Song of Songs Chapter 3 -- John Karmelich
1.
How do you know when you love someone?
a)
How does one know when it is time to get married?
b)
One of the greatest answers I heard to that question is,
“The time to get married is when, for all intents and purposes you are already
married”.
c)
A wedding is a celebration of an event that is meant to
be.
d)
When you reach a point in a relationship, be it short or
long, where you want to be with that person all of the time, that is when one
should be married.
e)
The biblical view is that love is a commitment, not a
“feeling”. When you are ready to make
that commitment, then it is time to go forward with the marriage.
f)
The reason I bring this question out is that some of
these points are made in Chapter 3.
2.
Today is Chapter 3 of Song of Songs. This chapter is broken into 2 parts:
a)
Verses 1-5 are a dream about the bride seeking the one
she loves.
b)
Verses 6-11 are a description of the beginning of the
wedding procession.
c)
Verses 1-5 describe the bride’s love for Solomon when he
is not there.
i)
She is describing a nightmare about not finding the one
she loves.
d)
Verses 6-11 is like an answer to that dream, in a way
that is more glorious than the bride ever expected.
e)
The two little sections go together as:
i)
The first section is a proof text of her love for her
bride.
ii)
The second section is the beginning of the wedding
celebration.
3.
A beautiful picture of this section is how it also
describes our love for God,
and His response to that love.
a)
There are some wonderful verses in the Bible about
drawing close to God. Here are some:
i)
“But if from there you seek the LORD your God,
you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your
soul. (Deuteronomy 4:29, NIV)
a)
”There” refers to a mental state of mind being
away from God.
ii)
“Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while
he is near.”
(Isaiah 55:6, NIV)
iii)
“Come near to God and he will come near to you.” (James 4:8, NIV)
b)
Have you ever thought about the idea that you have to
seek God?
i)
It sounds funny to think about that.
ii)
After all, if God is everywhere. How can you escape from God?
iii)
Most of these “seeking” passages, in direct context,
have to do with salvation.
a)
One can live their whole live, and never seek God and
his forgiveness for eternal salvation.
iv)
But there is another application to these verses, and it
has to do with our continual relationship with God.
a)
Sin draws us away from God. Notice this verse in Isaiah 59:2 (NIV)
(1)
“But your iniquities have separated you from your God;
your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”
b)
The confession of those sins is what restores our
relationship.
v)
Also, one can commit a sin unknowingly that can also
draw us away from God.
a)
In the case of committing sin that we are unaware that
is wrong, it is a good idea every now and then to ask God to show us the areas
of our life that need cleaning up. I
find that God honors those prayers.
(1)
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test my thoughts. 24Point
out anything you find in me that makes you sad, and lead me along the path of everlasting
life.” (Psalm 139:23-24, The Living
Bible)
4.
Gee, John, that’s all well and good. What does any of it have to do with Song of
Songs?
a)
What I want you to see, before I start Verse 1, is how
the bride is longing for her man.
b)
Remember that the Bible uses the word-picture of the
ideal husband and wife relationship as a model of our relationship between God
and ourselves.
i)
Ephesians Chapter 5 is Paul’s advice about
marriage. He goes to great lengths to
compare our martial relationship to our relationship with God.
a)
Here is a sample:
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to
his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”32This is a profound
mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” (Ephesians 5:31-32, NIV)
5.
Chapter 3 of Song of Songs opens with the bride longing
to see her man during a time of separation.
a)
God does that in our life.
b)
God spends a lot of time testing the faith of believers.
c)
There are many times in the life of Christian where
things are not going well, and you don’t sense God’s presence in your life.
d)
It is during those times God wants us to trust him
more. Just because we don’t believe he
is currently working in our life, doesn’t mean he isn’t there.
e)
It is similar to the way one trains up a child. The goal of all parents is to raise children
to be independent. One day, when the
parents are no longer around, they have to do things on their own. Therefore, the goal is to teach them to do
things for themselves.
i)
I think during some of the difficult times of our lives,
it almost grieves God to not reach out and help us, just as it grieves a parent
to not directly intervene in a child’s life.
ii)
A good parent knows that the best way for a child to
learn is to let them do it themselves.
If there is any possibility a child could figure out a lesson by
themselves, let them do it before the parents intervene.
iii)
God works the same way.
