows ever more intense. Not often have their eyes been regaled by such a scene as this! Perhaps they will never see its like again!

How magnificent, how costly is that royal palanquin! It is the Kings provision for the comfort of his bride. And that bride is half-hidden among the rest of the country-folk, not daring to believe that such honor is for her. All eyes are on the King. It is his crowning day-his nuptial hour-the day of the gladness of his heart. He has come forth to seek and claim his spouse whom he won as the shepherd, and to whom he now reveals himself as the King.

There is no actual mention of the claiming of the bride and bringing her to the King, it is true. But it is clearly implied. He has come to fulfil his promise to make her his own. With deep and chastened joy she responds to the royal summons and takes her place at his side, and so the procession sweeps on, leaving the bewildered on-lookers gasping with startled amazement at the sudden change in the estate of her who had been through the years but one of themselves. It is a worthy theme for a Song of Songs! And most graphically it portrays the glorious reality which the Bride of the Lamb shall soon know when the Shepherd-King comes to claim His own.

He is coming as the Bridegroom,

Coming to unfold at last The great secret of His purpose,

Mystery of ages past; And the bride, to her is granted,

In His beauty now to shine, As in rapture she exclaimeth,

I am His, and He is mine! Oh, what joy that marriage union,

Mystery of love divine; Sweet to sing in all its fulness,

I am His, and He is mine!

How short then will seem the waiting-time; how trifling the follies of earth which we gave up in order to be pleasing in His sight! How slight too will the sufferings of the present time appear, as compared with the glory then to be enjoyed.

If some fancy we have drawn too much upon imagination as we have sought to picture the real background of these lovely lyrics, let me ask, Is it possible to mistake the picture when all Scripture tells the same story? What was the marriage of Adam and Eve intended to signify? What shall be said of the servant seeking a bride for Isaac, and what of the love of Jacob as he served so unweariedly for Rachel?

Of what great mystery does Asenath, the Gentile wife of Joseph, speak? And what shall be said of the love of Boaz for Ruth? Hosea who bought his bride in the slave-market gives a darker side of the picture, yet all is in wonderful harmony. All alike tell the story that Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water by the Word, and present it unto Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing (Eph 5:26,27). All fair indeed will she then be in His eyes, and one with Him forever, for, It is written, For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall be joined to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church (Eph 5:31, 32).

Surely all this should speak loudly to our hearts, we who through grace have been won for One we have never yet seen, but of whom we read, Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. What will it be when we behold Him coming in royal array to claim us as His very own, when we discern in the King of kings, the Good Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep, and who, ere He left this scene, gave the solemn promise, If I go . . . I will come again and receive you unto Myself. That glad nuptial hour draws on apace. Well may our hearts be stirred and our spiritual pulses quickened as we join the wondering cry, Who is this that cometh?

When the bride is caught away, what will the astonishment be on the part of those who had never understood that she was the loved one of the Lord Most High? When they realize that the Church is gone and the heavenly procession has passed them by, what will be their thoughts in that day?

But we must pause here for the present. The next chapter gives us the glad recognition and the happy response.

~ end of chapter 3 ~

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

Son 3:2

Prophetically, the whole of these verses may be taken as delineating the sorrow of the first disciples at the departure of Christ from the earth. But the passage has its fulfilment again and again. The leading idea is that of a temporary estrangement, real or imaginary, between Christ and His people, during which they seek Him, but cannot find Him.

I. There would be nothing remarkable in the Redeemer denying the consolations of His presence to those who were careless about Him. The remarkable point suggested by the text is that there is such a thing as desiring God, and being disappointed. It would seem an ordinary feature in God’s providence to withdraw occasionally from the saints, in order to increase that very craving after Him which He declines to gratify. He suspends His operations on their behalf until what we call the last moment. There is a failing to discover God for which He will not condemn us, a failing which comes not of us but of Him, in the plenitude, not of wrath, but of mercy. Only be sure that you really struggle to do what He enjoins. Only resolve whether He pour upon you the sunshine of His favour, or leave you wrapped in clouds to be found in the path of duty, and the temporary gloom shall ere long fade, and a fairer morning break.

II. From the foregoing considerations there flows a very solemn thought. The Redeemer must personally engage Himself about every soul. The spirit of each man and woman is a separate planet in the spiritual system, whose summer and winter, whose storms and sunshine, are regulated by Deity alone. Hence the full meaning of that passage in which Christ Jesus is called the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls. It intimates that the human soul is so fine and subtle a thing that none but He can supervise and tend it. His withdrawing Himself is a proof of His individual care.

Bishop Woodford, Occasional Sermons, vol. ii., p. 105.

References: Son 3:4.-Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 275; Ibid., My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi, p. 207; J. Keble, Sermons on Various Occasions, p. 458; R. M. McCheyne, Memoirs and Remains, p. 412. Son 3:4, Son 3:5.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii., No. 1035. Son 3:5-8.-C. A. Fowler, Parochial Sermons, p. 119. Son 3:6-11.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii., No. 482. Son 3:7-8.-J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Song of Songs, p. 137. Son 3:9, Son 3:10.-Ibid., pp. 151, 360. Son 3:10.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xix., No. 1134. Son 3:11.-J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College, vol. iii., p. 311. Son 4:6.-Ibid., Sermons on the Song of Songs, pp. 159, 172. Son 4:7.-Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, pp. 337, 338. Son 4:10, Son 4:11.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v., No. 282. Son 4:12.-Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 323; R. M. McCheyne, Memoirs and Remains, p. 337. Son 4:12-15.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii., No. 431; J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Song of Songs, p. 184.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

CHAPTER 3

The scene changes. The bride is now alone and in the darkness of the night. She is seeking her Beloved and is unable to find Him. Her heart is filled with the same love she exhibits in the previous chapter, but the joy and comfort she lacks. We see her walking through the streets and in the broadways, looking for Him whom her soul loveth; she sought Him but found Him not; Then the watchmen of the night which pass through the street came across the seeking one and she eagerly inquires, Have ye seen Him whom my soul loveth? They have no answer for her, probably they knew not what she meant. No sooner had she passed them by, when she found Him. All this is prophetic, as it reveals the soul exercise of that godly remnant of Israel during the night of tribulation. There is no need of giving a meaning to every detail.

As already stated, His coming described in Son 3:6-11 is His coming as King Messiah. In the last verse we have the key. Go forth, daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon, with the crown wherewith His mother crowned Him, in the day of His espousals, and in the day of the gladness of His heart, His mother is Israel. Israel gave birth to Him according to the flesh, as it is also seen in the great vision of the Apocalypse Rev 12:1-17. In that day when He comes up from the wilderness, like pillars of smoke, in the Shekinah cloud, when He comes the mighty victor, yet the true Solomon, the Prince of Peace, who speaks peace to the nations, His mother Israel will crown Him Lord of all.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

9.

