The Shulammite Becomes a Bride

1Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is as a flock of goats, that descend from Mount Gilead. 2Your teeth are like a newly shorn flock, which have come up from the washing, where every one of them has twins. None is bereaved among them. 3Your lips are like scarlet thread. Your mouth is lovely. Your temples are like a piece of a pomegranate behind your veil. 4Your neck is like David’s tower built for an armory, whereon a thousand shields hang, all the shields of the mighty men. 5Your two breasts are like two fawns that are twins of a roe, which feed among the lilies. 6Until the day is cool, and the shadows flee away, I will go to the mountain of myrrh, to the hill of frankincense.

A few days ago so much snow fell that it covered the whole world in white. The snow covered everything without favoring any place. Watching those broad, soft flakes blanket everything dirty and ugly in white, I wondered whether the love between husband and wife ought not to be like this.

Husbands and wives quarrel because, although each thinks they have given love, that love has not overflowed enough to cover all the other’s strengths and faults the way heavy snow covers the ground. What they gave, then, was a meager, unsatisfying love, like a thin scattering of sleet. Neither is willing to sacrifice for the other or to serve from a lower place, and so each grows discouraged at a spouse who seems to show them no love. What each longs for is a love that covers faults unconditionally, as heavy snow does.

The love God has given us is just such a love. He poured it out like heavy snow on sinners, filthy and ugly with sin, until their sin was covered, and so in it they find rest and warmth, and their thirst is gone. God is teaching us that for husband and wife to build a whole home, they must pour out love without ceasing. He tells us that just as he has covered all our faults unconditionally, so if we pour out a love like heavy snow, the other will find rest and warmth in it. This is the very love Solomon gave the Shulammite. Because he poured such love on her without condition, poor and frail as she was, she could enjoy happiness in his arms without complaint.

Song of Solomon 4:1

1Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is as a flock of goats, that descend from Mount Gilead.

Caught in a winter field, you can escape the fierce wind by digging into a deep drift and sheltering inside it. Solomon’s love kept the Shulammite safe from the poverty, ridicule, and contempt that had beaten on her like a bitter winter wind. Now Solomon and the Shulammite have become a husband and wife who can serve each other with a love like heavy snow.

On the wedding day the Shulammite wore a veil, so only Solomon, her husband, could see her radiant smile. So lovely was she, gazing at him from behind the veil, that he sang of her face feature by feature, as if in praise. Her eyes, gleaming behind the veil, were beautiful as doves. She had been through many hardships, and the gratitude and love she felt toward the husband who had protected her to the end were perhaps held right there in her eyes. Our eyes, too, will shine like this as we look on Christ. When we look to the Lord who rescued us from death, our eyes shine with meekness, humility, and fullness. Like a bride with eyes for her bridegroom alone, we look to Christ, hold fast the hope of heaven, and strive to live in step with the will of God.

Because the Shulammite saw the world through her veil, the distant world was blurred to her, but the face of the bridegroom before her she saw plainly. So we too must keep the world at a distance and see clearly the face of Christ, who is near. When Christ alone is clear to us, the world seen through him holds no terror, and there is nothing to fear. The Shulammite relies on Solomon alone, who is with her. In his arms neither the little foxes that tormented her nor the women who envied and resented her can be her enemies, so she has no need to concern herself with all the troubles of the world.

In verse 1, Solomon said that because her hair was black and beautiful, it was like a flock of goats lying on the slopes of Mount Gilead. He is comparing it to a flock grown healthy under the shepherd’s labor. We too, when Jesus Christ our shepherd leads us to the pastures of the word, must take in the food of the spirit with obedient hearts and grow; only then can we become warriors of the Kingdom of God and wholly fulfill the calling God has given us. The church and every one of us in it must feed eagerly on the word of Christ until we grow sleek with wisdom, and, united as members of the Lord’s body, must form a single flock that loves and works together.

A sheep that has lost its shepherd and strayed from the flock can only die. That is why it must stay alert and listen for the shepherd’s voice; only by obeying will it keep from straying and stay in good health.

Song of Solomon 4:2

2Your teeth are like a newly shorn flock, which have come up from the washing, where every one of them has twins. None is bereaved among them.

Solomon praised her teeth as clean and smooth as ewes newly shorn and come up from the washing, like sheep that have each borne twins and raised them all in health. Sheep are washed after they are shorn, so their wool is white as snow and evenly trimmed, which makes them beautiful. With the long, soiled wool all cut away and their clean skin showing, they would be a lovely sight. Just as every sheep’s wool is clean and even, the word of truth held by those who have cut away the world is always holy and always the same. It is not that some receive only words of rebuke and others only words of praise. Salvation comes through the same word, and rebuke and reward are given according to each one’s faith.

Teeth cut food into pieces of the right size so that it can be eaten easily. It is the same with the gospel: if we do not overreach but share it in the measure of the talents, abilities, and gifts we have received, we will be able to pass on nothing but the truth. But if someone neither rightly knows nor understands the word, yet proudly interprets and preaches it as they please, those words can never accomplish salvation. God will not forgive those who expound the word by mixing in human ideas and the world’s common sense and reasoning.

If we preach the word with all our strength, within the grace we have received in the measure of the talents God has entrusted to us, those who receive the gospel will take their place among the saved through that word, cut into pieces they can take in. Just as the body weakens when the teeth go bad, the church grows healthy when all its members are healthy through the word, prayer, and praise.

