Song of Solomon 5

Oriental garden grows, develops, abounds with constant and luxuriant productiveness.

The important application cannot be escaped when garden is used as a figure or type of the Lord’s people, or of the individual lover of God. The great point is, cultivation, growth, development, utility, productiveness, constantly and evermore. J. G. Lansing.

2. I was asleep, but my heart waked:

It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying,

Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled:

For my head is filled with dew,

My locks with the drops of the night.

3. I have put off my garment; how shall I put it on?

I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?

4. My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door,

And my heart was moved for him.

5. I rose up to open to my beloved;

And my hands dropped with myrrh,

And my fingers with liquid myrrh,

Upon the handles of the bolt.

6. I opened to my beloved;

But my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone.

My soul had failed me when he spake:

I sought him, but I could not find him;

I called him, but he gave me no answer.

7. The watchmen that go about the city found me,

They smote me, they wounded me;

The keepers of the walls took away my mantle from me.

8. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved,

That ye tell him, that I am sick of love.

9. What is thy beloved more than another beloved,

O thou fairest among women?

What is thy beloved more than another beloved,

That thou dost so adjure us?

10. My beloved is white and ruddy,

The chiefest among ten thousand.

11. His head is as the most fine gold,

His locks are bushy, and black as a raven.

12. His eyes are like doves besides the water brooks;

Washed with milk, and fitly set.

13. His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as banks of sweet herbs:

His lips are as lilies, dropping liquid myrrh.

14. His hands are as rings of gold set with beryl:

His body is as ivory work overlaid with sapphires.

15. His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold:

His aspect is like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars.

16. His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely.

This is my beloved, and this is my friend,

O daughters of Jerusalem.

The Bride’s Second Dream. Vs. 2-8.

(Commencement of the Second Half of the Poem.)

SOME time may be supposed to have elapsed since the bride’s solemn espousals with the king in chaps. 4:7-5:1. A transient cloud of doubt or estrangement is now passing over her soul, as by the relation of this dream she intimates to her friends. She has lost the society of her beloved, but not his affection, and seeks reunion with him (v. 8). Ancient allegorical interpreters were not insensible to this change of tone (which ought to have suggested a better division of the chapters, chap. 5 beginning with v. 2), and have variously accounted for it. The bride’s recital here of her second dream closely resembles that of the first dream (3:1-5), but is richer in details and somewhat more sad in tone.

2. I was asleep, but my heart waked. A poetical periphrasis for I dreamed. Cornelius à Lapide aptly quotes the ancient saying, “Dreams are the vigils of those who slumber; hopes are waking dreams.” The voice; or, “sound.” She hears him knocking before he speaks. My sister, my love, my dove, etc. True love rejoices in every kind of bond. (Bossuet.) So afterward, the bride says to him, “O that thou wert as my brother,” in every sense mine.

3. I have put off. She makes trivial excuses, as one in a dream.

4. Put in his hand. Through (literally, “from”) the hole (of the lock), in order to raise the pins by which the bolt was fastened. This is commonly done by means of the key (“maph-teach,” opener), but may often be accomplished by the fingers only dipped in paste or some other adhesive substance. For such a purpose the beloved inserts his fingers, here anointed with the costly unguent, which will presently distil on those of the bride when she rises to open to him. (See Lane’s description with sketch, “Modern Egypt.”)

5. Sweet-smelling myrrh. Literally, “overflowing liquid,” or “running myrrh,” that which first and spontaneously exudes, i.e., the freshest, finest myrrh. Even in withdrawing he has left this token of his unchanged love.

6,7. I opened. Following more exactly the order of words in the Hebrew, we might render thus:

Then opened I to my Beloved, But my Beloved withdrew himself, was gone; My soul went (from me) as he spake; I sought him, but I found him not; I called him, but he answered me not! The watchmen, they that go their rounds in the city, found me;

They smote me, wounded me; They took my veil from off me — The watchmen of the walls! Note the pathetic, dream-like repetition—“the watchmen of the walls.” T. L. K.

2-7. The transitions of thought from point to point in this scene are somewhat sudden, yet on the whole the sense is obvious, the sketching is beautiful, and the moral instruction of the highest order. “I slept, but my heart waked”—restive, dissatisfied, under a painful sense of something wrong in this state of moral distance from God. Then how touching the call to open to her beloved! With what patient discomfort, with what long-suffering compassion had her lord sought to restore the disturbed relations; how had he waited for her under the chilling dews of night to open the door and let him in! Then the conflict of emotions in her bosom; on the one hand, the excuses, the reluctance to the least effort; but, on the other, the fluttering of the heart, the sense of duty, the yearnings of reviving love! How sad her heart to find that he had turned away and was gone! Some bitter experiences of grief and penitence must be endured before she can have again the joys of his presence. All this is wonderfully true to Christian experience. H. C.

