Song Of Solomon 2:8-17 - Homiletics

The visit of the beloved.

I. THE BRIDE 'S NARRATIVE .

1 . The description of his first coming. The bride seems to be relating to the chorus the circumstances of her first meeting with the bridegroom. The King of Israel sought her in her humble home among the mountains of Lebanon; there he wooed and won her to be his bride. So the heavenly Bridegroom, the true Solomon who built the spiritual temple of living stones, came from his glory throne to seek his bride, the Church; so he cometh now to seek and to save that which was lost. The bride hears the voice of the beloved; "my beloved," she says. In that little pronoun lies a great meaning. If we can only say in sincerity "my Saviour," " my Lord and my God," " my King," " my Beloved," then we can realize more or less the language of this holy Song of Songs, and see the spiritual meaning which underlies its touching parable of love; then we shall often look back with wondering gratitude and tender joy to the days of our first conversion, when we first heard the Saviour's voice calling us to himself; when we first felt that "he loved me, and gave himself for me ;" when we first tried to give him that poor love of ours, which in his blessed condescension he sought in return for his own exceeding great love. The beloved is seen bounding over the mountains; he is like a gazelle or a young hart, fair to look upon and graceful, fleet of foot; he stands by the clay-built wall of the humble cottage; he looks in at the windows. So the Lord came to this poor earth of ours to seek the Church, his bride; he despised not the stable or the manger. So now he seeketh his chosen often in the lowliest homes; he looks for them shining (such is one possible interpretation of the word) through the lattice, bringing brightness into the poorest abode; the true Light "lighteth every man" ( John 1:9 ).

2 . The call. Those first words of love are treasured up in the memory of the bride; she remembers every tone of the bridegroom's voice, the place, the time, all the surroundings. The Hebrew word is that which the Lord used when he called the little daughter of Jairus from the sleep of death: "Talitha, cumi." So now he calls his chosen one by one: "Rise up." They that have ears to hear listen to the gracious voice, and, like Matthew the publican, rise and follow Christ. The soul must sleep no longer when that call is heard; it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation near at hand. When he bids us rise, we must be up and doing; we must ask, "Lord, what wouldest thou have me to do?" we must follow whither he is leading, and give him the love which in his love he desireth. His call is sweet, exceedingly full of gracious love: "My love, my fair one." "My love," perhaps better, "my friend" (see So Matthew 1:9 ). The Lord would have his Church "a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." The Church, alas! is not without spot; it is stained with many sins; it numbers many evil men within its fold. But the Lord said of the twelve, the first germ of the Church, "Ye are the light of the world," "Ye are the salt of the earth," though there was a Judas among them; and so now his great love for the Church makes the Church with all her faults fair in the Bridegroom's eyes. Whatever beauty of holiness she possesses comes only from his beauty, who in his love has chosen her, and brought her near to himself, making her shine with the reflection of his light, who is the true Light. But the call comes, not only to the Church in the aggregate, but in God's good time to each elect soul. The Lord knows his own; he calls them by their name. "Jesus said unto her, Mary." And they who answer, "Rabboni, my Master," are fair in the Bridegroom's sight. Each awakened soul, as it rises and comes to Christ, and sees something of his heavenly beauty, and of its own deformity and unworthiness, is filled with thankful wonder. There are, alas! so many stains of sin, and yet he says, "My fair one;" so much weakness and unbelief and selfishness, and yet, "My fair one;" so much ingratitude and hardness of heart, and yet, "My fair one." It is the Saviour's great love which makes our sinful souls fair in his sight. If there is any answering love in our hearts; if we rise when he bids us and come to him; if we can say in any sincerity, though, alas! It must be with trembling and a deep sense of sin, "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee;"—then the soul that gives its love to Christ, though feebly and imperfectly, is fair in the sight of the Bridegroom. For it is our love that he seeketh. Love covereth a multitude of sins: "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much." The soul that hears the Bridegroom's call must rise and come away; it must give the whole heart to Christ, and come away from other masters, saying, "Rabboni, my Master," and giving itself wholly to the one Master's love; it must come away daily from every little thing which tends to impede its communion with the Lord, or to deaden its sense of his love and presence; it must part with lower ambitions, lower desires, if it is to win the pearl of great price, the hidden treasure. So we are told in Psalms 45:1-17 ; which is so like the Song of Songs, "Hearken, O daughter, and consider: incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house; so shall the King have pleasure in thy beauty." The soul comes; for the Lord's call is very sacred, and touches the heart with thrilling power. The soul comes; for the joys to which he invites us are beyond all comparison more blessed and holy than all besides. The winter is past when the Lord's voice is heard—the winter of coldness and indifference and unbelief; the spring of hope and holy joy begins; the heart singeth unto the Lord, making in itself a melody which is the foretaste of the new song which only the redeemed of the Lord can learn; the voice of the holy Dove is heard in the heart, which then becomes "our land"—the kingdom of God.

