Song of Solomon Explained

​I think it's important to realize that even when you consider the love intimacy, reality of marriage, there is something more that is spiritual when we think about what awaits us in heaven. And so let us befriend the Lord. Let us get intimate with the Lord. Let us draw near to the Lord. Let us hear those words say, come away, my beloved, and think of the way Jesus draws us by his spirit to himself.

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Well, hello and welcome to the You Can Learn the Bible podcast, where we summarize complete Bible books in single episodes. I am Bode Quirk from youcanlearnthebible. com. here with Joey Rozek, Lead Pastor of Living Springs Fellowship in New Jersey. And now Joey, we have got ourselves a book before us today that I think is a unique book of the Bible. It's challenging. What do we have in store for our listeners today in episode 28?

Yes, this book Song of Solomon is not only the last book of this section we've been in, in the poetry and the wisdom literature, but it's a whole book devoted to marriage. I mean, a pretty amazing that the Bible and it's 66 books, this library of scripture we have called the Bible that God would say, I want a book set aside for the unique, incredible covenant of marriage that I have made on this earth between one man and one woman for life and how it foreshadows something of God's greater eternal purpose for all of us who are going to one day be united with God in this marriage picture. And so, I think we're going to see some really unique insights here today.

It is a unique book to, to break down because it is a poetic ensemble of the beauty of the oneness of marriage, and so there's a lot to just explore here, Bodie. And of course, let me add this. Bode, you and I can speak from experience today because we are blessed with two amazing, beautiful, godly wives in Tiffany and in Heidi. So Tiffany's mine. Heidi's is yours. So, you know,

We are so blessed, and I think Joey, that this is a unique gift to the canon of scripture, like you said, but it is an interesting read for people because all of a sudden it's very different from anything else. And so we're going to get into that. We really want you to know what this book has for you.

And so the way we're going to do that is the way we've done it for every book coming up to this one previously, as Joey said, this is our last wisdom book, but we going to apply the same approach. We were going to talk about the essentials of Song of Solomon, its role in the storyline, where it fits, when it was written, things like that.

The major themes and ideas are going to be huge. The structure of the book, what we can learn about God, what we can apply to our Christian lives. And some of those unique things. fun little details, some of our favorite things. That's our seven part framework. We always want to equip and we want to inspire both.

So Joey, somebody maybe has heard of this book or they've read some of the interesting little details in there and they don't know what to do with this book. Could you help set our listener up for success with starting us off on the first one? What do we need to know first to study song of Solomon well?

Yes. Well, when we hit Song of Solomon, we are coming to a book that is both a song, it's poetic,

but it is theological in the sense that it teaches us things about the pursuit of love when you have two parties when in this case we can look at Solomon with his first wife We believe that's what the time period of this book centers us in we also can see it allegorically as something deeper with God and his beloved bride so we can see two sides of this now, About 965 bc is where we're going to place this book.

Although we really don't know the exact date but we could say that we're pretty confident. This is in the early portion You Of Solomon's life. It is in the genre of poetry we're going to be focusing specifically on the longing for marital intimacy the author is certainly Solomon.

I mean the book is called song of Solomon it also has two other names in latin. It's canticles And some of the basic names given to it is just song of songs. We know that solomon wrote many songs but this is one that was captured and inspired by God. We know that this setting takes place right in Israel there in Judah of Jerusalem, the central part of Solomon's kingdom.

And the purpose of this book is to see the pursuit of God's passionate heart expressed through the picture of marriage. Because God designed marriage. God defined marriage. And when he did so, it was not only between one man and one woman on earth for life, but it was a picture and a foreshadowing of a marriage to come when we leave this life and enter into our union with God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

And so that's the purpose of this book. The audience of this book is interesting because this is kind of for a more mature

Right.

In fact, orthodox Jews to this day, don't let their males read this book until they're 30 years of age. So we should probably just make note of that. But it's really about the people who are in covenant with God.

This is a very Jewish book for Israel. It's a very Christian book for those who understand we are the bride of Christ today who have put our trust in the Lord and who are united with him in the spirit. And so this book by the way, Bodie, I'll just add, Was the favorite book by many authors that some of you are familiar with, like D. L. Moody or C. H. Spurgeon or the Missionary to China known as Hudson Taylor.

