Mahanaim, the Army of God

2My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies. 3I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. He browses among the lilies, 4You are beautiful, my love, as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners. 5Turn away your eyes from me, for they have overcome me. Your hair is like a flock of goats, that lie along the side of Gilead. 6Your teeth are like a flock of ewes, which have come up from the washing; of which every one has twins; no one is bereaved among them. 7Your temples are like a piece of a pomegranate behind your veil. 8There are sixty queens, eighty concubines, and virgins without number. 9My dove, my perfect one, is unique. She is her mother’s only daughter. She is the favorite one of her who bore her. The daughters saw her, and called her blessed; the queens and the concubines, and they praised her. 10Who is she who looks out as the morning, beautiful as the moon, clear as the sun, and awesome as an army with banners? 11I went down into the nut tree grove, to see the green plants of the valley, to see whether the vine budded, and the pomegranates were in flower. 12Without realizing it, my desire set me with my royal people’s chariots. 13Return, return, Shulammite! Return, return, that we may gaze at you. Lover Why do you desire to gaze at the Shulammite, as at the dance of Mahanaim?

There is a fable about a hedgehog that lived its whole life lonely and cold.

The hedgehog was forever longing for someone, waiting for another to give its heart to. One day it met a hedgehog that ached with the same loneliness. Because the two shared one loneliness, they believed they could comfort each other, and they promised to live together. As husband and wife they opened their hearts to each other and drew closer, wanting to hold each other against the cold and the loneliness. Yet the nearer their longing to love brought them, the more the quills on their bodies wounded each other. Neither meant any harm, but the moment a quill pricked, they could not help springing apart, and the pain of being hurt by the other was more than they could bear. So the two hedgehogs put their heads together and talked over how they might live well without hurting each other. In the end the couple learned that it is more beautiful to keep a fitting distance, honoring and serving each other and living happily, than to cling so tightly that their love only wounds.

The moment we think we love someone, the desire to possess them is born. We never notice that the other is wounded and aching from our quills; we act as though they belong to us and do as we please, until at last the wounded one leaves our side. We know full well that our temperament grieves them and that our conduct has bitterly disappointed them, yet rather than adjusting to them and softening our bad habits and ways, we pay it little mind. This is what selfish human love looks like.

What do you think is the right distance at which to love someone? I do not mean the distance between bodies but the distance between hearts. However close a husband and wife may be, their love will last longer and run deeper when, as mature people, they serve each other from a fitting distance. Of course, the same holds between parents and children, and it would apply to every relationship. The closer we are, the more careful we must be with each other; only by keeping a proper boundary can we love beautifully.

Do you ever wound someone in the name of love? Is your rough temperament grieving the one you love while you, unaware, sit gazing only at your own wounds?

Human beings can never love another by one-sided action. There are stalkers who insist that one-sided love is love all the same, but it is not, because love must win the other person’s heart, and whatever love I give must truly do them good.

We see husbands who are meant to embrace their wives, yet are such small-hearted men that they cannot even manage themselves, and they lead their homes into ruin. So the head of a household must be born again through the word of God to grow into a big-hearted man. Still, this is not a problem a husband can solve by his own efforts alone. If a wife will not accept her husband’s love and does not respect him as a person, the home cannot stand upright, however hard he tries.

The same is true of the relationship between Jesus and the church. Unlike human relationships, Jesus gives his people a one-sided love. Such love is possible only because his heart is large enough to embrace all humanity. Christ is the one who hung on the cross in our place and said it was all right that the nails were driven through him, who said it was all right that the lashes he bore for us tore his whole body, who said it was all right that the crown of thorns drew his blood, and who asked only that we be saved.

He bears every pain, every mockery, every torment. Before such a Lord we grumble that there is no water, that there is no money, and we vent our discontent; yet Christ holds us close with words of love, and he is your protector. If you do not fully receive that love and rest in it, the world you live in will always be dark, uneasy, and frightening. When the husband does well, the wife must do better still; and only when we give thanks for the grace Jesus pours out can life become happy.

Isaiah 55:1

1“Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

The Lord, who has already paid the full price, has told us that all that is left for us to do is to enjoy peace and rest in the love of Christ. He opened the way of salvation, declaring that the unrighteous who forsake human thoughts and human righteousness and return to Yahweh can be forgiven. He can embrace sinners in this way because, as the heavens are higher than the earth, the Lord’s thoughts are higher than the thoughts of foolish people.

Solomon, who ruled a kingdom, had far loftier thoughts, a far wider heart, and a far clearer eye for life than the Shulammite. So although she had grieved him, when she repented of her wrong and came looking for him, he gladly welcomed his wife back. This is the picture of a steadfast husband embracing a frail wife, and it is the great love of God, who forgives his people though they are like the prodigal son. Because of this love, people born as children of Satan have received the blessing of becoming children of God.

Song of Solomon 6:3

3I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. He browses among the lilies,

The Shulammite came to see that she, like the many flocks, belonged to her husband. As the sheep hear Solomon’s voice and follow and obey him, she realized that she too had become one with her husband.

John 14:20

20In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

The triune God and his people are one, as Solomon and the Shulammite are one. Sinners as they once were, they can become one with God only because of the sacrifice of Christ. Had Christ not given himself and borne every sin, it could never have been.

When Solomon saw the earnest eyes of the Shulammite, who had come a long way to find him, he knew that she truly understood her wrong. Nothing is as beautiful as a heart that repents of its wrong and turns back. Believers too, it is true, may fail to let go of the world’s zeal, desires, and plans, and so commit the wrong of grieving God. But no faith is more precious than recognizing one’s wrong and turning back.

Song of Solomon 6:8

8There are sixty queens, eighty concubines, and virgins without number.

Set this against what we know from Scripture, that Solomon had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and we can see that he probably met the Shulammite long before the time of 1 Kings 11.

Solomon praised the Shulammite as one who stood out above all others. Though so many women loved him, he called her the one who truly stood out, because once they were apart he saw what he had not seen while she was near: that she was a person of deep sincerity. We sometimes discover someone’s true worth when we are apart rather than together. That is why, in ordinary days, we need to speak and act toward those beside us with greater respect, and why a life that honors the other person matters so much.

Believers and wives who receive the one-sided love of Christ and of a husband often do not realize how greatly they are loved and how happy they are. Because they do not know what a strong fence that love has been, the very support that kept their lives safe, they betray it easily. But if they were cast off by Christ or by a husband, they would be mocked and despised by the world and by people. Only then would they realize how great and how warm that love had been.

So when we are loved by Christ, or a wife by her husband, we must work to repay that love with a gift beautifully wrapped. If we wrap the love Christ gave for the saving of souls in devotion and faithfulness and offer it back to him, or if a wife repays her husband’s labor for the household by raising the children wisely and making the home peaceful, it will be a great gift.

Scripture tells us that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.

When the shepherd is always beside the sheep, keeping watch, leading them to green pastures and to streams of flowing water, they take it for granted. But once they lose the shepherd and find themselves alone in a strange place, they will learn what a great blessing it was to have the shepherd near. Sheep never imagine they could be parted from their shepherd. Even when it grows dark and they can hardly make out the one who leads them, they think a moment’s wandering does no harm, since the shepherd will come whenever they call.

But a sheep that will not go where the shepherd leads, and wanders off after pasture of its own choosing until it is separated from the flock’s keeper, can cry all it likes in a strange place and never hear that warm voice. For the lost sheep, nothing has changed except that it has no shepherd. The wide field still has food to eat, and it has been given the freedom to live as it pleases.

When night fell, however, the lost sheep had nowhere to rest. For a sheep to have no shepherd means having no protector to drive off the wild beasts when they gather, and no refuge to enter and stay in safety. Only then, terrified of the world, did the sheep cry its heart out.

It was to this sheep, lost through its wandering, that the shepherd came. We can understand how glad the sheep must have been the moment it saw him.

We were all lost sheep. Greedy for a little more grass, chafing at the shepherd’s leading, we were foolish sheep who set off on unfamiliar paths in search of freedom. To sinners such as we were, Jesus, our shepherd, came. The Lord did not rebuke those who had lost the way of truth and were wandering; he gladly laid them on his shoulders and carried them back to the flock. Look quietly into the heart of Jesus, and you will sense the heart of Solomon rejoicing over the Shulammite who had come back to him.

You too must give thanks for the people beside you who hold you close in love, and for Jesus, who gave his own life to protect you. I hope you will stop and picture yourself left behind when the God and the people who loved you have gone. It would likely be a life more frightening than you can imagine. The world is never an easy place. With every step we must live carefully and watchfully, asking ourselves whether we are walking rightly according to the word of truth and whether Christ will welcome us at the end of our lives. We meet many things in life, but when we remember that every one of them is a stepping stone on the way to the Kingdom of God, we can walk the path of faith as the shepherd leads.

At last the Shulammite has found Solomon, and the women of Jerusalem, seeing her, speak.

Song of Solomon 6:10

10Who is she who looks out as the morning, beautiful as the moon, clear as the sun, and awesome as an army with banners?

The women of Jerusalem were astonished at how beautiful the Shulammite looked now that she had found her husband. Simply loving someone makes a face shine, and a person’s looks are transformed until they are dazzlingly beautiful. So those who are in love need not say a word; we can tell.

Believers who grow through the word shine spiritually, and so they carry a dignity quite unlike that of people who merely adorn their appearance. Their life in the world may be poor, sick, and frail, yet the spiritual authority that radiates from them makes them stand out as the Shulammite did. Their conduct is the first thing to change, because they give up the worldly habits they once enjoyed, live by the will of God, and begin the work of chiseling and shaping themselves to be an example to others. They may stumble along the way, but we see them rise again and keep on along the path of truth. If you have turned back through the word, I hope you will rise with strength, run, and never look back at the world again.

Song of Solomon 6:13

13Return, return, Shulammite! Return, return, that we may gaze at you. Lover Why do you desire to gaze at the Shulammite, as at the dance of Mahanaim?

In Genesis 32:2, as Jacob was on his way to meet Esau, he saw the angels of God encamped. Jacob called these angels God’s army, that is, Mahanaim.

Genesis 32:2

2When he saw them, Jacob said, “This is God’s army.” He called the name of that place Mahanaim.

Jacob was afraid that Esau, the brother who had lost his birthright to him, would take revenge. God showed him Mahanaim, his own army, to assure him that the angels of God would protect him themselves. Mahanaim is a proper noun meaning “two camps” or “two armies.” Jacob probably called it that because a great host of angels, formed into two armies, surrounded his company before and behind, or on the right and on the left.

If God’s people had their spiritual eyes opened and could see Mahanaim as Jacob did, they would fear God; because they cannot see it, they live as they please. Yet if we believe in the Mahanaim that guarded Jacob, then God’s work of keeping us safe through the hosts of heaven is still going on today.

If you hold that Jacob was a real man who truly believed in God, then you must also believe that a Mahanaim is watching over you even now. If the hosts of heaven are standing guard at your side, the world will hold no terror for you.

Once she came to her husband’s side, the Shulammite looked as beautiful and dignified as Mahanaim. Simply meeting the one she loved changed her this much. This is how the church and God’s people, loved by God in this world, ought to look. The church and the saints whom Christ loves must carry a dignity that no one would presume to trifle with. Only when they stand in bold authority will the world refrain from treating them as it likes.

With Christ at our side, who always gives his love without changing, what is there to fear? Why should we shrink before the powers of the world? All you need to do is shine with the light of happiness, rest, and peace in the arms of the bridegroom who gives you his love. When the Shulammite roamed the night searching for her husband, the watchmen who went about the city struck at her as at a baby bird that had lost its mother; but now that Solomon is at her side, no one will dare to treat her roughly. This is the relationship between Christ and his people, and between a husband and wife who truly love each other.

However much power the world wields to bring down the church and its people, it can never prevail, because the army of God guards the saints. If believers hold to this truth with certainty, miracles will happen. Those who live under such heavenly protection are wholly free from the world, and they will be praised as the blessed.

May you always live at the Lord’s side, kept safe by him. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.