"And his that gentle voice we hear,

Soft as the breath of even,

That checks each fault, that calms each fear,

And speaks of heaven."

When the Holy Spirit dwelleth in the heart, the fig tree is no longer barren, the Lord's vineyard no longer bringeth forth wild grapes; there is promise of the fruits of the Spirit in ever fuller abundance. Again the Bridegroom calls in the earnestness of his blessed love, "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away." It may be that in that second call we may discern an anticipation of the midnight cry, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye forth to meet him." Then he will call his chosen into that blessed Paradise, the true garden of the Lord, into which he led one forgiving soul on the day of his own most precious death. Then the winter will be past indeed; the eternal spring will begin to shine; angel voices will welcome the redeemed into that blessed rest which remaineth for the people of God. They that are ready shall enter in; and they will be ready who have listened to the first call of the heavenly Bridegroom, who have arisen in answer to his bidding and come to him, giving him their heart's best affections, and forsaking for his dear love's sake earthly desires and earthly ambitions.

II. THE BRIDEGROOM AND THE BRIDE .

1 . The voice of the bridegroom. He has climbed the steep rock by the ladder-like path, he has found the secluded cottage; he calls the bride his dove; he desires to see her and to hear her voice. The King of Israel climbed the rocks of Lebanon in search of the malden whom he loved. The heavenly Bridegroom climbed the steep ascent of the awful cross that he might draw to himself the love of the Church, his bride ( John 12:32 ). The bridegroom had already compared the eyes of the bride to doves (So Song of Solomon 1:15 ); now he says, "O my dove." It tells us how dear the Christian soul is to the Lord; it tells us what that soul ought to be—"harmless as doves." The rock dove lives in clefts of the rocks. The soul which the Lord in his holy love condescends to call his dove, must dwell in the clefts of that true Rock which is Christ. The Rock of ages was cleft for us; the Christian soul must hide itself therein; there only are we safe. The dove is in the secret place, which can be reached only by climbing up the precipitous path. There is a steep ascent to be climbed before we can be hidden in the clefts of the Rock, before we can live that hidden life which is hid with Christ in God, before we can be safe, hidden in the wounded side of our dear Lord. That ascent is the path of self-denial, leading ever upward, ever closer to him who trod the way of the cross for our salvation. That life is hidden. "In the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock" ( Psalms 27:5 ). The saint-like character is like the dove, retiring, shrinking from observation; some of God's holiest saints live silent, humble lives, in lowly circumstances, unseen of men. But our Father which seeth in secret knows their prayers, their charity, their self-denials; he will reward them openly. The heavenly Bridegroom deigns to see a sweetness and a beauty in a lowly Christian life; such a life is comely in his eyes, for it hath the beauty of holiness—a beauty derived only from communion with him who is the eternal Beauty. The voice of hymn and psalm ascending from that lowly dwelling is sweet in the Saviour's ear. The loftiest melodies of choir and organ, if love and faith and reverence are absent, cannot reach to heaven; but the heart that is practising the new song in thankfulness and adoration maketh a melody which causeth joy in the presence of the angels of God.

