Song Of Solomon 7:6-13 - Homiletics

Dialogue between the king and the bride.

I. ENTRANCE OF THE KING .

1 . His praise of love. Perhaps the last words of the chorus were overheard by the king as he approached the bride. He assents; he is content to be held captive in the tresses of the bride's hair; for love is fair and pleasant above all delightful' things. The bridegroom is not here using the word with which he so often addresses the bride (as in So Song of Solomon 1:9 ; Song of Solomon 4:1 ; Song of Solomon 6:4 ), which is translated, "O my love," or perhaps better, "O my friend." In this place we have the word ordinarily used for the affection of love; and perhaps it is best to take it in that sense here. Among all delightful things there is nothing so beautiful, so fair to contemplate, so full of interest; there is nothing so pleasant, nothing which gives so much comfort and peace and joy as true and faithful love. The king is happy in the bondage of which the chorus had spoken. Indeed, true love is not bondage in any proper sense of the word. It was God himself who said, "It is not good for man to be alone;" God who said, "I will make him an help meet for him." God gave man affections. When he made man after his own image, he set in his heart a reflection of that love which more than any other of his attributes enters into the very being and essence of Almighty God. That love needs objects on which to exert itself; the love of parent, child, or wife is a preparation, a training for the highest form of love, the blessed love of God. Loneliness, as a rule, is not good; it tends to concentrate a man's thoughts upon himself. He finds no outlet for the affections which God has given him: some of them, and those among the best and highest, are in danger of sinking into atrophy; there is great risk of his becoming a prey to selfishness, and the bondage of selfishness is hard and grinding and joyless. Sensual love is not love in the true sense; it is one of the worst and most unfeeling forms of selfishness; it thinks only of selfish pleasure, and recks nothing of the misery and ruin which it brings upon others; it makes a man the slave of evil passions; it tends to wretchedness. The service of God is perfect freedom; so, in a lesser sense, is the service of any pure and holy affection. True wedded love tends to set a man free from the bonds of selfishness; it gives him scope for the exercise of his best affections, and helps him to rise upwards towards that highest love which alone can give abiding happiness. Love, the bridegroom says, is among all delightful things the fairest and the most pleasant. The bride in the next chapter expresses the same belief, "Love is strong as death." "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned." Wedded love is a parable of the holy love of God. The king in the song is led captive by the love of the bride. The saints of God, like St. Paul, St. James, St. Jude, delight in describing themselves as "the servants of God," "the slaves of God." God so formed our nature for himself that the soul can find an adequate object for its supreme affections only in him. Therefore he bids us love him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength, because our highest powers can find their proper exercise only thus; and it is in the exercise of the highest powers that the highest happiness is found. It is the love of God that sheds glory and joy and blessedness through heaven, his dwelling place, because the blessed angels love him perfectly, and, dwelling in love, do his holy will with a glad, undoubting obedience. And so in various lower degrees it is the love of God which makes religion what it is to his people, very blessed and holy; which makes life worth living; which gives them in the midst of their shortcomings glimpses more or less vivid of that holiest joy which is the blessedness of heaven. Joy in the Lord is one of the fruits of the Spirit; it follows immediately upon the highest grace of love; it issues out of it ( Galatians 5:22 ). And because it issues out of love, it is enjoined upon us as our duty as well as our highest privilege; for "the first of all the commandments is this, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God;" and a corollary of that first commandment is, "Rejoice in the Lord alway; and again I say, Rejoice" ( Philippians 4:4 ). Among earthly delights the pure love of wedlock is, as the king says, the fairest and the most pleasant; and of all highest joys that the human soul can attain unto, the supreme, the transcendent joy, comes from the holy love of God.

2 . His praise of the bride. He compares her to a palm tree, to a vine. Both are fair to look upon, both have sacred associations. The image of the vine recalls to our thoughts the holy allegory in John 15:1-27 . The Saviour is the true Vine; his people are the branches. They must bring forth fruit, for the branch that beareth not fruit is taken away; and in order to bear fruit they must abide in him, in spiritual union with the Lord, who is the Life. The palm tree also occurs in Scripture imagery: "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree" ( Psalms 92:12 ). Several characteristics make the palm tree an apt emblem of the faithful servant of God. There is its tall and graceful appearance, its evergreen foliage, its fruitfulness, and perhaps especially the fact that both fronds and fruit grow at the topmost height of the tree, high above the earth and as near as possible to heaven. An apt illustration by St. Gregory the Great ('Moral.,' on Job 19:1-29 :49) is quoted in Smith's 'Dictionary of the Bible:' "Well is the life of the righteous likened to a palm, in that the palm below is rough to the touch, and in a manner enveloped in dry bark, but above it is adorned with fruit fair even to the eye; below, it is compressed by the enfoldings of its bark; above, it is spread out in amplitude of beautiful greenness. For so is the life of the elect, despised below, beautiful above. Down below it is, as it were, enfolded in many barks, in that it is straitened by innumerable afflictions; but on high it is expanded into a foliage, as it were, of beautiful greenness by the amplitude of the rewarding."

