Song of Solomon 5:1

Song of Solomon 5:1

"I am 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, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved."

Balchin interpreted this thus: "The Shulamite maiden's invitation is accepted by the Shepherd lover. He comes and eats with the bride. `Eat, O friends' is either spoken by the Shepherd inviting others to celebrate their love, or by a chorus."[1] Note also that this celebration is not taking place in Jerusalem, but in Lebanon. Bunn read the passage as meaning that, "It relates a clandestine meeting between the lovers."[2] However, the invitation for the whole community (`friends') to share the celebration denies that there was anything secretive about this.

In this writer's allegorical understanding of the Song, this little paragraph corresponds exactly with Christ's statement: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." (Revelation 3:20). This is continually fulfilled in the Church's observance of the Lord's Supper.

Waddey understood the verse to mean, "That the marriage is now consummated (with the king)."[3] We agree that this celebrates a marriage, all right; but it is the Shulamite's marriage with the Shepherd, an allegory of the church's marriage with Christ. Why? The scene here is Lebanon. Those celebrating the marriage are citizens of a different nation from that of Solomon. Otherwise, the marriage would have been in Jerusalem. We do not find any word in the whole passage that indicates the scene as being anywhere else except in Lebanon. Did not Solomon plead with the maiden to go with him "from Lebanon"? (Song of Solomon 4:8). Where does the text say that she went with Solomon?

Redford likewise read the passage as a marriage ceremony, and wisely compared it to the marriage of Christ and his Church;[4] but he failed to see that no single one of a thousand consorts of Solomon could ever have symbolized that holy union between Christ and his Church, so he supposed the marriage to have been between Solomon and the maiden.

Delitzsch also commented that, "Solomon now triumphs in the final enjoyment which his ardent desire had found."[5] These are indeed great scholars who advocate this understanding of the verse; but this writer finds it absolutely impossible to find Solomon in the Holy Bible as a type of the holy and sinless Son of God, and that only one single member of his godless harem should be accepted as a type of the universal Church of God.

Balchin correctly understood the passage as, "An account of the marriage between the Shepherd and the maiden, the wedding feast here celebrating the joy of the Church's union with Christ."[6]

Even the scholars who insist on finding Solomon as the bridegroom here agree that what is symbolized is the union between Christ and the Church. Redford noted that, "The wine and the milk mentioned here are what God offers to the people without money and without price (Isaiah 55:1)."[7] These, of course, must be understood as symbols of the glorious gospel of salvation.