Song of Songs 1:2–2:7
Song of Songs 1:2–4 (WEB)Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth;
For your love is better than wine.
Your oils have a pleasing fragrance.
Your name is oil poured out,
Therefore the virgins love you.
Take me away with you.
Let’s hurry.
The king has brought me into his rooms.
Friends:
We will be glad and rejoice in you.
We will praise your love more than wine!
Beloved:
They are right to love you.
Well, we spent an entire first study establishing how we were going to read Song of Songs, and the woman has rewarded our patience by immediately asking to be kissed.
There is probably no better place for the Song to begin. Before we encounter vineyards, shepherds, royal processions, gardens, gazelles, towers, spices, or any of the other imagery that will eventually require some explanation, we encounter desire in language that requires almost none. She wants him near her. She wants his mouth on hers. Whatever uncertainties surround some of the Song’s later metaphors, we do not need a Hebrew lexicon to determine whether “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth” expresses romantic attraction.
We should notice again that the woman receives the first substantial voice in the Song. That matters because it immediately undermines one common distortion of biblical sexuality. She is not introduced as an object being admired by a man while remaining silent about her own desires. She desires him. She speaks about him. She wants him to take her away. His love is pleasurable to her, and she is remarkably comfortable saying so. As the Song continues, that pattern will not disappear. She will search for him, praise him, invite him, and speak about his body with the same poetic enthusiasm he will eventually direct toward hers. Whatever else biblical sexuality entails, Song of Songs will not permit us to imagine that female desire is somehow an unfortunate side effect of the fall.
Her first comparison is also revealing: “your love is better than wine.” The Hebrew word translated “love” here can carry the sense of expressions or acts of affection, and the comparison with wine emphasizes pleasure. Wine gladdens, delights, and intoxicates; his affection is better. The comparison does not suggest that she has carefully ranked romance and beverages according to theological importance. This is poetry. She is describing what his affection does to her. His presence delights her.
The language of fragrance continues that sensory quality. His oils smell good. His name itself is compared to oil poured out. In the ancient world, fragrant oils were valuable and desirable, particularly in a climate where perfume and scented oil carried associations of celebration, beauty, hospitality, and intimacy. The wordplay works because his literal fragrance and his reputation blend together in her praise. He smells good, but his name is also fragrant. Who he is attracts her.
That prevents us from reducing her opening desire to mere physical appetite. She certainly finds him physically desirable—the first verse eliminated any doubt about that—but attraction in the Song repeatedly encompasses the whole beloved. His touch, smell, reputation, presence, speech, and character as she perceives them belong together. She does not want an anonymous male body. She wants him.
Then the poetry moves quickly: “Take me away with you. Let’s hurry.” The language carries urgency because desire creates movement. She does not merely admire him from a theological distance. She wants proximity. The king has brought her into his chambers, and the surrounding voices celebrate the love being described.
We should be cautious here about constructing more narrative than the passage gives us. As we discussed in the first study, the Song does not provide stage directions explaining exactly where everyone is standing, whether “the king” is Solomon, whether royal terminology is literal or poetic at every point, or how each scene fits into a strict chronology. Those questions will become important where the text gives us enough information to pursue them. For now, the emotional movement is considerably clearer than the geography: she desires him, values his affection above other pleasures, delights in everything associated with him, and wants to be with him.
Then, almost immediately after expressing that confidence, she tells us something else about herself.
Song of Songs 1:5–6 (WEB)I am dark, but lovely,
You daughters of Jerusalem,
Like Kedar’s tents,
Like Solomon’s curtains.
Don’t stare at me because I am dark,
Because the sun has scorched me.
My mother’s sons were angry with me.
They made me keeper of the vineyards.
I haven’t kept my own vineyard.
There is vulnerability beneath the desire.
The woman knows that others are looking at her, and she knows what they see. She describes herself as dark and lovely, then immediately explains that the sun has darkened her skin because she has been working outside. This is not a statement about ethnicity. Her own explanation prevents that reading: “the sun has scorched me.” Her complexion bears the marks of labor.