3 . The bride continues the bridegroom ' s words. "I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof." These words have been regarded by some commentators as spoken by the bride. In the next verse certainly the bride interrupts the bridegroom and finishes his sentence. It may well be that here also she corrects the similitude of the bridegroom and finishes his sentence. It may well be that here also she corrects the similitude of the bridegroom, and applies it to him rather than to herself; the words, "I said," seem perhaps to favour this view, and to suggest a different speaker. The bridegroom is the palm tree rather than the bride; she modestly and humbly transfers the similitude to him. The palm tree resembles the king in its lofty stateliness and beauty. And certainly this view best lends itself to spiritual applications. The palm tree to the Christian represents the cross. We think of St. Peter's words, "His own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree" ( 1 Peter 2:24 ). We remember the old traditional reading of Psalms 96:10 , "The Lord hath reigned from the tree." We recall his own words, "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me" ( John 12:32 ). The Lord reigned from the tree; above him was the title, "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews." He is the King of the true Israelites, the Israel of God. And the Cross is the throne of his triumph; it displays, as nothing else could do, the Divine glory of holiness and entire self-sacrifice and self-forgetting love, which are the kingly ornaments of the Saviour's lofty dignity. The Saviour's precious death has made the cross a thing most sacred, most awe-inspiring, most dear to Christian souls, most constraining in the power of its Divine attraction. It draws around itself all the elect of God, all who have ears to hear and hearts to feel the blessed love of Christ. All such say in their hearts, "I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof." The first words, "I said," seem, to remind us of many faithless promises, of many broken resolutions. It is easy to say, very hard to persevere in bearing the cross. How often we have promised, at our baptism, at our confirmation, in the Holy Communion, in the hour of private prayer and self-examination—how often we have said, "I will go up"! But the ascent is steep and difficult; the palm tree is high, there are no branches to assist the climber; the fruit is at the very top, high out of our reach; there is need of effort, continued persevering effort—effort sometimes very hard and painful to flesh and blood. But we must lift up our hearts, we must look upward. The Lord was lifted up, and his disciples must follow him; they know the way ( John 14:4 ). We must set him ever before us, and think of his agony and bloody sweat, his cross and Passion, when we are tempted to regard the cross as hard and painful, and to relax our efforts in the religious life. We must go up. God's saints have gone before us.

"They climbed the steep ascent of heaven

Through peril, toil, and pain."

We must do the like; "we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom" of God. And if we would persevere in well doing we must go up to the cross of the Lord Jesus; it is only there, in spiritual communion with the crucified Saviour, in his strength which strengthens all who trust in him, through a living and true faith in him, that the Christian can find strength to bear the burden of the cross. It is a heavy burden to flesh and blood, but the Lord makes it light to all who come to him in obedience to his gracious invitation. For he gives to his chosen power to become the sons of God; he strengthens them with all might by his Spirit in the inner man; he bids them east their burden upon him ( Psalms 55:22 ), he bears it with them. But they must go up to the palm tree; they may have many times said they will do so, and perhaps many times have failed. They must go up with sustained effort. The Lord, indeed, draws us, but it is by the attraction of love and the motions of his Spirit, not by forcing our will. We must go up, yielding up our will to him, asking him to give us grace to pray aright that holy prayer, "Not my will, but thine be done." And we must take hold of the boughs thereof, clinging to them with the embrace of loving faith. It is not enough once to go up to the tree; the Lord himself has taught us our need of continual perseverance: "Abide in me, and I in you." We must take hold of him with the earnest prayer of Jacob, "I will not let thee go except thou bless me." And we must learn of him who endured the cross for us to take up the cross ourselves, to crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts, so that, like St. Paul, we may be crucified with Christ, and, dying unto the world, may ever live with him. We may well take to ourselves the words which tradition puts into the mouth of St. Andrew when he first saw the cross on which he was to suffer, "Hail, precious cross, that hast been consecrated by the body of my Lord! I come to thee; receive me into thy arms, take me from among men, and present me to my Master, that he who redeemed me on thee may receive me by thee." The cross goeth before the crown. We must go up to the tree, and that with pains and striving, before we can reach the fronds at the summit. They are the prize of victory. The great multitude that no man could number stood before the throne clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands. That blessed vision may, indeed, be understood as a vision of the true Feast of Tabernacles in heavens but the palm has ever been regarded as the martyr's prize; we must look upwards to it. "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things that are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" ( Philippians 3:13 , Philippians 3:14 ).