Why was it their favorite book? Well, because they saw more than just the surface of the book. They saw the intimacy and the intricacy of God's love for us through the depiction of a man and a woman passionately in love in marriage, the wooings that go with that, and the way in which marriage is got so much blessing to it. So that's a good way to start, Bodie. That's the essentials of this

I love it. Yeah. I've even heard, Joey, that some people will only allow an allegorical only view, meaning that it's only about Christ in the church because it's so intimate and it makes people feel uncomfortable. Many people have read this book and they felt uncomfortable and we get it. We get it. But there's more for you, and that's what we hope to point to you in this episode. So thank you for getting us started. I'll on that.

So that's the essentials of the book. Number two is where does it fit in the story of the Bible? Well, obviously we know that if Solomon is the author,

that it places it in a very specific time period in Israel's history. Of course, Solomon was the last king. King of Israel, the last full King that reigned 40 years. That was an important time period of Israel's history. But you made a very important detail that kind of helps align and compare this book to Ecclesiastes. If you remember in our last episode, we learned that Ecclesiastes is the reflections of an old man.

Whereas Song of Solomon is likely the enthralled love of a younger man. So like you said, it's possibly Solomon's first love. first marriage that he is referencing here, though we don't know that for sure. But we do know that this most likely it's before first Kings 11 happens, which is where his heart was given over to foreign women.

So there's a lot of God's virtuous heart in this book. And that's what we want to help you see today. So there's some sketches. This is kind of a dialogue book. back and forth. It's an interesting book from a structural perspective, because you've got kind of some roles that people are playing. You have the roles of like a lover, you've got a role of like the beloved and you, and it, this feels kind of like a, a romance novel in some ways, but there's also a community element because it's not just the lover, the man and the woman.

There's some other people who are present in this dialogue. dialogue of this book. And I just love how you said, yeah, some weren't even allowed to read it because there are some parts that are very intimate, even though they're allegorical. So again, it's not really a narrative in the sense that it is pointing us towards the historical moment, but because we know what we know about Solomon, it helps us really see the beauty of virtuous covenant marriage. And that's where it's so cool that Solomon gives that to us. Anything you want to add?

Yeah, Bodie. You know, I love what you were saying about the contrast between Ecclesiastes and song of Solomon. I just have some notes I'd just like to throw out to our listeners just to kind of do some contrasts for a moment. Think of it like this

Solomon focused on vanity of vanities in Ecclesiastes. But here he's focusing on song of songs. So kind of a play on those, on those words. In Ecclesiastes, we see the lust of man in song of Solomon. We see the love of God in Ecclesiastes. We see the waste of life in song of Solomon. We see the taste of life. There's something sweet to taste. in Ecclesiastes, we have the passing pleasures of material things and worthless things, but in Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, we have the surpassing pleasures that are given to us in marital bliss and marital pleasure.

We have life under the sun in Ecclesiastes. And then we have life in the Son if you see the allegory of Christ in the church in that. So there's a lot of really beautiful imagery pictures we're going to get into. But as you said, Bodie, we must see the two layers of this book.

This is a Book of physical intimacy when it comes to being able to talk about sexuality and marriage. This book doesn't hide that by any means, but it's also a very spiritual book. Every book of the Bible, it says the volume of the book is written of the Lord, right? So there is something that points to Jesus in God's redemptive plan in every book of the Bible, and song of Solomon is no different.

Even as we look at the book of Hosea, we see Hosea is very similar in that there's the imagery of that book had to do with God's love for his betrothed wife and how they turn to other gods in harlotry. And so song of Solomon also shows pictures of God's love for Israel as his betrothed wife. And then in the new Testament, the union of Christ in the church. And so I think that's just some good things for us to be thinking about as we go into the themes and ideas here as well.

Perfect. Yeah. That's, that is great because now we're going to start to see kind of how this book, when you read it it's almost as if you, Joey, you said that Genesis had a soundtrack to it because of the angels behind the creation event. It's almost like song of Solomon has, it's like walking into a fragrance store. There's so much language about scents and oils and herbs, and you get this very physical sense about this book. But why? Can you walk us through some of these major themes of Song of Solomon that we need to be aware of?

Yeah. Beautiful. Well, the overarching theme of this whole book could be summarized with this sentence or this phrase,

the beauty of marital intimacy. I mean, that's what we're diving into when we look at the eight chapters of this book. Now, underneath the beauty of marital intimacy comes things like the longing for love and affection.

I think we all can relate to that. Everybody has a sort of longing inside of them. Maybe most people do at least for someone to share their love and affection with. We certainly see that in this book. There's the adoration The adoring

there's a dance in this Book of getting close and then going apart and of course our relationship with God can be that way. Sometimes we feel very close to God. Sometimes we feel like God's very distant. And then of course, in our own marriages, right? We can relate on that level. How many of us who are married can say there are times when things are just so beautiful, so easy, so wonderful. And then there are times it's hard, challenging, there's obstacles to overcome.