That mattered socially in a way modern readers can easily miss. In societies where agricultural labor occurred outdoors, sun-darkened skin could indicate that someone belonged to the working class. Those wealthy enough to avoid prolonged outdoor labor could maintain lighter skin. Her concern, then, is not that dark skin is intrinsically unattractive. She appears conscious that her appearance reveals something about her circumstances and perhaps falls outside an ideal associated with women who had the luxury of remaining indoors.
The comparison to the tents of Kedar probably intensifies the image. Kedar was associated with nomadic peoples whose tents were made from dark goat hair. Yet she immediately balances that image with beauty: she is dark and lovely, comparable also to Solomon’s curtains. She does not deny what others can see, but neither does she accept the conclusion that it makes her undesirable.
Her explanation becomes more painful when she mentions her brothers. “My mother’s sons were angry with me. They made me keeper of the vineyards.” Calling them her mother’s sons rather than simply “my brothers” may itself carry emotional distance. Whatever dispute lies behind the statement, she has been required to tend vineyards belonging to others, leaving her unable to tend “my own vineyard.”
The vineyard will become important imagery throughout the Song, and we should resist the temptation to assign a sexual meaning to every occurrence automatically. Here the immediate sense works perfectly well at the literal level: she has been working other people’s vineyards and consequently has not been able to care for herself as she would have preferred. Her appearance bears the evidence.
There is something painfully familiar about that experience even across thousands of years. A person can know that she is loved and still be conscious of the things about herself she assumes everyone else notices first. She can say, “I am lovely,” and in the next breath explain why she worries people are staring.
The Song does not solve that insecurity by pretending appearance does not matter.
Instead, the man is about to tell her what he sees.
Song of Songs 1:7–8 (WEB)Tell me, you whom my soul loves,
Where you graze your flock,
Where you rest them at noon;
For why should I be as one who is veiled
Beside the flocks of your companions?
Friends:
If you don’t know, most beautiful among women,
Follow the tracks of the sheep.
Graze your young goats beside the shepherds’ tents.
Her attention turns from how others see her back toward the man she loves. She wants to know where he will be. The language of shepherding places the scene outside among flocks and tents, although, as before, we should be cautious about building an entire biography for the man from a poetic scene. What is unmistakable is her desire to find him. “You whom my soul loves” is stronger than simple physical attraction. The Hebrew nephesh, often translated “soul,” does not require us to imagine a detachable spiritual component of her being declaring its affection independently of her body. In Hebrew usage it commonly refers to the person, life, or self. She loves this man with herself. The woman who wanted his kisses in verse 2 now calls him the one whom her nephesh loves. The Song sees no contradiction between those statements.
Her question about being “as one who is veiled” is more difficult. Translations differ because the underlying expression is uncertain. Some render the idea as wandering, straying, or being like a veiled woman among the flocks of his companions. If veiling is intended, it may carry social implications we cannot reconstruct with complete confidence. The important point for following the poem is clearer than the precise idiom: she does not want to wander around among other shepherds looking for him. She wants to know where he is.
The response calls her “most beautiful among women” and tells her how to find him. Whether these words come from the chorus represented by the daughters of Jerusalem or function somewhat differently within the poetic dialogue is less important at this point than the fact that the poem immediately moves from her concern about her appearance to language affirming her beauty. She has just told the daughters of Jerusalem not to stare at her because the sun has darkened her. Now she is addressed as “most beautiful among women.”
Then the man begins speaking.
And this is where modern husbands should remember that reading ancient Hebrew poetry aloud without explanation carries certain risks.
Song of Songs 1:9–11 (WEB)I have compared you, my love,
To a steed in Pharaoh’s chariots.
Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings,
Your neck with strings of jewels.
We will make you earrings of gold,
With studs of silver.
“You remind me of one of Pharaoh’s steeds.”
There are sentences that probably require historical context before trying them on your wife.
To modern ears, comparing a woman to a horse can sound less like romance and more like the beginning of an argument. That reaction is useful, however, because it demonstrates exactly why we established our interpretive method before entering the Song. Poetry communicates through a shared world of images. If we assume that an ancient comparison carries exactly the associations it would carry in our own culture, we can completely misunderstand the compliment while understanding every word in the sentence.