4 . The bridegroom continues his praises. He repeats the comparison of the vine, and adds that the breath of the bride is fragrant as the smell of the choicest fruits, and the tones of her voice sweet as the best wine. Here the bride interrupts the king, adding the words, "that goeth down smoothly for my beloved." We mark the loving controversy; each seeks to put the other first. If the king compares the bride to a palm tree, she stops him with the answer that he is to her the stately tree; she win go up to the palm tree, she will take hold of its boughs. If he compares her voice to the flavour of the sweetest wine, she adds, interrupting him, that that wine is for her beloved, to please and refresh him with its sweetness; her joy is, to feel that she is wholly his, to delight in his love, to try always to please him. It is a sweet picture of the happiness of wedded love, when each seeks to please the other, when each puts the other first. Then Christian marriage is indeed a holy estate, a great help in the religious life, representing to the wedded pair the union that is between Christ and his Church, so that having in their own mutual relations a parable of that holy union, they may be drawn continually nearer to Christ, as they learn continually to love one another with a purer and deeper love, and in their daily self-denials for the loved one's sake find how blessed is self-sacrifice for his sake who loved us and gave himself for us.

II. THE BRIDE 'S ANSWER .

1 . The mutual love that binds them together. She repeats the assertion of So 2:16; Psalms 6:3 . As in So Psalms 6:3 , she puts first her own gift, the gift of her whole heart, to her beloved. She knows now, with a confident and happy knowledge, that her heart is his. Perhaps at first there had been some coyness, some hesitations, some doubts; now there is none. She has given her heart, and she knows it. She dwells on the happy truth; she rejoices in repeating it. Blessed is the Christian soul that can say the like, "I am my Beloved's," "I am Christ's." Blessed above all others are they who can say in sincerity that they have given him their whole heart; that they desire only him, his presence, his love; that their one highest hope is to please him better, to live nearer and nearer to him, and at length to see him face to face. Such, in the ancient times, was the hope of the Psalmist Asaph. "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon the earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the Strength of my heart, and my Portion forever" ( Psalms 73:25 , Psalms 73:26 ). And the bride is sure of the bridegroom's love: "his desire is towards me." She is as sure that his heart is hers as that hers is his. She applies to him the Divine words of Genesis 3:16 . As Eve's desire was to her husband, so now the king's desire was toward his bride. The heavenly Bridegroom loved the Church; his desire is toward his people; their salvation was the joy set before him, for which he endured the cross. He said to his little flock, "With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer" ( Luke 22:15 ). His desire is toward his bride, that she may be washed and cleansed, that he may in his own good time present her to himself a glorious Church, holy and without blemish ( Ephesians 5:25-27 ).

2 . The bride ' s invitation. The king had invited her to his royal city at the time of their espousals. "Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse" (So Genesis 4:8 ). She seems here to be inviting the king to visit in her company her old home, the scene of her labours in the vineyards. "Come, my beloved," she says, "let us go forth into the field." So the heavenly Bridegroom calls to himself the souls whom he so dearly loved: "Come unto me, and I will give you rest;" so the Christian, in answer to the Lord's gracious invitation, responds, "Even so come, Lord Jesus." He bids us come to him, and as we come we pray him to come to us, for without him we can do nothing; we cannot come unless he draws us by himself coming to us ( John 6:44 ; John 12:32 ). We pray him, "Let us go forth into the field, let us get up early to the vineyards;" for we need his presence always; we cannot do the work which he has given us to do; we cannot work in his vineyard as he bids us without his help. Therefore we ask him to be with us always, according to his gracious promise, "Lo, I am with you all the days, even to the end" ( Matthew 28:20 ); that we may have grace to get up early to the vineyards, not to stand all the day idle, not to wait to the eleventh hour, but to give the best of our life to God, to remember our Creator in the days of our youth, to do with our might whatsoever our hand findeth to do ( Ecclesiastes 9:10 ). The word here rendered "get up early" is several times figuratively used for "to be earnest or urgent." God calls us to work, to labour for his Name's sake, out not to leave our first love, like the Church at Ephesus ( Revelation 2:3 , Revelation 2:4 ); to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, but all the time to ask him to come and help us, and to remember that it is he who worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure ( Philippians 2:13 ); for without that inward work of his within oar souls we can do no acceptable work for him. But work we must, for he bids us; and it is in that work, wrought ever in faith and in dependence upon him, that the Christian soul keeps itself in the love of God ( Jude 1:21 ). So the bride says," There [in the vineyard] will I give thee my loves." It is in working for God that we prove our love for him. "Lovest thou me?" the Saviour said; then "feed my lambs, feed my sheep." "If ye love me, keep my commandments.

Then he will pray for us, sending the gracious Spirit, the Comforter, to strengthen and to help us; then, he promises, he will come himself. "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you" ( John 14:15-18 ). Then the blessed Spirit will help us to bring forth the fruit of the Spirit—the fruit which is "love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, faith, meekness, temperance"—that like the bride in the song we may have "all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old," and may add, in her words, "which I have laid up for thee, O my Beloved." These fruits are treasures laid up in heaven, and we know that he is able to keep that which we have committed unto him against that day ( 2 Timothy 1:12 ).