The Pulpit Commentary — Song of Songs — Section 58

The bride longs for yet tendet'er tokens of affection. Perhaps the wor,ls of vcr. 6 would be better rendered as a wish or prayer, ns in eh. viii. 3, where they occur aanin: "Oh that his left hand were under my head, and his right hand should embrace ;_e I " 'l'he Christ,ian longs to be drawn ever closer into the Lord's embrace; he longs to lie in spirit, as the beloved apostle once actually lay," on the breast of Jesus," Especially he Jiop,·s and prays to be supported in those tender, those protecting arms, when he must pass through the dRrk vnlley of the shadow of death; then it will be s,veet to feel that" the eternal God is thy Refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut. xxxiii, 27). "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord," in his presence, in bis embrace. But if ~e w?uld have th~, holy comfort o~ tha! dear embrace in ou~ dying _hour, we must try to live' m the Lord now, to walk with him all our days, to chng to him with the embrace of faith. 'l'he Hebrew verb '.' e~brncc_" is that from which the nnrne of the Propbot Babakkuk, the prophet of faith, 1s derived. He longed for the Lord's coming; he ever watcbecl to see what the Lord would say to him; he had learned to rejoice in the Lord in the midst of great di~tress; he t~ught us_tbe ?oly lesson which St. Paul so earnestly presses upon us, "The Just shall hve by his faith." Such holy souls, beinu justified by faith, shall have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 5. The bride's charge to the chorus. There is an error in the old version of this thrice-repeated charge (eh. ii. 7; iii. 5; viii. 4). The bride is not cautioning the chorus not to awake her love, the bridegroom; she is adjuring (the literal translation) them not to awaken love, that is, the emotion, the affection, of love till it please, till it rise spontaneously in the heart. Hence the adjuration by the gazelles and the hinds of the field. They are gentle, timid creatures. Such is love true and pure; it is retiring; it shrinks away from observation; it is a sacred thing, between the lover and the beloved. The bride longs for the bridegroom's love, but the daughters of Jerusalem must not try to excite it; it is more delicate, more maidenly, to wait till love pleases to stir itself, till it sprin_g;s up spontaneously in the heart of the beloved. The relations of the soul with Christ are very sacred ; they may be mentioned only to the like-minded, and even that with a certain awe and reserve. And there are communings of the heart with the heavenly Bridegroom which me.y be divulged to none, not even to the neaf'est and dearest. And we must wait in patience for the Bridegroom. If for a time we cannot see him, or di.seem the tokens of his love, we must wait for bis good time. "The vision is yet for an appointed time," wrote the prophet of faith; "at the end ... it will surely come, it will not tarry" (Ha.b. ii. 3). God's people must not be impatient; they must trust; they must believe th.a.t "he who bath begun a good work in them will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil i 6); that he will at last "fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power" (2 Thess. i. 11). Vers. S-17.-The visit of the bewved. L Tru: BRIDE'S NARRATIVE. 1. The description of his first coming. The bride seems to be relating to the chorus the circumstances of her first meeting with the bridegroom. The King of Israel sought her in her humble home among the mountains of Lebanon; there he wooed and won her to be. his bride. So the heavenly Bridegroom, the true Solomon who bnilt the spiritual temple of living stones, came from his glory-throne to seek his bride, the Church; so he cometh now to seek and to save th.a.t which was lost. The bride hears the voice of the beloved; "my beloved," she says. In that little pronoun lies a great meaning. If we can only say in sincerity "my Saviour,"" my Lord and my God,"" my King," " my Beloved," then we can realize more or less the language of this holy Song of Songs, and see the spiritual meaning which underlies its touching parable of love; then we shall .often look back with wondering gratitude and tender joy to the days of our first conversion, when we first heard the Saviour's voice calling us to hiwself; when we first felt that "he loved me, and gave himself for me;" when we first tried to give him that poor love of ours, which in bis blessed condescension he sought in return for his own exceeding gl'eat love. The beloved is seen bounding over the mountains; he is like a gazelle or a young hart, fair to look upon and graceful, fleet of foot; he stands by the clay-built wall of the humble cottage; he looks in at the windows. So the Lord came to thi8 poor earth of ours to seek the Church, his bride; he despised not the stable or the manger. So now he seeketh his chosen often in the lowliest homes; he looks for them shining (such is one possible interpretation of the word) through the lattice, bringing OB. II, 1-17.] THE SONG OF SOLOMON. 47