Thy cheeks are comely with plaits of hair, Thy neck with strings of jewels. We will make thee plaits of gold With studs of silver.
The bride is not only beautiful and useful to her LORD, she is also adorned, and it is His delight to add to her adornments. Nor are His gifts perishable flowers, or trinkets destitute of intrinsic value: the finest of the gold, the purest of the silver, and the most precious and lasting of the jewels are the gifts of the Royal Bridegroom to His spouse; and these, plaited amongst her own hair, increase His pleasure who has bestowed them.
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In verses 12-14 the bride responds:--
While the King sat at His table My spikenard sent forth its fragrance.
It is in His presence and through His grace that whatever of fragrance or beauty may be found in us comes forth. Of Him as its source, through Him as its instrument, and to Him as its end, is all that is gracious and divine. But _HE HIMSELF_ is better far than all that His grace works in us.
My Beloved is unto me as a bundle of myrrh, That lieth betwixt my breasts. My Beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna-flowers In the vineyards of En-gedi.
Well is it when our eyes are filled with His beauty and our hearts are occupied with Him. In the measure in which this is true of us we shall recognize the correlative truth that His great heart is occupied with us. Note the response of the Bridegroom:--
Behold, thou art fair, My love; behold, thou art fair; Thine eyes are as dove's.
How can the Bridegroom truthfully use such words of one who recognizes herself as
Black as the tents of Kedar?
And still more strong are the Bridegroom's words in chap. iv. 7:--
Thou art all fair, My love; And there is no spot in thee.
We shall find the solution of this difficulty in 2 Cor. iii. Moses in contemplation of the Divine glory became so transformed that the Israelites were not able to look on the glory of his countenance. "We all, with unveiled face [beholding and] reflecting as a mirror the glory of the LORD, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory [_i.e._ the brightness caught from His glory transforms us to glory], even as from the _Lord_ the SPIRIT." Every mirror has two surfaces; the one is dull and unreflecting, and is all spots; but when the reflecting surface is turned fully towards us we see no spot, we see our own image. So while the bride is delighting in the beauty of the Bridegroom He beholds His own image in her; there is no spot in that: it is all fair. May we ever present this reflection to His gaze, and to the world in which we live for the very purpose of reflecting Him.
Note again His words:--
Thine eyes are as dove's,
or
Thou hast dove's eyes.
The hawk is a beautiful bird, and has beautiful eyes, quick and penetrating; but the Bridegroom desires not hawk's eyes in His bride. The tender eyes of the innocent dove are those which He admires. It was as a dove that the HOLY SPIRIT came upon Him at His baptism, and the dove-like character is that which He seeks for in each of His people.
The reason why David was not permitted to build the Temple was a very significant one. His life was far from perfect; and his mistakes and sins have been faithfully recorded by the HOLY SPIRIT. They brought upon him GOD'S chastenings, yet it was not any of these that disqualified him from building the Temple, but rather his warlike spirit; and this though many of his battles, if not all, were for the establishment of GOD'S Kingdom and the fulfilment of His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Solomon, the Prince of Peace, alone could build the Temple. If we would be soul-winners and build up the Church, which is His Temple, let us note this: not by discussion nor by argument, but by lifting up CHRIST shall we draw men unto Him.
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We now come to the reply of the bride. He has called her fair; wisely and well does she reply:--
Behold Thou art fair, my Beloved, yea, pleasant: Also our couch is green. The beams of our house are cedars, And our rafters are firs. I am (but) a rose of Sharon, A lily of the valleys.
The last words are often quoted as though they were the utterance of the Bridegroom, but we believe erroneously. The bride says in effect, Thou callest me fair and pleasant, the fairness and pleasantness are Thine; I am but a wild flower, a lowly, scentless rose of Sharon (_i.e._ the autumn crocus), or a lily of the valley.
To this the Bridegroom responds: "Be it so; but if a wild flower, yet
As a lily among thorns, So is My love among the daughters.
Again the bride replies:--
As the apple-tree (the citron) among the trees of the wood, So is my Beloved among the sons. I sat down under His shadow with great delight, And His fruit was sweet to my taste.