The Pulpit Commentary — Song of Songs — Section 91

This noble hymn of Charles Wesley's expresses the feelings of a soul that has found Christ. We must not let him go, not for any perplexities, not for any temptations. St. Paul tells us that no difficulties can draw us back from him if we really give him our heart. "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord " (Rom. viii. 38, 39). Then we must cling very closely to him, not letting go any one desire to serve him better and to love him more. We must stimulate every such desire into activity by actual self-denying effort. We must try with all our heart to realize bis presence always, at all times and in all places, in our business, our amuse- ments, our intercourse with friends and relations, as well as in the hour of private prayer or pnblic worship. We must try with conscious effort to please him always; seeking, indeed, to serve him much, like Martha, but still more to please him perfectly, like 1\fary. And we must bring him into our home, into the very inmost chambers of our heart, opening them all to him, dedicating them all, every purpose of ours, every hope, every aspiration, to him, beseeching him to accept our imperfect offering, to make our hearts bis temple, to fulfil in us his blessed promise, '' If any man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make 0ur abode [our dwelling, our abiding-place] with him" (John xiv. 23). And now we have again the adjuration of eh. ii. 7. The bride has related her dream to the daughters of Jerusalem. The subject of that dream was love-pure and innocent love; its sorrows and its joys; separation and blessed reunion. It is a sacred thing. The daughters of Jerusalem were to listen in silent sympathy; they were not to praise or to blame; they were not to endeavour to stimulate or increase the love of bride or bride- groom; they were to leave it to its free spontaneous growth in the heart. Human love is a holy thing. The love that is between Christ and bis Church, the love that is between the· LoTd of our redemption and every elect soul, is holier yet by far. It is not to be much talked of; it is to be treasured in the heart; it is the inmost spring of that life which is hidden with Christ in God. It must not be stirred by itTeverent talk or disclosure; it must rest unseen" till it please "-till the fit time shall come for speaking of its blessedness. Vere. 6-11.-The espousals. I. THE APPROACH OF THE DBIDE. 1. The question. "Who is this?" We have here one of those refrains which form a striking character- istic of the song. The question, " Who is this?" (the pronoun is feminine, "Who is she?") is three times repeated (ver. 6; eh. vi. 10; viii. 5). It indicates always a fresh appearance of the bride. Here the words seem to be chanted by a chorus of young men, the friends of the bridegroom. They are struck with admiration at the beauty of the bride, and _the royal state bestowed upon her by the king. She is coming up to Jerusalem from the clistant Lebanon country, here described as the wilderness- which word in the Hebrew Scriptures often means, not a desert, but a thinly populated country, fit for feeding flocks, a pasture-land. She comes like pillars of smoke perfumed with myrrh and •frankincense. Perfumes are burned around her in 8uch profusion that pillars of smoke appear to attend her progress. The marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. She is prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. She_ comes up from this lower world to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. • The. incense bf adoration and thanksgiving rises as she mons onward. She is the holy Catholic Church, the great congregation of Christian people dispersed throughout the whole world. But the Church is made up of individual Ubristian souls. And that the Church may come as a whole to Christ the Bridegroom, each soul must come personally, individually, The soul cometh up out of the wilder- ness, out of the far country, where the world, the flesh, and the devil rule; up to 80 THE SONG OF SOLOMON. [on. m. 1-11.