The bride misses her lord—is it in a dream?—the heart waking while the body slept. He comes to the door, and shows a willingness to enter; but she delays to admit him. When she does rise to open to the beloved, she is too late, for he is gone, and now she has to go out into the street on those dainty feet which she had grudged to put upon the floor, and hasten to and fro inquiring diligently after him. It is well with her when and only when she is with the lord, resting in his protection, trusting his loving-kindness, going up out of the wilderness leaning on his arm, or dwelling in the gardens, singing of his goodness and his beauty, his grace and his truth. D. F.

Christ is ever knocking at the heart: in those who have not received Him, that they may receive Him; in those who have received Him, that they may receive Him more fully. He knocks by all things which teach us to choose Him; that He is all, and all else nothing except as He is in it, and comes with it and makes it anything. Our souls are not the home of grace that it should, without effort on our part to detain it, remain there. Its home is God; it comes to us, visits us, dwells with us, but only if we with diligence keep it and use it. We are ascending the mount of God; if we relax we slip back. But then there follows a time of dreariness. God hides His face, and the soul is chilled. He withdraws His light, and the soul is dark. The remedies for this state are taught us in the bride. She opened that which was closed before. She mortified what she found amiss. When she found not him whom her soul loved she sought him perseveringly in the broad places of the city, in active duty. She was not hindered by discouragement. When she know no more how to seek, she sent, exhausted, the aspiration to him, “I am sick of love.” That one word speaks all her ills, all her needs, as Martha and Mary sent to Jesus, “Lord, he whom Thou lovest is sick.” Desolations of soul are among God’s choicest means of enlarged grace. By these God teaches the soul how unutterable an evil it is to be separated from Him. He teaches her to hate the memory of all sin, to cleanse herself from all lesser faults which come between her and God. He stirs the inmost heart, kindles her longings, increases her desires that, when they are increased and enlarged, He may fill them. Pusey.

Think, think believingly, seriously, constantly, O my soul, what a life thou shalt live forever in the presence and bosom of infinite, eternal love! He now shineth on me by the sun, and on my soul by the Sun of righteousness, but it is as through the crevices of my darksome habitation; but then He will shine on me and in me openly and with the fullest streams and beams of love. God is the same God in heaven as on earth, but I shall not be the same man. Here the windows of my soul are not open to His light; sin has raised clouds and consequently storms against my comforts. The entrances to my soul by the straits of flesh and sense are narrow, and they are made narrower by sin than they were by nature. Alas! how often would love have spoke comfortably to me, and I was not at home to be spoke with, but abroad among a world of vanities; or was not at leisure; or was asleep, and not willing to be awaked! How often would love have come in, and dwelt with me, and I have unkindly shut him out! When his table has been spread for me, and Christ, grace, and glory offered to me, how has my appetite been gone or dull! He would have been all to me, if I would have been all for him. But in heaven I shall have none of these obstructions. All old unkindness and ingratitude will be forgiven. I shall then be wholly separated from the vanity which here deceived me. I shall joyfully behold the open face, and attend the charming voice of glorifying love, and delightfully relish his celestial provisions. No disease will corrupt my appetite. No sluggishness will renew my guilty neglects. The love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the communion of the Holy Spirit will triumph over all my folly, deadness, and disaffection; and my God-displeasing and self-undoing averseness and enmity will be gone forever. Study this heavenly work of love, O my soul! Baxter.

8. I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem. The dream is therefore related to the chorus. The bride, now awake, is still seeking her beloved. The dream of his departure and her feelings under it have symbolized a real emotion of her waking heart.

The Bride’s Commendation of the Beloved. Vs. 9-16.

The chorus, replying to the bride’s charge with the question, “What is thy beloved more than another?” (v. 9) give her the occasion, which she eagerly seizes, for a glorious description of his beauty and sweetness of whom she is in search (vs. 10-16). It is also her response to the praises of the king on her bridal-day (4:1-5; 10-15).

10. The chiefest among ten thousand. Literally, “a bannered one among a myriad; that is, a leader of ten thousand warriors.” T. L. K.

