1) What is the meaning of using fruits, flowers, and animals to describe this man and wife love relationship?
Song of Songs suggests it is the greatest of all songs and found within its pages are lyrical poetry arranged as dialogue between a woman and her lover. While scholars maintain that the love story makes allegorical connections between God and His love for mankind, Song of Solomon is also, undeniably, a sensuous book reveling in God’s good gifts of intimacy within marriage. To properly understand this poetic song, we must remember to set our minds on the then-current time and culture. The Shulamite Bride compares herself to a wildflower of Sharon and a lily of the valley, both of which were common. The “Sharon” was a fertile plain between Mount Carmel and Joppa along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea producing beautiful wildflowers in abundance. Likewise, the lily was plentiful in Palestine. By saying of herself, “I am a wildflower of Sharon, a lily of the valleys”, she is not speaking in arrogance, but rather that, while she is beautiful, she is also common. (verse 1) Solomon picks up on her imagery of flowers, but responds by pronouncing, “Like a lily among thorns, so is my darling among the young women.” (verse 2) He sets her apart from all other young women, describing everyone else as “thorns” in comparison. The Lover extols her beauty for she was not at all common in his eyes. In similar fashion, the woman uses the imagery of an apricot tree to depict her lover. “Like an apricot tree among the trees of the forest, so is my love among the young men.” Where every other man is simply a tree in the forest, her man is completely unique to her. Apricot trees are generally 30-45 feet tall, quite strong, and bear sweet fruit. Thus, the Shulamite woman describes her man as tall and strong while bearing a sweetness about him. He provides shade (protection) and his love is described as a banner (generally signifying complete peace and victory) over his lovely young woman. (verses 3-4) The comparison of lovers to gazelles, does, or stags throughout the song are symbolic of grace, beauty, strength, and speed. (verses 7-9) The man refers to the young woman as his dove inferring her to be beautiful and soft, waiting to be called out of singleness and virginity by her husband lover and into marriage.

2) What is the purpose of the warning to the young women of Jerusalem? (verse 7)
Within historical context, we don’t know exactly who the “young women of Jerusalem” were first intended to be viewed as. Maybe they were equivalent to our modern day “Bridesmaids” who helped the bride prepare for her wedding day. Maybe, because Song of Solomon is a song, they are representative of a chorus, and the entire song was meant to be sung over the course of several days leading up to a wedding. What most scholars agree on is they were a group of some kind, probably unmarried, intending to represent a community around the couple, either singularly to the Beloved Bride or to both husband and wife. In verse 7, the Beloved Bride gives a warning to these “young women of Jerusalem”, “Do not stir up or awaken love until the appropriate time.” The description of the woman’s intimacy with the man in previous verses is so enticing the Bride feels she must charge the young women of Jerusalem to not jump into a passionate relationship prematurely. Intimacy is definitely wonderful and definitely worth the wait, but foregoing the commitment of a marriage relationship just to experience physical intimacy, misses the real depth of love and sex entirely. The woman’s senses are heightened and stirred by the man’s presence and affirmation of love for her. She finds herself feasting on it all, and feeling “lovesick”. (verses 5-6) She hungers for more of his nearness, and his offering of love only intensifies her desires. She began with a desire for his kisses and then longed for his embrace. (verses 4-6) Her passionate experience with her Lover urges her to give this charge to wait for “the appropriate time” to the unmarried women around her. She knows that intimate love, both physical and emotional, should have its own rhythm and proper progression. TOO Fast TOO soon spoils it all. Theologian, D Garret, adds his insights by saying, “For a woman to awaken love before it pleases is to deprive herself of the full experience of romance and sexuality…”.

3) How does Scripture connect a human marriage to a relationship between God and us?
In Exodus 34:15 (KJV), Israel is being warned not to “whore after their gods.” By describing idolatry with the language of prostitution and sexual immorality, Moses uses the sacredness of marriage as a metaphor to mirror the holiness of God’s covenant relationship with His people, Israel. Again, in the biography of the Old Testament prophet, Hosea, God commands Hosea to marry a prostitute, Gomer, who continually leaves him to return to prostitution. In Hosea’s life, God was giving Israel a visual, real-life picture of what it is to abandon Him as their God. (read more about this story in our Journey Theme, Bride!) In the New Testament, Paul applies the metaphor of marriage to the relationship between Christ and the Church of believers. “This mystery (of marriage) is profound, and I am saying it refers to Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:32) In Matthew 9:15, Jesus describes Himself as a Bridegroom and was recognized as such by John the Baptist. (John 3:29-30) After we understand the original context of the Song of Solomon, we can, by looking at the whole of Scripture, see how some of Solomon’s descriptions could describe the relationship between Christ and the Church. Where the apricot tree was the Beloved’s description of her Lover (verses 3-4), Christ is our ultimate strength and protection, totally unique and unlike any other for no one else can rescue us from our sin. “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) As the Lover and Beloved care for each other, finding delight in each other in all things, so does God care and tenderly love each of us who call upon His Name for rescue from sin’s consequence. “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you. (1 Peter 5:6-7) The Beloved and Lover celebrate their physical oneness. This picture mirrors how Christ-followers are to find spiritual oneness with God as His people. “They will be my people, and I will be their God.” (Jeremiah 32:38)