Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Song of Solomon 8:6
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love [is] strong as death; jealousy [is] cruel as the grave: the coals thereof [are] coals of fire, [which hath a] most vehement flame.
6. As seals are not impressed upon the heart, nor upon the arm, we must understand here the ring seals which were bound round the neck with a cord (Gen 38:18) and carried in the bosom, or which were worn on the finger (Jer 22:24). This last passage interprets the bride’s request. She wishes to be united in the closest way with her lover, and to be valued as his most precious possessions were valued. Cp. Hag 2:23. Budde, perhaps rightly, would put for the second chthm =‘seal,’ some word like tsmdh, signifying a bracelet. Cp. Tennyson’s Miller’s Daughter, where the lover longs to be a jewel in his lady’s ear:
“It is the miller’s daughter,
And she is grown so dear, so dear,
That I would be the jewel,
That trembles in her ear.”
strong as death ] Love is as irresistible as death, which none can escape.
jealousy is cruel as the grave ] Jealousy is as unrelenting as Sheol, the place of the dead, from which none can ever escape; cp. Pro 27:20. The meaning is that love and jealousy have irresistible power over those whom they bring under their sway. Her reference to jealousy would seem to shew that she fears the effect of her love upon herself, if he should not join himself indissolubly with her.
the coals thereof are coals of fire ] R.V. The flashes thereof are flashes of fire. Love glows and burns in the heart like flame.
a most vehement flame ] Heb. shalhebheth yh, a flame of Jah, i.e. a flame of supernatural power, one that is kindled and cherished by God. Ewald with fair probability suggests that we should read, its flames are flames of Jah. For the thought compare Browning’s Any Wife to any Husband,
“It would not be because my eye grew dim
Thou couldst not find the love there, thanks to Him
Who never is dishonoured in the spark
He gave us from his fire of fires, and bade
Remember whence it sprang, nor be afraid
While that burns on, though all the rest grow dark.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The bride says this as she clings to his arm and rests her head upon his bosom. Compare Joh 13:23; Joh 21:20. This brief dialogue corresponds to the longer one Cant. 4:75:1, on the day of their espousals. Allegorical interpreters find a fulfillment of this in the close of the present dispensation, the restoration of Israel to the land of promise, and the manifestation of Messiah to His ancient people there, or His Second Advent to the Church. The Targum makes Son 8:6 a prayer of Israel restored to the holy land that they may never again be carried into captivity, and Son 8:7 the Lords answering assurance that Israel henceforth is safe. Compare Isa 65:24; Isa 62:3-4.
Son 8:6
The key-note of the poem. It forms the Old Testament counterpart to Pauls panegyric 1Co 13:1-13 under the New.
(a) Love is here regarded as an universal power, an elemental principle of all true being, alone able to cope with the two eternal foes of God and man, Death and his kingdom.
For strong as death is love,
Tenacious as Sheol is jealousy.
Jealousy is here another term for love, expressing the inexorable force and ardor of this affection, which can neither yield nor share possession of its object, and is identified in the mind of the sacred writer with divine or true life.
(b) He goes on to describe it as an all-pervading Fire, kindled by the Eternal One, and partaking of His essence:
Its brands are brands of fire,
A lightning-flash from Jah.
Compare Deu 4:24.
(c) This divine principle is next represented as overcoming in its might all opposing agencies whatsoever, symbolized by water.
(d) From all which it follows that love, even as a human affection, must be reverenced, and dealt with so as not to be bought by aught of different nature; the attempt to do this awakening only scorn.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Son 8:6-7
Set me as a seal upon Thine heart, as a seal upon Thine arm.
The Shulamites choice prayer
This is the prayer of one who hath the present enjoyment of fellowship with Christ, but being apprehensive lest this communion should be interrupted, she avails herself of the opportunity now afforded her to plead for a something which shall be as the abiding token of a covenant between her and her Beloved, when His visible presence shall be withdrawn.
I. The prayer, you will notice, is twofold, although it is so really and essentially one–Set me as a seal upon Thine heart, as a seal upon Thine arm. Oh! Lord, let me know that my name is engraven on Thy heart; not only let it be there, but let me know it. Write my name not only in Thy heart, but may it be as a signet on The heart that I may see it.
II. The spouse argues with her Lord thus. It is my advantage that Thou shouldst thus writs my name upon Thine hand and heart, for I know this concerning Thy love, that it is strong; that it is firm; that it has a wondrous intensity; and that it has a sure and unquenchable eternity. With these four pleas she backeth up her suit.
1. She pleadeth that He would show her His love, because of the strength of it. For love is strong as death. Death is but weakness itself when compared with the love of Christ. What a sweet reason why I should have a share in it! What a blessed argument for me to use before the throne of God! Lord, if Thy love be so strong, and my heart be so hard, and myself so powerless to break it, oh! let me know Thy love, that it may overcome me, that it may enchain me with its sure but soft fetters, and that I may be Thy willing captive evermore.
2. Let us now turn to the second plea–Jealousy is cruel as the grave. The idea is just this, that the love of Christ in the form of jealousy is as hard and as sternly relentless as is the grave and hell. Now hell never looses one of its bond-slaves. Once let the iron gate be shut upon the soul and there is no escape. Well, but such is the love of Christ. If just now we had to speak of its strength, we have now to speak of its tenacity, its hardness, its attachment to those whom it has chosen. You may sooner unlock Hades and let loose the spirits that are in prison there than ye could ever snatch one from the right hand of Christ. Ye may sooner rob death of its prey than Jesus of His purchased ones.
3. If the love of Christ is strong as death; if it be such that it can never be moved from its object, yet the question arises, may not the love itself die out? Even should it abide the same in its purpose, yet may not its intensity be diminished? No, says the Shulamite, it is an attribute of Christs love that the coals thereof are coals of fire which hath a most vehement flame. More forcible is the language of the original–The coals thereof are the coals of God,–a Hebrew idiom to express the most glowing of all flames–the coals of God! as though it were no earthly flame, but something far superior to the most vehement affection among men. It is not like fire merely, but like coals of fire, always having that within itself which supports it. Why did Christ love the spouse? What lit the fire at first? He kindled it Himself. There was no reason whatever why Christ should love any of us, except the love of His own bowels. And what is the fuel that feeds the fire? Your works and mine? No, brethren, no, no, a thousand times no; all the fuel comes from the same place; it is all from His bowels. Well, then, may we understand that it never shall grow less, but always be as a vehement flame.
4. We shall now turn to the last argument of this choice prayer, which is equally precious. It is the unquenchable eternity of this love. There is that in its very essence which defies any opposite quality to extinguish it. The argument seems to me to run thus–Yes, but if Christs love do not die out of itself–if it has such intensity that it never would of itself fail, yet may not you and I put it out? No, says the text, Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 6. Set me as a seal upon thine heart] It was customary in the Levant and other places to make impressions of various kinds upon the arms, the breast, and other parts. I have seen these often: some slight punctures are made, and the place rubbed over with a sort of blue powder that, getting between the cuticle and cutis, is never discharged; it continues in all its distinctness throughout life. The figures of young women are frequently thus impressed on the arms and on the breasts. If the bride alludes to any thing of this kind, which is very probable, the interpretation is easy. Let me be thus depicted upon thine arm, which being constantly before thy eyes, thou wilt never forget me; and let me be thus depicted upon thy breast, the emblem of the share I have in thy heart and affections. Do this as a proof of the love I bear to thee, which is such as nothing but death can destroy; and do it to prevent any jealousy I might feel, which is as cruel as the grave, and as deadly as fiery arrows or poisoned darts shot into the body.
A most vehement flame.] shalhebethyah, “the flame of God;” for the word is divided shalhebeth Yah, “the flame of Jehovah,” by one hundred and sixteen of Dr. Kennicott’s MSS., and by one hundred and fourteen of those of De Rossi. It may mean the lightning; or, as our text understands it, a most vehement or intense fire.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: these are undoubtedly the words of the bride. The sense is, Let thy mind and thy heart be constantly set upon me, let me be engraven upon the tables of thine heart. He seems to allude to the engraven tablets which are frequently worn upon the breast, and to the signet on a mans arm or hand, which men prize at a more than ordinary rate, as appears from Jer 22:24; Hag 2:23, and which are continually in their sight.
For love, my love to thee, from whence this desire proceeds,
is strong as death; which conquers every living thing, and cannot be resisted nor vanquished.
Jealousy, or zeal; my ardent love to thee, which also fills me with fears and jealousies, lest thou shouldst bestow thine affections upon others, and cool in thy love to me, or withdraw thy love from me; for true believers are subject to these passions.
Cruel, Heb. hard; grievous and terrible, and sometimes ready to overwhelm me, and swallow me up; and therefore have pity upon me, and do not leave me.
Are coals of fire; it burns and melts my heart like fire.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
6. Implying approaching absenceof the Bridegroom.
sealhaving her nameand likeness engraven on it. His Holy Priesthood also in heaven(Exo 28:6-12; Exo 28:15-30;Heb 4:14); “his heart”there answering to “thine heart” here, and “twoshoulders” to “arm.” (Compare Jer 22:24;Hag 2:23). But the Holy Ghost(Eph 1:13; Eph 1:14).As in So 8:5, she was “leaning”on Him, that is, her arm on His arm, her head on His bosom;so she prays now that before they part, her impression may beengraven both on His heart and His arm, answering toHis love and His power (Ps77:15; see Gen 38:18; Isa 62:3).
love is strong as death(Act 21:13; Rom 8:35-39;Rev 12:11). This their love untodeath flows from His (Joh 10:15;Joh 15:13).
jealousy . . . thegraveZealous love, jealous of all that would comebetween the soul and Jesus Christ (1Ki 19:10;Psa 106:30; Psa 106:31;Luk 9:60; Luk 14:26;1Co 16:22).
cruelrather,”unyielding” hard, as the grave will not let go those whomit once holds (Joh 10:28).