2 . The song of the bride. "Take us the foxes, the little foxes." Some scholars regard this as a fragment of a vintage song. The bride sings it in order to intimate to the bridegroom, as she does more plainly in verse 17, that the care of the vineyards (see So Song of Solomon 1:6 ) must prevent her from joining him till the shadows lengthen in the evening. The foxes waste the vineyards, and the vines are in blossom; therefore the little foxes must be caught. The little sins as they sometimes seem to us, the small neglects, the prayer carelessly said, the worldly thought, the idle word,—these things spoil the vineyard of the Lord, which is the Christian soul; they check its blossoming, and so prevent the fruit from being formed. The believer must watch, for these things are enemies of his soul; they may seem to be like little foxes, small and of no strength, but they mar the beauty of the Christian character, and tend to check the promise of the fruit of the Spirit. Therefore they must be caught and destroyed by diligent watchfulness, by earnest persevering prayer. The little foxes do not, indeed, root up and devour the vineyard like the wild beasts of Psalms 80:1-19 ; but they check its fruitfulness. And the small transgressions, if they do no worse, at least prevent the Christian from attaining that saintliness to which we are called. The little foxes hide and skulk about; the small sins are apt to escape detection. Therefore there is need of constant watchfulness and of very careful and diligent self-examination. For we are "called to be saints" ( 1 Corinthians 1:2 ; Romans 1:7 ); we are bidden to follow after holiness, to aim at perfection, to walk in the light. The little hindrances must be overcome, the little shadows must be driven away.

3 . The happy union of love. "My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth his flock among the lilies." The favoured maiden, it may be, could not at the moment join her royal lover; but her heart was wholly his, and she knew that his love was fixed upon her. She describes him as a shepherd, but her words are figurative; he feedeth his flock, not in common pastures, but among the lilies of his garden, the garden of spices mentioned again in So Psalms 6:2 . She delights in dwelling on the union of their hearts; three times she repeats the happy words (verse 16; So Psalms 6:3 ; Psalms 7:10 ). The Church is the Lord's. He loved her, and gave himself for her, and presenteth her to himself as his bride ( Ephesians 5:25 , Ephesians 5:27 ); and he is hers, her Bridegroom, her King, her Lord. The Christian soul is the Lord's. "Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's" ( Romans 14:8 ). He gave himself to each one of us individually when he called us to be his own; we give ourselves to him at the moment of our first spiritual awakening; we renew the gift continually in the hour of prayer, in the holy communion: "We offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to he a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto thee." "My Beloved is mine, and I am his"—to know that with the knowledge of personal experience is the highest of spiritual blessings. He gives himself first to us, and by that gift he enables us, cold and selfish as we are, to give ourselves to him. None can tell the blessedness of that inner spiritual union with the Lord save those happy souls to whom it is given; and they to whom he has manifested himself must very jealously keep their souls from any unfaithful leaning to other masters, that they may be wholly his, that no unfaithfulness may mar the pure clear truth of their heart's love for him who loved them even unto death, and deigns now to irradiate their hearts with his most sacred presence. He is their Lord, and he is their good Shepherd; he knoweth his own, and his own know him. Once he gave his life for the sheep; now he feeds them, and leads them on their way, tilt they come to the lilies of Paradise, the garden of the Lord.

4 . The adieus of the bride. She has expressed her confidence in her lover's affection and her own devotion to him; but now, apparently, she repeats the intimation of verse 15 in plainer words: her duties in the vineyard will occupy her time till the evening. She wishes her lover to continue his hunting excursion on the mountains of Bether, or, it may be, "of separation"—the mountains which for the time separate the lovers. She invites him to return when the day is cool, when the day breathes; that is, when the breeze comes in the evening, and the shadows lengthen and flee away (see Jeremiah 6:4 ). The Christian must not neglect the ordinary commonplace duties of life; he must not allow himself, like the Thessalonians, to be so distracted with spiritual excitement as to be unable to attend to the pursuits of his calling. The bride tends the vineyards which have been committed to her charge; the Christian must do with his might whatever his hand findeth to do. He must not neglect his duties even for the sake of giving all his time to religious exercises. Laborare est orare. If, whatever he does, he does all to the glory of God, Christ is his, and he is Christ's, as fully in the midst of daily work as in the hour of prayer. Daniel, who kneeled upon his knees, and prayed and gave thanks three times a day, was faithful in all things to the king his master; no error or fault could be found in the administration of his arduous office. The bride will welcome her lover back in the cool of the evening, when she has finished her work; the Christian will take delight in his evening prayers when the tasks of the day have been performed.