I will seek Him.

Son 3:1-5

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me. I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.

Those who love the Lord Jesus Christ seek his manifest presence. Nothing in all the world is more pleasant to the believing heart than communion with our Lord Jesus Christ. Those who enjoy the spiritual presence and fellowship of Christ are supremely favored of God.

Holy Scripture exhausts every earthly figure to express the charms and delights of this blessed fellowship between Christ and his redeemed ones. It is impossible for human language to express the sweetness of his grace, the joy of his communion, and the comfort of his presence.

Just as it is the sweetest thing in the world to enjoy communion with Christ, it is the saddest thing in the world to a believer to be without the Lords manifest presence and fellowship. Yet, that is just the condition that we see the church in at the beginning of this chapter.By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. But she was resolved not to rest in such a sad condition. She said, I will seek him. She would not rest until she had found him and brought him into her mothers house. There she held him and would not let him go.

Spiritual presence

The Lord Jesus Christ is no longer physically present with his church. He is not here, for he is risen. Our Lords physical body is in heaven. There he sits upon the throne of God, making intercession for us according to the will of God and anticipating the day when his enemies shall be made his footstool.

The papists tell us that our Lord is bodily present with us in the mass. But that cannot be.Such persons unwittingly deny the real humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, for if he has indeed assumed our humanity, and is in all points made like unto his brethren, his flesh and blood cannot be in two places at one time. (Ch. H. Spurgeon) Since our Lord, as a real man, the God-man, is in heaven, his bodily presence is no longer with his church.

We know that it is best for us that Christ is no longer present with his church in a physical sense, because he said so (Joh 16:7). As God, Christ is everywhere. He is omnipresent. As man, he is in heaven. His bodily presence is as much limited today to one place as it was when he was upon the earth. But as the God-man in one Person, the Mediator and Head of the church, Christ is present with us by the Holy Spirit, the Divine Comforter, whom the Father has sent in his name.

It is by the working of God the Holy Spirit that Christs presence with his church is manifested. We need not expect or desire anything other than this spiritual presence of Christ. By his Spirit, Christ is everywhere present with his church at all times to guide, to protect, to instruct, and to comfort his people.

This spiritual presence of Christ is the glory of the church of God; and this is the thing we desire. When Christ is manifestly presence with us in this spiritual sense we have all that we need or desire. When this spiritual presence is absent, our strength and glory is gone.

I am afraid that the name of the church of the twentieth century might well be called Ichabod, The glory is departed from Israel! If a church is without the Spirit of God, she may have a name to live, but it is dead; and, you know, that corruption follows death. Those churches that have turned aside unto error, have not only lost all power to do good, but they have become obnoxious, loathsome, and the causes of great evil in the world.

The one thing that we need is the spiritual presence of Christ. He said, Without me ye can do nothing. But if Christ shall come to us in the Person of his blessed Spirit our power and our glory shall be restored. The return of the Lords manifest presence by the Holy Spirit has been the birth of every true revival and spiritual awakening. The manifest presence of Christ in the midst of his people is the Sun of Righteousness arising with healing beneath his wings.

Seeking the lord

We ought to constantly seek the Lords manifest presence, both individually and for his church. Without question, wherever men and women gather in his name to worship him, the Lord Jesus is present (Mat 18:20). That gathered band of believers, if only two or three in number, is the temple of God (1Co 3:16-17), an habitation of God through the Spirit (Eph 2:22), and the house of Godthe church of the living God (1Ti 3:15). I am thankful to say, it appears that our God is working among his people all over the country and around the world in our day. But if we are to see better and greater things in the days that lie ahead, we must ever seek the presence of Christ by the Holy Spirit. Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord. I urge you, my brother, my sister in Christ, to make this determined resolution. Fix it in your heart, and do not be turned aside from it I will seek Him! I will seek him whom my soul loveth. You have been chosen of God in eternal election, redeemed by the blood of Christ, and called to life and faith in Christ by God the Holy Spirit.

If you are yet without Christ, without God, without hope, without life, I would press you into the Kingdom. I urge you, for your souls sake, to seek our Lord with all your heart. Seek him in his Word. Seek him by faith. Seek him now. If you seek him, you will find him. He has promised that he will be found by all who seek him. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith the LORD: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the LORD; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive (Jer 29:11-14).

Those who seek

Here are seven things revealed in the Book of God about those who seek the Lord.

Those who seek Christ love Christ.

In these five verses, the lovesick spouse speaks of Christ as Him whom my soul loveth. It may be that you do not now enjoy the manifestation of the Lords presence; but your heart clings to him. You may have been idle, slothful, neglectful, and sinful. You may have much to regret and much to weep over. But Christ is truly the One whom your soul loves. A loving wife may not always have her husband in her arms; but she always has him in her heart. Even so, the true believer does not always enjoy the presence of Christ, but he never ceases to love Christ.

The words are very strong. Him whom my soul loveth. It is as though she said, Though there are many whom I love, he is the love of my soul. My deepest, fondest, purest, truest, most real love is reserved for him alone. Do you have such a heart for Christ? Is he the Love of your soul? Is he the Object of your hearts affection? All true believers do sincerely love the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not possible for a person truly to know Christ and not love him. “We love him because he first loved us” (1Jn 4:19). Christs love for us precedes our love for him. His love for us causes our love for him. His love for us infinitely exceeds our love for him. But we do love him.

We love the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, because of who he is. This One whom we love is himself the eternal God; and he is perfect man. He is the God-man our Mediator. We love him, because he has revealed himself in our hearts. We love Christ, because of all that he has done for us. His love for us is manifest by his deeds. His love is not dormant and idle. All that he has done and is doing and shall do is motivated by his love for us.

Because he loved us, the Son of God assumed all responsibility for our souls as our covenant Surety before the world began (Heb 7:22; Eph 1:3-6; 2Ti 1:9). In the fullness of time, he assumed human flesh and came into the world in our nature to redeem and save us by his obedience to God as our Mediator, Representative, and Substitute (Mat 1:21). Because he loved us, the Lord Jesus lived in perfect obedience to Gods holy law to bring in everlasting righteousness as our Representative (Rom 5:18-21). Because of his great love for us, the Darling of Heaven laid down his life as our Substitute that we might live forever through him (Rom 5:6-11). Our risen Savior rules the universe in love for his people, as the God-man our Mediator King, to give eternal life to the objects of his everlasting love (Joh 17:2).

It is Christ himself that we love. Immanuel has won our hearts. We love Him. Many love his doctrine; but we love Him. Many love his throne; but we love Him. Many love his church; but we love Him. Many love his works; but we love Him.

Those who seek Christ know their need of him.