a most vehementflameliterally, “the fire-flame of Jehovah” (Psa 80:16;Isa 6:6). Nowhere else is God’sname found in the Song. The zeal that burnt in Jesus Christ (Psa 69:9;Luk 12:49; Luk 12:50)kindled in His followers (Act 2:3;Rom 15:30; Phi 2:17).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm,…. These are still the words of the church, speaking to Christ as she walked along with him, as the affixes in the Hebrew text show; in which she desires to have a fixed abiding place in his heart; to continue firmly in his love, and to have further manifestations of it; to be always remembered and supported by him; to be ever on his mind, and constantly under his care and protection; and to have a full assurance of interest in his love, and in his power, which is the sealing work of his Spirit, Eph 1:13. The allusion seems to be to the high: priest, a type of Christ, who had the names of the children of Israel engraved on precious stones, and bore by him on his shoulders, and on his heart, for a memorial before the Lord continually; or to the names of persons, engraved on jewels, wore by lovers on their arms or breasts, or to their pictures put there; not to signets or seals wore on those parts, but to the names and images of persons impressed on them: the Ethiopians p understand it of something bound upon the arm, by which persons might be known, as was used in their country. The church’s desire is, that she might be affectionately loved by Christ, be deeply fixed in his heart, be ever in his view, owned and acknowledged by him, and protected by the arm of his power. Her reasons follow:
for love [is] strong as death; that is, the love or the church to Christ, which caused her to make the above requests: death conquers all; against it there is no standing; such was the love of the church, it surmounted all difficulties that lay in the way of enjoying Christ; nothing could separate from it; she was conquered by it herself q; and could not live without him; a frown, an angry look from him, was as death unto her; yea, she could readily part with life and suffer death for his sake; death itself could not part her from him, or separate him from her love r; so that her love was stronger than death;
jealousy [is] cruel as the grave: the jealousy she had of Christ’s love to her which was her weakness; and yet it was very torturing and afflicting, though at the same time it showed the greatness of her love to Christ: or “envy”, that is of wicked men, she was the object of, which exceeds cruel wrath and outrageous anger, Pr 27:4; or rather her “zeal” s, which is no other than ardent love for Christ his Gospel, cause, and interest; which ate up and consumed her spirits, as the grave does what is cast into it. Ps 119:139. Virgil t gives the epithet of “cruel” to love;
the coals thereof [are] coals of fire; which expresses the fervency of her love to Christ, and zeal for the honour of his name: which, though sometimes cold and languid, is rekindled, and becomes hot and flaming; and is, like fire, insatiable, one of the four things that say, “It is not enough”, Pr 30:16;
[which hath] a most vehement flame; nothing is, nor, common with other writers u, than to attribute flame to love, and to call it a fire; here a most vehement flame. Or, “the flame of Jah” or “Jehovah” w; an exceeding great one: the Hebrews use one or other of the names of God, as a superlative; so the mountains of God, and cedars of God, mean exceeding great ones; and here it expresses the church’s love in the highest degree, in such a flame as not to be quenched, as follows: or it signifies, that the flame of love in her breast was kindled by the Lord himself x, by his Spirit, compared to fire; or by his love, shed abroad in her heart by him, Hence it appears to be false, what is sometimes said, that the name of God is not used in this Song; since the greatest of all his names, Jab or Jehovah, is here expressed.
p Apud Ludolph. Lexic. Ethiopic. p. 341. q “Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori”, Virgil. r “Nostros non rumpit funus amorea”, Lucan. Pharsal. l. 5. v. 761, 762. s “zelus”, Junius Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius, Marckius. t “Crudelis amor”, Bucolic. Eclog. 10. v. 29. u Vid. Barthii Animadv. ad Claudian. de Nutpt. Honor. v. 16. Laude Stilico, v. 74. So love is said to kindle a more vehement flame than at Vulcan’s forge, Theocrit. Idyll. 2. prope finem. w – “flamma Domini”, Montauus, Mercerus “Dei”, Tigurine version, Cocceius “Jah”, Vatablus, to Marckius. x So the Tigurine version, Castalio.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
After Solomon has thus called to remembrance the commencement of their love-relation, which receives again a special consecration by the reference to Shulamith’s parental home, and to her mother, Shulamith answers with a request to preserve for her this love.
6 Place me as a signet-ring on thy heart,
As a signet-ring on thine arm!
For strong as death is love;
Inexorable as hell is jealousy:
Its flames are flames of fire,
A flame of Jah.
7 Mighty waters are unable to quench such love,
And rivers cannot overflow it.
If a man would give
All the wealth of his house for love, –
He would only be contemned.
The signet-ring, which is called ( , to impress), was carried either by a string on the breast, Gen 38:18, or also, as that which is called denotes (from , to sink into), on the hand, Jer 22:24, cf. Gen 41:42; Est 3:12, but not on the arm, like a bracelet, 2Sa 1:10; and since it is certainly permissible to say “hand” for “finger,” but not “arm” for “hand,” so we may not refer “on thine arm” to the figure if the signet-ring, as if Shulamith had said, as the poet might also introduce her as saying: Make me like a signet-ring ( ) on thy breast; make me like a signet-ring “on thy hand,” or “on thy right hand.” The words, “set me on thy heart,” and “(set me) on thine arm,” must thus also, without regard to “as a signet-ring,” express independent thoughts, although is chosen ( vid., Hag 2:23) instead of , in view of the comparison.
(Note: Of the copy of the Tra, which was to be the king’s vade – mecum , it is said, Sanhedrin 21 b: , but also there the amulet is thought of not as fastened to the finger, but as wound round the arm.)
Thus, with right, Hitzig finds the thought therein expressed: “Press me close to thy breast, enclose me in thine arms.” But it is the first request, and not the second, which is in the form , and not ( ), which refers to embracing, since the subject is not the relation of person and thing, but of person and person. The signet-ring comes into view as a jewel, which one does not separate from himself; and the first request is to this effect, that he would bear her thus inalienably (the art. is that of the specific idea) on his heart (Exo 28:29); the meaning of the second, that he would take her thus inseparably as a signet-ring on his arm (cf. Hos 11:3: “I have taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms”), so that she might lie always on his heart, and have him always at her side (cf. Psa 110:5): she wishes to be united and bound to him indissolubly in the affection of love and in the community of life’s experience.
The reason for the double request following , abstracted from the individual case, rises to the universality of the fact realized by experience, which specializes itself herein, and celebrates the praise of love; for, assigning a reason for her “set me,” she does not say, “my love,” nor “thy love,” but , “love” (as also in the address at Son 7:7). She means love undivided, unfeigned, entire, and not transient, but enduring; thus true and genuine love, such as is real, what the word denotes, which exhausts the conception corresponding to the idea of love.
, which is here parallel to “love,” is the jealousy of love asserting its possession and right of property; the reaction of love against any diminution of its possession, against any reserve in its response, the “self-vindication of angry love.”
(Note: Vid., my Prolegomena to Weber’s Vom Zorne Gottes (1862), p. 35 ss.)
Love is a passion, i.e., a human affection, powerful and lasting, as it comes to light in “jealousy.” Zelus , as defined by Dav. Chytrus, est affectus mixtus ex amore et ira, cum videlicet amans aliquid irascitur illi, a quo laeditur res amata , wherefore here the adjectives (strong) and (hard, inexorable, firm, severe) are respectively assigned to “love” and “jealousy,” as at Gen 49:7 to “anger” and “wrath.” It is much more remarkable that the energy of love, which, so to say, is the life of life, is compared to the energy of death and Hades; with at least equal right and (might be used, for love scorns both, outlasts both, triumphs over both (Rom 8:38.; 1Co 15:54.). But the text does not speak of surpassing, but of equality; not of love and jealousy that they surpass death and Hades, but that they are equal to it. The point of comparison in both cases is to be obtained from the predicates. , powerful, designates the person who, being assailed, cannot be overcome (Num 13:28), and, assailing, cannot be withstood (Jdg 14:18). Death is obviously thought of as the assailer (Jer 9:20), against which nothing can hold its ground, from which nothing can escape, to whose sceptre all must finally yield ( vid., Ps 49). Love is like it in this, that it also seizes upon men with irresistible force (Bttcher: “He whom Death assails must die, whom Love assails must love”); and when she has once assailed him, she rests not till she has him wholly under her power; she kills him, as it were, in regard to everything else that is not the object of his love. , hard (opposed to , 2Sa 3:39), , designates one on whom no impression is made, who will not yield (Psa 48:4; Psa 19:4), or one whom stern fate has made inwardly stubborn and obtuse (1Sa 1:15). Here the point of comparison is inflexibility; for Sheol, thought of with , to ask ( vid., under Isa 5:14), is the God-ordained messenger of wrath, who inexorably gathers in all that are on the earth, and holds them fast when once they are swallowed up by him. So the jealousy of love wholly takes possession of the beloved object not only in arrest, but also in safe keeping; she holds her possession firmly, that it cannot be taken from her (Wisd. 2:1), and burns relentlessly and inexorably against any one who does injury to her possession (Pro 6:34 f.). But when Shulamith wishes, in the words, “set me,” etc., to be bound to the heart and to the arm of Solomon, has she in the clause assigning a reason the love in view with which she loves, or that with which she is loved? Certainly not the one to the exclusion of the other; but as certainly, first of all, the love with which she wishes to fill, and believes that she does fill, her beloved. If this is so, then with “for strong as death is love,” she gives herself up to this love on the condition that it confesses itself willing to live only for her, and to be as if dead for all others; and with “inexorable as hell is jealousy,” in such a manner that she takes shelter in the jealousy of this love against the occurrence of any fit of infidelity, since she consents therein to be wholly and completely absorbed by it.
To , which proceeds from the primary idea of a red glow, there is connected the further description of this love to the sheltering and protecting power of which she gives herself up: “its flames, , are flames of fire;” its sparkling is the sparkling of fire. The verb signifies, in Syr. and Arab., to creep along, to make short steps; in Heb. and Chald., to sparkle, to flame, which in Samar. is referred to impetuosity. Symmachus translates, after the Samar. (which Hitzig approves of): ; the Venet., after Kimchi, , for he exchanges with the probably non.-cogn. ; others render it all with words which denote the bright glancings of fire. (so here, according to the Masora; on the contrary, at Psa 76:4, ) are effulgurations; the pred. says that these are not only of a bright shining, but of a fiery nature, which, as they proceed from fire, so also produce fire, for they set on fire and kindle.
(Note: The Phoen. Inscriptions, Citens. xxxvii., xxxviii., show a name for God, , or merely , which appears to correspond to on the Inscriptions of Larnax ( vid., Vogu’s Mlanges Archologiques, p. 19). are thus not the arrows themselves (Grtz), but these are, as it were, lightnings from His bow (Psa 76:4).)
Love, in its flashings up, is like fiery flashes of lightning; in short, it is ,
(Note: Thus in the Biblia Rabbinica and P. H. with the note . Thus by Ben-Asher, who follows the Masora. Cf. Liber Psalmorum Hebr. atque Lat. p. 155, under Psa 118:5; and Kimchi, Wrterb., under and . Ben-Naphtali, on the other hand, reads as two words, . [Except in this word, the recensions of Ben-Asher and Ben-Naphtali differ only “ de punctis vocalibus et accentibus .” Strack’s Prolegomena, p. 28.])
which is thus to be written as one word with raphatum , according to the Masora; but in this form of the word is also the name of God, and more than a meaningless superlative strengthening of the idea. As is formed from the Kal to flame (R. , to lick, like , R. , to twist), so is , from the Shafel , to cause to flame; this active stem is frequently found, especially in the Aram., and has in the Assyr. almost wholly supplanted the Afel ( vid., Schrader in Deut. Morg. Zeit. xxvi. 275). is thus related primarily to , as inflammatio to (Ger.) Flamme ; thus presents itself the more naturally to be interpreted as gen. subjecti. Love of a right kind is a flame not kindled and inflamed by man (Job 20:26), but by God – the divinely-influenced free inclination of two souls to each other, and at the same time, as is now further said, Son 8:7, Son 8:7, a situation supporting all adversities and assaults, and a pure personal relation conditioned by nothing material. It is a fire-flame which mighty waters ( , great and many, as at Hab 3:15; cf. , wild, Isa 43:16) cannot extinguish, and streams cannot overflow it (cf. Psa 69:3; Psa 124:4) or sweep it away (cf. Job 14:19; Isa 28:17). Hitzig adopts the latter signification, but the figure of the fire makes the former more natural; no heaping up of adverse circumstances can extinguish true love, as many waters extinguish elemental fire; no earthly power can suppress it by the strength of its assault, as streams drench all they sweep over in their flow – the flame of Jah is inextinguishable.
Nor can this love be bought; any attempt to buy it would be scorned and counted madness. The expressions is like Pro 6:30 f., cf. Num 22:18; 1Co 13:3. Regarding (from , (Arab.) han , levem esse ), convenience, and that by which life is made comfortable, vid., at Pro 1:13. According to the shepherd-hypothesis, here occurs the expression of the peculiar point of the story of the intercourse between Solomon and Shulamith; she scorns the offers of Solomon; her love is not to be bought, and it already belongs to another. But of offers we read nothing beyond Song Son 1:11, where, as in the following Son 8:12, it is manifest that Shulamith is in reality excited in love. Hitzig also remarks under Son 1:12: “When the speaker says the fragrance of her nard is connected with the presence of the king, she means that only then does she smell the fragrance of nard, i.e., only his presence awakens in her heart pleasant sensations or sweet feelings.” Shulamith manifestly thus speaks, also emphasizing Son 6:12, the spontaneousness of her relation to Solomon; but Hitzig adds: “These words, Son 1:12, are certainly spoken by a court lady.” But the Song knows only a chorus of the “Daughters of Jerusalem” – that court lady is only a phantom, by means of which Hitzig’s ingenuity seeks to prop up the shepherd-hypothesis, the weakness of which his penetration has discerned. As we understand the Song, Son 8:7 refers to the love with which Shulamith loves, as decidedly as Son 8:6 to the love with which she is loved. Nothing in all the world is able to separate her from loving the king; it is love to his person, not love called forth by a desire for riches which he disposes of, not even by the splendour of the position which awaited her, but free, responsive love with which she answered free love making its approach to her. The poet here represents Shulamith herself as expressing the idea of love embodied in her. That apple tree, where he awaked first love in her, is a witness of the renewal of their mutual covenant of love; and it is significant that only here, just directly here, where the idea of the whole is expressed more fully, and in a richer manner than at Son 7:7, is God denoted by His name, and that by His name as revealed in the history of redemption. Hitzig, Ewald, Olshausen, Bttcher, expand this concluding word, for the sake of rhythmic symmetry, to its flames are flames of Jah; but a similar conclusion is found at Psa 24:6; Psa 48:7, and elsewhere.
“I would almost close the book,” says Herder in his Lied der Lieder (Song of Songs), 1778, “with this divine seal. It is even as good as closed, for what follows appears only as an appended echo.” Daniel Sanders (1845) closes it with Son 8:7, places Son 8:12 after Son 1:6, and cuts off Son 1:8-11, Son 1:13, Son 1:14, as not original. Anthologists, like Dpke and Magnus, who treat the Song as the Fragmentists do the Pentateuch, find here their confused medley sanctioned. Umbreit also, 1820, although as for the rest recognising the Song as a compact whole, explains Son 8:8-14 as a fragment, not belonging to the work itself. Hoelemann, however, in his Krone des Hohenliedes Crown of the Song, 1856 (thus he names the “concluding Act,” Son 8:5-14), believes that there is here represented, not only in Son 8:6, Son 8:7, but further also in Son 8:8-12, the essence of true love – what it is, and how it is won; and then in Son 8:13 f. he hears the Song come to an end in pure idyllic tones.
We see in Son 8:8 ff. the continuation of the love story practically idealized and set forth in dramatic figures. There is no inner necessity for this continuance. It shapes itself after that which has happened; and although in all history divine reason and moral ideas realize themselves, yet the material by means of which this is done consists of accidental circumstances and free actions passing thereby into reciprocal action. But Son 8:8 ff. is the actual continuance of the story on to the completed conclusion, not a mere appendix, which might be wanting without anything being thereby missed. For after the poet has set before us the loving pair as they wander arm in arm through the green pasture-land between Jezreel and Sunem till they reach the environs of the parental home, which reminds them of the commencement of their love relations, he cannot represent them as there turning back, but must present to us still a glimpse of what transpired on the occasion of their visit there. After that first Act of the concluding scene, there is yet wanting a second, to which the first points.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
THE ENDURING BOND THAT UNITES THE SHULAMITE AND SHEPHERD
Verses 6-7 express in poetic form the Shulamite’s desire that her love for and claim to her beloved shepherd is and should be known as real and unending.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(6) Seal.See Jer. 22:24; Hag. 2:23, &c. A symbol of something especially dear and precious.
Jealousy.Strong passion, from a word meaning to be red with flame; not in a bad sense, as the parallelism shows:
Strong as death is love,
Inexorable as Sheol is ardent passion.
Grave.Heb. shel. Perhaps, as in the LXX., Hades, with its figurative gates and bars (Psa. 6:5, Note).
Coals.Heb. resheph; in Psa. 78:48, hot thunderbolts (comp. Hab. 3:5); in Job. 5:7, sparks; Marg., sons of the burning; Deu. 32:24, burning heat of the burning fever of the plague.
A most vehement flame.Literally, a flame of Jah, the only place where a sacred name occurs in the book, and here, as in the Authorised Version, adverbially, to express something superlatively great and strong. Southeys lines are a faint echo of this:
But love is indestructible,
Its holy flame for ever burneth,
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
6. Set me as a seal The place of so tender associations gives new impulse to her feelings. In all ancient nations the sealing ring, or signet ring the “seal” here alluded to was constantly worn upon the person, sometimes as a bracelet, oftener as a finger ring. It was, from the comparative infrequency of writing, much used in impressions which served as a sign manual. The wish of the Enamoured is, that she may be always with him.
Jealousy The Hebrew term is simply more intense than that for “love.” Ardent love is more resistless than sheol the world to which all the living are hurried. The coals, etc. Hebrew, the flames thereof are flames of fire.
Which hath Hebrew, because they are the flames of the eternal. The Author of our being, the Maker of our hearts, has implanted love within us. This brief sentence contains within itself the ample excuse for the existence of this song. This is the only mention of the divine Being in this book, and it gives reverently his sanction, or rather, appeals to him as fashioning our hearts and framing our nature.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“Set me as a seal on your heart, As a seal on your arm, For love is strong as death, Jealousy is cruel as Sheol, Its flashes are flashes of fire, A very flame of Yah. Many waters cannot quench love, Nor can floods drown it If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, He would utterly be condemned.”
Solomon’s new wife now calls on him to set her as a seal on his heart and arm in order to demonstrate that both his love and his strength belong to her, and she cites as her reason the extraordinary, unquenchable and intense power of love and its counterpart jealousy. Her love is so great that she cannot bear the thought of being separated from him again.
Her first reasoning is that she demands it because her love is as strong as death. Once death has its claws into a victim he has no hope. Nothing can rescue him from the grip of death. In the same way she sees her love as being equally as strong, so strong that even Solomon is to be bound by it. Her second reasoning is that she demands it because jealousy is as cruel as the grave (Sheol). To the victim who is gripped by it, it is like Sheol, heartless and unyielding. It never lets anyone go. And she knows that she does not want to be consumed by a jealousy like that. Thus to ensure this she wants a firm seal on his heart guaranteeing that he is hers.
For love is such that it strikes like lightning, like the very flame of God, as it has done with her. It is so powerful that many waters cannot quench it. Floods cannot drown it. And for a man to think that he could buy it, even though he gave all that he possessed for it, would simply bring him under condemnation. For true love is so important and of such a nature that it cannot be bought even for the sum total of a man’s wealth. Thus it is important that it be preserved at all costs.
The introduction of the name of God here might well be seen as emphasizing the divine significance of the song. It is about love which comes from Yah (God’s covenant Name), which strikes like lightning and is irresistible, unquenchable and not available to be bought, and about His jealousy over His own which threatens judgment on all who turn from His love (Exo 20:5; Exo 34:14). So in the end this song is not only about love that comes from God, but about the covenant love of Yah Himself. (As in Isa 5:1-7 the punch line comes at the end).
The setting of the seal on the heart and on the arm possibly has in mind the way in which the names of the tribes of Israel were set in the breastpouch and on the shoulder of the High Priest (Exo 28:7-10; Exo 28:29-30) thus likening Solomon’s wife to Israel in its relationship to God. It can also be compared with Isa 49:16 where God tells Zion that He has engraved her upon the palm of His hand, as a token that she was not forsaken or forgotten.
In the New Testament the idea is reversed because there is no doubt about the constancy of the love of Christ and of God (1Co 1:8-9). No seal has to be set on that. It is God therefore Who sets His seal on those who are His by giving them the Holy Spirit (Eph 1:13; Eph 4:30; 2Co 1:22 ; 1Jn 2:20; 1Jn 2:27). But the result of the seal is equally as secure. Once we have received the Holy Spirit we are His for ever. This is a reminder that those who would be part of the bride of Christ must ensure that they are possessed by His Holy Spirit (Rom 8:9).
An Example Of How A True And Chaste Love Can Be Preserved.
The importance of preserving such true love as has been described in verses 6-7 is now illustrated in terms of someone who has not yet known such love, his wife’s little sister. The question is put as to how her true love can be preserved for the one who will have the right to it, her prospective husband. The reply is basically that it is the responsibility of the family to protect her by any means. The importance of this illustration lies in the fact that it enables Solomon’s new wife to stress her total purity and reliability.
There may also be an indication in this incident that God’s love reaches out beyond Israel. The little half-sister possibly represents the subject nations whom Solomon is seeking to bring into subjection to the God of Israel. With their propensities they will have to be kept on a tighter rein than Israel.
Some see a parallel between these verses and Son 1:6. In Son 1:6 the brothers had sent the young maiden to work in their vine gardens, regardless of her purity, which had resulted in the marring of her complexion. Here the very opposite situation arises. The younger sister is to be kept under lock and key in order to preserve her purity, probably as a result of the exaltation of her elder sister. Everything is changed as a result of her having met her exalted beloved.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Son 8:6. Set me as a seal upon thine heart, &c. See Exo 13:9. The meaning is, “Place me so that I may never slip out of thy memory or affection. This request I make out of fervent love, which is strong or irresistible as death; especially when heightened by jealousy, or a fear of losing the beloved object.” The coals thereof are coals of fire; or, as Dr. Hammond has excellently illustrated the place, The darts or arrows thereof are darts of fire, of a most vehement flame. The metaphor is taken from an arrow shot out of a bow, which by the swiftness of its motion takes fire; or rather, perhaps, alludes to the fiery arrows which were sometimes made use of for the same purpose as fire-balls among us. The LXX countenance this version by rendering the passage, The feathers or wings thereof are wings of fire. See Hammond on Psa 76:3 the New Translation, and Martin’s Explication des Textes Difficiles, p. 325.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
DISCOURSE: 855
THE CHURCHS DESIRE OF CHRISTS LOVE
Son 8:6-7. Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.
THE more any person enjoys of Christ, the more ardent will be his desires after him, and the more enlarged his petitions for richer communications from him. The Church, as represented in the song before us, has already been brought into the closest fellowship with her Beloved; yet this, so far from satisfying her, serves only for an occasion of soliciting from him yet further favours, and urging her request with more powerful pleas: Set me as a seal upon thine heart, and upon thine arm; &c. That in this we may be stirred up to follow her example, let us notice,
I.
Her request
To fix the import of this, we must determine the precise sense in which the Bride uses the word, seal. In the general acceptation of that term in Scripture, we understand that which is affixed to deeds or covenants of any kind, in order to ratify and confirm them. Such was that with which Jeremiahs purchase of a field was confirmed [Note: Jer 32:10-11; Jer 32:14.]; and in reference to such was circumcision appointed to Abraham, as the seal of Gods covenant with him, and of the righteousness which he, by faith in that covenant, already possessed [Note: Rom 4:11.]; whilst, on the other hand, Gods foreknowledge and fore-ordination of his elect is a seal on his part, attesting that that covenant stands on a sure and immoveable foundation [Note: 2Ti 2:19.]. In a similar sense, the Holy Spirits work in sanctifying the elect is a seal, whereby he seals them unto the day of redemption, and assures to them their enjoyment of their purchased inheritance [Note: Eph 1:13; Eph 4:30.]. But we apprehend that the use of the term in this place is different; and that it refers to signets which were not uncommonly worn upon the hand or arm, as memorials of persons who were greatly beloved. Such we find mentioned by the Prophet Jeremiah; As I live, saith the Lord, though Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim King of Judah, were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence [Note: Jer 22:24.], utterly unmindful of all my former regards. In this view the Churchs request is, that her Beloved would make her the object of his most endeared affections, and of his continual care. Now,
This is a proper request from every child of man
[All without exception are invited to come to Christ [Note: Joh 6:37.], and tu participate freely his richest blessings [Note: Isa 55:1.]. Unworthiness on our part is no bar to our acceptance with him; since all, however elevated and ennobled afterwards, are, previously to their union with him, in the lowest state of guilt [Note: Rom 3:19.] and degradation [Note: Eze 16:3-12.]. He, and all his benefits, are to be apprehended simply by faith [Note: Joh 1:12.]. Whosoever comes to him by faith is united to him, as a branch to the vine [Note: Joh 15:1-5.], and may expect to receive out of his fulness all that has been treasured up in him for our use and benefit [Note: Joh 15:7.]. We may ask for the entire affections of his soul, and the unlimited exercise of his power, as if there were no other creature in the universe to share his regards. Less than this we ought not to ask. Less than this would not avail for our eternal happiness. We must have all the love of his heart, and all the power of his arm, if we would be brought through all our difficulties and trials to the everlasting enjoyment of him in his kingdom. Whatever the most beloved Bride may hope for from him to whom she is betrothed, that, and infinitely more, may we expect from our heavenly Bridegroom ]
And it shall be fulfilled to all who offer it in spirit and in truth
[Christ has solemnly pledged himself to this extent by an everlasting covenant [Note: Jer 32:40-41.] And he has fulfilled it to millions of the human race, who were once as guilty, as polluted, and as helpless as we Hence he chides the Church for her doubts, after that he had graven her on the palms of his hands [Note: Isa 49:14-16.] Who can tell the efficacy of fervent and believing prayer? Our God and Saviour could as soon deny himself, as he could withstand it. Instead of rejecting our petitions on account of their being too large, he will approve of them the more, and answer them the sooner, on account of their comprehensiveness and extent: he has said, Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it [Note: Psa 81:10.]: Ye may ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you [Note: Joh 14:13-14.].]
We shall, however, be more certain of success, if we can follow her in,
II.
Her pleas
Two things in particular she urged on the consideration of her Beloved, in order to prevail on him to grant her request; the one was, that she could not endure the thought of having a less interest in him than her relation to him required, yea, that her jealousy would burn like coals of fire that had a most vehement flame; and the other was, that her love to him was supreme and unalterable; that it was stronger than death; that no waters could quench it, no floods drown it; and that, if the richest monarch in the universe would give all the substance of his house to engage it for himself, it would be utterly contemned.
Now in these pleas we see,
1.
What distress is occasioned by a doubt of Christs love to us
[To have it a doubtful point whether we be children of God and heirs of heaven, or children of the wicked one and heirs of hell, is a source of unutterable anguish to every man who knows not what a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God [Note: Heb 10:31.]. How bitterly did Job bewail his condition, whilst he apprehended God to be his enemy! The arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me [Note: Job 6:4.]. David likewise in many of his Psalms pours out similar complaints [Note: Psa 42:1-3; Psa 77:1-4; Psa 77:7-9; Psa 88:1-7; Psa 102:1-6; Psa 102:9-11.] Careless and ungodly men can rest satisfied without any inquiries: but an awakened man cannot be so indifferent about his interest in Christ: to him suspense is death: he feels a jealousy cruel as the grave, (which will never suffer its destined victim to escape,) and devouring, like a flame, which consumes all within its reach.]
2.
What consolation arises from a consciousness of our love to him
[Though there is no merit in our love to Christ, it greatly emboldens us in our addresses to him, and gives us a just ground to hope, that he will in due time manifest his love to us, and shed it abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. He has expressly said, I love them that love me [Note: Pro 8:17.]; and has assured us, that, if we love him, his Father will love us, and come and make his abode with us [Note: Joh 14:21; Joh 14:23.]. The very circumstance of our love to him is of itself, independent of all other evidences, a proof that he does actually love us: for our love to him is the effect of his love to us; We love him, because he first loved us [Note: 1Jn 4:10; 1Jn 4:19 and Joh 15:16.]; yea, He loved us with an everlasting love; and therefore with loving-kindness hath he drawn us [Note: Jer 33:3.]. If then we have within ourselves an evidence, that our love to him is supreme, and that nothing which the world could either offer to us, or inflict upon us, would induce us to surrender our hope in him, we may rest assured, not only that he is ours, but that he will be ours even to the end. We may even make this an argument with him in prayer, as David did, I am thine: save me [Note: Psa 119:94.]! and as the Church of old did, Now, O Lord, thou art our father: we are the clay, and thou our potter: and we all are the work of thy hand: Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people [Note: Isa 64:8-9.]. Bearing us, as he does, on his shoulders, and on his breast, in his official capacity as our High Priest within the veil [Note: Exo 28:9-12; Exo 28:21; Exo 28:29-30.], we may be sure that he will never leave us nor forsake us [Note: Heb 13:5.], nor ever suffer any thing to separate us from his love [Note: Rom 8:35-39.].]
Learn from hence,
1.
What should be the frame of your minds towards the Lord Jesus Christ
[Our hearts should be supremely set on him, and we should count all things but loss for the knowledge of him. So ardent should our love to him be, that no floods of affliction or persecution should ever be able to drown it, nor all that the world can give stand for a moment in competition with it Examine yourselves, Brethren, and see whether it be really so? Can ye, in answer to the question put by our Lord to Peter, make the reply that Peter did, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee? ]
2.
What we should daily look for at his hands
[Your security and happiness depend altogether upon his unchanging love. Were he to withdraw from underneath you his everlasting arms, you would instantly fall and perish. Entreat him then to carry you in his bosom, and to bear you still as upon eagles wings. Plead with him in earnest prayer; and let him not go until he bestow his blessing upon you. You are not straitened in him: be not straitened in your own bowels: and let all the fellowship which you enjoy with him here, be regarded by you as a pledge and earnest of still closer fellowship with him in the regions of eternal light and blessedness.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.
In whatever sense we accept the words of this most precious verse, the meditation on them cannot but be sweet, if God the Holy Ghost, who is the author of them, should open them and bring them home to the soul. For then we may say with the prophet, Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart. Jer 15:16 . Reader! let us first accept them as the words of the Church, which should seem to be the most probable of the two. Now when a soul, like the Church, desires to be set as a seal upon Christ’s heart, what a delightful thought is it of being so near to Jesus; always, not only in his sight, and, as the High Priest, bearing the names of Israel on his breast-plate, she might be in a constant memorial before him; but still nearer than this, even in his heart, and upon his arm; to live always with him, and upon him, and never, never to be a moment separated from him. What an ardency of faith is this? And the reason she assigns is as beautiful as interesting. Her love is strong as death; yea, stronger; for death kills all, destroys all connections, all relations, all ties; but death cannot separate the Church from Jesus. Rom 8:38-39 . And her jealousy lest she should lose her Lord, like the grave, which for cruelty would destroy anything, and everything that arose in the way to oppose it; for the coals in her soul of love was burning with a flame that would consume all that came in its way. Reader! where shall we look, in the present day, for faith and love so ardent and so lively! And if we accept the passage in this verse as the words of Jesus, we are only lost in greater amazement still at the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge! Set me, saith Christ, as a seal upon thine heart. Jesus desires the first place in the affections of his people. Indeed, unless this be given him we give him nothing. It is with all the heart, and all the soul, if we love him at all, that that love is to be manifested. And if Christ be formed in our heart, the hope of glory, there will be all the suitable correspondence. Hence the apostle Barnabas exhorted the believers at Antioch, that with full purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. Act 11:23 . And what that is, will not be far to gather. In the soul which is cleaving unto the Lord, and setting Jesus as the seal there, Christ will be uppermost in the affection. The soul will undertake nothing but in his strength, and design nothing but for his glory. And the most blessed testimonies, that the soul is really thus setting Jesus for a seal, will be found in the life and conversation, by the affections being weaned from all things here below, and a growing connection forming more and more, with those that are above. Reader! is it so with you? Precious Jesus! thy love hath been strong as death indeed, for the accomplishment of these purposes. And oh! that thy jealousy, for the suitable return of the affections of thy people, may provoke all the souls of thy redeemed to a holy jealousy for thine honour, that we may love thee, who hath so earnestly first loved us!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Son 8:6 Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love [is] strong as death; jealousy [is] cruel as the grave: the coals thereof [are] coals of fire, [which hath a] most vehement flame.
Ver. 6. Set me as a seal upon thine heart, ] i.e., Be thou as “a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God.” Heb 2:17 Exo 28:21 ; Exo 28:29 Remember me for good, and make mention of me to thy father. Have me also in precious esteem, as great men have the signets upon their right hands; and as whatsoever is sealed with a seal, that is excellent in its own kind, as in Isa 28:25 , hordeum signatum, excellent barley. Christ wears his people as a signet, or as great men wear their jewels, to make him glorious in the eyes of men; neither will he be plundered of them by the Church’s enemies; to touch them is to “touch the apple of his eye,” Zec 2:8 that tenderest piece of the tenderest part. The proverb is, Oculus et fama non patiuntur iocos; The eye and the good name can bear with no jests. As the saints are in Christ’s heart, ad commoriendum et convivendum, so they are also “upon his arm”; so that if they do out come and say in any danger or difficulty, “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake as in the ancient days,” &c. Isa 51:9 he will “redeem his people with his arm”; Psa 77:15 yea, with his “outstretched arm,” Exo 6:6 that is, with might and open manifestation of his love; he will “awake as one out of sleep, and like a man that shouteth by reason of wine.” Psa 78:65
For love is strong as death.
Jealousy is cruel as the grave.
The coals thereof are coals of fire.
a Acts and Mon., fol. 1438.
b Contra Adamant., c. 13.
c Speed, 935.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Set = Oh place.
seal = signet, regarded as good as a signature. Now that writing is more common it has become an ornament. It was worn round the neck (Gen 38:18, Gen 38:25), or worn on the right hand (Jer 22:24). Compare also Hag 2:2, Hag 2:3.
cruel = inexorable, hard.
as the grave = as Sheol. See App-35.
the coals thereof = its flames.
which hath a most vehement flame. Hebrew “flames of Jah”: shalhebeth-yah. Render this: For love is strong as death, The flames thereof are flames of fire, Jealously is inexorable as Sheol, The vehement flames of Jah.
flame. Same root as Gen 3:24.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
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 SEVEN SONG OF SOLOMON 8:6, 7
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned (Song of Solomon 8:6, 7).
IT is, of course, the love of the bridegroom for his bride that is thus spoken of. We have been tracing the manifestations of it throughout this little book, from the time when the shepherd first looked upon the shepherdess and his heart went out to her until the time when they were united in marriage. It is a beautiful picture, first of the love of Christ reaching us in our deep, deep need, and then that glorious union with Him which will be consummated at the marriage supper of the Lamb.