He knows we go through rough times.
God could fix it instantly if He chooses. He often doesn’t because He is trying to mature us as
believers. He knows the best way for us
to learn is to figure things out ourselves.
a)
One of the hardest things for us to accept is that we
are to live on God’s timing, not ours.
We get frustrated because we want answers and we want results immediately.
b)
Part of trusting God is to remember that His plans for
our life are far greater than ours. A
mature believer in Christ prays and studies God’s Word for guidance, but lives
their life on the expectation that God is working out plans for their life,
whether things are “going well” or not.
c)
With that in mind, let’s take on Verse 1 of Chapter 3.
6.
Verse 1: All night long on my bed I
looked for the one my heart loves; I looked for him but did not find him.
a)
This
is the bride speaking.
b)
The
Hebrew grammar gives the impression that this went on for night after night.
c)
It
is logical to speculate that this is a dream.
i)
First
of all, she is in bed looking for the one she loves.
ii)
Assuming
one has good vision or hands to feel around, it doesn’t take long to notice Solomon
is not literally there. J
iii)
This
is a poetic way of saying the one she loves is not there with him.
d)
Let’s
go back to the topic of marriage and love.
i)
A
good sign of a healthy relationship is the strong desire to be with that person
especially when he or she is not there.
ii)
Solomon, being a king, would need to be away at times.
a)
Just like many men today require business trips in order
to financially support the family.
iii)
Our desire should be for our spouse, especially when we
are away.
a)
The bride is crying out for the desire to just “be with”
him.
b)
That is a great model for both marriage and our
relationship with God.
c)
We should always want to be with our spouse, just as we
desire to be with God, especially during those times when we don’t sense God’s
presence, or things are not going well in our life.
iv)
This set of verses is a good model for those of you
considering marriage:
a)
Do you desire to be with your partner when he or she is
away?
b)
Do you long for that partner after being away for a
while?
v)
The same goes for our relationship with God:
a)
Do you feel “empty” when you haven’t prayed or read
God’s word for a while? That is a true
tale sign of your love for God and your commitment to Him. God always desires a stronger relationship
with Him as well as with our spouses.
e)
I want to add one more thought before I move on about
love and relationships:
i)
I strongly believe that the most important aspect about
marriage is commitment.
a)
There are times, especially when we are angry at our
spouse that we are no longer feel “in love” with them.
b)
Love, in the emotional sense is a feeling.
c)
Love, in the sense of totally giving of oneself is a
commitment.
d)
That is the type of love a marriage should be built
upon.
(1)
Divorce in the Bible is never listed as a sin, but it is
frowned upon.
(2)
I believe the only biblical grounds one can argue for
divorce is adultery. I also believe
that if a spouse is physically violent, one should either separate themselves
until they get help or divorce is acceptable in that case.
(3)
My main point is too many people get divorced simply
because they no longer “feel” in love with each other.
(a)
“Feelings” come and go.
Love is a commitment.
(b)
The good news is by letting God’s love work through you,
that one can always rekindle loving feelings through a partner.
(c)
The same goes with our relationship with God.
(i)
One can always rekindle that flame by spending time with
God. Again, it is about commitment.
7.
Verse 2: I will get up now and go
about the city, through its streets and squares; I will search for the one my
heart loves. So I looked for him but
did not find him.
a)
In
this dream, the bride leaves her bedroom and goes out looking for the man she
loves.
b)
The
nightmare phrase is the last sentence:
“So I looked for him but did not find him.”
i)
First,
let me talk about this verse in our relationship with God.
a)
There
are times, especially during times of suffering, where we really seek God for
answers, but don’t get any.
b)
We
may theologically understand that God is there, that God is working in the
background, but it doesn’t make the pain any less real.
c)
We
cry out because the pain of our suffering is real, and we want God to fix it on
our timing.
(1)
The
point I’m trying to pound home is that God is there. Part of having faith is to trust that God is
working things out in His timing.
8.