No, once you get past all of that part of song of Solomon, there is this allegorical poetic depiction of God's covenant love for Israel. And then also the spiritual union of christ in the church And we're going to kind of hit on some verses that will show you some of those pictures But overall there's these undertones of wooings and warnings and I think we're going to see a little bit of that As we know that God has a divine design for marriage and if we depart from it There is all kinds of problems But if we stick with it stay with it and recognize that when two people give vows together in marriage It's for life And those who keep their vows and maintain their oneness of marriage will find great blessing in the long run And so what a great book. Bodie i'm excited to get into it.

The song of

Yeah. Well, and remember, again, just another reminder, wisdom literature is often meant to be symbolic, allegorical. It's meant to write one thing, but mean something else. And so there are some in very interesting descriptions and visual images. That the lover gives of the beauty of their other lover that we would read. If we read them literally, they make us laugh because they're so odd sounding.

So this is where, again, this is a good book to apply the principle of intent. Over content or before content. The intent is all about the pursuit and we want to see the intent. We don't want to get sidetracked because the details might feel a little bit funny or foreign or weird. We got to be able to see what is really being intended by the author, Solomon, and that's where the value is going to come in our lives.

And so that word I think is where we're at. Joey, we want to go into next part of the episode on the structure of the book, because now let's talk about. Really, when you go to read Song of Solomon, what are the major sections?

That's kind of our question number four. Number five, what do we learn about God? What do we, what can we offer our Christian life? Some people will read this and laugh thinking that really it's just a weird, old Israeli, romance book, but no, there's a lot here. And we really want you to see what God has for you in this book.

So the way that we've done that is we want to give you a set of simple three part structure. . I'm going to read part one, Joey, I'm going to give you parts two and three to introduce. All right. So part one is chapter one up through chapter two, verse seven.

So really the first chapter and the beginning, some of the second chapter, there's a break right there. And that is all about. communion. And really it's the delight of the bride and the bridegroom. So what we have in chapters, really in chapters one and two, is just Solomon and his bride. There is just so much delight for their love in one another.

They're enraptured with one another. But what's cool is that this is a picture into the heart of God. This structure is already intended to show you, this is how God feels about his beloved. We see that. I see echoes of this. And so it's a picture of God's love for his people in this delight of the bride and bridegroom in chapter one through two seven. Okay, that's part one.

Joey, what is the second section of this book?

Yeah. As we move into the second section, it's kind of a continuation of that communion of delight, but see, there's something that has changed. There's an absence that takes place. You're going to see that the Shulamite, The bride known as the Shulamite, she's longing for her beloved. There's this longing for intimacy and affection because he's gone away from her.

And so, what we see here is the bride yearning expectantly for the return and embrace of her beloved bridegroom who has left her for a time. It's interesting because when you read the book of Proverbs in chapter five and six and seven, you'll see a lot of teaching about sexuality and intimacy.

And, And then of course, adultery. And when you get to chapter seven, there's this whole idea of when a husband goes away and there's this longing you know, for him to come back, but then somebody comes in to interfere. Well, the second which is really from chapter two, verse eight to chapter three, verse five, that this second section is going to show us what to do in a time of absence, how to long for more intimacy, not to replace it with something foreign.

This is something that Solomon would unfortunately later do in his life. But at this point, it seems like The loyalty and the intimacy between a man and a wife are remaining very much intact. There's just a hunger for more a longing to go deeper. So that's the second section the third section is the big section, but what's going on in the third

Yeah. Well, here, once you have the communion in part one, the delight and the bride and bridegroom, then you have the absence. Then section three is basically from chapter three, verse six, to the end of the book, 814. It's basically from three on and that's enjoyment. It's exploring and experiencing marriage.

And so what we really see. See as a beautiful kind of dialogue of the divine design of marriage with the mutual expression of private love in all of its intimate wonder. Some of these parts get very intimate, but also not, it's not just that it's the effects that it has on the immediate community, whether it is upheld or not.

Cause we know Joey, no man is an Island, right? Our choices, the way we do our marriage, the way we live our life. It affects the people around us. So this third section, chapter three, verse six, to the end of the book is all about the enjoyment of exploring and experiencing marriage, as well as its effects on those who are around us.

So those are the three parts of the Song of Solomon. So any final thoughts on there? Because I think we got some key verses that we really want to share and highlight for each of these three sections. So again, communion, absence, and enjoyment. Those are going to be the three sections that we use to journey through this book.