Now you hear the bride exclaiming, Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine
arm. The seal speaks of something that is settled. One draws up a legal document and seals it and that settles it. And so Christ and His loved ones have entered into an eternal relationship, and He has given us the seal, the Holy Spirit. After that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. This is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.
That seal is the pledge of His love, and you will notice that in the words that follow we have love spoken of in four ways, at least we have four characteristics of love.
First, there is the strength of love. Love is strong as death. Second, the jealousy of love. In our Version we read, Jealousy is cruel as the grave, and of course that is often true of human love. It may be a very cruel thing indeed, the word translated cruel is the ordinary Hebrew word for firm or unyielding. It may be paraphrased, Jealousy is unyielding as the grave. The coals thereof are coals of fire, a vehement flame, and this expression, a vehement flame, in the Hebrew text is a flame of Jah. That is the first part of the name of the Lord God and it is one of the titles of God. In the third place we have the endurance of love. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. And then lastly, the value of love. If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.
First let us meditate on the strength of love; and we are thinking, of course, of the love of our God as revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ, for Christ is the Bridegroom of our souls. Love is strong as death. This He has already demonstrated. Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it. And that giving Himself meant going into death to redeem His own. Love is strong as death. We might even say in His case, It is stronger than death, for death could not quench His love. He went down into death and came up in triumph that He might make us His own, and it is of this we are reminded as we gather at the Lord s Table. It is this which He wishes us to cherish in a special way when we come together to remember Him. He knows how apt we are to forget; He knows how easy it is to be occupied with the ordinary things of life, and even with the work of the Lord, and forget for the moment the price He paid for our redemption; and He would call us back from time to time to sit together in sweetest and most solemn fellowship, and meditate on that mighty love of His which is strong as death. Nothing could turn Him aside.
Love that no thought can reach, Love that no tongue can teach, Matchless it is!
Because there was no other way to redeem our souls, He stedfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem. When He went through that Samaritan village, they did not receive Him because they realized that there was no desire upon His part to remain among them at that time, but they saw His face as though He would go to Jerusalem, and they said as it were, Well, if He prefers to go to Jerusalem rather than remain here with us, we are not going to pay attention to His message. We are not interested in the proclamation that He brings.
How little they understood that it was for them, as truly as for the Jews in yonder Judea, that He set His face stedfastly to go to Jerusalem. If He had not gone to Jerusalem and given Himself up to the death of the Cross, there could be no salvation for Samaritan, Jew, or Gentile. But oh, the strength of His love! He allowed nothing to divert Him from that purpose for which He had come from heaven. Before He left the glory, He said, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me) to do Thy will, O God (Heb 10:7). And to do the will of God meant for Him laying down His life on the cross for our redemption. Do we think of it as much as we should? Do we give ourselves to meditation, to dwelling on the love of Christ, a love that passeth knowledge, and do we often say to ourselves, The Son of God loved me, and gave Himself for me? Oh, the strength of His love!
Then we think of the jealousy of love. I know that jealousy in these poor hearts of ours is often a most contemptible and despicable thing. Jealousy on our part generally means utter selfishness. We are so completely selfish, we do not like to share our friends with anyone else; and what untold sorrow has come into many a home because of the unreasonable jealousy of a husband, of a wife, of parents, or of children. But while we deprecate a jealousy which has selfishness and sin at the root of it, there is another jealousy which is absolutely pure and holy, and even on our lower plane someone has well said that, Love is only genuine as long as it is jealous. When the husband reaches the place where he says, I do not care how my wife bestows her favors on others; I do not care how much she runs around with other men; I am so large-hearted I can share her with everybody, that husband does not love his wife, and if you could imagine a wife talking like that about her husband, you would know that love was gone, that it was dead.
Love cannot but be jealous, but let us see that it is a jealousy that is free from mere selfishness and unwarranted suspicion. When we think of it in connection with God we remember that one of the first things we learned to recite was the Ten Commandments, and some of us were perplexed when we read, I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me. We shrank back from that because we were so used to thinking of jealousy as a despicable human passion, that we could not think of God having it in His character. But it is He who has a right to be jealous. Gods jealousy is as pure as is His love and it is because He loves us so tenderly that He is jealous. In what sense is He jealous? Knowing that our souls happiness and blessing alone will be found in walking in fellowship with Himself, He loves us so much He does not want to see us turning away from the enjoyment of His love and trying to find satisfaction in any lesser affection, which can only be for harm and eventual ruin. The end of these things is death.
Paul writing to the Corinthian church says, I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy, for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you a chaste virgin to Christ.
And then he gives the ground of his jealousy. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. You see Paul was a true pastor. He loved the people of Christs flock and knew that their only lasting joy was to be found in living in communion with their Saviour; and His heart was torn with a holy jealousy if he saw them turning aside to the things of the world, following after the things of the flesh, or being ensnared by the devil. Every God-anointed pastor will feel that way.
Young believers sometimes imagine that some of us who try to lead the flock of God are often needlessly hard and severe, and they think us unsympathetic and lacking in compassion and tenderness when we earnestly warn them of the folly of worldliness and carnality. They say, Oh, they dont understand. That old fogey preacher, I have no doubt, had his fling when he was young, and now he is old and these things no longer interest him, and so he wants to keep us from having a good time!
Let me speak as a fool, and yet I trust to the glory of God. As a young believer coming to Christ when I was fourteen years old, the first lesson I had to learn was that there is nothing in this poor world to satisfy the heart, and by the grace of God I sought to give it all up for Jesus sake. The only regret I have today is that there have ever been times in my life when I have drifted into carnality and fallen into a low backslidden state, and so allowed myself something which afterward left a bad conscience and a sense of broken fellowship, and I never was happy until it was judged, and I was once more in communion with the Lord. If sometimes we speak strongly to you about going in the ways of the world, reminding you that God has said, Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing, it is because we have learned by years of experience that there is no peace, there is no lasting joy, there is no true unspoiled happiness for those who walk in the ways of the world. If you want a life of gladness, a life of enduring bliss; if you want to be able to lie down at last and face death with a glad, free spirit, then we beg of you, follow the path that your blessed Lord Jesus took. Oh that we might not be turned aside but that we might rouse our souls to a godly jealousy.
I wonder if you have ever noticed that the blessed Holy Spirit who dwells in every believer is Himself spoken of as jealous. There is a passage found in Jam 4:4, 5, that I am afraid is not often really understood, but it is a very striking one: Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do ye think that the Scripture saith in vain, The Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
Take that home, dear young Christian. Do not be seduced by the world and its folly; do not be turned aside from the path of faithfulness to Christ by the mad rush for worldly pleasure and amusement; do not allow the flesh to turn you away and rob you of what should be your chief joy The friendship of the world is enmity with God. Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. It is the next verse that perhaps we might not understand. Do ye think that the Scripture saith in vain, The Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? One might gather that this expression, The Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy, was a quotation from Scripture, as though He were asking, Do you think the Scripture [that is, the Old Testament], saith in vain, The Spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? But you can search the Old Testament from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Malachi, and you will not find those words or anything that sounds like them. So it is clear that that is not what is meant. In fact, there are really two distinct questions in the Greek. First there is the question, Do ye think that the Scripture speaketh in vain? Do you? Do you think that the Scripture speaks in vain? Having read its warnings and its admonitions against worldliness, against the unequal yoke, against the pleasures of sin, against following the path of the flesh, do you sometimes say in your heart, I know it is all in the Bible, but after all, I am not going to take it too seriously? Do you think that the Scripture speaketh in vain?
Why has God put these things in His Word? Is it because He does not love you, and desires to keep you from things that would do you good? That is what the devil told Eve in the beginning. He insinuated that God did not love her. He said, God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil (Gen 3:5). And Eve said, I am going to eat of it; I will try anything once. Is that what you have been saying too? If you can only do this or do that, you think you will have an experience you have never had before. The whole world is looking for new thrills today. Before you act, put the question to yourself, Does the Scripture speak in vain? It tells you that the end of all these things is death and you may be assured the Scripture does not speak in vain.
Then there is a second question, Doth the Spirit that dwelleth in us jealously desire? And the answer is, Yes. The Holy Ghost dwelling in the believer jealously desires to keep us away from the world and to keep our hearts true to Christ. Do you realize that you never tried to go into anything that dishonored the Lord, you never took a step to go into the world, but the Spirit of God within you was grieved, and sought to exercise you because He jealously desired to keep you faithful to Christ? I am talking to Christians. If you are not a Christian, the Spirit does not dwell in you, and you do not know what this is.
Our blessed Lord wants you all for Himself. People say sometimes, Well, I want to give the Lord the first place in my heart, and they mean that there will be a lot of places for other
things. The Lord does not merely want the first place; He wants the whole place; He wants to control your whole heart, and when He has the entire control, everything you do will be done for His glory.
A striking little incident is told by Pastor Dolman. Before the world war he was in Russia holding some meetings in the palace of one of the Russian nobility. Among those who attended the meetings was a Grand Duchess. She was a sincere evangelical Christian. Dr. Dolman was talking one day about a life devoted to Christ, about separation and unworldliness, and when he finished, the Grand Duchess stepped forward and said, I do not agree with everything Pastor Dolman said.
What did I say with which you do not agree, Your Imperial Highness? asked Dr. Dolman.
You said it is wrong to go to the theater. I go to the theater, but I never go without first getting down on my knees and asking Him to go with me, and He does.
Pastor Dolman said, But, Your Imperial Highness, I did not say a word about the theater.
I know; but you meant that.
Your Imperial Highness, said Dr. Dolman, are you not turning things around? Who gave you or me authority to decide where we will go or what we will do, and then to ask the Lord to be with us in it? Instead of getting down on your knees and saying, Lord, I am going to the theater, come with me, why dont you wait until He comes to you and says, Grand Duchess, I am going to the theater, and I want you to go with Me?
She threw up her hands and was honest enough to say, Pastor Dolman, you have spoiled the theater for me. I cannot go again.
Where He leads me, I will follow, but dont you start and ask Him to tag along. Let Him lead. Because He knows that your real, lasting happiness and joy are bound up in devotion to Him, He is jealous lest you should be turned aside.
Now we notice the endurance of love. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. How precious that is! How blessedly it was proven in His case. He went down beneath the floods of divine judgment. He could say, Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of Thy waterspouts: all Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over Me (Psa 42:7). But it did not quench His love, and through all the years since His people have had to endure many things; they have had to pass through deep waters, to go through great trials, but He has been with them through it all.
In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them (Isa 63:9). In Isa 43:2 we read, When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. Dont you love to have somebody to whom you can go with all your troubles and know He will never get tired of you?
Some years ago I became acquainted with a poor little old lady in a place where I was ministering the Word. She was going through all kinds of sorrow, and she came to me and said, I would just like to tell you about my troubles. I felt like saying, Dear sister, I wish you would tell them to the Lord. But I sat down and listened, and now for over ten years I have been getting her troubles by mail, and I try to send her a little encouraging and sympathetic word in reply. Recently I met her again and she said, You must be getting awfully tired of my troubles, and if I had told the truth, I would have had to say, Yes, I am, but I said, What is troubling you now? Oh, she said, it is not anything new, but it is such a comfort to find somebody who will enter into them and understand! And she was so effusive in her gratitude I was ashamed that I had not entered into things more deeply.
Ah, we have a great High Priest who never wearies of our trials. We weary of hearing of them sometimes because they stir our hearts and we would like to do that which we cannot do; but He has power to see us through. No trial, no distress, can quench His love. Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end (Joh 13:1). Somebody has paraphrased it this way, Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them all the way through. Through what? Through everything. He even loved Peter through his denial, through his cursing and swearing, and loved him back into fellowship with Himself. His love is unfailing. Having taken us up in grace, He loves to the end.