Verse 3: The watchmen found me as
they made their rounds in the city. "Have you seen the one my heart
loves?"
a)
When
you read “the watchmen”, the best analogy I can think of is a policeman.
b)
Picture
yourself walking around the streets of a city late at night. The only other people around are policeman
guarding the city.
c)
Verse
3 is another proof-text that this is a dream.
i)
Imagine
asking a cop, “Have you seen the one I love?”
ii)
It
doesn’t make much sense from a cop’s perspective. J
iii)
That
is why most people believe this whole sequence is a dream.
d)
The
bride, in this dream, in her love for Solomon, goes out in the city desperately
trying to find her man, just so that she can be near him.
i)
The
word-picture being created is to show how strong her love is for Solomon.
9.
Verse
4: Scarcely had I passed them when I
found the one my heart loves. I held him and would not let him go till I had
brought him to my mother's house, to the room of the one who conceived me.
a)
The
nightmare now has a pleasant ending. When she found him, she held him and
wouldn’t let go.
b)
Many people see this verse as a model for our salvation.
i)
Earlier, I quoted this verse from Isaiah: ““Seek the LORD while he may be found; call
on him while he is near.” (Isaiah 55:6,
NIV)
ii)
Here is this “future bride” diligently searching for her
groom.
iii)
After seeking him with her whole heart (i.e.,
diligently) she finds him.
iv)
The model for our salvation is that once we find Jesus,
we should never want to let go. We
should want to cling to Jesus as tight as we can.
v)
By clinging to Him, Jesus can work in our lives to grow
us into maturity.
c)
Now comes the strange part of this verse.
i)
After she found her love, she brings him to her mother’s
house to the room where she was conceived by her parents.
ii)
The commentaries are full of speculations on this
one.
a)
I’m convinced the meaning has to do with some ancient
cultural practice.
iii)
Some commentators try to draw analogies of taking the
good news of our salvation to the homes of our families.
a)
This might be a stretch of the imagination, but that
view exists.
iv)
I did learn one interesting view that I never heard
before:
a)
One principal that Jesus taught about marriage is taken
from a passage in the Garden of Eden:
(Genesis 2:24, NIV)
(1)
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother
and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”
(2)
I’ve read and heard this passage dozens of times in my
life.
(3)
What I’ve never thought about until this study is the
fact that God is speaking to the man and not the women
(4)
To paraphrase, “You (men-only) shall leave mom and dad
and cling to your wife”. My point is
that this verse is not given to the women, but to the man.
(a)
Many commentators speculate on the fact that God is
saying it is more difficult for a man to emotionally part from his parents than
a woman.
(b)
After Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, God created
in woman a longing to be for her husband.
(i)
“Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule
over you (Genesis 3:16b, NIV)
(5)
I believe the point is that God created in woman
a desire to be with your husband over her parents once she married.
(a)
Because God did not put that desire in a man, God gave
the marching orders for a man to leave his parents, emotionally for his
wife.
v)
Which, surprisingly, leads us back to Verse 4 of Song of
Songs:
a)
Some commentaries say that this whole passage by the
bride speaking is a good analogy of being “born-again”.
b)
There is a Christian buzz term for salvation that goes
“Born twice, die once, born once die twice”.
(1)
It means if you are born again a second time
spiritually, you will only die once, and then spend eternity with God in
heaven.
(2)
If you are only born “once”, that is the physical
birth. You will receive two death
sentences: The first is one’s physical
death, and the second is one’s eternal damnation for refusing to offer the free
gift of Jesus as payment for your sins.
c)
The bride is bringing Solomon into the bedroom where she
was conceived.
d)
Our new relationship with Christ begins when we seek God
and “cling” to him.” Here, the bride
takes her groom back to the place where she is “born physically”. Now she is with her man who fulfills herself
spiritually. It is a word picture of
being made-alive “twice”.
e)
If you don’t see it that way, that’s ok. Again, since we don’t have an answer for
this question, it is all just interesting speculation. J
vi)
There is nothing else said about this fact in Song of
Songs or elsewhere in the Bible. Thus,
is it difficult to interpret or explain.
a)
Again, the actual meaning of this concept is long
lost.
10.
Verse 5: Daughters of Jerusalem, I
charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or
awaken love until it so desires.
a)
Now
we come to the end of this dream section.
b)
A “charge” to the Daughters of Jerusalem is mentioned
four times in Song of Songs, with three of the four being the exact same
quote. (Songs: 2:7, 3:5, and 8:4)
c)
The fourth is a different “charge” and I’ll discuss that
in Chapter 5.
i)
Many commentators see each of these repeated verses as
the end of a section.
a)
The first section leading up to Verse 2:7 is about the
courtship.
b)
The second section leading up to Verse 3:8 is about the
pre-martial relationship.