The spouse sensed that her beloved Bridegroom was gone; and she seems to be in desperate need of him. Do you know your need of Christ? If a person knows his need of Christ, he will seek him (Php 3:7-11). We need his righteousness to cover our shameful nakedness. We need his blood to cleanse us from our sins. We need his grace to save us and keep us. We need his wisdom to direct us. We need his strength to uphold and protect us. We need him! Our Lord told us plainly, Without me, ye can do nothing. And we have found, by painful and blessed experience, that it is true. Without Him, we cannot sing his praise. Without Him, we cannot pray with understanding. Without Him, we cannot worship in the Spirit. Without Him, we cannot live in peace. Without Him, we cannot know, do, or enjoy Gods will. Without Him, we cannot understand Gods Word.

Those who seek Christ seek him diligently.

Those who ardently love Christ and know their need of him do not cease to seek him, and seek him diligently. In this chapter we see the spouse seeking him upon her bed, seeking him in the streets, seeking him in the broadways, and finally seeking him at the lips of the watchman. She sought him in every place where he was likely to be found she left no stone unturned.

If you are truly in earnest in knowing Christ, if you are really concerned for your soul, if you truly thirst and pant for fellowship with the Son of God, you will diligently seek him. You will seek him in the closet of your heart in earnest prayer. You will seek him in the Field of Holy Scripture. You will seek him in the assembly of his saints, in his house where he is most likely to be found. You will seek him through the preaching of the Gospel, the means by which he reveals himself to sinners.Those men who preach the gospel of Gods free and sovereign grace in Christ are the watchmen of Zion (Isa 62:6; Eze 33:7; Heb 13:7; Heb 13:17). They are the watchmen to whom the spouse went, seeking her Beloved (Son 3:3; Son 5:7). Public worship and gospel preaching are not optional things in spiritual life. They are vital to it. God has given his church pastors and teachers specifically for the purpose of watching over, instructing, and teaching his people (Eph 4:11-16).

Those who diligently seek Christ will find him.

Neither the brethren, nor the church of God, nor those who preach the gospel can comfort the afflicted conscience, unless Christ himself is apprehended by faith. But as soon as she left the watchmen she found him whom she sought. “It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me (Son 3:4).

If the Lord Jesus hides himself from his people for a season, he has a reason. If we are stirred to seek him, it is Christ himself who has created in our hearts a need and desire for him. And, where the Lord Jesus Christ has created a desire for himself, he will give satisfaction. He comes to all who seek him. Matthew Henry wrote, Those that continue seeking the Lord shall find him at last, when perhaps they are almost ready to despair of finding him. (See Psa 34:1-6; Isa 54:7-10; Jer 29:12-14.)

Those who seek Christ, when they have found him, will hold him fast.

They will take care to retain him. They will endeavor to maintain their fellowship and communion with him. Look at verse four again. I held him and would not let him go. Yes, he will go away if we do not hold him; but he is willing to be held by us. More, he is the One who causes us to want to hold him and gives us grace to hold him. In other words, we hold him by faith (faith that he gives and maintains), because he holds us by grace. We hold him in the arms of love, because he holds us in the arms of his love. We hold him by earnest prayer, because he holds us by constant intercession. We hold him by willing submission and obedience, because he makes us willing, submissive servants.

Those who seek Christ, when they have found him, will bring him into the house of God.

When believers walk in fellowship with Christ, they bring him with them into the fellowship of the saints. Read verse four once more. It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me. Blessed are those local churches into which men and women bring the Son of God as they come together!

Those who seek Christ, when they have found him, will jealously guard his blessed presence.

Our Lord is not indifferent about the conduct of his people. There are many things which will drive him from us and destroy our fellowship with him (Eph 4:30). Anger, wrath and malice, pride, slander and vengeance, Love of the world, envy and strife are all things that grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom we are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let us take care not to grieve him. Rather, let us walk in the Spirit, as followers of Christ, loving, forgiving, submitting to, and serving one another for the glory of God.

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

night: Psa 4:4, Psa 6:6, Psa 22:2, Psa 63:6-8, Psa 77:2-4, Isa 26:9

him whom: Son 1:7, Son 5:8, Joh 21:17, 1Pe 1:8

but: Son 5:6, Job 23:8, Job 23:9, Psa 130:1, Psa 130:2, Isa 55:6, Luk 13:24

Reciprocal: Job 29:5 – the Almighty Psa 63:1 – early Son 5:2 – sleep Mat 25:5 – they Mar 13:36 – he find Luk 11:9 – seek Joh 11:29 – General 1Co 16:22 – love Heb 11:6 – diligently

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Acts 2, SCENE 1 This scene embraces the first four verses of chapter 2, and is a soliloquy of the bride in the nature of a troubled dream troubled because of anxiety for her lovers safety in the chase. It is emblematical of the temporary interruption experienced in the fellowship of Christs people with their Lord.

Acts 3, SCENE 1 We are here dealing with the events of Son 3:5-11 of this same chapter, and which are supposed to have occurred on the third morning. The royal procession advances, bearing the spoils of the preceding days excursion. Solomon again sends a caution to the brides maids against breaking her slumber (Son 3:5). She is alert, however, and exclaims to her attendants as in verse 6, who reply in Son 3:7-8. She recognizes the palanquin (Son 3:9), and the maidens tell her of its construction (Son 3:10). The latter are then permitted by her to make a closer inspection (Son 3:11).

Acts 3, SCENE 1 We are now in the fourth chapter to which may be added the first verse of chapter five. Solomon has left the palanquin, and approaching the window of his bride, sings the praises of her person, which a partly drawn veil discloses (Son 5:1-7). His thoughts running upon his favorite rural haunts, he proposes future excursions to these spots, especially his garden, with which he compares his beloved in her gorgeous and perfumed attire (Son 5:8-16).

She receives these ecomiums with modest silence, and then suggests that he do not wait for her to share his enchanting retreat. This observation he turns into another compliment that she herself, her presence, is his garden, whereupon, turning to his companions, he bids them share with him the luxury of the moment (Son 5:1).

There is a term occurring (Son 1:2; Son 1:4; Son 4:10; Son 7:12) which Strong translates loves or love tokens, and which, he says, cannot mean kisses, or other fond endearments as some have interpreted them; but as the contexts show, the cosmetic odors, perhaps from a love-charm casket which the bride may have worn on the occasion. That no erotic sentiment is couched under the figures of this scene is shown by the closing invitation of the lover to his companions. From which we may conclude that no double meaning is intended by the similar metaphors in Son 7:7-9, and following.

Compare corresponding passages of the Bible which express Gods favor for His people and the love they should show towards Him (Isa 62:5; Eze 16:10-13; Zep 3:14; Zep 3:17; Eph 5:25-27).

