#953 Song of Solomon 7 & 8 Holy Matrimony

How beautiful are your feet in sandals,

O noble daughter!

Your rounded thighs are like jewels,

the work of a master hand.

2 Your navel is a rounded bowl

that never lacks mixed wine.

Your belly is a heap of wheat,

encircled with lilies.

3 Your two breasts are like two fawns,

twins of a gazelle.

4 Your neck is like an ivory tower.

Your eyes are pools in Heshbon,

by the gate of Bath-rabbim.

Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon,

which looks toward Damascus.

5 Your head crowns you like Carmel,

and your flowing locks are like purple;

a king is held captive in the tresses.

6 How beautiful and pleasant you are,

O loved one, with all your delights!

7 Your stature is like a palm tree,

and your breasts are like its clusters.

8 I say I will climb the palm tree

and lay hold of its fruit.

Oh may your breasts be like clusters of the vine,

and the scent of your breath like apples,

9 and your mouth like the best wine.

She

It goes down smoothly for my beloved,

gliding over lips and teeth.

10 I am my beloved's,

and his desire is for me.

The Bride Gives Her Love

11 Come, my beloved,

let us go out into the fields

and lodge in the villages;

12 let us go out early to the vineyards

and see whether the vines have budded,

whether the grape blossoms have opened

and the pomegranates are in bloom.

There I will give you my love.

13 The mandrakes give forth fragrance,

and beside our doors are all choice fruits,

new as well as old,

which I have laid up for you, O my beloved. Song of Solomon 7 ESV

Song of Solomon 8

Oh that you were like a brother to me

who nursed at my mother's breasts!

If I found you outside, I would kiss you,

and none would despise me.

2 I would lead you and bring you

into the house of my mother—

she who used to teach me.

I would give you spiced wine to drink,

the juice of my pomegranate.

3 His left hand is under my head,

and his right hand embraces me!

4 I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,

that you not stir up or awaken love

until it pleases.

5 Who is that coming up from the wilderness,

leaning on her beloved?

Under the apple tree I awakened you.

There your mother was in labor with you;

there she who bore you was in labor.

6 Set me as a seal upon your heart,

as a seal upon your arm,

for love is strong as death,

jealousy is fierce as the grave.

Its flashes are flashes of fire,

the very flame of the Lord.

7 Many waters cannot quench love,

neither can floods drown it.

If a man offered for love

all the wealth of his house,

he would be utterly despised.

Final Advice

Others

8 We have a little sister,

and she has no breasts.

What shall we do for our sister

on the day when she is spoken for?

9 If she is a wall,

we will build on her a battlement of silver,

but if she is a door,

we will enclose her with boards of cedar.

She

10 I was a wall,

and my breasts were like towers;

then I was in his eyes

as one who finds peace.

11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon;

he let out the vineyard to keepers;

each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver.

12 My vineyard, my very own, is before me;

you, O Solomon, may have the thousand,

and the keepers of the fruit two hundred.

He

13 O you who dwell in the gardens,

with companions listening for your voice;

let me hear it.

She

14 Make haste, my beloved,

and be like a gazelle

or a young stag

on the mountains of spices. Song of Solomon 8 ESV

Song of Solomon 7 & 8

Even in the uncertainty of the previous chapters love was not lost, but here it stands recovered and renewed. 

1-13 The work of a master hand - He made them male and female, quite complimentary, as David marveled over God's workmanship in Creation, but also in his hands, so now the husband admires God's design in his other half. It is interesting that the Jewish writers refer to this song as the Holy of Holies. Only the priest entered into that room which held the Ark of the covenant. Marriage is an institution designed by God, and therefore sacred. It is the building block, the foundation of all societies, the point of procreation and therefore the point of most attack. 

…33 And hang the veil from the clasps and place the ark of the Testimony behind the veil. So the veil will separate the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place. 34 Put the mercy seat on the Ark of the Testimony in the Most Holy Place. 35 And place the table outside the veil on the north side of the tabernacle, and put the lampstand opposite the table, on the south side.… Exodus 26: 33-35

15 Drink water from your own cistern

And fresh water from your own well.

16 Should your springs be dispersed abroad,

Streams of water in the streets?

17 Let them be yours alone

And not for strangers with you.

18 Let your fountain be blessed,

And rejoice in the wife of your youth.

19 As a loving hind and a graceful doe,

Let her breasts satisfy you at all times;

Be exhilarated always with her love.

20 For why should you, my son, be exhilarated with an adulteress

And embrace the bosom of a foreigner?

21 For the aways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord,

And He watches all his paths.

22 His own iniquities will capture the wicked,

And he will be held with the cords of his sin.

23 He will die for lack of instruction,

And in the greatness of his folly he will go astray. Proverbs 5: 15-23

I have read several commentaries on the Song of Solomon, and some are beautiful but reach further into allegory than I  am comfortable with. Others have stripped the Song of Songs, Holy of Holies, of all her natural beauty, mucking up the pools of Heshbon, and disregarding the counsel of other scripture, including those of Solomon. With that, I would like to close this out with several passages from other areas of Scripture that I believe offer the best lamp of light for the reader. 

1 Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman.

2 But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband.

3 The husband must  fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband.

4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

5 Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 1 Corinthians 7: 1-5

God's definition of Love:

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,

5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 1 Corinthians 13: 1-8

When one is a believer and the other is not:

1 In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives,

2 as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior.

3 Your adornment must not be merely external—braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses;

4 but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.

5 For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands;

6 just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.

7 You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered. 1 Peter 3: 1-7

Purity: 

4 Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Hebrews 13:4