That's right. And remember, Solomon had written 1005 songs. We learned about that in first Kings four 32. This is the only one that we actually have written for us to explore. And so as we dive into these sections, we're going to highlight some verses and we're going to give you a taste and a feel of what you're going to kind of experience when you go through this book.

Now, many of you may have already read song of Solomon, but there's a lot of you who may have read it and you never really made any application. about it in your life. If you're married, we would encourage you to read this with a desire to want to be more intimate with your spouse, that this would be an understanding that God didn't just create marriage for procreation.

That was sometimes a falsely held view in the church. But if you read song of Solomon, this isn't about just producing children, is it? It's about the ecstasy, the enjoyment, the being in raptured with a wife of your youth. In fact, the very word Solomon used again, back in Proverbs, where he says, you know, that we should always be intoxicated even with the wife of our youth, letting her breasts satisfy you at all times.

And this book is going to give you some descriptive language of intimacy. And, and, And so in the opening of this book, first section where we're talking about communion. Um, If we just start between young Solomon as a king with his first bride , which seems to be at this point, we don't know who this is, but this Shulamite woman would make a lot of sense that this is his earliest love.

We know that in chapter two, verses one through four, we have a beautiful picture that highlights this love. And many of you have probably heard this phrase and said, where is that in the Bible where it says, I am the Rose of Sharon. And the lily of the valleys. Well, that's right here in song of Solomon chapter two verses one through four.

And it goes on to say like a lily among thorns. So is my love among the daughters, like an apple tree among the trees of the woods. So is my beloved among the sons. And then I sat down in his shade. With great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.

What beautiful language, right, Bodhi? I mean, this is poetic, this is intimate, this is marriage at its best. This is where romance is done in righteousness. You know, you can have righteous romance where the wooing and the dancing and the beauty of casting gaze and longing eyes.

If it's for your wife, and if it's in the covenant of marriage, Hebrews 13 says the marriage bed is undefiled and honorable among all men. It's only outside of that where adulterers and fornicators, God will judge. This is a picture of a beautiful intimate relationship between a bride and a bridegroom.

And I would even add a picture of Jesus and the church here, because remember Jesus wore a crown of thorns. And he was our King dying for us to express his love. That rose of Sharon, that lily in the valley tells us the great lengths that God went through to become a bride. A bridegroom for us and the way he desires us so intimately.

And so there's some beautiful pictures in this first section. You'll see things about how you are fair, which is an old word for beautiful, and then you have dove's eyes. And when I think of dove's eyes, you think of the new Testament, Jesus began his ministry with the Holy Spirit coming upon him in the form of a dove and dove's eyes would be spiritual eyes.

If you do the allegory, having eyes that are longing just for Jesus alone. So those are some just pictures I would start off with in this first section. Anything you want to add in the first

Well, I just think it's so full of beauty. Like there's just such a rich sense of delight and joy. I loved how you described that the fact that righteousness and romance can can beautifully coexist. And I think the church has gotten this wrong for a long time when we think that sex is bad or dirty, and it's like, because it can be done that way, but it's not, that's not the original. This is a celebration of the original design. And I like how it makes us a little bit uncomfortable because it talks to us how God is the author of sexuality and intimacy. And when done right and done in righteousness, it's wonderful.

And it's a blessing. It's not just wonderful for the people involved. It's wonderful for the people. who it affects as well. So this first section communion is just, it's beautiful. You open it up and it just, the kissing is like in happening in the very first verse. And it's like, Whoa, but that's beautiful.

Right? It's, it almost gives you a picture. We don't get this quite in the book of Genesis, but you almost get the sense that before the fall there was some type of intimacy that was lost, that we don't get a picture of, it's not described, but here's almost a sense of what it may have been like to have romance and righteousness in perfect union and harmony. So I think it's awesome,

Beautiful. And, you know, Bodhi, I love that theme. And I do agree that the church has not always been as vocal as it should be in highlighting the beauty of sexuality and marriage. And in the opening few verses of chapter one, it actually kind of gives you the hints of righteous romance in a sense, because not only does it say, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.

And his love is better than wine kind of showing you that this is some of the highest level of pleasure, and intoxication that one can have is true ecstasy of love with the person that God has brought to them in covenant. But then it even says this, therefore the virgins love you and draw me away.

What is the point here? That, that it is the Virgin who's supposed to be waiting for this at its appointed time. We're going to look at this later, but we see three times in the book of Song of Solomon, do not stir up nor awaken love until it pleases. Well, we'll go back to that verse later on, but it's the idea of waiting for its proper time.