Let us look now at the value of love. Can you purchase love? Can you pay for it? I was in a home at one time where a very rich man of seventy years of age, worth millions, had married a girl of eighteen. Her ambitious, worldly-minded mother had engineered the marriage. I could not help noticing that young wife off in a corner sobbing to herself and crying bitterly, but I tried never to interfere, for I did not want her to tell me what was in her heart. But one day the husband said, Do you notice how downhearted my wife is? I said, She must have had some great sorrow.
I am her sorrow, he said. She was a poor girl, very beautiful and talented, and, as you know, I have been very successful, and I just thought that I could give her every comfort and could surely make her love me. I know that we do not seem to be suited; she is so much younger than I. But she can have everything, all the beautiful clothes and jewels she wants, and surely any girl ought to be happy in a home like this. But, you know, it is all in vain; I cannot seem to buy her love.
Of course not. He ought to have known that he did not have that in his heart to which she could respond. They belonged to two different ages, as it were. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. You cannot buy love, but oh, His love to us creates love in us. It is not the wonderful things that He has done for us, it is not the fact that He has enriched us for eternity, but it is because of what He is. We love Him because He first loved us.
His is an unchanging love, Higher than the heights above; Deeper than the depths beneath, Free and faithful, strong as death.
What a blessed thing to know Him and love Him and be loved by Him! Oh, to be kept from wounding such a Lover, from grieving His Holy Spirit! For we read, The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us.
~ end of chapter 7 ~
http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/
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Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
27.
A choice prayer for saints and sinners
Son 8:6-7
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.
What a description this is of the love of Christ, the “love that passeth knowledge.” It is Christ who speaks in Son 8:5, “I raised thee up under the apple tree.” It is Christ who says, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, and with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.” It is God our Savior who declares, “I drew them with cords of love, and with the bands of a man.” He found us in a desert land, and in a waste howling wilderness. “Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it.”
The Lord Jesus here declares his love to his church, and she replies, “Set me as a seal,” not only on thy heart, but also on your armthe place of your love and the place of your strengththe place of the most tender emotion and deepest passion, and the place of power, safety, and work.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? His love is invincible and irresistible as death. It is a jealous love, as unyielding and unalterable as the grave. Its comparable to fire,coals of fire,the very flame of Jehovah. Here, then, is the love of Christ! Its breadth, length, height, and depth, are absolutely immeasurable.
Our fear
This is not the prayer of a soul that is longing for fellowship. That prayer is Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest. This is not even the prayer of the soul that has some fellowship, but longs for more. Then the prayer would be O that thou wert as my brother! And this is not the prayer of one that once enjoyed the fellowship of Christ, but has now lost it. That cry would be Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? Then the sorrowful soul goes about the streets of the city, saying, I will seek him, for I am sick of love.
This is the prayer of the believing soul who has the present enjoyment of Christs fellowship, but is fearful that the sweet communion might be interrupted. Therefore, the spouse here pleads for something that would be to her a token of the covenant between her and her Beloved when his manifest presence might be withdrawn. This is the prayer of the spouse when she has been coming up out of the wilderness, leaning upon her Beloved. The thought seems to strike her that he who has sustained her is about to be taken from her for a season because it is expedient and more useful for her. Therefore, she prays that, before he leaves the earth and enters again into his heavenly kingdom, he might be pleased to enter into a covenant with her, never to forget her, and that he might give her some sign and pledge of his love to her. She wanted to know that she would always be near to his heart while she waited for his return.
I take this to be the prayer of the church in this present gospel age. Today Christ is before his Fathers throne. The Bridegroom is no longer with us physically. His bodily presence has been taken from us. He has, in that sense, left us. He has gone to heaven to prepare a place for us. He told us that he must go away, and that his going away was expedient for us (Joh 16:7). But he promised that he would come again, and that when he returns we will be together with him forever (Joh 14:1-3). Today we long for his coming.
In the language of the last verse of this Holy Song of Love, we say, Make haste, my Beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices. Or, in the language of the Revelation, we hear him say, Surely I come quickly. And our hearts respond, Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! Yet, before he went away, as we read the gospel narratives, it seems as though his church was saying, Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm. This is the prayer of Gods church today. Though our Lords bodily presence is absent from us, we want to be near him, near his heart, and we want to have the blessed consciousness of the fact that we are upon his heart.
I ask my dying Savior dear
To set me on His heart;
And if my Jesus fix me there,
Nor life, nor death shall part.
As Aaron bore upon his breast
The names of Jacobs sons,
So bear my name among the rest
Of Thy dear chosen ones.
But seal me also with Thine arm,
Or yet I am not right.
I need Thy love to ward off harm,
And need Thy shoulders might.
This double seal makes all things sure,
And keeps me safe and well;
Thy heart and shoulder will secure
From all the host of hell.
Our prayer
This is a prayer which arises from the earnest hearts of Gods believing children. Yet, it is a prayer any sinner desiring mercy, grace, and salvation might make at the throne of grace. Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm. The allusion here is, as I have shown you, to the high priest in Israel. The prayer is really twofold. She longs to know that she has an interest in the love of Christs heart, and she longs to experience the power of his arm (Exo 28:12; Exo 28:29-30; Exo 28:36-38).
Believers know the meaning of this prayer by personal experience. It is the longing, the desire of a sinner seeking grace to know that his name is engraved upon the Saviors heart. In the language of the psalmist, we say to the Lord Jesus, Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. I desire an interest in your love; but I want more. I want to know that I have an interest in your love. Write my name in your heart, and engrave it as a signet upon your heart, so that I may see it and know it.
Without question, there are many whose names are written on our Lords heart who do not yet know it. Christ has loved them from all eternity. His heart has been set upon them from everlasting. But they have not yet seen the signet with their names written upon it.
In all of his work our great High Priest bears the names that are upon his heart. For them he makes intercession (Joh 17:9; Joh 17:20; 1Jn 2:1-2). He bore their sins in his body upon the cursed tree (1Pe 2:24; 1Pe 3:18), and endured all the wrath of divine judgment to the full satisfaction of justice for them (Isa 53:9-11). He made atonement for them, putting away their sins by the sacrifice of himself (Heb 9:26). He obtained eternal redemption for them by the merit of his blood (Heb 9:12). Upon them he pronounces the blessing of God (Num 6:24-27; Eph 1:3-6).
We want to know, to experience the power of our Saviors arm. We want always to see and know that our Redeemers heart and hand are eternally engaged for us, engaged to accomplish our everlasting salvation. This is our souls desire. We want to know and be assured that the Lord Jesus Christ is our High Priest, our Advocate, our sin-atoning Mediator before God. If we can know that we have a place in his heart of love and that his arm is set to do us good, we want no more. All is well with our souls. His arm preserves us, protects us, and provides for us. This is the prayer we make. What more could we desire than this? Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm.
Our plea
Anytime we go to God in prayer, it is wise to not only make our request known to him, but also to offer a plea, an argument, a reason why he should grant the thing we ask. Be sure that you understand this: The only grounds upon which we can appeal to God for mercy are to be found in God himself (See Psa 51:1-5). Our hope, our basis of appeal with God must be found in him.
See how the spouse here urges her request. She says, Make me to know your love for me, because I know this concerning your loveIt is as strong as death. It is as firm as the grave. It is as intense as fire. And it is as unquenchable as eternity. With these four pleas, she backs up and presses her suit for mercy.
Show me your love, for your love is strong as death. Love is strong as death. The love of Christ is as irresistible as death. The love of Christ triumphed over death for us. As death refuses to give up its victims, so the love of Christ refuses to give up its captives. Nothing shall ever cause the Son of God to cease loving his people and let them go.
Show me your love, for your love is as firm as the grave. Jealousy is cruel as the grave. These words would be more accurately translated, Jealousy is as hard as hell. Our Lord is jealous over his people. He will not allow those whom he loves to be taken from him. You will more likely see the gates of hell opened, the fires of hell quenched, and the spirits of the damned set free, than see the Son of God lose one of those who are engraved upon his heart (Rom 8:28-39). Those whom God has chosen, he will never refuse. Those Christ has redeemed, he will never sell. Those he has justified, he will never condemn. Those he has found, he will never lose. Those he has loved, he will never hate.
Show me your love, for your love is as intense as fire. The coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. These words seem to allude to that fire which always burned at the altar and never went out. Those coals of fire were always kept burning in the typical Levitical dispensation. The flame was originally kindled by God. It was the work of the priests to perpetually feed it with the sacred fuel. The love of Christ is like the coals of that altar which never went out, and more. The love of Christ for his own elect is vehement, blazing, intense love that never diminishes. The only cause of his love for us is in himself. There is nothing, no form of love to compare with his love. The love of Christ for his elect is free, sovereign, eternal, saving, immutable love.
Show me your love, for your love is as unquenchable as eternity. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it (Rom 8:37-39). No other love is really unquenchable, but our Saviors love is. His love is eternal and everlasting, immutable and unalterable. The love of Christ is infinitely beyond that of a father or a mother, or a brother or a sister, or a husband or a wife. The love of Christ is the one and only love that passes knowledge, the one love that nothing in heaven, or earth, or hell is able to extinguish or cool, the one love whose dimensions are beyond all measure (Eph 3:14-19).
Our Redeemers love is here compared to fire that cannot be quenched. As such it is affirmed that “waters,” “many waters” cannot quench it. Christs love for us is something the floods cannot drown (Psa 69:15; Psa 93:3). The waters of Gods wrath could not quench the love of Christ for his people. Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them to the end. It was our Saviors matchless love for us that made him willing to endure all the horror of Gods wrath in our stead.
The waters of shame and suffering sought to quench and drown it. They would have hindered its outflowing, and come (like Peter) between the Savior and the cross, but his love refused to be quenched on its way to Calvary. Herein was love! It leaped over all the barriers in its way. It refused to be extinguished or drowned. Its fire would not be quenched. Its life could not be drowned (Psa 69:1-7).
The waters of death sought to quench it. The waves and billows of death went over the great Lover of our souls. The grave sought to cool or quench his love; but it proved itself stronger than death. Neither death nor the grave could alter or weaken his love for us. It came out of both death and the grave as strong as before. Love defied death, and overcame it.
Even the floods of our sins could not quench the love of Christ for us. The waters of our unworthiness could not quench nor drown the love of Christ for our souls. Love is usually attracted to that which is loveable. When something ugly, unlovely, unattractive comes love (as it is called) withdraws from its object. Not so here. All our unfitness and unloveableness could not quench nor drown the love of Christ. It clings to the unlovely, and refuses to be torn away.
The waters of our long rejection sought to quench it. Though the gospel showed us that personal unworthiness could not arrest the love of Christ, we continued to reject him and his love. We continued to hate him and despise his love. Yet, his love for us rose above our enmity to him, rose above our unbelief, and survived our hardness. In spite of everything we are and have done, his love was unquenched.
Though he has saved us by his matchless grace, the waters of our daily inconsistency seek to quench his love, but blessed be his name, without success! Even after experiencing his adorable grace, we are constantly spurning his unspurnable love! What inconsistencies, coldness, lukewarmness, unbelief, worldliness, hardness, and utter ungodliness daily flows from us against the Saviors love like a mighty flood to quench its fire and drown its life! Yet it survives all; it remains unquenched, unquenchable and unchanged!
All these infinite evils in us are like “waters,” “many waters,” like “floods,” torrents of sin, waves and billows of evil, all constantly laboring to quench and drown the love of Christ! They would annihilate any other love, any love less than his. But our Saviors love is unchangeable and everlasting.
Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible
grave
Heb. “Sheol,” (See Scofield “Hab 2:5”)
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
In Praise of Love
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm:
For love is strong as death;
Jealousy is cruel as the grave:
The flashes thereof are flashes of fire,
A very flame of the Lord.
Many waters cannot quench love,
Neither can the floods drown it:
If a man would give all the substance of his house for love,
He would utterly be contemned.Son 8:6-7
Literature furnishes no eulogy of love more splendid than this. Some of the clauses have passed into proverbs, and are often upon the lips. Such language as this has been adopted as their own by those ardent souls with whom piety is a passion, and for whom the love of God consumes all earthly emotion and desire. Here is love not simply, and not mainly, as it shows itself in our imperfect affections for each other, but as an universal and Divine principle, the motive and supreme principle of universal being; of the love which is from God, the love which is God and in which He dwells; the love in which if we dwell, God dwells in us and we in Him. And, taken in this high sense, the hymn is surely no unworthy precursor, no mean rival even, of St. Pauls noble and famous song in praise of charity.
The vigour, one might say the rigour, of the passage distinguishes it from nearly all other poetry devoted to the praises of love. That poetry is usually soft and tender; sometimes it is feeble and sugary. And yet it must be remembered that even the classical Aphrodite could be terribly angry. There is nothing morbid or sentimental in the Shulammites ideas. She has discovered and proved by experience that love is a mighty force, capable of heroic endurance, and able, when wronged, to avenge itself with serious effect.1 [Note: W. F. Adeney.]
I
The Demand of Love
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm.
The seal is the signet-ring which was sometimes carried by a string on the breast, and sometimes worn on the hand. Specially prized possessions in the way of jewels or ornaments used to be worn by the natives of Palestine, and perhaps are still, firmly sealed upon the person to prevent their being lost, stolen, or snatched away. Anything sealed in this way, whether an object of intrinsic value or not, was always precious in the eyes of the owner above all the other articles constituting the store of his worldly goods. It might be so regarded for old associations sake as a token of special favour conferred or of honour gained, just as we to-day might wear an armlet, a ring, a locket round the neck, or some order or decoration on the breast denoting the status or exploits of the person thus distinguished. The point of every such proceeding is, of course, that there is a close individual connexion between the life of the wearer and that which is indicated by the object worn.
1. The seal is to be set upon the heart. Begin at the heart if you would begin wisely; begin metaphysically, begin a long way from the visible, the concrete, and what is called the practicalpoorest, meanest of the little heaps of dust that gather around the feet of our pilgrimage! We must have Christ in the heart, a great secret, a solemn yet joyful silence. Christ and the heart must have tender communion; they have festive times that are not marked on the calendar; they muse together, they ask questions of one another, then come more intimately near; in the soul there is a mystic wedding, without which any other wedding is an oath broken at the altar.
An ancient writer said, Christ seals us in the heart, that we may love Him; in the forehead, that we may confess Him; in the hand, that we may profess Him, and that we may practise what we profess. Over this love time and death have no power. It burns brighter when the lamp of life burns low; it breaks forth in perfect lustre when, beyond this murky atmosphere of earth, it reaches the clear air of heaven.
2. Then set this seal upon the arm. There is a time for protest, confession, public confession of the Eternal Name; there is a ministry of symbolism; there is a way of walking which shows that the pilgrim has a sanctuary in view; there is a mysterious influence upon the attitude, the figure, the dress, the whole tone and the speech of the life. What is it? We often call it the profession of the Name of Christ. Some of us would perhaps under certain circumstances turn our clothing so that we could conceal the seal from everybody; but there is a way to be equally detested, and that is an opening and showing of the seal as if making an investment and testimonial and credential of it. There is another way, the way of true modesty, gentle but invincible love that is not ashamed of Jesus or ashamed of the Christian seal.
The high priest of old had the names of all the tribes of Israel upon his breastplate, he also carried them upon his shoulders. He was a type or representative of our great High Priest, who bears our names upon His breast, the seat of His affections; the shoulders indicating His mighty power to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him.
My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in Heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart.1 [Note: C. W. Lepper, The Bridegroom and His Bride, 237.]
II
The Strength of Love
For love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave.
1. The meaning of this clause is obscured by the translation. The word jealousy should be lovelove regarded in its ardour and inexorable force, the love that can neither yield nor share possession of its object. The word rendered cruel indicates the tenacity of this ardent affection, not its cruelty; it implies, not that it will torture its object, but that it will never let it go. And the word rendered grave is Sheol, the Hebrew name for that invisible underworld which so distinctly refuses to yield back the spirits which have once descended into it. So that, as we have no such synonym for the word love as the Hebrew use it here, we had better, to avoid repeating the same word, omit it from the second line altogether, and translate the whole distich thus:For love is strong as death, tenacious as Hades itself. And, obviously, what the poet intends is to set forth this master-passion of the soul as an elemental principle of being, the sole power in us which is capable of coping with death and Hades, and of overcoming them.
This is a wonderful statement, when we remember that at the time it was spoken people looked upon death as practically the end of everything. The Hebrew Sheol was a dismal place, the place of all departed souls, bad and good, and without much that was hopeful or interesting in the kind of existence it allowed. In the later and higher developments of Jewish thought about the state of the so-called dead, some attempt was made to differentiate between the lot of the righteous and that of the wicked in this gloomy underworld. But it was not so at first, and it is very doubtful if it was so even at the time this text was written. It was believed that at death the Divine principlethe breath of God, as it werewas withdrawn from the human personality which, thus bereft, though it went on living in Sheol, did so without experiencing any of the former zest and joy of life; it was but a poor, shadowy, attenuated sort of existence that was left to the soul deprived of the body and of the animating spirit of God. Hence, the thought of death was always a sad one to these people, and was to them synonymous with the end of everything worth calling life so far as the individual was concerned.1 [Note: R. J. Campbell, in The Christian Commonwealth, Nov. 13, 1912.]
2. But the poet says truly that love is strong as death, tenacious as the grave. That which we love in any one is the eternal, and love once manifest can never die or even diminish, whatever may be its fate on earth through the mutability and inconstancy of our fleshly nature; the rapport once established is indestructible; the affinity must fulfil itself as surely as the rosy light of the dawn must culminate in the splendour of the suns meridian. Did any one ever yet dare to say that they would love friend, wife, husband, sweetheart, child, for just a certain length of time, and that then that love should altogether cease to be? By the exigencies of its very nature it takes for granted that it is eternal. Whenever it is true and nobleand, indeed, in proportion to its nobility and truthit deepens and strengthens as the days go on. It implies, all the more the truer and nobler it is, the interlinking and interdependence of thought and heart and character. This is apart from all mere external circumstances; it is a phenomenon of our beingsoul linked with soul; it is a spiritual fact, not a temporal one. And what has it to do with the chance of passing accidents of space and time? The stars may shine in brightness or be wrapped in gloom. Two living beings may be together with joy or separated with sadness by a vast expanse of rolling sea; the sun may be shining above them, or the storms may be out; variations of joy or sorrow may pass over them according to the blessings or trials of lifethe blessings of nearness, or the trials of separation; but one thing remains untouched by circumstance, unsubdued by change; soul is bound to soulthey love. Here is a phenomenon above all changeful accident; here is a fact perfectly human, yet really Divine; here is an assertion, if ever there can be one, of eternity; here is a power which smiles, even if it be through tears, at the accident of death. Love, the strongest as well as the most lovely thing known to human experience, is as strong as deathnay, stronger; and it asserts the life beyond the grave.
Death is an accident in immortality, a terrible accident, a heartbreaking accident if you like, but still an accident; and do you think that that immortal thing which has descended sun-flushed from the heart of the Creator, and illuminated and glorified and possessed the life of an immortal, can trouble to stand bandying words with a mere accident in immortality? Love is as strong as death. Why, the wise man has spoken with a cautious restraint. We may surely say that love is stronger than death and mightier than the grave.1 [Note: Canon Knox Little, The Outlook of the Soul, 333.]
Dante says, in one of the finest passages of the Purgatorio, that it is love that evokes individuality and compels it to its highest and best, and in so doing draws it home to God. The whole of the Divine Comedy is, in fact, the allegorical story of the poets own salvation through the upward reaching power of a great personal love. He shows this love as greater and stronger than both the lust of the flesh and the gates of hell, triumphing over every force that would tend to degrade or destroy it. He makes Beatrice speaks thus from heaven:
When from the flesh to spirit I ascended,
And beauty and virtue were in me increased,
I was to him less dear and less delightful;
And into ways untrue he turned his steps,
Pursuing the false images of good,
That never any promises fulfil;
Nor prayer for inspiration me availed,
By means of which in dreams and otherwise
I called him back, so little did he heed them.
So low he fell, that all appliances
For his salvation were already short,
Save showing him the people of perdition.
For this I visited the gates of death,
And unto him, who so far up has led him,
My intercessions were with weeping borne.
The thought here is, as you see, that a mighty and unquenchable human love becomes Gods instrument on both sides of the grave for disgusting the soul with the filthiness of the flesh, refining its dross, and enabling it to fulfil itself in the eternal bliss.1 [Note: R. J. Campbell, in The Christian Commonwealth, Nov. 13, 1912.]
In Rossettis sweet poem, The Blessed Damozel, the poet pictures a maiden in paradise, with whom the ten years which have passed since she left her earthly home had scarcely seemed a single day, for time is not there what it is here. But she does not give herself up much to the enjoyment of her surroundings; her heart is filled with the memory of one she has left behind mourning her loss; and amid all the delights of the higher work she is thinking, thinking, thinking of him and planning what they will do together when he rejoins her:
She gazed and listened and then said,
Less sad of speech than mild,
All this is when he comes. She ceased.
The light thrilled towards her, filld
With angels in strong level flight.
Her eyes prayed, and she smild.
(I saw her smile.) But soon their path
Was vague in distant spheres:
And then she cast her arms along
The golden barriers,
And laid her face between her hands,
And wept. (I heard her tears.)
Yes, there was room for tears, in spite of all the gladness, for she wanted him there before heaven could quite be heaven.1 [Note: R. J. Campbell.]
III
The Origin of Love
The flashes thereof are flashes of fire, a very flame of the Lord.
This is the only place in which the name of God appears throughout the whole poem. The flame of the Lord may be compared with the voice of the Lord, which is described in Hebrew poetry as connected with the fury of the storm. The flame, therefore, would be lightning and the voice thunder.
1. It is startling to find such lofty teaching in an age when polygamy was still tolerated, and in a land where, after centuries of religion, woman was commonly regarded as mans servant and plaything, and even as a creature incapable of knowing Gods law. The light shed by the Song on the heavenly origin and significance of true love amply justifies its inclusion in the record of Divine revelation, and gives it a place of pre-eminence in the poetry of the ancient and the modern world. Other elements in human passion have been analysed and embodied in many a creation of literary genius, but it is strange that the highest element of all should have been most neglected. What other thing in love can be so ennobling as the consciousness that, in that experience, God Himself is present, to bring us into actual relation with the unseen and eternal.