Egyptian chariot horses represented beauty, prestige, strength, wealth, and royal splendor. Pharaoh’s chariotry was not populated by worn-out farm animals dragging carts through the mud. These were prized animals belonging to the military machinery of one of the great powers of the ancient world. They could be richly outfitted, carefully bred, and visually impressive. That royal setting also fits what the man says immediately afterward: he notices the ornaments along her cheeks and the strings of jewels around her neck, then speaks of gold and silver adornment. The entire description is one of magnificence.
There may be an additional layer to the comparison. The Hebrew noun susati is feminine: a mare. Egyptian chariot teams are commonly understood to have used stallions, which has led many interpreters to suggest an intentionally provocative image—a mare among Pharaoh’s stallions would be extraordinarily noticeable. The comparison would then communicate not only elegance and royal beauty but the disruptive effect of her presence upon males around her. It is an intriguing possibility and fits the Song’s celebration of attraction, but we should distinguish a plausible historical explanation from something the verse explicitly spells out. We do not need the theory to understand the basic compliment. Whatever precise associations the original audience heard, the surrounding lines make it extremely unlikely that the man has interrupted his love poetry to tell the woman she resembles agricultural equipment.
That is why our image for this study works. The husband imagines that he has just compared his wife to something magnificent, regal, captivating, and beautifully adorned. The wife hears, “Apparently I should be harnessed to a chariot.”
Same words. Completely different cultural associations.
This is one of the reasons responsible Bible reading requires more than replacing Hebrew words with English words. Translation can tell us what an image says while historical context helps us understand what the image does. If we translate the vocabulary accurately but import our own associations into every metaphor, we can still miss the author’s meaning.
More importantly, notice where this compliment appears in the conversation. The woman has just drawn attention to the part of her appearance about which she feels conspicuous. She knows she has been working outside. She knows her skin shows it. She tells the other women not to stare.
The man does not respond by reluctantly reassuring her that appearance is unimportant.
He finds her striking.
The woman who worries that everyone notices what labor has done to her appearance is compared by her beloved to something associated with Pharaoh’s royal splendor. Whether or not every line should be read as a direct answer to her insecurity, the literary juxtaposition is difficult to miss. She has described herself through the marks of hard work; the poem answers with language of beauty, jewelry, gold, and silver.
This is not the shallow message that insecurity disappears whenever a spouse says something flattering. Human beings are considerably more complicated than that, and Song of Songs will not reduce love to exchanging compliments. But the poem does establish an important perspective early: we do not always see ourselves as the person who loves us sees us.
She sees the sun.
He sees beauty.
And now that he has spoken, she is going to return the favor.
Song of Songs 1:12–17 (WEB)While the king sat at his table,
My perfume spread its fragrance.
My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh,
That lies between my breasts.
My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms
From the vineyards of En Gedi.
Behold, you are beautiful, my love.
Behold, you are beautiful.
Your eyes are like doves.
Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, yes, pleasant;
And our couch is verdant.
The beams of our house are cedars.
Our rafters are firs.
The conversation has become reciprocal. He has praised her beauty, and now she describes what he is to her. Once again the language is intensely sensory. Fragrance fills the scene: perfume, myrrh, henna blossoms. The Song does not describe attraction from a distance. The lovers experience one another through sight, smell, touch, and proximity, and the poetry deliberately draws the reader into that sensory world.
Myrrh was an expensive aromatic resin used in perfume, cosmetics, burial preparations, and other settings throughout the ancient world. A small sachet or bundle of myrrh could be worn against the body so that its fragrance remained close to the wearer. When she says that her beloved is like a sachet of myrrh resting between her breasts, the comparison is intimate because the location is intimate. He is precious to her, pleasant to her, and desired close to her body.
We do not need to allegorize that into something safer.
Nor do we need to make it more explicit than the poet does.
The poetry itself manages the balance remarkably well. It is sensual without becoming clinical. The Song can speak openly about breasts without reducing the woman to breasts, just as it can speak about kissing without reducing the relationship to kissing. Human bodies belong naturally within its celebration of human love.
Her next comparison works similarly. Henna produced fragrant blossoms and was cultivated in the region, while En Gedi was a fertile oasis along the western shore of the Dead Sea. Against the surrounding Judean wilderness, En Gedi was conspicuously lush. Calling her beloved a cluster of henna blossoms from its vineyards evokes beauty and fragrance arising in a place known for abundant vegetation amid an otherwise harsh landscape. He is not merely attractive; his presence is refreshing and delightful to her.
Then he answers with a much easier compliment for modern readers:
“Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are like doves.”
We probably do not need an emergency cultural-background lecture before anyone tries that one at home.
The repetition matters. “You are beautiful” is said twice before he specifies her eyes. The woman who began by telling the daughters of Jerusalem not to stare at her is being stared at by someone whose attention she actually wants. His gaze is not presented as threatening or objectifying because of the relationship between them. She wants to be seen by this man, and he likes what he sees.
The dove comparison is more difficult to pin down precisely. Interpreters have suggested gentleness, beauty, softness, color, movement, or the appearance of the eyes themselves. We should resist the temptation to select one characteristic and announce that we have decoded the metaphor. Poetry often works through a cluster of associations rather than through a one-to-one symbolic equation. The important thing is that doves carried pleasant associations within the poetic world of the Song, and the comparison praises her eyes.
She immediately answers:
“Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, yes, pleasant.”
Again, mutuality.
This is not a man evaluating a woman while she waits for his verdict. She evaluates him right back. He is beautiful to her. The Hebrew adjective used of him can carry the sense of beautiful, handsome, or lovely. English speakers sometimes reserve “beautiful” primarily for women, but the Song has no difficulty allowing the woman to describe the man she desires in aesthetic terms.
Then the setting becomes intriguing: “our couch is verdant. The beams of our house are cedars. Our rafters are firs.”
Are we suddenly inside a literal house constructed from cedar and fir? Possibly, although the adjective translated “verdant” or “green” has led many interpreters to see an outdoor setting. The lovers may be imaginatively describing the natural world around them as their house: green vegetation becomes their couch, cedar trees become beams, and firs or cypresses become rafters. The poetry could be transforming the landscape into an intimate dwelling place for the lovers.
That possibility becomes particularly interesting when we remember where the biblical story of man and woman began.
A garden.
We should be careful here. Recognizing garden imagery is not the same as declaring that every plant in Song of Songs is a coded reference to Eden. The Song itself will increasingly use gardens, vineyards, fruit, spices, springs, and enclosed spaces in ways that carry both natural and erotic associations. Those images belong naturally to love poetry. Nevertheless, a Bible that begins human marriage in a garden gives us good reason to pay attention when a book celebrating male and female love repeatedly surrounds its lovers with luxuriant creation.
At minimum, the effect is striking. Their attraction is not portrayed against a sterile background. The world around them seems alive: fragrance spreads, flowers bloom, trees provide shelter, and the lovers describe themselves through animals, plants, fruit, precious metals, and perfume. Human love is situated within the goodness and abundance of the created world.
That movement continues immediately.
Song of Songs 2:1–3 (WEB)I am a rose of Sharon,
A lily of the valleys.
As a lily among thorns,
So is my love among the daughters.
As the apple tree among the trees of the wood,
So is my beloved among the sons.
I delighted to sit in his shade.
His fruit was sweet to my taste.
The identity of the flower translated “rose of Sharon” is uncertain. It probably is not the modern rose many English readers imagine. The Hebrew ḥăḇaṣṣeleṯ refers to some kind of flowering plant, while “Sharon” refers to the fertile coastal plain. Likewise, the “lily” may refer more broadly to a flower rather than precisely the species modern English speakers call a lily. Once again, botanical certainty is not necessary to follow the poetry.
What matters is what happens to the image.
She compares herself to a flower.
He responds by distinguishing her from every other flower around her.
“As a lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.”