Acts 4, SCENE 1 The morning scene of the fourth day (Son 5:2 to Son 6:3) contains the recital of a nightmare illusion of the bride addressed to the ladies in her private apartment. In the opinion of Strong, Son 5:15 is to be interpreted of the snowy linen leggings, in contrast with the gilt sandals worn by Solomon. His knocking at the door for admission is borrowed in the Saviors address to the church of Laodicea (Rev 3:20). The description of the bridegrooms person is in keeping with the manifestations of the Redeemer in both Testaments (Eze 1:26-27; Dan 10:5-6; Rev 1:13-15).

Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary

Son 3:1. By night on my bed When others compose themselves to sleep, my affections were working toward him. I sought him I sought for Christs gracious and powerful presence. I sought him This repetition denotes her perseverance and unweariedness in seeking him; but found him not For he had withdrawn the manifestations of his love from me, either because I had not sought him diligently, or because I had abused his favour.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Son 3:7. Behold his bed, which is Solomons; the palace where he sleeps, and where so many treasures of gold and works of art are preserved. Threescore valiant men are about it. His bodyguard, mounted daily, and composed of the finest looking men that the nation could boast. The person of a king is sacred, his safety involves the safety of a nation; his person therefore must be guarded with all precaution, and proper defence.

REFLECTIONS.

The feelings of the heart during the absence of the object of its attachment are the purest evidence how much and how sincerely we love. Here the church discovers her love to Christ by seeking him in solitude. Whether prostrate at the throne of grace, or reposing on her bed, she sighed for her Lords return. She sought him in the dark, and was exposed to insult in the street. Our love is of no account, if it does not surmount difficulties in seeking the divine favour. She sought him with perseverance, both in the open way and narrow streets. She found him not, for awhile; but when she did find him, she brought him to her mothers house. And as this could not be true of Pharaohs daughter, it is very obvious that Solomon must speak here of a soul that seeks the favour of God. Hence we are instructed to seek the Lord with all our heart, and to be discouraged by no difficulties, for his lovingkindness is better than life.

We see next the church coming up out of the wilderness, leaning on her beloved. We have in all this desert land nothing to lean upon but the words of Christ, and we need no other arm. Here we have love, comfort and defence. Here we have honour, glory and triumph.

A cloudy pillar of myrrh and frankincense ascends from her altar. This is the devotion of the church; this is prayer and praise, comprising all the exercises of faith and love. These are the unceasing sacrifices which the saints present to God.

The church next makes a transition from the wilderness to the royal city and palace of God. She enters into Solomons chariot of state, she enters the splendid mansions of the house of Lebanon, she is surrounded with valiant men, with hosts of angels, which watch for her safety with unceasing delight. Thus JEHOVAH Jesus, though crowned with thorns on earth, is crowned in the day of his espousals with garlands of unfading beauty and delight; for the bringing of many sons to glory is to him a crown of rejoicing, an honour which fadeth not away.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Son 3:1-5. A Dream of Love.The adjuration Son 3:5 (cf. Son 2:7) may have been added to adapt the passionate poem to the wedding week, in which there was much noisy revelling. For another song with similar motive cf. Son 5:2 ff. The bride tells a dream which came to her, night after night, and was a reflection of the love that moved her spirit in its waking hours. It is the story of the oft-repeated and at last successful search for him who was the object of her love, till they were happy in her mothers home. The city may be any town or village; the broad ways are the open spaces in contrast to the narrow lanes.watchmen (cf. Psa 127:1, Isa 21:11).

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

3: 1. By night, on my bed,

I sought him whom my soul loveth:

I sought him, but I found him not.

The night visit of the King has awakened the affections of the bride. But it was only a visit; he had revealed himself through the lattice; he had unfolded to his bride the. vision of another and a brighter world – a world of sunshine and song; he had called her to arise and come to that good land beyond the mountains and the hills; and then, having awakened her affections, he had withdrawn to his own place, and the bride is left behind in the night. She has heard of the day and looks forward to the daybreak, but she is yet in the night. The presence of the King will bring the day, even as his absence makes the night. So too we may say it is the presence of Jesus makes our day, and the absence of Jesus makes our night. But if the bride is left behind in the night, she is left with deep yearnings of heart for her beloved. She has been aroused from her slumbers. Love has been awakened, and now she delights to speak of her beloved as the one that her soul loveth. Four times over she uses the expression, “Him whom my soul loveth.”

But awakened love is not content without its object. Love makes her a seeker. Hitherto the Bridegroom has been the seeker, but now at last the bride is the one that seeks. As with a hardened sinner, so with a sleeping saint. Christ must first be the seeker. There would be no seeking sinner, if there was not first a seeking Saviour. If the Son of Man had not first come to seek and save the lost, we never should have heard of the poor publican who “sought to see Jesus.” If “Jesus Himself” had not drawn nigh to the two sorrowing saints on the road to Emmaus, they never would have returned to Jerusalem, that same night, to find “Jesus Himself” in the midst of His own.

Further, we do well to remark that it is the Bridegroom himself that is sought by the bride. It is not the daybreak, the time of singing, or the land of song, that she seeks; it is a person, himself that she longs to see. In her eyes he is fairer than the fairest land, and better than all the blessings that he brings. When love is awakened, Christ alone can satisfy the heart of the Christian. As home-sick saints we welcome the thought that soon the last tear will be wiped away, the last sorrow will be passed, and the last enemy overcome; but as lovesick saints we want “Jesus Himself.” To the dying thief, saved by grace, the Lord could not only say, “To-day shalt thou be in Paradise,” but “To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.” The heavenly city, with its walls of jasper, its gates of pearl, and its streets of gold, would be no heaven without Christ. There, indeed, will be “songs and everlasting joy,” but Christ is the theme of the song and the source of the joy. “The Lamb is the light thereof.”

But this seeking bride will yield us further instruction. Love has been awakened; love has made her a seeker, but she does not at once obtain the object of her quest. Though she sought the Bridegroom she has to admit, more than once, “I found him not.” Why is this? Is she not seeking the right person? Indeed she is, but at first she seeks him in a wrong way. She says, “On my bed, I sought him.” She sought him, but, at the same time, she sought to retain her ease. She was not at first prepared to forego her own comfort in the quest for her beloved. How many of us would like to have Christ if we could spare the flesh. The love of Christ would impel us to follow after Christ, but the love of ease would hold us back. We seek Him, as it were, on our bed; and therefore we find Him not. We forget the word which declares, “If any man come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”

2. I will rise now and go about the city,

In the streets and in the broadways

Will I seek Him whom my soul loveth:

I sought him, but I found him not.

The power of love prevails with the bride, and she says, “I will rise now and go about the city.” She overcomes her love of ease, but only to fail again. She had sought her beloved in a wrong way, she now seeks him in a wrong place. He is not to be found in the city streets and broad highways; he feeds among the lilies. And we too may fall into the same snare. We would like to have Christ, but, we would like to have Christ and the broad highways of this world. But if we cannot have Christ and spare the flesh, neither can we have Christ and retain the world. If the cross witnesses to the dying love of Christ, it also expresses the undying hatred of the world to Christ. Cast out by the world, He has “suffered without the gate,” and if we would find Christ we must “go forth, therefore, unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.”

3. The watchmen that go about the city found me: –

Have ye seen him whom my soul loveth?

For the third time the bride fails in her quest. She has sought the Bridegroom in the wrong way, she has sought him in the wrong place, now she appeals to the wrong people. The business of the watchmen is to govern and keep order. They may administer righteousness, but they cannot help in the quest of love. “If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness,” the Gallios of this world will deal with it; but if it is a matter of “love” and “Jesus,” then, in the world’s sight, it is only “a question of words and names,” and the world “will be no judge of such matters.” Or if at times they turn judge in such matters, it will only be to persecute the seeker after Christ. In vain, therefore, do we appeal to an arm of flesh, though Christians from early times have fallen into this snare, only to learn that the princes of this world have crucified the Lord of glory. Like the blind man of Bethsaida, with his partly restored sight, we are apt to view men out of all proportion to their true importance. We “see men as trees walking.” But the love of Christ would bring us, like the disciples of old, to see “no man any more save Jesus only.”

4. It was but a little that I passed from them,

When I found him whom my soul loveth

I held him, and would not let him go

Until I had brought him into my mother’s house,

And into the chamber of her that conceived me.

When every hindrance is overcome – the bed, the city, the watchmen – it was but a little ere the bride found her beloved. And when found she “held him, and would not let him go.” And may we not say, in our day, the one great need of the Lord’s people is this same energy of love, which, overcoming every hindrance, links the soul to Christ, and will not let Him go. But alas, in the light of the prevailing apathy and lack of affection for Christ, we have once again to cry with Isaiah, “There is none . . . that stirreth up himself to take hold of Thee” (Isa 64:7). In the day of His presence on earth there came a time when many professed followers “went back and walked no more with Him”; but the twelve “held Him, and would not let Him go.” The Lord asks, “Will ye also go away?” And they reply, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” And in these days of His absence in glory, when the love of many grows cold, when hands hang down, and knees grow feeble, when again many turn back and walk no more with Him, how imperative it is that we should stir ourselves up “to take hold of Him”; and, having taken hold of Him in the affection of our hearts, refuse to let Him go.

In the close of the first canticle the Bridegroom conducts the bride into the banqueting house of the King, but in this closing scene the bride conducts the Bridegroom into her mother’s house. For the earthly bride the mother represents the nation of Israel (Rev. 12). Not until God’s earthly people give the King His rightful place in connection with the nation will they come into blessing. For Christians, Jerusalem, which is above, is the mother of us all. We may attempt to bring Christ back to earth – in other words, we may seek to connect Christ’s name and authority with this world – but it will be in vain. Christ is not to be found in the city and broadways of this world, and if He is not found here, He cannot be enjoyed here. He can only be known, and enjoyed, in connection with the heavenly scene where He is and to which we belong. If, as we have seen, He can only be found “without the camp,” the “mother’s house” would teach us that He can only be enjoyed “within the veil.”

5. I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem

By the roes, and by the hinds of the field,

That ye stir not up, nor awaken love till it please.

The canticle closes, like the first, with the earnest appeal to the daughters of Jerusalem, that nothing should be allowed to disturb the enjoyment of love between the Bridegroom and the bride. And in like spirit we may well sing –

“Take Thou our hearts, and let them be

For ever closed to all but Thee;

Thy willing servants, let us wear

The seal of love for ever there.”

Canticle 3. Son 3:6-5:1.

The Communion of Love.

The Daughters of Jerusalem.

(3: 6).

3: 6. Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness

Like pillars of smoke,

Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense,

With all the powders of the merchant?

In this canticle we no longer see the bride resting upon her bed, calling forth the grace of the Bridegroom to arouse her flagging energies and awaken her waning love. She is rather presented as enjoying the communion of love and coming up from the wilderness on her way to share the glories of the King. The daughters of Jerusalem inquire, “Who is this?” or as it can be translated, “Who is she?”

Strictly the scene presents a beautiful picture of Israel, of whom the Lord could say, “I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness,” and again, “I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought” (Hos 9:10 and Hos 13:5). It is true that Jehovah “drew them with cords of a man,” and “with bands of love,” into a land flowing with milk and honey, but they turned from the Lord and went after strange gods. Yet in the days to come God will again bring Israel into the wilderness, will there “speak to her heart,” and from thence open to her “a door of hope” that will lead to the kingdom glories of the true Solomon (Hos 2:14-23).

The Church, too, has her wilderness journey – the time of her earthly pilgrimage – before the end is reached in heavenly glory. In this lovely canticle we see the unfolding of this journey, not in its weakness and failure, but according to the thought of God, taken in the communion of love. For the wilderness has its privileges as well as its privations, and this the Song presents, for the journey is made in the King’s palanquin. Moreover the very privations become the occasion of calling forth a sweet odour, just as the path of the bride is marked by the smoke of ascending incense, and perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, and with all powders of the merchant. There is spiritual significance in the fact that the powders of the merchant are compounded from plants gathered in the wilderness. The trials, the testings, and the privations of our wilderness journey, when taken from the hand of God, become the occasion of developing the graces of Christ, which ascend as “an odour of a sweet smell” even now, and will be found unto praise and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. It is this aspect of the wilderness journey that the Song presents, not the wilderness with our infirmities and God’s provision, as in the Epistle to the Hebrews, but the wilderness with its privations and its privileges, as in the Epistle to the Philippians. Paul has to taste the privations of the wilderness, but he rejoices greatly in the Lord that his trials become the occasion of calling forth the grace of Christ in the saints as “an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice, acceptable, well pleasing to God.” And we, like Paul, can turn our privations into privileges if we but see that every trial is a God-sent opportunity to call forth some Christian grace; Alas, how often the trials by the way call forth some ugly exhibition of the flesh – its tempers and its violence, its envy and its pride, its impatience and its murmurings. We open the door to the flesh by letting our wilderness circumstances come between our souls and God. Let us but keep God between ourselves and our circumstances and then indeed they will call forth the graces of Christ. Faith, hope, love, meekness, lowliness, long-suffering and patience will be the outcome of the trials, and our journey through the wilderness will be fragrant before God with “myrrh and frankincense” and “all powders of the merchant.”

Friends of the Bridegroom.

(3: 7-11).

7. Behold his couch, Solomon’s own:

Threescore valiant men are about it,

Of the valiant of Israel.

8. They all hold the sword, experts in war:

Each hath his sword upon his thigh

Because of fear in the night.

The bed, or litter, on which the bride journeys through the wilderness is provided by the King. In like manner the Christian has not to travel at his own charges, or according to his own thoughts, but in the way that God has provided. This, however, entails conflict, and hence the wilderness journey, while developing Christian graces, also calls for Christian warfare. For this we need the “valiant men.” Paul not only exhorts Timothy to “be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus,” but He also says, “Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2Ti 2:1-3).

And the soldiers that accompany the litter are well equipped. They “all hold swords”; they are “expert” in the use of their swords; and they are ready to use them, for “every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night.”

So too the good soldier of Jesus Christ is armed with “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph 6:17). Paul reminds Timothy that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”

But to have Scripture is not all that is needed. We must be expert in the use of Scripture, and so Timothy is further exhorted to have “an outline of sound words,” “rightly dividing the Word of truth” (2Ti 1:13; 2Ti 2:15).

Moreover, we must not only be “armed” and “expert” but ready – every man with “his sword upon his thigh.” It was so in Nehemiah’s day. “Every man had his sword girded by his side, and so builded” (Neh 4:18). The moment of attack will give no time for girding on the sword. We must be ready to “preach the Word,” in season and out of season.

9. King Solomon made himself a palanquin

Of the wood of Lebanon.

10. Its pillars he made of silver,

The base of gold, its seat of purple,

The midst thereof was paved with love

By the daughters of Jerusalem.

The introduction of the valiant men is followed by the description of the palanquin, or litter, which they are called to defend. In the details of the palanquin do we not see set forth great truths as to the Person of Christ – the support of our souls and the foundations of our faith? The cedar wood speaking of His perfect humanity, fragrant and incorruptible; the pillars of silver telling of His redeeming power; the gold, of His divine righteousness; the purple, of His royalty; and the pavement of love, of divine love, the foundation of all. Love comes last: as one has said, “There is something beyond gold, there is nothing beyond love.”

These are the vital truths that the enemy is opposing and Christendom giving up, but for which the good soldier of Jesus Christ must contend.

11. Go forth, daughters of Zion,

And behold King Solomon

With the crown wherewith his mother crowned him

In the days of his espousals,

And in the day of the gladness of his heart.

The daughters of Jerusalem had been occupied with the bride and the bridal procession, but now they are called to behold the King. Our wilderness journey with its trials and conflicts will end in the Kingdom glories. We have known the King in this wilderness world with the crown of thorns, but we shall yet behold Him in the day of espousals with the crown of glory. The wilderness journey will soon be past. The day of espousals is coming when His people will be presented to Him “a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.” Then indeed will be “the day of the gladness of His heart,” when “He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied” (Isa 53:11).

Fuente: Smith’s Writings on 24 Books of the Bible

3:1 By {a} night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

(a) The Church by night, that is, in troubles, seeks Christ, but is not incontinently heard.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

3. The pain of separation 3:1-5

Another incident unfolds in this pericope (Son 3:1-4) and concludes with the repetition of Solomon’s refrain (Son 3:5).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The Shulammite’s nightmare 3:1-4

The Shulammite narrated an experience she had had "on her bed," namely, a dream (Son 3:1). She dreamed she could not find Solomon even though she searched everywhere for him. After much distress, she did find him and then took him to the most secure and intimate place she knew: her mother’s bedroom. Her strong love for her beloved comes through in the recurring phrase "whom my soul loves" in each one of the four verses. Such fears are common during the courtship. Will the marriage finally take place? She dreams of consummation, but she wants the consummation to be proper.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

TRUE LOVE TESTED

Son 1:1-17; Son 2:1-17; Son 3:1-11; Son 4:1-16; Son 5:1

THE poem opens with a scene in Solomons palace. A country maiden has just been introduced to the royal harem. The situation is painful enough in itself, for the poor, shy girl is experiencing the miserable loneliness of finding herself in an unsympathetic crowd. But that is not all. She is at once the object of general observation; every eye is turned towards her; and curiosity is only succeeded by ill-concealed disgust. Still the slavish women, presumably acting on command, set themselves to excite the new-comers admiration for their lord and master. First one speaks some bold amorous words, {Son 1:2} and then the whole chorus follows. {Son 1:3} All this is distressing and alarming to the captive, who calls on her absent lover to fetch her away from such an uncongenial scene; she longs to run after him; for it is the king who has brought her into his chambers, not her own will; {Son 1:4} The women of the harem take no notice of this interruption, but finish their ode on the charms of Solomon. All the while they are staring at the rustic maiden, and she now becomes conscious of a growing contempt in their looks. What is she that the attractions of the king before which the dainty ladies of the court prostrate themselves should have no fascination for her? She notices the contrast between the swarthy hue of her sunburnt countenance and the pale complexion of these pampered products of palace seclusion. She is so dark in comparison with them that she likens herself to the black goatshair tents of the Arabs. {Son 1:5} The explanation is that her brothers have made her work in their vineyards. Meanwhile she has not kept her own vineyard. (Son 1:6) She has not guarded her beauty as these idle women, who have nothing else to do, have guarded theirs: but perhaps she has a sadder thought-she could not protect herself when out alone at her task in the country or she would never have been captured and carried off to prison where she now sits disconsolate. Possibly the vineyard she has not kept is the lover whom she has lost. (See Son 8:12). Still she is a woman, and with a touch of piqued pride she reminds her critics that if she is dark-black compared with them-she is comely. They cannot deny that. It is the cause of all her misery; she owes her imprisonment to her beauty. She knows that their secret feeling is one of envy of her, the latest favourite. Then their affected contempt is groundless. But, indeed, she has no desire to stand as their rival. She would gladly make her escape. She speaks in a half soliloquy. Will not somebody tell her where he is whom her soul loveth? Where is her lost shepherd lad? Where is he feeding his flock? Where is he resting it at noon? Such questions only provoke mockery. Addressing the simple girl as the “fairest among women,” the court ladies bid her find her lover for herself. Let her go back to her country life and feed her kids by the shepherds tents. Doubtless if she is bold enough to court her swain in that way she will not miss seeing him.

Hitherto Solomon has not appeared. Now he comes on the scene, and proceeds to accost his new acquisition in highly complimentary language, with the ease of an expert in the art of courtship. At this point we encounter the most serious difficulty for the theory of a shepherd lover. To all appearances a dialogue between the king and the Shulammite here ensues. {Son 1:9-17; Son 2:1-6} But if this were the case, the country girl would be addressing Solomon in terms of the utmost endearment-conduct utterly incompatible with the “shepherd hypothesis.” The only alternative is to suppose that the hard-pressed girl takes refuge from the importunity of her royal flatterer by turning aside to an imaginary, half dream-like conversation with her absent lover. This is not by any means a probable position, it must be allowed; it seems to put a strained interpretation on the text. Undoubtedly if the passage before us stood by itself, there would not be any difference of opinion about it; everybody would take it in its obvious meaning as a conversation between two lovers. But it does not stand by itself-unless, indeed, we are to give up the unity of the book. Therefore it must be interpreted so as not to contradict the whole course of the poem, which shews that another than Solomon is the true lover of the disconsolate maiden.

