The Pulpit Commentary — Song of Songs — Section 161

'l'he evil spirit of sensuality returned. When l,e was old, his wives turned a\\'ay hi8 heart; and he did evil in the sight of the Lord, ancl built high places for the wornhip of idols in the hill that is before Jerusalem (1 Kings xi. 4-, 6, 7). How earnestly we ought to strive to retain in our souls those happy feelin;(s, those aspirations after purity nud holiness which God sends from time to time, like angels' visits, into our henrts I 'fhey can only be fixed and wrought into ou1· characters by immediate action. In themselves they are transitory, and rapidly pass away. But hold them firm, make them the basis of real effort, the beginning and occasion of the healthy discipline of eelf-denial,-then God.will help us to keep them alive in our souls; the little seed will grow till it becomes a great tree; the little leaven will spread through the whole life with its quickening pdwers. Very precious are those moments of holy emotion ; very sclemn, too, for they involve a great responsibility. To let them go is perilous exceed- ingly, to use them aright brings a priceless blessing. Vera. 10-13.-Conve,·sation between the chorus and the b1·ide. I. ADDRESS OF THE CHORUS. 1. The question. "Who is she?" This question occurs three times in the song. In eh. iii. 6 it is asked apparently by a chorus of young men, the friends of the bridegroom; here and in eh. viii. 5 it seems to be put into the mouth of the chorus of maidens, the daughters of Jerusalem. It is an expression of admiration. The maidens meet the bride after an interval, and are startled by her surpassin~ beauty; at once graceful and majestic. Her happy love has shed a new grace around her; 1:ihe is clothed in queenly attire; it is a vision of rare loveliness. It is the love of Christ which gives the Church whatever beauty she possesses. Christ's love for her, drawing forth her responsive love for him, gives her whatever graces she may possess. She is his creation. He built his Church upon the rock; all that she is, and all that she has, comes only-from his gift. 2. The description. She looks forth as the dawn. The bride's sudden appearance is like the early dawn, coming forth in its beauty, tinging- sky and· clouds with rosy light. She is fair as the moon, clear and pure as the sun (poetical words are used here, as in Isa. xxiv. 23; xxx. 26; the moon is the white, the sun the hot luminary); and the comparison of ver. 4 is repeated; in her queenly majesty she is terrible, awe-inspi:ring, as a bannered host. Christ is the Bright and Morning Star (Rev. xxii. 16); He is the Sun of Righteousness (Mal. iv. 2); He is the true Light, the Light of the world. The true Light lighteth every rnau (John i. 9); and they who believe in the Light, and walk as children of light, reflect something of its brightness; so that the Lord, in his condescending love, says of them, "Ye are the light of the world" (Matt. v. 14); and so St. Paul says of his Philippian converts that "ye shine as lights [luminariesJ in the world" (Phil. ii. 15). " God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." Christians must strive, by his grace and the illumination of his Spirit, to walk always in the light, as he is in the light, that so they may have fellowship with one another in the light of holy love, and that the blood of Jesus Christ may cleanse them continually from all sin, making their souls white and clear in the transparent truth of that purity in heart which must, by the Saviour's compassionate mercy, belong to them who shall see God (Matt. v. 8). II. ANSWER OF THE BRIDE. I. Her lowliness. The maidens praise her beauty and stateliness; she reminds them of her former low estate. She seems to be looking back to the hour of her first meeting with the bri,legroom. She had no thought, country maiden as she was, of the elevation that awaited her. She was engaged iu her ordinary occupations. She had gone down into the garden to tend it and to walch the budding of the fruit trees; there she first saw the king. Whatever graces the Church ·possesses come from the favour of the heavenly Bridegroom. "Through him we have access by one· Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more stmn~ers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God" (Eph. ii. 18, 19). The Gentiles were strangers and foreigners; they knew not the King; they were not looking for, him. As the Lord God called Adam and Eve when they were hiding themselves among the trees of the garden, so the Lord called. the Gentiles by the mission of hie apostles. In the infancy of the human race it was the protevancrel, the promise of the Sled of the womnn who shall brnise the serpent's hcnd that fl°rst shed light upon the gloom of sin aud misery. And iu the folne,s of ti~e it was the Lord's gracious mission, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the  THE SONG OF sotm.rnN. [cilt. vt. 1-18.