(1)
This section, that we have been studying now, focuses on
compliments the bride and groom pay each other, and ends with this dream
sequence of the bride longing for her husband.
c)
The third section leading up to Verse 5:8 is about the
wedding itself.
d)
The fourth section leading up to Verse 8:4 is about the
wedding night.
e)
The final section is an epilogue about love after the wedding
itself.
ii)
Please note that some people break it up this
way. It is not a requirement. J
d)
So, what is the point of ending the dream sequence with
the “charge” to not stir up love before it is time to do so (i.e., don’t go to
far sexually, before a marriage).
i)
In Chapter 2, the bride was being aroused by her talk of
love.
ii)
She is charging the virgin girls of the city to not “go
to fast” in their love relationship. It
is a plea to wait until marriage before making physical love.
iii)
In Chapter 3, the arousal is because of this dream she
had of finding her love.
iv)
In Chapter 2, the discussion of sexual overtones caused
physical arousal.
a)
She was speaking to Solomon during that
discussion.
v)
Here in Chapter 3, she is telling of her longing in
absence of her man.
a)
The reunion heated up those sexual passions.
b)
I believe she is reminding herself, and others, that one
still needs to wait to the proper time to consummate the marriage, period.
vi)
Like I said, last week, this is a long discussion all to
itself.
a)
In the dating process, sexual arousal for the one we
love comes natural.
b)
God created sexual desires within us. He designed it that way so that we would
enjoy the benefits of a sexual relationship in marriage.
(1)
To have sex outside of marriage is enjoyable, but it always
robs the benefit of the marriage itself.
(2)
I am convinced couples that wait for marriage have a far
happier and healthier relationship sexually, than those who don’t.
(a)
If you truly love your partner, not just emotionally,
but by a Godly commitment to want to make your partner happy, you will show
that love physically as well as in other areas.
(i)
To deny physical love in its time is to deny
pleasure to your partner.
11.
Verse 6: Who is this coming up from
the desert like a column of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and incense made from
all the spices of the merchant?
a)
Before I discuss Verse 6, I should talk a little about
the ancient Jewish wedding ritual.
i)
The ritual required that the bride not know when the
actual wedding is going to take place.
She knew she was engaged, but the actual date and time was not
known. I suspect in close-knit
communities, she probably knew when it was soon.
a)
Prior to the groom showing up, she would wait at home
for the surprise of the groom and his wedding party coming to get her.
b)
Then, a wedding procession, lead by the groom would
come, say, in the middle of the night to the bride’s home. She would be brisked away to the wedding
ceremony.
c)
For those of you who have seen the movie “Fiddler on the
Roof”, you get some sort of idea how the wedding procession would take place.
ii)
The reason I mention this is that many people see the
Jewish wedding ritual as a model for our relationship with the second
coming of Jesus.
a)
In Matthew 24:3 (or Mark 13:4), the disciples asked
Jesus what will be the “signs” of his second coming and when will it be?
(1)
In both cases, Jesus gave a chapter long speech about
what “signs” will take place before and up to his Second Coming.
(2)
Just like a bride who knows when the “time is near”,
Jesus pointed to signs that will occur when the time is near for His coming.
b)
But as to the exact day and time, Jesus went out of his
way to point out that no one but God the Father knows the exact day and time of
Jesus 2nd Coming (Reference:
Matthew 24:36 or Mark 13:32).
(1)
The reason Jesus stated that he didn’t know (at least,
at that time) is so we can’t study the Bible to find “clues” as to the exact
time of Jesus return.
c)
In the Bible, we as believers are described as the
“bride” of Christ.
(1)
“Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him,
for the marriage of the Lamb {Jesus} has come and His bride {us} has made
herself ready.” (Revelation 19:7, NIV,
{text added})
d)
A Jewish engaged bride must always be prepared for the
arrival of her future husband. We
should have the same attitude about the Second Coming of Jesus
(1) Now when these things begin to happen (signs of Jesus 2nd coming), look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption