Love’s delight in the loved one
Bridegroom
4
📚How beautiful 📖 you are, my love! How beautiful you are!
You have doves 📖’ eyes behind your veil.
Your hair is like a flock of goats 📖
that appears from mount Gilead.
2 📚Your teeth are like a flock
of sheep just shorn,
which come up from the washing,
each of which bears twins,
and none of them is barren.
4:2 Her teeth – white, sparkling, perfectly matched.⚜
3 📚Your lips are like a strip of scarlet,
and your mouth is lovely.
Your temples are like a piece of a
pomegranate behind your veil.
4 📚Your neck is like the tower of David
built as an armoury,
where hang a thousand shields,
all shields of mighty men.
4:4 In other words, her neck is straight and ornamented with necklaces – Song 1:10.⚜
5 📚Your two breasts are like two fawns
that are twins,
which feed among the lilies.
6 📚Until the day breaks and the shadows
flee away,
I will go to the mountain of myrrh,
and to the hill of frankincense.
7 📚You are altogether beautiful, my love.
There is no blemish 📖 in you.
8 📚Come with me from Lebanon, my bride,
come with me from Lebanon.
Look from the top of Amana,
from the top of Shenir and Hermon,
from the lions’ dens,
from the mountains of the leopards.
4:8 The bridegroom says he will go to the mountain of myrrh and incense (v 6). The bride should be with him. But suddenly the bride seems to be somewhere among the mountain peaks on the northern borders of Israel, a place of rugged beauty and danger. He calls her away. The spiritual application is not difficult to make. There are high places in the world that have their beauties and attractions but are dangerous to believers. Christ calls us away from them to Himself.⚜
9 📚You have ravished my heart, my sister 📖,
my bride.
You have ravished my heart with one
glance of your eyes,
with one strand of your necklace.
10 📚How beautiful is your love, my sister,
my bride!
How much better is your love than wine!
And the fragrance of your oils than
all spices!
11 📚Your lips, O my bride, drip like the honeycomb.
Honey and milk are under your tongue,
and the fragrance of your garments
is like the fragrance of Lebanon.
4:11 The words of love we speak to the Lord from loving hearts are very sweet to Him. Our fellowship to Him is like the fragrance of flowers and green forests. He wants always to be with us. When we come to Him in prayer we must not think He is reluctant to receive us.⚜
12 📚A garden locked up is my sister, my bride;
a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
13 📚Your plants are an orchard of
pomegranates, with choice fruits,
henna with spikenard,
14 📚Spikenard and saffron, calamus and
cinnamon,
with all the trees of frankincense,
myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices.
4:12-14 In Ps 1:3 believers are compared to a fruitful tree. In Ps 80:8 they are compared to a vine. Here they are called a whole garden (see also Isa 58:11; Jer 31:12). The true church is Christ’s garden of Eden where He comes to walk and talk with men and delight in their fellowship (Gen 3:8). Only from believers will Christ get any fragrance or fruit. Apart from His church the whole world is like a desert to Him.
Notice that this garden is enclosed or “locked up”. In other words, believers are Christ’s garden alone. No one else is to walk there. They are His possession (Rom 14:7-8; 1 Cor 6:19-20); they are for His delight. He puts a wall about them to keep out enemies and to prevent the world from trampling them underfoot. They are to be separate, holy, completely dedicated to Him (John 17; Rom 12:1-2; 2 Cor 6:14-18). And they are to bear the fruits which please Him (John 15:8, 16; Rom 7:4; Gal 5:22-23; Eph 5:9; Col 1:6, 10).⚜
15 📚You are a garden fountain, a well of
living waters,
and streams from Lebanon.
4:15 The true church is also like a “fountain” and “well” and water flowing from mountain heights – a source of great satisfaction to Christ. This fountain is sealed – that is, kept for Him alone (2 Cor 11:2). The true church is not like a tank or pond in which the water may stagnate or dry up altogether. The church which is Christ’s body has the deep fountains of the Holy Spirit in it, springing up eternally (John 4:14; 7:37-39).⚜
16 📚Awake, O north wind, and come,
you south wind! Blow on my garden
so that the fragrance of its spices
may spread out.
4:16 This is the bridegroom still speaking for he says “my” garden. Wind makes a fine symbol of the Holy Spirit (John 3:8 – the words for wind, breath, and spirit in both Hebrew and Greek are identical). Only if God’s Spirit is blowing through the church will its fragrance spread.⚜
Bride
Let my beloved 📖 come into his garden,
and eat his choice fruits.