The Pulpit Commentary — Song of Songs — Section 131

11nd the rest or the song is nn nmplification. residence; nnd secondly, that such l\n occnr- The eall to the friends is to celebrate the rence is unsuitnhle to the conditions of!\ royal marriage in ·11 bsnquet on tbo second do.y bride. It is much mol'e n11tural to supposo (eee Gen. xxi:i.. 28; Judg. Kiv. 12; Tobit th11t the bride is reco.lling what occurred in xi. 18; o.nd er. Rev. :i.ix. 7 and :i.i.x. 9). A her dream when the lover, h11ving been psmllel might be found in Ps. xxii. 26, where sent awny until the evening, as on the Messiah, at the olose or his sufferings, s11lutos former occasion, returned, and in the night his friends, the poor, and o.s they eat nt his knocked e.t the door. " My heart wo.ked '' tRble gives them bis royal blessing," Vi\'at is the Mme ae "My mind wo.s e.otive." The cor vestrnm in ietemnm I" The perreet st11te "heart" in Hebrew is the inner m11n, both of the Church is represented in Scripture,hoth intellect and feeling. "I was asleep, but I in the Old Testament nnd in the New, as was thinking" (of. Cicero, •De Divine.tione,' e.elebre.ted with nniversaljoy-all te11rs wiped i. 3l,). 'l'he lover hM come off a long jour- a way from off all fe.oes, and the loud harpings ney over the mountains, and arrives in the of inuumerable harpers. C11n we doubt that night-time. The terms with which he this wouderful book !JM tinged the whole appeals to his beloved o.re significant, de- of subsequent inspired Scripture? Can we noting (1) equo.l rank-my siater; (2) free read the descriptions of triumphant rejoic- choice-my Zot-e; (3) purity, simplicity, and ing in the Apoc.alypse and not believe that loveliness-my dove; (4) entire devotion, un- the apostolic seer wo.s familiar with this doubting txust-my undefiled. Tammantlii, idealized love-song? "my perfeotion," as Arabic f.am, teim, "one Ver. 2-ch. viii. 4.-Part IV. REMINI- devoted to another," o.s a servant. Similar passages o.re quoted from bee.then love- SCENCES OF LOVE-DAYS. The bridegroom poetry, as Ana.creon, iii. 10; Propertius, i. reJ oicing in the bride. 16-23; Ovid, 'Amor.,' iii. 19, 21. The Ver. 2.-The bride's reminiscence of a lor,e- simple meaning of the dream is tho.t she dream. I was asleep, but my heart waked. is full of love by night and by do.y. She It is the voioe of my beloved that knooketh, dreamed that she wo.s back in her old eaying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my • country home, and that her lover visited dove, my undefiled : for my head ill filled with her like e. shepherd; and she tells how she dew, my looks with the drops of the night. sought him, to show how she loved him. There is a resemblance between this e.ccount When we o.re united to the Saviour with the of what wo.s apparently e. drenm, o.nd tbat bonds of e. pledged affection, we lose the which is related in eh. iii 1-4; but the sense of self-reproach in the delight of fellow• difference is very cle&r. In the former ship, and can even speak of our own slow- C&Se the lover is represented as dismissed ness and backwardness only to magnify his for e. sea.son, and then the relenting bee.rt grace. We delight to acknowledge th11t it of the maiden sought after him and found was bis knocking that led us to seek after him. In this case he "stands at the door him, although we be.d to struggle with the nud kuocks," coming in the uigbt; and the dull heart; and it was not until it was maicleu rises to open, but finds him gone, and moved by his approach, by his moving so is drawn after him. Tile second dream is towards us, that we hastened to find him, much more vivid and elaborate, and seems and were full of the thought of his desir- to be an imitation and enlargement of the ableness. There are abundant examples of other, being introduced apparently more for this same interche.nge of affection in the the sake of dwelling on the attractions of history of the Church's revive.ls and re- tile beloved one and hie preciousness in the storations. eyes of the maiden than in self-reproach. Ver. 3.-Ihave putofl:'mycoo.t; how shall ls it not possible tLat the poem originally I put it on t I have washed my feet; how concluded at eh. v. 1 with the marriage, aud shall I defile them t Evidently the meaning tl,at tLe whole of the latter half was an is, "I have retired to rest; do not disturb amplifieation, eitber by Solomon himself, the me." She is lying in bed. The cuttoneth, author of the fil'st half, or by some one who or x•-rtfiv, was the linen garment worn next has entered into the spirit oi.the song? This the body-from cathan, "linen." The Arabic would explain the apparent repetition, with kutwn is " cotton ; " hence the French coton, the ,,ariations. But, at all events, the second " co.lico, or cotton " shift. Shulamith repre- part certainly i~ more from tLe standpoint sents herself as failing in love, not meeting of married life than the first. Hence the the condescension 11nd affection of her lover bride speaks at great length., which she does o.s she should. Sloth, reluctance, ease, keep Hot in tLe earlier portion. Delitzscb thinks her back. "Woe to them tbe.t e.re ot eaHo that. this second love-dream is intended to in Zion I" The scene is, of course, only repre!<eut what occurred in early married ideally true; it is not meant to be a descrip- life; but there are two objections to tbat- tion of an actual occurrence. Fancy in dreams fi.rn, the.t the place is evidently a country atirs up the real nature, though it o.lso dis- urr. V. 1-lG.] 'rHE SONG OF SOLOMON. 121