The Pulpit Commentary — Song of Songs — Section 178

onr heart, wilh all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength, because our highest powers oan find their proper exercise only thus; and it is in the exercise of the highest powers that the highest happiness is found. It is the love of God that sheds glory and joy and blessedness through Maven, his dwellin11;-plaoe, because the blessed angels love him perfectly, and, dwelling in love, do his holy will with a glad undoubting obedience. And so in various lower degrees it is the love of God which makes religion what it is to his people, very blessed and holy ; which makes life worth Ji,·ing; which gives them in the midst of their shortcomings glimpses more or less vi,id of that holiest joy which is the blessedness of heaven, Joy in the Lord is one of the fruits of the :Spirit; it follows immediately upon the highest grace of love; it issues out of it (Gal. v. 22). And because it issues out of love, it is enjoined upon us as our duty as well as our highest privilege; for" the first of all the commandments is this, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God ; " and a corollary of that first command- ment is, "Rejoice in the Lord al way; and again l say, Rejoice" (Phil. iv. 4). Amona earthly delights the pure love of wedlock is, as the king says, the fairest and the most pleasant ; and of all highest joys that the human soul can attain unto, the supreme, the transcendent joy, comes from the holy love of God. 2. His praise of tlie bride. He compares her to a palm tree, to a vine. Both are fair to look upon, both have sacred associations. The image of the vine recalls to our thoughts the holy allegory in John xv. The Saviour is the true Vine; his people are the branches. They must bring forth fruit, for the branch that beareth not fruit is taken away; and in order to bear fruit they must abide in him, in spiritual union with the Lord, who is the Life. The palm tree also occurs in Scripture imagery: "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree" (Ps. xcii. 12). Several characteristics make the palm tree an apt emblem of the faithful servant of God. There is its tall and graceful appearance, its evergreen foliage, its fruitfulness, and perhaps especially the fact that both fronds and fruit grow at the topmost height of the tree, high above the earth and as near as possible to heaven. An apt illustration by St. Gregory the Great (' Moral.,' on Job xix. 49) is quoted in Smith's 'Dictionary of the Bible:' "Well is the life of the righteous likened to a palm, in that the palm below is rough to the touch, and in a manner enveloped in dry bark, but above it is adorned with fruit fair even to the eye; below, it is compressed by the enfoldings of its bark; above, it is spread out in amplitude of beautiful greenness. For so is the life of the elect, despised below, beautiful above. Down below it is, as it were, enfolded in many barks, in that it is straitened by innur:nerable afflictions; but on high it is expanded into a foliage, as it were, of beau- tiful greenness by the amplitude of the rewarding." 3. T1ie bride continues tlie bride- groom's words. "I said, I will go op to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof." These words have been regarded by some commentators as spoken by the bride. In the next verse certainly the bride interrupts the bridegroom and finishes bis sentence. It may well be that here also she corrects the similitude of the bride- groom, and applies it to him rather than to herself; the words, "I said," seem perhaps to favour this view, and to suggest a different speaker. The bridegroom is the palm tree rather than the bride; she modestly and humbly transfers the similitude to him. The palm tree resembles the king in its lofty stateliness and beauty. And certainly this view best lends itself to spiritual applications. The palm tree to the Christian represents the cross. We think of St. Peter's words," His own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree" (1 Pet. ii. 24). We remember the old traditional rea<ling of Ps. xcvi 10, "The Lord bath reigned from the tree." We recall his own words, "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me" (John xii. 32). 'l'he Lord reigned from the tree; above him was the title," This is Jesus, the King of the Jews." He is the King of the true Israelites, the Israel ot God. And the cross is the throne of hie triumph ; it displays, as nothing else could do, the Divine glory of holiness and entire self-sacrifice and self-forgetting love, which are the kingly orna~ ments of the Saviour's lofty dignity. The Saviour's preciouij death has made the cross a thing most sacred, most awe-inspiring, most dear to Christian souls, most constraining in the power of its Divine attraction. It draws around itself all the elect of God, all who have ears to hea.r and hearts to feel the blessed love of Chiist. All 1mc1 say in their hearts," I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof," The flrst words, " I said," seem to remind us of many faithless promises, of OII, VII. 1-18.] 'fHE SONG OF SOLOMON. lGO