{4:1-5:1} Let’s Get It On.

art by Will Godwin

“Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love.”

People that know my love for this book know how dearly I hold the allegorical sense of interpretation for this book.But, this is too good to pass up.

Chapter 4 (and the first verse of Chapter 5) is the honeymoon section, and it has some amazing tips for anyone looking to have an amazing wedding night.

One of the first things that’s sort of overlooked here is the fact that there’s so much talking.The way some people (guys, mostly) dream of their honeymoon, they seem to imagine that there’s very little talking involved.Not so according to Solomon.Not only that, what’s even more peculiar is that this is the largest single chunk of talking from the man that we find in the book.The girl gets a third of a verse, and the “others” get a fourth of a verse.So what’s the significance of this?Well, first off we see the exhortation to men to make the presence of their whole selves evident through speech.This is a main way that woman are communicated to.Men are more tactile, it seems.A touch on the neck can say more to a guy than many words.Women should be spoken to.But not only that, let’s look at the content.

{3:1,5} Sovereignty, sleeping & seeking

“On my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not…I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem…that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.”

These verses come from a dream that the Bride has about her Beloved.So much is here.I’ve had a had time thinking through which thing I’m going to tease out here.This dream comes true in Chapter 5 and a few things happen differently in that account that help shape how we see this one.The one thing I want to point out is this idea of Sovereignty and pursuit.When she tries to seek him, she can’t find him.The quiet testimony of her soul is that this is the one her soul longs for, yet her attempts to find him aren’t successful.What is her ultimate take-away from the futility of the situation?She tells the people around her that oft-quoted verse of not awakening love “until it so desires”.All literal-historical interpretation aside, what does this verse mean as it relates toChrist and His Church.He is love, and he pursues us at his own whim and pleasure.When we try to seek him before he has found us, we will inevitably go to all the wrong places and people (as evidenced by vv. 2-4).It’s not until he reveals himself and comes our way (Chapter 3) that our pursuits can yield results.

{2:1-2} Of Lillies, Valleys, and a Bride

“[She:] I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. [He:] As a lily among brambles, so is my love among the young women.”

The story of the courtship of Solomon and the Shulamite is one of a consistent pattern.She expresses insecurity, he reaffirms her.This is presented as the healthy, passionate romance book of the Bible.I never forgot when my dad told me about some study done years ago that found that a woman’s greatest emotional need was security while a man’s greatest need was to feel like he was needed.No, I don’t remember who did the study, their methods, nor their purpose in the study.Nevertheless, all inaccuracies of such a study aside, I have found this to be generally true in life and in Song of Solomon.For example, right after the initial rush of excitement (1:1-4) the Beloved returns back to reality and in what sounds like the first direct speech we hear to the Lover she expresses immense insecurity and a longing for him to relieve her fears and feelings of inadequacy (1:5-7).

This is okay.This is how we’re made.On purpose.

{1:4} Draw Me After You

“Draw me after you; let us run.The king has brought me into his chambers.”

Oh, the beauty of this.

We all know that Christ “draws” us, but how?What can we trust as the nature of this “drawing?”He draws us after him.Would that we feel the weight of that word!Our king and lover only draws us down paths he has walked before.This is why Christ didn’t die as an infant under Herod’s wrath.His death could have been equally sufficient to save us whether he was three or thirty-three, but simply dying the death we were meant to die was not sufficient to bring about the salvation God desired.Jesus needed to also live the life we were meant to live.He has fully accomplished all the righteous requirements of God on our behalf – in both life and death.He became completely human in every respect – birth, hunger, pain, temptation, and death – so that his life and death would be sufficiently lived in our stead.When we trust that (1) we needed that and (2) Christ accomplished that, both His life and death are credited to us as our own.The theological phrase for this is imputation and it has been the most precious doctrine of this Holy Christian Faith I’ve clung to.

{1:2} O Let Him kiss me indeed . . .

“Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth!”

In the last post, I discussed that fact that the verb for “kiss” in this verse can also mean “to arm” or “to equip for battle.”I want to discuss some more spiritual implications of this.As I will have to remind over and over again in this blog (due to new readership, hopefully). I have personally found the most edifying approach to this whole book to be the allegorical one where the Lover is a symbol of Christ and the Beloved is the believer.If this is the the case, how can this verse speak to our relationship with God?

In this verse, the Beloved is desiring for the Lover to kiss her, but in this word is inherent the idea of “arming for battle”.What is the connection here?Security.Spiritually, everything around us is potentially harmful and deadly.So many things compete for our affections, work to rob us of our love for God, and strive to steal us from his grasp.Where is our hope in this world?Where is our surety that we will persevere?In the kisses of our Lover.

{1:2} Public Displays of Affection

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!”

I remember the first time I really read this verse on my own. I was in college and I was going through an intense infatuation over a girl. For a young Christian undergrad in love, what better book is there for him to read than Song of Solomon? Anyway, I was having a particularly amorous night, so I though it would be appropriate to start my study into the Bible’s book of passion. I drive home imagining the night ahead. A quiet evening-just me, my Bible, and the Lord.Iy was going to be great.

Upon walking through the door of our apartment, however, I was greeted with the laughter and sarcastic banter of a group of guys (8?10?12, perhaps?) all holding a beer in one hand and poker chips and playing cards in the other. My quiet, passionate night with the Lord seemed to be impossible. Nevertheless, I felt led by God to do this that night, so I made some tea, sat on the couch next to the poker table (our apartment was like a long studio, so our living room and dining room technically occupied the same space), and wrapped myself in a blanket (we were undergrads trying to save money on heat). I proceeded to open my Bible to Song of Solomon.

Introduction to the Book . . .

This is straight from the “Introduction Page” to your right in the side panel.  This is just to fill space until I get the first post up on verse 1, coming shortly!

For an explanation on how my Bible studies are structured in blog format, visit my Bible Study homepage:

Burkhart Bible Studies

My love affair with this book began a few year ago when I listened through Tim Lucas’ 10-part series on it with his church, Liquid Church in Basking Ridge, NJ. Shortly after that, I listened to Mike Bickle’s (of International House of Prayer) 20-part series on the book. I then about six months ago listened through Tommie Nelson’s famous series on the book.

Both Lucas and Nelson took a more literal-historical approach to the book, meaning that they approached it from the perspective that it fundamentally spoke to human relationships and talked about historical Solomon and a courtship he had with his favorite wife. At the time I listened to it, still wrestling with the last vestiges of teen angst within me, Lucas’ series was amazing. It gave solid principles for the way God has intended for human relationships to work. I would encourage anyone to listen through the podcast series. According to Lucas, much of his series was taken from Tommie Nelson’s series, but upon listening to Nelson’s, I found it lacking in many ways and not quite measuring up to the hype.

But when I listened to Mike Bickle’s series I was floored. I still view the time that I spent listening through it as one of the major milestone’s in my spiritual life. Though I have reservations about much that International House of Prayer does and preaches, this series blew me away. I spent almost all of it crying my eyes out as it softened me to the realities of the Gospel in ways I never knew could be. How this was done was by applying the allegorical-poetic approach to the book. This perspective says that though there are principles of human relationships present in the book, the book is fundamentally an allegory for the passionate love between Jesus Christ and the individual believer/corporate church.

I have found this latter perspective most fruitful and enduring in my reading of the book. This being the case, I will most likely approach most passages from the poetic angle. It’s not because the literal-historical approach is not absolutely valid – I think the Bible is big enough to hold both – it’s just that the allegorical approach is most in need of unpacking and explaining to others. The human relationship principles in the book are obvious enough given even a cursory reading, but I’ll pull some of those out for the reader of this blog whenever I can.

There is one last perspective on the book I wish to give the reader – the Israel-exilic approach. This is the approach taken by most “liberal” scholars and the view most frowned upon by fundamentalist evangelicals. Though I have only begun looking at this angle in he book, I have already found it opening up the book in newer, greater ways. This approach is the same as the earliest Hebrew scholars, and it says that the book is an allegory for God and His chosen people Israel in the time of the Babylonian exile. It’s an expression of love towards God in spite of being removed from the land He had given them. the reason fundamentalists don’t like this is that it says that (a) a “literal interpretation” is not meant for the book, (b) Solomon never wrote it, (c) it’s a purely fictitious account that a few Israelites hurting under the exile “came up with” to encourage fellow Israelites (conservatives would say that if this is purely fictitious but written as if it were historical, where else do we draw the line between history and fiction?) Personally, I see absolute validity in this perspective and I don’t see how any of the objections raised above could make the Bible any less the Word of God.

So, this is my version of an introduction to the book. We have touched on possible author, setting, date of writing, and interpretive issues. I hope this helps, but in the end, we could discuss these issues all day and never actually get to the true Revelation of God and sustenance for the believer. I hope you find this Bible Study beneficial and it softens your heart to the very real realities of the romance of the Gospel.

Charis kai shalom