The king begins with the familiar device by which rich men all the world over try to win the confidence of poor girls when there is no love on either side, -a device which has been only too successful in the case of many a weak Marguerite though her tempter has not always been a handsome Faust; but in the present case innocence is fortified by true love, and the trick is a failure. The king notices that this peasant girl has but simple plaited hair and homely ornaments. She shall have plaits of gold and studs of silver! Splendid as one of Pharaohs chariot horses, she shall be decorated as magnificently as they are decorated! What is this to our staunch heroine? She treats it with absolute indifference, and begins to soliloquise, with a touch of scorn in her language. She has been loaded with scent after the manner of the luxurious court, and the king while seated feasting at his table has caught the odour of the rich perfumes. That is why he is now by her side. Does he think that she will serve as a new dainty for the great banquet, as a fresh fillip for the jaded appetite of the royal voluptuary? If so he is much mistaken. The kings promises have no attraction for her, and she turns for relief to dear memories of her true love. The thought of him is fragrant as the bundle of myrrh she carries in her bosom, as the henna-flowers that bloom in the vineyards of far-off Engedi.

Clearly Solomon has made a clumsy move. This shy bird is not of the common species with which he is familiar. He must aim higher if he would bring down his quarry. She is not to be classed with the wares of the matrimonial market that are only waiting to be assigned to the richest bidder. She cannot be bought even by the wealth of a kings treasury. But if there is a woman who can resist the charms of finery, is there one who can stand against the admiration of her personal beauty? A man of Solomons experience would scarcely believe that such was to be found. Nevertheless now the sex he estimates too lightly is to be vindicated, while the king himself is to be taught a wholesome lesson. He may call her fair; he may praise her dove-like eyes. {Son 1:15} His flattery is lost upon her. She only thinks of the beauty of her shepherd lad, and pictures to herself the green bank on which they used to sit, with the cedars and firs for the beams and roof of their trysting-place. (Son 1:16-17) Her language carries us away from the gilded splendour and close, perfumed atmosphere of the royal palace to scenes such as Shakespeare presents in the forest of Arden and the haunts of Titania, and Milton in the Mask of “Comus.” Here is a Hebrew lady longing to escape from the clutches of one who for all his glory is not without some of the offensive traits of the monster Comus. She thinks of herself as a wild flower, like the crocus that grows on the plains of Sharon or the lily (literally the anemone) that is sprinkled so freely over the upland valleys. {Son 2:1} The open country is the natural habitat of such a plant, not the stifling court. Solomon catches at her beautiful imagery. Compared with other maidens she is like a lily among thorns. {Son 2:2}

And now these scenes of nature carry the persecuted girl away in a sort of reverie. If she is like the tender flower, her lover resembles the apple tree at the foot of which it nestles, a tree the shadow of which is delightful and its fruit sweet. {Son 2:3} She remembers how he brought her to his banqueting house; that rustic bower was a very different place from the grand divan on which she had seen Solomon sitting at his table. No purple hangings like those of the kings palace there screened her from the sun. The only banner her shepherd could spread over her was love, his own. {Son 2:4} But what could be a more perfect shelter?

She is fainting. How she longs for her lover to comfort her! She has just compared him to an apple tree; now the refreshment she hungers for is the fruit of this tree; that is to say, his love. {Son 2:5} Oh that he would put his arms round her and support her, as in the old happy days before she had been snatched away from him! {Son 2:6}

Next follows a verse which is repeated later, and so serves as a sort of refrain. {Son 2:7} The Shulammite adjures the daughters of Jerusalem not to awaken love. This verse is misrendered in the Authorised Version, which inserts the pronoun “my” before “love” without any warrant in the Hebrew text. The poor girl has spoken of apples. But the court ladies must not misunderstand her. She wants none of their love apples, {See Gen 30:14} no philtre, no charm to turn her affections away from her shepherd lover and pervert them to the importunate royal suitor. The opening words of the poem which celebrated the charms of Solomon had been aimed in that direction. The motive of the worm seems to be the Shulammites resistance to various attempts to move her from loyalty to her true love. It is natural, therefore, that an appeal to desist from all such attempts should come out emphatically.

The poet takes a new turn. In imagination the Shulammite hears the voice of her beloved. She pictures him standing at the foot of the lofty rock on which the harem is built, and crying, –

“Oh, my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the cover of the steep place,

Let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice;

For sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.” {Son 2:14}

He is like a troubadour singing to his imprisoned lady-love; and she, in her soliloquies, though not by any means a “high-born maiden,” may call to mind the simile in Shelleys “Skylark”:

“Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower,

Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour,

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower.”

She remembers how her lover had come to her bounding over the hills “like a roe or a young hart,” {Son 2:9} and peeping in at her lattice; and she repeats the song with which he had called her out-one of the sweetest songs of spring that ever was sung. {Son 2:11-13} In our own green island we acknowledge that this is the most beautiful season of all the round year; but in Palestine it stands out in more strongly marked contrast to the three other seasons, and it is in itself exceedingly lovely. While summer and autumn are there parched with drought, barren and desolate, and while winter is often dreary with snowstorms and floods of rain, in spring the whole land is one lovely garden, ablaze with richest hues, hill and dale, wilderness and farm-land vying in the luxuriance of their wild flowers, from the red anemone that fires the steep sides of the mountains to the purple and white cyclamen that nestles among the rocks at their feet. Much of the beauty of this poem is found in the fact that it is pervaded by the spirit of an eastern spring. This makes it possible to introduce a wealth of beautiful imagery which would not have been appropriate if any other season had been chosen. Even more lovely in March than England is in May, Palestine comes nearest to the appearance of our country in the former month; so that this poem, that is so completely bathed in the atmosphere of early spring, calls up echoes of the exquisite English garden pictures in Shelleys “Sensitive Plant” and Tennysons “Maud.” But it is not only beauty of imagery that our poet gains by setting his work in this lovely season. His ideas are all ill harmony with the period of the year he describes so charmingly. It is the time of youth and hope, of joy and love-especially of love, for,

“In the spring a young mans fancy

Lightly turns to thoughts of love.”

There is even a deeper association between the ideas of the poem and the season in which it is set. None of the freshness of spring is to be found about Solomon and his harem, but it is all present in the Shulammite and her shepherd; and spring scenes and thoughts powerfully aid the motive of the poem in accentuating the contrast between the tawdry magnificence of the court and the pure, simple beauty of the country life to which the heroine of the poem clings so faithfully.

The Shulammite answers her lover in an old ditty about “the little foxes that spoil the vineyards.” {Son 2:15} He would recognise that, and so discover her presence. We are reminded of the legend of Richards page finding his master by singing a familiar ballad outside the walls of the castle in the Tyrol where the captive crusader was imprisoned. This is all imaginary. And yet the faithful girl knows in her heart that her beloved is hers and that she is his, although in sober reality he is now feeding his flocks in the far-off flowery fields of her old home. {Son 2:16} There he must remain till the cool of the evening, till the shadows melt into the darkness of night, when she would fain he returned to her, coming over the rugged mountains “like a roe or a young hart.” {Son 2:17}

Now the Shulammite tells a painful dream. {Son 3:1-4} She dreamed that she had lost her lover, and that she rose up at night and went out into the streets seeking him. At first she failed to find him. She asked the watchmen whom she met on their round, if they had seen him whom her soul loved. They could not help her quest. But a little while after leaving them she discovered her missing lover, and brought him safely into her mothers house.

After a repetition of the warning to the daughters of Jerusalem not to awaken love, {Son 3:5} we are introduced to a new scene. {Son 3:6-11} It is by one of the gates of Jerusalem, where the country maiden has been brought in order that she may be impressed by the gorgeous spectacle of Solomon returning from a royal progress. The king comes up from the wilderness in clouds of perfume, guarded by sixty men-at-arms, and borne in a magnificent palanquin of cedar-wood, with silver posts, a floor of gold, and purple cushions, wearing on his head the crown with which his mother had crowned him. Is the mention of the mother of Solomon intended to be specially significant? Remember-she was Bathsheba! The allusion to such a woman would not be likely to conciliate the pure young girl, who was not in the least degree moved by this attempt to charm her with a scene of exceptional magnificence.

Solomon now appears again, praising his captive in extravagant language of courtly flattery. He praises her dove-like eyes, her voluminous black hair, her rosy lips, her noble brow (not even disguised by her veil), her towering neck, her tender bosom-lovely as twin gazelles that feed among the lilies. Like her lover, who is necessarily away with his flock, Solomon will leave her till the cool of the evening, till the shadows melt into night; but he has no pastoral duties to attend to, and though the delicate balancing and assimilation of phrase and idea is gracefully manipulated, there is a change. The king will go to “mountains of myrrh” and “hills of frankincense,” {Son 4:6} to make his person more fragrant, and so, as he hopes, more welcome.

If we adopt the “shepherd hypothesis” the next section of the poem must be assigned to the rustic lover. {Son 4:8-15} It is difficult to believe that this peasant would be allowed to speak to a lady in the royal harem. We might suppose that here and perhaps also in the earlier scene the shepherd is represented as actually present at the foot of the rock on which the palace stands. Otherwise this also must be taken as an imaginary scene, or as a reminiscence of the dreamy girl. Although a thread of unity runs through the whole poem. Goethe was clearly correct in calling it “a medley.” Scenes real and imaginary melting one into another cannot take their places in a regular drama. But when we grant full liberty to the imaginary element there is less necessity to ask what is subjective and what objective, what only fancied by the Shulammite and what intended to be taken as an actual occurrence. Strictly speaking, nothing is actual; the whole poem is a highly imaginative series of fancy pictures illustrating the development of its leading ideas.

Next-whether we take it as in imagination or in fact-the shepherd lover calls his bride to follow him from the most remote regions. His language is entirely different from that of the magnificent monarch. He does not waste his breath in formal compliments, high-flown imagery, wearisome lists of the charms of the girl he loves. That was the clumsy method of the king; clumsy, though, reflecting the finished manners of the court, in comparison with the genuine outpourings of the heart of a country lad. The shepherd is eloquent with the inspiration of true love; his words throb and glow with genuine emotion; there is a fine, wholesome passion in them. The love of his bride has ravished his heart. How beautiful is her love! He is intoxicated with it more than with wine. How sweet are her words of tender affection, like milk and honey! She is so pure. there is something sisterly in her love with all its warmth. And she is so near to him that she is almost like a part of himself, as his own sister. This holy and close relationship is in startling contrast to the only thing known as love in the royal harem. It is as much more lofty and noble as it is more strong and deep than the jaded emotions of the court. The sweet pure maiden is to the shepherd like a garden the gate of which is barred against trespassers, like a spring shut off from casual access, like a sealed fountain-sealed to all but one, and, happy man, he is that one. To him she belongs, to him alone. She is a garden, yes, a most fragrant garden, an orchard of pomegranates full of rich fruit, crowded with sweet-scented plants-henna and spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon and all kinds of frankincense, myrrh and aloes and the best of spices. She is a fountain in the garden, sealed to all others, but not stinted towards the one she loves. To him she is as a well of living waters, like the full-fed streams that flow from Lebanon.

The maiden is supposed to hear the song of love. She replies in fearless words of welcome, bidding the north wind awake, and the south wind too that the fragrance of which her lover has spoken so enthusiastically may flow out more richly than ever. For his sake she would be more sweet and loving. All she possesses is for him. Let him come and take possession of his own. {Son 4:16}

What lover could turn aside from such a rapturous invitation? The shepherd takes his bride; he enters his garden, gathers his myrrh and spice, eats his honey and drinks his wine and milk, and calls on his friends to feast and drink with him. {Son 5:1} This seems to point to the marriage of the couple and their wedding feast; a view of the passage which interpreters who regard Solomon as the lover throughout for the most part take, but one which has this fatal objection, that it leaves the second half of the poem without a motive. On the hypothesis of the shepherd lover it is still more difficult to suppose the wedding to have occurred at the point we have now reached, for the distraction of the royal courtship still proceeds in subsequent passages of the poem. It would seem, then, that we must regard this as quite an ideal scene. It may, however, be taken as a reminiscence of an earlier passage in the lives of the two lovers. It is not impossible that it refers to their wedding, and that they had been married before the action of the whole story began. In that case we should suppose that Solomons officers had carried off a young bride to the royal harem. The intensity of the love and the bitterness of the separation apparent throughout the poem would be the more intelligible if this were the situation. It is to be remembered that Shakespeare ascribes the climax of the love and grief of Romeo and Juliet to a time after their marriage. But the difficulty of accepting this view lies in the improbability that so outrageous a crime would be attributed to Solomon, although it must be admitted that the guilty conduct of his father and mother had gone a long way in setting an example for the violation of the marriage tie. In dealing with vague and dreamy poetry such as that of the Song of Solomon, it is not possible to determine a point like this with precision; nor is it necessary to do so. The beauty and force of the passage now before us centre in the perfect mutual love of the two young hearts that here show themselves to he knit together as one, whether already actually married or not yet thus externally united.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary