Year 1, Week 43, Day 4 Bible Reading Observations

Year 1, Week 43, Day 4

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Song of Solomon 3-6.

Today’s reading continues further with the Song of Solomon. The previous day’s reading covered the first two chapters of the Song of Solomon, while today’s reading includes four more chapters, and tomorrow’s reading will include the last two chapters. Altogether, the eight chapters and 117 verses of the Song of Solomon depicts the wisdom of marital love. We are told that Solomon, “spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005” (1 Kings 4:32), but the title of this Book literally suggests that this was his best or greatest song: “The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s” (Song of Solomon 1:1). It is certainly a lyrical masterpiece, but it is also a theological gem in what it teaches about the beauty of marital love. There is a common expression in the Song of Solomon: "My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh that lies between my breasts. My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of Engedi." (Song of Songs 1:13-14). The term "my beloved" is used 24 times total in the 117 verses that comprise the Song of Songs. Love is certainly to be shown, but love is also to be stated. Marital love involves words and actions. Love uses its words. Love is to be verbalized, and those verbalizations are to be accompanied by congruent, concrete actions and deeds.

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading is sense of made of Solomon’s song of marital love and his actual regard for marriage: “Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the LORD had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart” (1 Kings 11:1-3). Perhaps the first observation that could be made is that the truth expressed in the Song of Solomon is not determined by whether or not Solomon practiced the truth that he wrote about. Solomon’s decisions regarding multiple wives is a reflection of him, but not what the Holy Spirit moved him to write. Of course, it would have been so much better if Solomon had practiced what he spoke of, but Solomon’s failure, while distracting, does not make what was said untrue, lacking beauty, or deficient in goodness. Solomon’s failure actually finds its indictment in what God moved him to express in this song. Solomon wrote of the true, beautiful, and good, but failed to embody it; but what he wrote is still true, beautiful, and good. So, if we want to live what is true, beautiful, and good, we must grasp what God said through Solomon (and observe the consequences of how Solomon lived).

The Song of Solomon is a poetical reflection of God’s order established in Creation: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:24-25). An order that is still the design for men and women: “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Mark 10:6-9). God made a man and He made a woman, and marriage is between one man and one woman for life. Any rejection of this reality and/or any variation from this reality is not only a rejection of God’s design in creation, but relatedly, a refusal to carry out God’s purposes for his creation.

But the enduring value of marital love does not merely look back; marital love points forward as well. It is interesting that the Song of Solomon was not written by just any man, but about a man who was a king who loved his bride: “Draw me after you; let us run. The king has brought me into his chambers” (Song of Solomon 1:4). While sin has entered the world and led to many messy complications challenging God’s design, The Song of Solomon lifts us above the devastating disorder of sin and speaks to us about a couple—a Shepherd-King, a son of David, who is pictured as the ideal husband, and a Shulammite woman, who is pictured as the ideal bride—in a beautiful context where the effects of sin have subsided for the moment. So, while much can be learned about marriage from the Song of Solomon, marriage can play a vital role in teaching us about the Lord Jesus Christ: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:25-27). The Song of Solomon, with its description of marital love, can also help us to anticipate the future of those who belong to Jesus: “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure” (Revelation 19:6b-8).

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe