Bible Commentaries

Song of Solomon the Unutterable

Song of Solomon 1:1

"The Song of songs"—the Song that holds all other songs and makes them poor; the Song that has in it all the notes and all the gamut and all the instruments and all the vocal miracles, with something added. It is that plus quantity that puzzles the algebra of the Church.

I. Take an instance which goes well with " Exodus 26:33, In the Authorized Version it is "the most holy," in other places it is "the Holy of holies" as "the 1 Kings 8:27—a word that has often lifted me up out of the dust—" The heaven and heaven of heavens". They are not mere Hebraisms. When a man built his little pillar, we think he only put a number of stones together, but the Hebrew says he "pillared a pillar". It was a pillar before he began; there was a pillar in the soul before there was a pillar on the ground. And "heaven and heaven of heavens" simply represents language at its weakest.

III. Then all is gathered up in the Christ—always. Did Solomon say "The Song of songs"? I hear another voice greater than Song of Solomon 1:2

So it is that the Bride begins her conversation with that dear Lord: so it is that she utters the first words of that book, in which so many holy souls, now in the joy of their King, have found such singular sweetness and blessing.

And the Song of the Prince of Peace begins fitly: for it commences with the perfect sign of peace and love—namely, a kiss.

I. Notice that word "Him". How should we understand it? To whom should we apply it? There is nothing that goes before—nothing that can explain it—nothing, that Song of Solomon 1:4

Here is a Rogation text for Rogation Sunday. For now we are about to lose Him Whose presence with us after His Resurrection has been the cause of our Paschal joy. The Forty Days of His triumphal life on earth—of the Lent, if I may so speak, of our gladness—are drawing to an end; and the Church, for the first time, breaks in upon our Easter happiness by those three solemn days in which she listens to His voice—"Ask what I shall do for thee before I be taken away from thee".

And the bride answers at once: "Draw me, we will run after Thee".

I. Notice that she makes no reservation of the manner in which she is to be drawn. "Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come to Thee upon the water." When your Lord seems to call you nearer to Himself by a way that is difficult and painful to flesh and blood, ought you not to rejoice in that very difficulty—to be glad of that very pain—because it gives you the opportunity of proving to yourselves and manifesting to Him that whatever it may cost, follow Him you will: that you care not how loud the storm is if He be but walking upon the water; you care not how hard the race is if He be but beckoning to you from the goal?

"Draw me, we will run after Thee." And there see how beautiful is her humility. As though she were the most wavering of all His followers—the feeblest of all His lambs; as if about her only there was doubt; as if her greater infirmity needed a double portion of help.

II. And why does it continue, "The King has brought me into His chambers?" Surely for this reason. It is as though she world say that, knowing in some faint degree the happiness of His presence, she longs for its perfection; and, remembering that He has already vouchsafed her an earnest of it, she trusts that He will one day give her its fullness.

III. And then notice that expression "His chambers": as if here His graces were divided into different kinds, and bestowed in different ways: as if here there were the chamber of audience, when you kneel before Him in your own prayers; the chamber of pardon, when you draw near to Him in Confession; the chamber of His own more immediate Presence, when He gives Himself to you under the form of Bread and Wine. But there are no such divisions there, where He is All in All; where Song of Solomon 1:7

I. The title in the prayer shows us how we ought to pray. "Tell me, O Thou Whom my soul loveth." If we cannot call the Lord by that name, we cannot go on with the request.

II. What is the request? It is twofold. In the first place, Tell me where Thou feedest: in the second, Where Thou causest Thy flock to rest at noon?

1. Where Thou feedest.—That Song of Solomon 1:12

I. First we think of that happy penitent who literally was thus privileged to honour the great King—who received Him into her house—who found her blessed station at His feet—who afterwards anointed those feet with the alabaster box of very precious ointment.

But the King still sitteth at His table, and that in more senses than one. That Eternal Marriage Feast has already, in its measure, begun: many happy guests have already entered in thereto, secure now of their own felicity, doubtful only and anxious about ours.

And what in the meanwhile for you? The Bride answers, "My spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof". She was not with Him in His immediate presence then; but she could do thus much for Him—thus much she could honour Him: the sweet perfume of her spikenard could rise where she herself could not enter.

II. And what is that spikenard but prayer? But prayer, and of what kind? The coal must be alive and glowing if the fragrance of the incense is to arise: love must be glowing and fervent also if the sacrifice of prayer is to come up before the Heavenly Altar with acceptance. The King was not always at His table. He did not sit down, any more than you can, till He had overcome; and, while He was still carrying on His labour, He left us an example how our spikenard should send forth its sweet savour. He Who, towards the beginning of His ministry, taught us how to pray as to words, and at the end of it taught us how to pray as to manner and thoughts—He Who was then so soon about to be pierced with Five Wounds for us men and for our salvation, in the same night in which He was betrayed, inflicted a fivefold wound on the great enemy by the fivefold virtue of His prayer in the garden.

1. That He was alone. That He shut out even those who were most dear to Him, when He was about thus to send up His prayers to the Father. "Tarry ye here while I go and pray yonder."

2. His humility—He fell on His face.

3. His perseverance. He went away again the second and the third time.

4. His earnestness. "Being in an agony, He prayed more earnestly; and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood, falling down to the ground."

5. His resignation.

And thus it was in the coldness and stillness of that night, amidst those olive trees in Gethsemane, while even then Judas and his band were issuing from the eastern gate of the city, and crossing the valley of Jehoshaphat, that the King, then about to enter into His last and greatest struggle, prayed for us. That same King, now seated in His glory at the Heavenly Table, would thus have you pray to Him. J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Song of Solomon 1:17

"The beams of our house are cedar" means that their house is solid and permanent, for, of all woods, cedar was esteemed most solid and durable. Christ says to the Church, "The beams of our house are cedar". This is the Church's ideal. Solidity is the great desideratum of life. Solidity is the necessity of religion.

I. Religious Solidity must be the Ideal of the Church.—The Church should be a noble illustration of solidity. We want a cedar-beamed house for our souls. This is now and always the problem of the Church. A house we need, and beams we must have; but they must be solid, for only the solid endures. Quality is the question. Sin, Atonement, Holiness, Eternity: are these the staple teaching of many Church teachers? If they are not, then "The beams of our house are not cedar".

II. Religious Solidity must be the Ideal of the Individual.—There is no true solidity in life if it be not religious, and there is no permanent security save in religious solidity.

1. Many life-houses are devoid of cedar beams. Can the atheist say exultantly in all weathers, "The beams of our house are cedar"? Atheism is negation. You cannot uphold life upon negations. We need positive props for our house. There is no intellectual solidity about atheism. The moral solidity of atheism is equally dubious. Its whole character is un-solid.

2. Can the drunkard congratulate himself and his associates that the beams of their house are cedar? Everything gives way under the drunkard. Has the voluptuary cedar-beams to his house? Pleasures give no solidity to life. Has the mere moralist a right to say, "The beams of our house are cedar"? Morality without God is a horticulture of fruits without roots. Only as we trust in the living God revealed in Christ have we moral solidity and permanence.

3. It is cedar-beams which give solidity to the life-house. It is the supports on which life depends which make it solid or otherwise. Money is the only "beams "of some houses. Money is not a cedar-beam for our life-house. Business similarly is insufficient.

What, then, are the great upholdings of a life? They are spiritual. Faith—which is not simply perception of God, but reliance upon God. Prayer, Bible study, reflection; these, and such as these, are life's abiding supports.

4. Life's experiences test the beams of our house. Let that consideration stir you to make religious solidity your ideal.

5. Religious solidity gives truest joy. The lover of my text rejoices with singing because the beams of his house are cedar. And it is a parable. Earthly qualifications do not give the clue to enduring joy. They joy greatly who can say, "The beams of our house are cedar".

6. As a final encouragement to making religious solidity our ideal, let me say that there is abundance of the best material to be had for the beams of our life-house. There is "cedar" in plenty if we be willing to seek it.

—Dinsdale T. Young, Unfamiliar Texts, p117.

References.—II.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlii. No2485. II:1.—Ibid. vol. xiii. No784; vol. xlii. No2472. II:2.—Ibid. vol. xxvi. No1525. R. E. Hutton, The Crown of Christ, vol. ii. p585. II:3.—J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Son, pp70 , 76. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xix. No1120. II:4.—J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Son, p85. C. Silvester Horne, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii1900 , p369. II:7.—Ibid. vol. lviii1900 , p369. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv. No1463.