Song of Songs 5

Song of Songs 5
Christian Standard Bible

Man
5 I have come to my garden—my sister, my bride.
I gather my myrrh with my spices.
I eat my honeycomb with my honey.
I drink my wine with my milk.

Narrator
Eat, friends!
Drink, be intoxicated with caresses!

Woman
2 I was sleeping, but my heart was awake.
A sound! My love was knocking!

Man
Open to me, my sister, my darling,
my dove, my perfect one.
For my head is drenched with dew,
my hair with droplets of the night.

Woman
I have taken off my clothing.
How can I put it back on?
I have washed my feet.
How can I get them dirty?
4 My love thrust his hand through the opening,
and my feelings were stirred for him.
5 I rose to open for my love.
My hands dripped with myrrh,
my fingers with flowing myrrh
on the handles of the bolt.
6 I opened to my love,
but my love had turned and gone away.
My heart sank because he had left.
I sought him, but did not find him.
I called him, but he did not answer.
7 The guards who go about the city found me.
They beat and wounded me;
they took my cloak from me--
the guardians of the walls.
8 Young women of Jerusalem, I charge you,
if you find my love,
tell him that I am lovesick.

Young Women
9 What makes the one you love better than another,
most beautiful of women?
What makes him better than another,
that you would give us this charge?

Woman
10 My love is fit and strong,
notable among ten thousand.

​11 His head is purest gold.
His hair is wavy
and black as a raven.
12 His eyes are like doves
beside flowing streams,
washed in milk
and set like jewels.
13 His cheeks are like beds of spice,
mounds of perfume.
His lips are lilies,
dripping with flowing myrrh.
14 His arms are rods of gold
set with beryl.
His body is an ivory panel
covered with lapis lazuli.
15 His legs are alabaster pillars
set on pedestals of pure gold.
His presence is like Lebanon,
as majestic as the cedars.
16 His mouth is sweetness.
He is absolutely desirable.
This is my love, and this is my friend,
young women of Jerusalem.

---

Another poem about how the newlyweds long to be together.  Even when they are apart from each other to sleep, they long to be together.  Even though her body was tired, she awoke at the sound of her husband calling and responded to him.

As time went on, she continued to desire this intimacy, but her husband continued to need to go away on business.  She makes accusations against the other men of the city, even those charged to be guards that they assaulted her while he was away.  She longs for her husband to come back home to be with her, and cries to all the young women of the city that if any of them see him to tell him that she is lovesick for him.

The young women in their worldly wisdom ask why she cares who she couples with?  If her husband will not fulfill her needs, why not look for fulfillment elsewhere? This only makes her recount all the reasons that she loves her husband and how there is no one like him.  We too should respond this way when the world encourages us to chase after other gods to fulfil the spiritual needs that only Christ can fulfill for us.

She loves him so much that she will wait for him.  Could this be the time in his life when Solomon started acquiring many wives and concubines?  Could this be the time that Solomon spoke of in Ecclesiastes where he tried many things to make him happy and found no satisfaction from any of it?  Was he out partying and living fast and loose leaving his wife at home longing for him to be home with her? I don't know for sure, but something is keeping the two of them apart, and while it could just be the work of being the king, my guess is that it is sin, just like sin keeps us apart from God.  God is not the one who leaves us, but we leave Him, so we see that the images swap back and forth in this love story.   Sometimes we are the Bride waiting for her Bridegroom and His Second Advent, other times we are the one who is the Prodigal Son and He is the Father waiting for His wayward child to come home.

My warning here is to not build a relationship or marriage only on the kind of love that we call eros, because it is transient.  You will fall out of love as quickly as you fall in love, and you will fall for another.  That seems to be the pattern that we see with Solomon.  However, the Woman had another kind of love--the kind that was signally devoted to her husband until death.  It seems she loved more deeply and purely, for she refused to allow the young women of Jerusalem to persuade her to look for sexual gratification elsewhere.