Bride
2
📚I am the rose of Sharon,and the lily of the valleys.
2:1 It is unclear from the Hebrew whether the speaker here is the bride or the bridegroom. Since in the next verse the bridegroom says to the bride, “you are a lily” it seems likely that the speaker in this verse is the bride. Believers in themselves are as fragile, as prone to wither and fade as flowers (Isa 40:6-8; 1 Pet 1:24). They are lowly like the flowers of plains and valleys, but they have a beauty and a fragrance to God that He has given them.⚜
Bridegroom
2 📚Like the lily among thorns,
so is my love 📖 among the daughters.
Bride
3 📚Like the apple tree among the trees 📖
of the woods,
so is my beloved among the sons.
I sat down under his shade with
great delight,
and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
4 📚He brought me to the banqueting house 📖,
and his banner over me was love 📖.
5 📚Sustain me with raisins, refresh me
with apples,
for I am sick with love.
6 📚His left hand is under my head,
and his right hand embraces me.
7 📚I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
by the gazelles and by the deer of the field,
not to arouse or awaken my love,
till he pleases.
2:5-7 The full experience of Christ’s love can be too much for human nature to bear. Such experiences cannot be produced by the efforts of others (daughters of Jerusalem). They can come only in Christ’s time and way.⚜
Love longed for and invited
8 📚The voice of my beloved! Look!
He comes leaping on the mountains,
skipping on the hills.
9 📚My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag.
See, he stands behind our wall,
he looks out the windows,
peering through the lattice.
2:8-9 This is the experience of the bride. The divine lover is present, then He is gone off to the mountains, but comes rushing back. No reason here is given for this, but if our communion with Christ is broken we should look for the fault in ourselves, not in Him (Isa 59:1-2; Hos 5:6), if indeed there is any fault at all (it may be that He is testing us). Believers do not always enjoy His nearness as they would desire. One glimpse of Him fills them with expectation and longing.⚜
10 📚My beloved spoke and said to me,
“Rise up, my love, my beautiful one,
and come away.
11 📚For, see, the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone,
12 📚The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of the singing of birds has come,
and the voice of the turtledove is
heard in our land.
13 📚The fig tree puts forth its green figs,
2:10-13 Jer 31:3; Deut 4:37. The bridegroom uses the language of love and poetry to woo His bride away from everything else that might attract her, and He calls her into beauty, into songs of joy, into the deepest fellowship with Himself. At last He will call her to enjoy eternal dwellings in His presence (John 14:2-3; 17:24; 1 Thess 4:16-18).⚜
and the vines with the tender grapes
give a good smell.
Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
and come away”.
Bridegroom
14 📚O my dove in the clefts of the rock,
in the secret places of the steep ledges,
let me see your face, let me hear your
voice;
for your voice is sweet and your face
is lovely.
2:14 Christ’s church is like a dove, born of the Holy Spirit, hiding in Christ the Rock of ages (Ex 33:21-22; Deut 32:4). Believers are so dear to Him He longs to see their face, to hear their voice. Is not this one reason behind all those divinely inspired Scriptures which urge us to pray and praise?⚜
15 📚Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes,
that spoil the vines 📖;
for our vineyard have tender grapes.
2:15 Song 1:6. Believers must guard against everything that would spoil their life in Christ and their fellowship with Him, against all sins of either commission or omission. They may be considered “small” sins, but can that be called small which works so much damage?⚜
Bride
16 📚My beloved is mine, and I am his.
He grazes his flock among the lilies.
17 📚Until the day breaks and the shadows
flee away, turn, my beloved,
and be like a gazelle or a young stag
on the mountains of Bether 📖.
2:17 If Christ seems to depart again and again to some far off hills, the believer longs for Him and prays for His return. What else can satisfy him once he has tasted of the sweetness of Christ’s love?⚜