That is stronger than simply saying she is attractive. In his perception, other women become thorns by comparison. The poem is not making an objective claim that every woman besides his beloved is ugly or unpleasant. Love has changed the way he sees the field. One flower matters differently because this one is his beloved.
She answers with the same kind of exclusivity. If she is the lily among thorns, he is the apple tree among ordinary forest trees. She wants his shade. She enjoys his fruit. He stands apart among other men because he is the man she loves.
We should notice how attraction and exclusivity are developing together. The Song does not celebrate generic desire directed indiscriminately toward beautiful people. Its language increasingly narrows. Among the daughters, her. Among the sons, him.
That is an important distinction in a culture that often treats attraction as consumption. Modern sexual imagery frequently trains people to move endlessly from one desirable body to another. The Song moves in the opposite direction. The world may contain many men and women, but desire keeps becoming concentrated upon the beloved.
She does not merely want a man.
She wants this man.
He does not merely admire women.
He delights in this woman.
And now, under the shade of that apple tree, the poetry is about to become considerably warmer.
Song of Songs 2:4–7 (WEB)He brought me to the banquet hall.
His banner over me is love.
Strengthen me with raisins,
Refresh me with apples;
For I am faint with love.
His left hand is under my head.
His right hand embraces me.
I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem,
By the roes, or by the hinds of the field,
That you not stir up, nor awaken love,
Until it so desires.
The movement from the apple tree into these verses is natural. She has just described sitting beneath his shade and tasting his sweet fruit; now she describes being brought into the “banquet hall,” or more literally something like the “house of wine.” The exact setting is debated, but the atmosphere is not. The imagery has moved from longing for the beloved to enjoying his presence, and her language becomes increasingly overwhelmed by the experience.
The familiar line “his banner over me is love” comes from this verse, although the Hebrew is more difficult than the popularity of the English phrase might suggest. The noun degel normally refers to a banner, standard, or something displayed prominently, while the phrase can be understood as describing love as what marks or identifies his relationship toward her. Some interpreters have proposed other nuances, but we should at least notice what happens when the verse is left in context. This is not an isolated slogan about God’s love placed on a church wall. A woman who is intensely attracted to her beloved is describing being brought into his presence and openly identified by his love.
That does not mean Christians are forbidden from seeing larger biblical resonances in the language of love. We established in our first study that marriage participates in a much larger biblical pattern. But the original scene should be allowed to breathe before we carry its vocabulary somewhere else. Here, the banner belongs to the relationship between these lovers.
Then apparently things become so overwhelming that refreshments are required.
“Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples; for I am faint with love.”
There is our snack tray.
The word translated “faint” can describe being weak or sick, which explains why some translations render the line, “I am sick with love.” She is not announcing a medical diagnosis. Love poetry routinely describes desire as physically overwhelming, and the Song is doing exactly that. Her longing is so intense that she poetically calls for food to sustain her. Raisin cakes and apples become the emergency provisions of biblical romance.
For husbands wishing to apply this passage with excessive literalism, keeping raisins and apples nearby is considerably safer than opening with the Pharaoh’s-steed compliment.
The humor should not make us miss what the poetry communicates. Desire here is embodied. The Song does not construct a sharp division between an inner emotional love and an embarrassing physical response that ought to be ignored. She experiences longing as a whole person. Earlier she wanted his kisses, delighted in his fragrance, sought his presence, rested in his shade, and tasted his fruit. Now she is faint with love. Emotional affection, physical attraction, sensory pleasure, and personal attachment continually overlap.
The next verse makes the physical intimacy unmistakable:
“His left hand is under my head. His right hand embraces me.”
The posture is tender and intimate. Precisely how far the scene progresses sexually is not stated, and we should resist the temptation either to sanitize it or to supply details the poet has chosen not to give us. The Song can create erotic tension without narrating sexual activity mechanically. That restraint is itself worth noticing. Biblical sexual poetry is capable of being unmistakably sensual without becoming voyeuristic.
This also gives us an opportunity to correct something we mentioned in the first study. Christians sometimes react to sexual language as though acknowledging what a passage is doing somehow makes the reader less holy. But refusing to recognize erotic poetry does not make our interpretation purer; it merely makes it inaccurate. If the author intends a scene to communicate physical desire, faithfulness requires us to recognize physical desire. We do not honor Scripture by pretending not to understand it.
