Reflections on Song of Solomon 7

Song of Solomon 07 (Contemporary English Version)


1. You are a princess, and your feet are graceful in their sandals. Your thighs are works of art, each one a jewel;
   
2. your navel is a wine glass filled to overflowing. Your body is full and slender like a bundle of wheat bound together by lilies.
   
3. Your breasts are like twins of a deer.
   
4. Your neck is like ivory, and your eyes sparkle like the pools of Heshbon by the gate of Bath-Rabbim. Your nose is beautiful like Mount Lebanon above the city of Damascus.
   
5. Your head is held high like Mount Carmel; your hair is so lovely it holds a king prisoner.
   
6. You are beautiful, so very desirable!
   
7. You are tall and slender like a palm tree, and your breasts are full.
   
8. I will climb that tree and cling to its branches. I will discover that your breasts are clusters of grapes, and that your breath is the aroma of apples.
   
9. Kissing you is more delicious than drinking the finest wine. How wonderful and tasty!
   
10. My darling, I am yours, and you desire me.
    
11. Let's stroll through the fields and sleep in the villages.
    
12. At dawn let's slip out and see if grapevines and fruit trees are covered with blossoms. When we are there, I will give you my love.
    
13. Perfume from the magic flower fills the air, my darling. Right at our doorstep I have stored up for you all kinds of tasty fruits.
    

---

The previous chapter concluded with the reconciliation of the couple following a difficulty in the relationship. Now in this chapter the praise of the Lover for his Beloved is bolder and more intimate, expressing a heightening of sexual freedom since the difficulty. It is all a part of a normal, healthy, and maturing marriage. Difficulties in a marriage, when worked through, normally does lead to a greater intimacy in the love making.

The imagery used by the Lover to describe the physical attributes of his Beloved is not used so much as visual comparisons as they are for their significance and value to him. For instance, he says that "Your navel is a rounded bowl; it never lacks mixed wine. Your waist is a mound of wheat surrounded by lilies." These are not particularly attractive visual comparisons, but the wine signifies that she is desirable and intoxicating to him. The wheat, which was a main source of food and sustenance at that time, signifies that her love nourished and satisfied him. Other imagery used in the following verses can be given similar significance to refer to his desire for her, completing his descriptions with the statement, "How beautiful you are and how pleasant, my love, with such delights!" He has been describing those delights.

In the next verses, 7 & 8, the Lover speaks of his desire for his Beloved. He describes her stature as like a palm tree and her breasts as clusters of fruit. Then he says he will "climb the palm tree and take hold of its fruit," and the Beloved responds in verses 9-10 of her pleasure in his desire. She, too, uses wine in her imagery and then speaks of their mutual possession of one another, "I belong to my love, and his desire is for me." She states a very important aspect in the marriage relationship - that belonging only to one another and no other. She states her giving of herself to him and the knowing that his desire is for her alone. The mutual possession does not take place by one possessing the other, but by each giving themselves to the other and looking only to each other for the fulfillment of their desires. As much as anything else, it is the free and complete giving of oneself to the other that fulfills their desire. More so than the physical attractiveness or aspects of love making.

In the concluding verses of the chapter the initiative in the love making moves from the Lover to the Beloved. In verse 11 she invites him to go with her to the field where they can spend the night together, concluding with a reference to every "delicacy" that she has treasured up for him to be offered to him in that night together.

Many, particularly of the older commentaries, try to make this book an allegory of Christ's love for His bride, the church. I find this a stretch of the imagination and an effort to try to spiritualize a subject matter that they can otherwise find no purpose for being in scripture. More recently we have come to understand the significance of this book in regard to healthy marriage relationships. The sexual aspect of marriage is a gift from God intended to be enjoyed between a man and woman in a marriage relationship. In that relationship it has the practical role of procreation, but has also provided the benefit of enjoyment in marriage, deepening the relationship beyond its functional role. Beyond the marriage relationship sex loses its wholesomeness and even its fulfillment and purpose. In fact, it becomes destructive.