11-16. This is usually taken to describe the unclothed person, but nothing can be less in accordance with the language itself. Those parts of the person which custom exposes to view are indeed described; but as to those parts which custom conceals, it is the dress and not the skin which is described. For example, “His head is as the most fine gold, and his hair is curled, and black as the raven.” What is this but the turban, gold-colored or ornamented with gold, and the raven-black ringlets appearing below it? Again, in v. 14, “His body is as bright ivory girded with sapphires.” How admirably this corresponds with the snow-white robe, and girdle set full of jewels, as we see it in Sir Robert Ker Porter’s portrait of the late king of Persia! But what is there in the unclothed body that looks like a girdle of sapphires? Stove.

9-16. Carrying out the ideas of that age as to personal beauty and splendor, this portrait is exquisite, and gives us a transcendent model of a prince. Translating it from the sensual and earthly to the spiritual, it witnesseth most admirably to the beauties and glories of our Divine Redeemer. The reader will find it refreshing to compare this description with that given (Rev. 1:12-16) of the glorified Jesus as He appeared to the seer of Patmos. This is cast after the ideas of royal splendor which prevailed in the age of Solomon. That shown in Patmos is, however, by far the more majestic and sublime. H. C.

15. His aspect is like Lebanon. Of the two celebrated mountains in Judea, Lebanon and Carmel, the former was celebrated for its height, ruggedness, and the abundance of its vast and towering cedars; the latter for its richness and fertility, abounding with vineyards, olive grounds, and corn-fields. Hence the former is here employed to express masculine dignity, as the latter is (7 · 5) to convey an idea of female beauty. Bishop Lowth.

16. He is altogether lovely. Literally, the whole of him desires or delights. So just before, “his mouth” all “sweetnesses” (“for breath, and speech, and smile,” Bossuet), the plural substantives expressing the notion of the superlative. Theodoret, applying to our Lord the whole description, interprets well its last term: “Being at a loss for other terms of praise, she names Him finally by one Name. Why should I thus endeavor to express His beauty piecemeal, when He is in Himself and altogether the One longed for, drawing all to love, compelling all to love, and inspiring with a longing (for His company) not only those who see, but also those who hear?” T. L. K.

We hear Jesus saying, “Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.” We go, and all, and more than all we asked for or could think of, we find in Him—grace and truth blended in perfect harmony, a beauty undimmed by a single blemish, a sympathy constant and entire, a love eternal, unchangeable, which nothing can quench, from which nothing can separate us. Here at last, and here only, do we find one wishing to be loved and worthy to be loved with the full devotion of the heart. Restless till it lights on Him, with what a warm embrace, when it finds Him, does the heart of faith clasp Jesus to its bosom! “What is thy beloved more than another beloved?” may the watchman of the city say. The answer is at hand: “My beloved is the chief among ten thousand; He is altogether lovely. I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine—my Lord, my God, my Shepherd, Saviour, Kinsman, Brother, Friend.” W. Hanna.

The character of the Lord Jesus, as described by the evangelists, surpasses in depth, beauty, and comprehensiveness all that human thought and imagination could ever reach. It unites perfectly and harmoniously elements which are blended nowhere else. His innocence, purity, meekness, and gentleness co-exist with His burning zeal, unremitting vigor, uncompromising severity, and holy indignation. His love of solitude and His sublime loneliness never prevent Him from entering into the wants and sorrows of men, or from descending to their ignorance, doubt, and weakness. His teaching, so Divine and yet so human, is perfectly lucid and clear, direct and convincing; in the simple intuition of His filial spirit He speaks the words of eternal life, in which all is truth, transparent, all-sided, eternal. He is a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and yet He never produces the impression of austerity and moroseness. He rejoices in spirit; He changes water into wine at the marriage feast of Cana; He takes little children into His arms and blesses them; He defends the joy of His disciples because the bridegroom was with them. We feel in His presence, as in the presence of the Son of God, holy, solemn, peaceful; of one who possesses without measure the spirit of joy and gladness, of joy unspeakable and full of glory. Saphir.

The growing Christian lives more and more under the powers of the world to come. There is a sense of the utter worthlessness of those things which have only the stamp of a lifelong value, and the immeasurable moment of those things which stretch on into eternity. And this substantiating of things hoped for, this evidencing conviction of things not seen, is faith. This firm outlooking for its permanent glories is hope. And the play of these two great lights upon the soul is the preparation which God gives for bidding farewell to earth and entering into heaven. The face of Jesus, who is our righteousness, shines brightly on the soul that waits for Him. We who have known Him long, beholding His approach, can say, while we rejoice with trembling, This is our Beloved, and this is our Friend! J. W. A.