Love’s satisfaction
Bridegroom
5
📚I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride.
I have gathered my myrrh with my spice.
I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey.
I have drunk my wine with my milk.
Eat, O friends!
Drink, yes, drink abundantly, O beloved!
Love weak, failing and reviving
5:1 Isa 65:24. And what sweetness and satisfaction He finds in her fellowship! The Lord Jesus comes to commune with those who want Him and who are prepared for Him (John 14:23). And He wants others whom He here calls “friends” and “beloved ones” to share with Him in the church.⚜
Bride
2 📚I sleep, but my heart is awake.
It is the voice of my beloved
who knocks, saying,
“Open to me, my sister, my love,
my dove, my undefiled,
for my head is drenched with dew,
and my locks with the moisture
of the night”.
3 📚I have taken off my robe.
How can I put it back on?
I have washed my feet.
How can I soil them again?
4 📚My beloved put his hand in through
the hole in the door,
and my inmost being was moved for him.
5 📚I got up to open to my beloved,
and my hands dripped with myrrh,
and my fingers with sweet smelling
myrrh, on the handles of the lock.
6 📚I opened to my beloved;
but my beloved had turned away
and was gone.
My soul went out to him as he spoke.
I looked for him, but I could not find him.
I called to him, but he gave me no answer.
5:2-6 Another scene, another time. She is somewhere alone at night and the bridegroom comes and calls to her. He has come from a distance, or else has been standing outside for some time, for his head is wet with dew. In either case his love is clear. She is excited at his coming but reluctant to get up and open the door (v 3). She delays. When she does get up at last she is more occupied with herself than with him (v 5) – a fault seen in her before (Song 1:5, 12; 2:1). Her delay and evident lack of eagerness for his presence grieves him and he departs (v 6).
Christ will not give His fellowship where He is not wanted. In the believer’s spiritual life with the Lord Jesus, if fellowship is broken it will not be His fault. He will come far for it; He will patiently wait for some time. But carelessness and reluctance to open to Him (which show a loss of first love) will grieve Him. And occupation with self rather than with Him will make it impossible to enjoy His fellowship. The Lord Jesus in His love does not call us to slothfulness and self-admiration. God’s grace, God’s gifts to us are not so we might look at self and applaud self. Those who want more of His fellowship and show that they want it will have it. Any lover wants the beloved to love as he loves (Song 8:6-7; Matt 22:37). The most important thing to us should be not our own convenience or pleasure but to love Him so much we want to please only Him.⚜
7 📚The watchmen who went around the city
found me.
They struck me; they wounded me.
The guards of the walls took my veil
away from me.
8 📚I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
5:7-8 The watchmen now act differently toward her than they did in Song 3:3. Perhaps the scene in chapter 3 suggests a test of the genuineness of her love. Here she is at fault and must suffer for it. The words of God’s faithful watchmen can be like blows to the one who has lost fellowship with Christ by one’s own fault. Their words strip the sinning believer of his veil – thus exposing her true countenance and enabling her to see more clearly.⚜
if you find my beloved, will you not
tell him that I am sick with love 📖?
Friends
9 📚What is your beloved more than
another beloved,
O you most beautiful of women?
What is your beloved more than another
beloved, that you charge us so?
Bride
10 📚My beloved is radiant and ruddy,
the chief among ten thousand.
11 📚His head is like the most fine gold.
The locks of his hair are bushy,
black as a raven.
12 📚His eyes are like the eyes of doves by
the streams of water,
washed with milk and fitly set.
13 📚His cheeks are like a bed of spices,
like sweet flowers.
His lips like lilies, dripping sweet smelling myrrh.
14 📚His hands are like gold rods set
with beryl.
His waist is like bright ivory
inlaid with sapphires.
15 📚His legs are like pillars of marble,
set on sockets of fine gold.
His face is like Lebanon,
excellent as the cedars.
16 📚His mouth is very sweet.
Yes, he is altogether delightful.
This is my beloved, and this is my friend 📖,
O daughters of Jerusalem.
5:10-16 Now the bride is fully occupied with the lover! Her experiences recorded in vs 2-8 have taught her something. This is the only place in this book where she attempts to describe him. The spiritual beauty of the Lord Jesus can only be hinted at by human descriptions, not revealed. It is interesting that in the Gospels there is nothing said about what the Lord Jesus looked like – as if it were entirely unimportant, as indeed it is. All the emphasis is on His character, His acts, His motives, His attributes.⚜
5:16 We cannot even begin to describe all of Christ’s beauty, but we know that He is the altogether beautiful and perfect one.⚜