Then, at precisely the point where the poetry has become most intimate, the woman turns outward and addresses the daughters of Jerusalem:
“I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, or by the hinds of the field, that you not stir up, nor awaken love, until it so desires.”
This refrain is important enough that the Song will repeat it. We encounter essentially the same words in 3:5 and again in shortened form in 8:4. Repetition in poetry deserves attention, and repeated language at significant moments can function structurally, marking movements within the composition. Whatever this refrain means, the Song itself wants us to remember it.
Unfortunately, its precise meaning is not as simple as some popular treatments suggest.
The final Hebrew phrase, ʿad sheteḥpats, can be rendered along the lines of “until it pleases,” “until it desires,” or “until the proper time.” The difficulty is partly that “love” in Hebrew can be grammatically feminine, allowing love itself to function poetically as the thing that desires or pleases. Some translations therefore say, “Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.” Others render the sense more personally: “until she desires.” The difference matters, and we should not pretend the Hebrew settles every question without difficulty.
The oath formula is unusual as well. She adjures the daughters of Jerusalem “by the gazelles and by the does of the field.” Some scholars have suggested wordplay involving divine names, while others understand the animals naturally within the Song’s world of beauty, love, fertility, and the countryside. Again, we have possibilities rather than certainty.
What we can see clearly is the warning against awakening something prematurely or improperly.
That idea fits the Song remarkably well. Desire is powerful. The woman has just described herself as nearly overwhelmed by it. Love is not being treated as trivial entertainment. Something this powerful should not simply be manipulated, manufactured, or awakened without regard for whether its time has come.
This is where the verse is often converted immediately into a command to teenagers: Don’t have sex before marriage.
The biblical prohibition of sexual immorality gives Christians ample grounds for teaching sexual faithfulness and reserving sexual union for marriage. We do not need to manufacture those convictions from an ambiguous phrase in Song of Songs. If we make 2:7 say more than it says because the conclusion happens to agree with something taught elsewhere in Scripture, we have still mishandled the verse.
The refrain is broader and, in some ways, more profound.
Do not awaken love before love is ready to awaken.
Desire has a proper time. Love cannot simply be demanded into existence. Attraction cannot be coerced. Intimacy should not be forced forward merely because someone wants it to move faster. Something powerful enough to leave the woman “faint with love” deserves to be treated with respect rather than casually provoked.
That observation becomes particularly significant when we remember how mutual the Song has been from its opening line. She wants him. He wants her. She praises him. He praises her. She seeks his presence. He embraces her. Nothing about their attraction is portrayed as one person overcoming the reluctance of the other. Desire answers desire.
The refrain therefore places a boundary around the very thing the Song celebrates. The message is not desire is dangerous, so suppress it. Nor is it desire is natural, so follow it wherever it leads. Biblical wisdom is capable of saying something more mature than either extreme: desire is good, powerful, and worthy of its proper time.
That is where the first movement of the Song leaves us.
We began with a woman asking to be kissed. We watched her acknowledge an insecurity about her appearance and then heard her beloved call her beautiful. We listened as they exchanged compliments that sound lovely in some places and require an Egyptology lecture in others. We watched their attention narrow toward one another until the surrounding men and women became trees and thorns beside the person each actually desired. We followed that desire into embrace and heard the woman describe herself as faint with love.
Then the Song told us not to wake love before it is ready.
That is not embarrassment about desire.
It is wisdom about its power.
Conclusion
Song of Songs has not taken us very far geographically, but it has already told us a great deal about the kind of love it intends to celebrate. The opening movement is filled with desire, but desire never stands alone. The woman wants the man’s kisses because she wants the man. His fragrance, his name, his presence, his affection, and eventually his embrace all belong to the same attraction. When he responds, he does not merely inspect her body and announce his approval. He sees the woman who has just expressed insecurity about how others perceive her and calls her beautiful. She answers by telling him that among all the other men, he is the one beneath whose shade she wants to sit. Their attraction is physical without being impersonal, and their delight is mutual without being indiscriminate.
That helps us understand why the refrain of verse 7 belongs exactly where it does. The Song does not warn us about awakening love because everything preceding the warning has been shameful. Quite the opposite. Everything preceding it has shown us why love should not be treated casually. This woman is “faint with love.” Desire has reached into her whole experience of the beloved. Something capable of producing that kind of attachment is not a toy.
Our culture has its own strange relationship with desire. We can be extraordinarily casual about awakening it while being remarkably poor at understanding what to do with it afterward. Sexual imagery is used to sell almost anything. Attraction can be deliberately cultivated without any intention of faithfulness. People can be encouraged to create emotional and physical intimacy while simultaneously being told not to expect permanence from it. Then we act surprised when human beings discover that becoming deeply attached to another person is not always something they can switch off without consequence.
Song of Songs begins somewhere very different. Desire is neither dirty nor trivial. It is good enough to celebrate and powerful enough to respect.
That gives us a better way to understand the boundaries Scripture places around sexuality. God’s commands are not arbitrary restrictions imposed upon something otherwise meaningless. Boundaries often reveal the value of what they surround. Scripture guards marriage because covenant matters. It guards sexual intimacy because bodies matter. It condemns adultery because faithfulness matters. It condemns exploitation because people matter. The biblical answer to the misuse of sexuality is therefore not to despise sexuality but to return it to the purposes of the God who created it.
There is also something worth carrying away from the way these lovers look at one another. The woman sees the effects of the sun and the work she has been forced to do. Her beloved sees someone magnificent enough to compare with the splendor of Pharaoh’s court. His particular choice of metaphor may require a warning label for modern husbands, but the affection behind it does not. Love changes attention. Among the daughters, he sees her. Among the sons, she sees him. Their world has not become empty of other attractive human beings; one human being has become uniquely precious.
That distinction will matter throughout the Song. Biblical marital faithfulness does not require the absurd claim that marriage makes every other person objectively unattractive. It creates something much deeper than that. There may be many flowers in the field, but one is my love. There may be many trees in the forest, but one is my beloved. Desire becomes attached to relationship, and relationship gives desire somewhere to belong.
We should therefore resist both instincts that have distorted Christian conversations about sexuality. We should not be embarrassed when Scripture celebrates attraction between a man and woman, and we should not use that celebration to make desire sovereign. Song of Songs refuses both mistakes. It can say, without blushing, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,” and only a few verses later say, with equal seriousness, “Do not stir up, nor awaken love, until it so desires.”
Enjoy the gift.
Respect the gift.
Do not confuse enjoying it with worshiping it, and do not confuse respecting it with being ashamed of it.
And if you decide to tell your wife that she reminds you of one of Pharaoh’s steeds, perhaps explain the historical context first.
Prayer
Father, thank you for creating us as embodied people and for giving good gifts that can be received with gratitude rather than shame. Thank you for love, affection, attraction, companionship, and marriage, and for giving us Scripture that speaks honestly about these things instead of pretending they are outside your concern.
Teach us to see your gifts according to your wisdom. Where our culture has taught us to treat desire casually, teach us to respect its power. Where fear or shame has taught us to despise what you created as good, correct our thinking through your Word. Give us the wisdom not to awaken love carelessly and the self-control to keep our desires within the boundaries you have given for our good.
For those who are married, teach us to delight in the person we have been given rather than allowing familiarity to make us careless. Help husbands and wives to speak affection generously, to see one another with kindness, to remain faithful in thought and action, and to cultivate intimacy that is mutual, patient, and loving. When insecurity makes it difficult for us to receive another person’s affection, help us listen. When selfishness makes us more interested in being desired than in loving well, correct us.
For those who are unmarried, give contentment without requiring indifference. Help them honor desires that may be good without allowing those desires to rule them, and guard them from believing that romantic love is necessary to make a human life complete.
Above all, teach all of us that your commands and your gifts come from the same good God. Give us hearts that neither reject what you call good nor pursue it apart from the wisdom you have given.
In Jesus’ name, amen.