Song of Solomon 4:3

3Your lips are like scarlet thread. Your mouth is lovely. Your temples are like a piece of a pomegranate behind your veil.

Solomon said that her lips were like scarlet thread, that her mouth was lovely, and that her cheeks behind the veil were like a pomegranate.

Leviticus 14:4

4then the priest shall command them to take for him who is to be cleansed two living clean birds, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop.

Scarlet thread was used in the rite for cleansing the sick and in making the tabernacle and the priests’ garments, because it is bound up with human sin. When the walls of Jericho fell, the people of Israel spared Rahab when they saw the scarlet thread she had hung in her window; and at the last of the ten plagues, the angel of death passed over when he saw the red blood of the lamb smeared on the doorposts.

The scarlet thread speaks of the atoning blood of Christ. Only when human sin is washed in his precious blood can anyone be rescued from death. When you, saved by the Lord’s blood, offer prayers of thanks to God, he will receive them as a lovely fragrance. And when your prayer is accepted, God will be a hedge around you so that neither the wicked of this world nor evil spirits can touch you.

Solomon saw that the cheeks of the woman he loved were red as a pomegranate. The Shulammite would have made herself up with care to look lovely for her husband, and her face must have flushed with shyness. When you split the hard rind of a pomegranate, red as her cheeks, the seeds packed inside are like glittering jewels. The red juice around each seed seems a warm love, like the precious blood of Christ enfolding worthless sinners. We are like dead seeds that cannot put down roots, yet Christ wraps us in his own blood so that God’s wrath does not fall on us, and his sacrifice is a blessing beyond measure. How astonishing it is that Solomon, gazing at the woman he loved, was reflecting so deeply on the grace of God! Because he longed for God, thought of him, and loved him at every moment, everything in the world must have turned for him into a parable revealing God’s glory.

Song of Solomon 4:4

4Your neck is like David’s tower built for an armory, whereon a thousand shields hang, all the shields of the mighty men.

Solomon likens her neck to the tower of David. A tower was a vital place, built high to hold off invading enemies; it served as a lookout and as a store for weapons. By likening her to a tower he valued so highly, Solomon shows how dear she is to him. In every nation, weapons were kept in the tower, and when war broke out, all the soldiers took them out and armed themselves. We too must not sleep or doze spiritually, but keep careful watch from the tower in case the enemy is advancing. And the spiritual weapons stored in that tower are supplied to us by Christ. To us, at war with Satan, Jesus will supply every spiritual weapon: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and even the sword of the Spirit.

Solomon praised her beauty as perfect, like a tower hung with a thousand shields. Perfect, too, is the saving power of Christ. It is the power of heaven, which never loses any battle against Satan and the world, and so those who have faith are beautiful in themselves. If our faith stands upright like a tower, we will never fall, whatever temptation comes.

So we must be armed with spiritual weapons and ready to fight any enemy Satan sends. Since we do not know where he will strike, we must keep watch from the high tower, always alert. As long as you live in this world, the spiritual battle will not end. On the day we put off this body and are held in God’s arms, we will enjoy eternal rest, a peace with no war or sickness, no poverty or worry, and no strain.

Song of Solomon 4:5

5Your two breasts are like two fawns that are twins of a roe, which feed among the lilies.

The description of her two breasts as twin fawns feeding shows how openly the Bible speaks. The Bible does not record only the glory of God and the good deeds of people. It records even the foulest parts of human life: adultery, murder, lies, and scheming. That is because human beings are themselves a mass of sin and slaves of Satan. And because the Song of Solomon portrays the physical love of man and woman so plainly, read literally it may seem indecent.

But read with an understanding of its deep spiritual meaning, the Song of Solomon reveals God’s delicate and profound love. You must see Solomon’s faith, which longed to set out in frank terms the grace and glory of God revealed through human evil.

Think what a woman’s breasts do: they carry out the cherished task of nourishing her children, because without them she could not feed her baby. If a mother had borne a child and had no breasts, how could she nurture that life? So a mother who abandons the child she has borne commits a grievous evil, lower than any beast.

Some scholars see the two breasts as the Old and New Testaments, and others see them as pastors who serve as nurses. Every reading of the image brings grace, but here we want to see those who belong to God, like young fawns, resting like infants in the two breasts, that is, in his love and protection.

Like a young one held at its mother’s breast, you must be wise enough to listen only to Christ’s voice and live only on the milk the Lord gives. And just as young deer grow strong and bear many young, you too should bring forth many souls who resemble Christ.

Song of Solomon 4:6

6Until the day is cool, and the shadows flee away, I will go to the mountain of myrrh, to the hill of frankincense.

After the wedding, perhaps to rest quietly, Solomon said he would go to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense. The mountain of myrrh is thought to stand for Mount Moriah, where the temple was built, and there on Moriah frankincense was burned to God and glory given to him. We call a place a temple when God is present there. The temple is a holy place that cannot be mixed with anything of the world. If the world enters the temple, it can no longer be called a temple.

John 14:20

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

‘That day’ in John 14 is the day the Holy Spirit comes. These words tell us that when the Spirit comes, all things will be made clear. Now the Holy Spirit is with you; he has given you wisdom so that you come to understand all things, and he has made you a temple. Because the Holy Spirit walks with you and works in you, you can prepare to become the holy bride of Christ and keep yourself from being defiled by the things of the world. When you, now a holy temple, offer up without ceasing the fragrance of devotion, service, and thanksgiving in faith, as a temple should, God will bless you.

May you always live in holiness as the beautiful bride of Christ. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.