In the poems of Sappho and Anacreon, of Catullus and Virgil, Horace and Ovid, you see at once the gulf that separates their representations of love from that of the Hebrew poem. With them love is a human passion, beautiful, happy-making, ecstatic, or tormenting, maddening, tragic, a prism that breaks up the light of human feeling into manifold colours bright and dark; with the author of the Canticle, love is the immediate presence of the living God in a human life raised by an inspired affection to a loftier plane of moral being. No doubt in the noble dramatic literature of Greece, for example in the Antigone and in Alcestis, the higher moral and religious aspects of human affection are recognized; but, for the most part, classic literature associates love with the gods or goddesses only in an ornamental and mythological fashion, and shows no trace of the faith and ethic so characteristic of the Song. The classic writers say, not with the Shulamite, but with the Chorus:
Among all the delights how fair
And how passing pleasant is love.
Even Shakespeares miraculous fabric of Sonnets and Plays, resplendent with a thousand lights on human thought and feeling, gives no indication of the higher teaching of the Canticle. With the exception of Dante, the Brownings, and a few others, poets in the Christian era have seldom expressed appreciation of the immediate presence of God in all true love between man and woman, and of the lofty ethic to which this faith gives birth.1 [Note: H. Falconer, The Maid of Shulam, 107.]
2. If the heart be opened to that mightiest of mighty motives, the love of God, then there is a new force in human life, powerful enough to withstand many an onslaught of the fiercest temptation. Love, after all, is a personal matter. We never really love things; persons alone we love. We can stand and withstand; we can work and suffer, and even die, if the stimulus for action or the stimulus for endurance comes from a great love; and in the mystic arena of the spiritual life, where battles the severest and most deadly are fought out to severe conclusions, if strength be a duty, if we are to do with our might that which indeed we find to do, then, let us remember, no effort is foolish or futile which is made to throw open our understanding, our heart, or our will, to that mighty energy, the love of God.
Since penalties so fearful
Thou didst to sin award,
How can our heart be cheerful,
How can we love Thee, Lord?
Because Thou still art gracious,
Lord, even in Thine ire,
Round blissful Heaven spacious
It is protective fire.
Fear makes our souls the fitter
To prize Thy love and Thee;
For if the curse be bitter
Sweet must the blessing be;
Oh, sweet to hear Thee saying,
Peace, heart, be ever still;
Oh! sweet the full obeying
Of Thine eternal will.
To Thee our heart is crying
Amid deceiving sin,
And worldly fears defying
The faith that rules within.
We from estranging error
Our love to Thee would guard;
To us the chiefest terror
Is lest we lose Thee, Lord.
IV
The Unquenchableness of Love
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.
This represents the Divine principle of love as triumphing by its inherent might over all the forces that oppose or may oppose it. Fire is the symbol of love, and therefore its antagonistic element, water, is used to set forth the powers that are hostile to love, but which must in the end be overcome by it. You can extinguish flame with water, if only you can pour on a sufficient quantity; but this flame of love no amount of coldness or opposition will cool in the least degree. Let Satan and his legions do their very utmost to lessen the intensity of this heavenly flame, their labour is vain. They only prepare for themselves a bitter disappointment. Or let the Hoods of human vice and human antagonism rise as they may, they can never rise as high as this heavenly flame. The finite can never overmaster the Infinite. The love of God to men is a sacred principle, an integral part of the Divine nature. There is nothing outside God to be compared in potency with what is within Him. As the creature can never be a match for the Creator, so no kind of opposition can ever injure or diminish the eternal love of God. Just as nothing on earth or in hell can diminish Gods power or tarnish His righteousness, so also nothing can lessen or dim the fervent flame of His eternal pity. Many waters cannot quench love; yea, love turns all human hatred into fresh coals to feed the flame.
Do we not read in the Pilgrims Progress how the enemy was seeking to extinguish the fire by pouring on pails of water; it became a matter of astonishment how the fire continued to burn, even with greater vehemence. But the Interpreter explained the secret, seeing that from behind the scene there was another hand pouring oil upon the flame. So it is with the Bride of Christ. There is much to discourage her. There is much to cool her ardour. There are many who would drown her love if they could, but, thanks be unto God, it lives on. She survives all.
V
The Unpurchasable Sanctity of Love
If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, he would utterly be contemned.
1. The thought of this final distich is the sacredness of love. It is not a commodity to be bought or sold in the market; no money can purchase an affection so priceless, because so holy and Divine.
One reading of this passage is, If a man would give all the substance of his house instead of love, he would be utterly contemned. The Lord does not want our gold. The gold and the silver are His. He wants ourselves; and if He gets us, our two mites or our two millions will soon go into His treasury. There appears to be a great lack of means for missionaries and others at the present time. The question is often asked, Why is it so? Various answers are given, but the true answer is the lack of that consuming love which will place our all at the feet of Him who sold all that He had that He might win us to Himself. If we give our substance, vainly thinking the Lord will accept of us because of our offering, it is a gross mistake. He wants not ours, but us. What God requires is that we first take His gift, His unspeakable gift, and then lay ourselves without reserve at the feet that once bled for us. If we do, all else will follow. First they gave their own selves to the Lord. This is the primary offering, but if truly laid upon the altar it includes all the rest.
Love is by nature outgoing, enlarging, quickening. The sign of its genuine arrival is seen in ones longing to share with others an outreaching in sympathy and joy. Those who fail to move outward and forward into completer life are inevitably drawn in the opposite direction. But the one who responds, moving outward with the new wave of life, finds the possibilities of existence developing without limit. This quickening power of love, delighting us by its noble surprises, is the greatest wonder of the heart.1 [Note: H. W. Dresser, Human Efficiency.]
2. If love is to be purchased, it is love and not money that must be paid for it; the substance of a mans house is no equivalent for the priceless treasure. Gratitude and service may be bought, but love is beyond the value of jewels and of gold. We are taken into another region than that of market value and of merchandise.
John Woolmans gift was love,a charity of which it does not enter into the natural heart of man to conceive, and of which the more ordinary experiences, even of renewed nature, give but a faint shadow. Every now and then, in the worlds history, we meet with such men, the kings and priests of Humanity, on whose heads this precious ointment has been so poured forth that it has run down to the skirts of their clothing, and extended over the whole of the visible creation; men who have entered, like Francis of Assisi, into the secret of that deep amity with God and with His creatures which makes man to be in league with the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field to be at peace with him. In this pure, universal charity there is nothing fitful or intermittent, nothing that comes and goes in showers and gleams and sunbursts. Its springs are deep and constant, its rising is like that of a mighty river, its very overflow calm and steady, leaving life and fertility behind it.2 [Note: Dora Greenwell.]
There may be many things that pertain to a Christian man, and yet all those things are contained in this one thing, that is love; he lappeth up all things in love. Our whole duty is contained in these words, Love together. Therefore, St. Paul saith, He that loveth another fulfilleth the law; so it appeareth that all things are contained in this word love. This love is a precious thing: our Saviour saith, By this all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye shall have love one to another. So that He maketh love His cognizance, His badge, His livery. Like as every lord, most commonly, giveth a certain livery to his servants, whereby they may be known that they pertain unto him; and so we say, Yonder is this lords servant, because he weareth his livery; so our Saviour, which is Lord above all lords, would have His servants to be known by their liveries and badge, which badge is love. Whosoever now is endued with love and charity is His servant; him we may call Christs servant, for love is the token whereby you shall know such a servant that pertaineth to Christ; so that charity may be called the very livery of Christ; he that hath charity is Christs servant.1 [Note: Bishop Hugh Latimer, Sermons.]
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
as a seal: Exo 28:9-12, Exo 28:21, Exo 28:29, Exo 28:30, Isa 49:16, Jer 22:24, Hag 2:23, Zec 3:9, 2Ti 2:19
love: Son 5:8, Psa 42:1, Psa 42:2, Psa 63:1, Psa 84:2, Joh 21:15-19, Act 20:24, Act 21:13, 2Co 5:14, 2Co 5:15, Phi 1:20-23, Rev 12:11
jealousy: Num 5:14, Num 25:11, Deu 32:21, Pro 6:34, 2Co 11:2
cruel: Heb. hard
the coals: Psa 120:4, Pro 25:22, Rom 12:20
Reciprocal: Gen 29:20 – for the love Gen 34:19 – because Exo 13:9 – a sign Lev 8:8 – General Deu 29:20 – his jealousy Jdg 16:15 – when thine 1Ch 11:18 – brake Pro 27:4 – envy Jer 32:10 – and sealed Eze 23:25 – I will set Zep 3:8 – for all 1Co 13:7 – Beareth 2Co 7:11 – vehement Rev 7:2 – having
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Son 8:6-7. Set me as a seal upon thy heart These are undoubtedly the words of the bride. The sense is, Let thy mind and heart be constantly set upon me. Solomon seems to allude to the engraven tablets which were frequently worn upon the breast, and to the signet on a mans arm or hand, which they prized at a more than ordinary rate, and which were continually in their sight. For love My love to thee, whence this desire proceeds, is strong as death Which conquers every living thing, and cannot be resisted or vanquished. Jealousy Or, zeal: my ardent love to thee, is cruel as the grave Hebrew, , is hard, grievous, and terrible, and sometimes ready to overwhelm me, and swallow me up; therefore have pity upon me, and do not leave me. The coals thereof are coals of fire. It burns and melts my heart like fire. Many waters cannot quench love My love to thee cannot be taken off, either by terrors and afflictions, which are commonly signified in Scripture by waters and floods, or by temptations and allurements. Therefore, give me thyself, without whom, and in comparison of whom, I despise all other persons and things.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
8:6 {d} Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm: for love [is] strong as death; jealousy [is] cruel as the grave: the coals of it [are] coals of fire, [which hath a]
most vehement flame.
(d) The spouse desires Christ to be joined in perpetual love with him.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
She asked to be his most valued possession; she wanted him to be jealous over her in the proper sense (cf. Pro 6:34).
"The word ’seal’ (hotam) refers to an engraved stone used for authenticating a document or other possession. This could be suspended by a cord around the neck (over the heart) as in Gen 38:18. The word hotam can also refer to a ’seal ring’ worn on the hand (in Son 5:14 ’hand’ is used to mean ’arm’). The hotam was something highly precious to the owner and could be used symbolically for a person whom one valued [cf. Jer 22:24; Hag 2:23]. . . . The bride was asking Solomon that he treasure her, that he regard her as a prized seal." [Note: Tanner, "The Message . . .," p. 158.]
She next described the love they shared. It was as powerful as death, as controlling as the grave, as passionate as fire, as irresistible as a river, and priceless. Such love comes from God and is "the . . . flame of the Lord" (Son 8:6).
"There are only two relationships described in the Bible where jealousy is a potentially appropriate reaction: the divine-human relationship and the marriage relationship. These are the only two relationships that are considered exclusive." [Note: Longman, p. 211.]
No one can purchase love. It is only available as a gift. This (Son 8:6-7) is the only place in the book that reflects on the nature of love itself. [Note: M. Sadgrove, "The Song of Songs as Wisdom Literature," in Studia Biblica 1978, p. 245.]
"With this homily, the bride has delivered the great moral lesson of the book. . . .
"The affirmation that love is strong as death in Son 8:6-7 is the climax of the poem and its raison d’être [reason for being]." [Note: Exum, Song of . . ., p. 245.]
"She was prepared to be a loyal and faithful wife, but Solomon ultimately had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (1Ki 11:3). No wonder she, not he, delivers the moral lesson of the book. He was totally unqualified to speak on the issue of godly dedicated love. He knew the physical side of it, but apparently he did not know the love she cherished." [Note: Tanner, "The Message . . .," p. 159.]