The Pulpit Commentary — Song of Songs — Section 55

writers Identify it with the scarlet anemone, which is ver_y abundant all over Palestine. Solomon's bride compares herself to the lily; but even Solomon himself, the Lord said, "in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these," The Lord bids us "consider the lilios." When wo look up to the heaven, to the vast distances, the enormous magnitude of the heavenly bodies, in their ordered movements, we think, ae the psalmist thought, "Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him?" But when we consider the lilies, we see that he who framed the universe in its vastness regards things small and humble. Tbe delicate pencilling, the gorgeous colouring of the flowers of the field, the complicaterl structure of many of them, the arrangements, for instance, for fertilization, show a wisdom, an exact accommodation of means to ends, as astonishing as the celestial mechanism; a great and loving care, too, for us men, in providing us not only with the necessaries of life, but also with objects of rare and exquisite loveliness, to give us pure and innocent pleasures, to teach us lessons of truthfulness. He who thus clothes the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, will surely clothe us, though, alas I we are of little faith. The b1ide is as one of these flowers, frail as they are; she trusts in the bridegroom's care, The Christian must learn to cast all his anxiety upon God. He careth for us. II. THE REPLY OF THE BRIDEGROOM, The king takes up the words of the bride. She is to him as a lily; other maidens, when compared with her, are but as thorns in the bridegroom's eyes. .Alas 1 there are tares in the Lord's field, barren fig trees in his garden, They are as thorns; his chosen are as lilies. 'l'he thorns set forth by contrast the beauty of the lily; the deformity of sin brings into sharper contrast the beauty of holiness. But whatever beauty the Christian soul possesses comes only from the Bridegroom's gift; he gives it. In his infinite love he condescends to be pleased with that which is truly his, not ours; we hope to be "found in him, not having our own righteousness, which is of the Law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith" (Phil. iii. 9). III. THE GRATITUDE OF THE BRIDE. 1. The excellence of the bridegroom. He had compared the bride to a lily among thorns; she compares him to an apple tree among the trees of the wood. .As the apple tree with its sweet fruit and its fragrant smell excels the barren trees of the wood, so the bridegroom excels all other men in th:e eyes of the bride. It is uncertain what the tappuach, called in our version "apple tree," really is; it has been identified by different writers with the quince, the citron, or the orange. It is enough for our purpose to know that it excels the trees of the wood, that its foliage gives a pleasant shade, that its fruit is sweet and fragrant and possesses certain restorative properties. The fact that it is five times mentioned in the Book of Joshua (xii. 17 ; xv. 34, 53; xvi. 8; xvii. 7) in connection with the name of various towns or fountains, Beth Tappuach or En Tappuach, shows that in the old times it must have been widely cultivated and greatly valued. It excels other trees; so does the beloved excel all other men in the estimate of the bride. Christ is very dear to the Christian soul. He is the Treasure hid in the field, the Pearl of great price; those who have found him and known him by a real spiritual knowledge count other objects of human desire as nothing worth in comparison with him. "What things were gain to me," says St. Paul, "those I couuted loss for Christ;" and again, "I do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him.» 2. The bride's delight in him. The tappuach offered a pleasant she.de ; the bride delighted in it; she sat down beneath its bower of foliage; its fruit was sweet to her taste. We think of the holy women who stood by the cross of Jesus (John xix. 25). The shadow under which the Church finds rest must be the shadow of the cross. The Lord Jesus Christ is to the believer " a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat;" "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land" (Isa. xxv. 4; xxxii. 2). He bids the weary and heavy laden to come to him that they may find rest-rest for their souls. There is no other true and abiding rest for these restless, dissatisfied souls of ours, but only the rest which he giveth-rest in the Lord. But it was the agony and bloody sweat, the bitter cross and passion, which made the Lord Jesus what he is to the believer; it is the exceeding great love of our Master and only Saviour manifested forth in that sacred suffering; it is the blessed atonement for the sins of the world wrought once for all through the virtue of the precious blood ;-it is this which makes the Saviour's cross a place of rest and refresh- ment for the weary soul, which causes the Christian to take delight in the shadow of 44 THE SONG OF SOLOMON, [t1H, II, 1-17,