There's a proper place for God's grace to be displayed in a marriage union. And that is when. There's a covenant made between a man and a woman, both before heaven and before witnesses on Earth. And it's a wonderful way of seeing marriage according to God's design. So that, that's a great first section, but then something changes when we go to the second section, Bodie. Right? What do you wanna start off with in this second

Well, because it starts off with such delight and satisfaction and joy, the second section is what happens when that gets separated. We all know what the absence does to when you love someone, you want to be with them. But so what's cool about this second section two, eight up to three, five is that the bride is like, you see this expectant waiting for the return of her beloved bridegroom.

So he's left her for a time. And I loved Joey, how you contrasted that. the Proverbs woman that says, Hey, my husband has left. I'm going to use this as an occasion for unrighteousness. Whereas here we see this as a beautiful sense of the longing of righteousness when with lovers who are not together. So it's a, it's just this beautiful section, but this wouldn't work as the first section.

We have to have the first section first to talk about why this function second, and then it sets up what follows. So there's just a couple of really beautiful verses that we wanted you to point out in this second section,

and so we've kind of collected a couple of them. For example, so this is Song of Solomon chapter two. There's three verses that I wanted to read just to give you a sense of the absence, the longing. This is love that is said is so pure, but it just can't be experienced. There's something, the distance has put a gap between it. So Song of Solomon two 10 says, my beloved spoke and said to me, rise up my love, my fair one and come away.

And for verse 14, It says, Oh my dove, in the cleft of the rock, in the secret places of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely. You know, and then in verse 16, it says, my beloved is mine and I am his. He feeds his flock among the lilies. So you just get the sense that things are really good between these two, but they just can't be together.

So, I mean, there's just a couple of verses. Joey, what do you want to add on this second section

Yeah. So in this area of absence, I think we all know what it's like when you feel like someone's been ripped from you that you want to be with. We all kind of know a physical longing once you've tasted that this relationship seems really good. And maybe there's a breakup for a time, or maybe your loved one has gone away on a trip or, you know, for whatever reason, there's a lot of multiple reasons of why something might cause a separation between you and your loved one,

But it would be remiss to miss the opportunity to see that there is something about the relationship with God here that is spiritually shown in this time of absence, because remember in the garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve sinned they started hiding themselves behind fig leaves and God was walking in the cool of the garden, kind of like looking for his beloved Adam and Eve and and what's sad was they went missing, you know, where are you? Right. So this first that first verse you highlighted song of Solomon two, 10 you know, rise up my love, my fair one come away. It's kind of that heart of the one who's pure, but wanting to see his loved one back with him.

And so I think that's a great picture. I think of that part of God's heart in the next verse, you mentioned song of Solomon two 14. Oh, my dove in the clefts of the rock. Let's remember some of the intimate times we've seen throughout scripture where God meets with man. Do you remember Bodie in the book of Exodus there in chapter 33, when Moses was up on the mountain? Do we remember when he hid himself in the cleft of the rock,

And what was he asking for? The presence of God. Yeah,

Show me your glory, right? Show me your glory, show me your face. And he could not see the face of God, at least not in fullness, right? And so he could only see, God from behind or a close image of God.

You see a lot of this imagery throughout the scriptures. This is why Song of Solomon, like all books of the Bible, Must allow scripture to interpret scripture on some of these levels. Like listen to these phrases and Allegorical reminders to us. And then lastly this part about my beloved is mine and I am his Isn't this what we get in the New Testament with Christ in the church? I mean Jesus says I am the vine you are the branches abide in me I in you Yeah, my beloved is mine. I am yours. There's the doctrine of

Christ and me, you know, we are in Christ, all of that. Yeah.

Yeah. So I just love to highlight, you know, some of those things. And there's always the devil trying to get in there to allure the heart of man away with the distractions and attractions of this world. And it's so important that we stay true to keeping our heart with all diligence. Knowing that out of its spring, the issues of life. And I'll just want to highlight one more verse in the second section, Bodhi, which is chapter two, verse chapter two, verse 15, where it says, catch us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines for our vines have tender grapes.

You might be aware that foxes that often go into even gardens like this and so forth, they often feed at the bottom of the vines of the vineyards and they spoil the crop because they start eating at the roots of things. They get to this in the small hidden places. And this is why the Bible would tell us that we have to be on guard.

And God told Adam to guard or to watch and tend the garden, right? Tend and keep it or tend and guard it. And so there's this need, continue to live our lives in such a way where we don't let the little things spoil the blessed things. We don't let tiny things. Get, create wedges in our relationships.

You know, we must not harp on the small stuff. And so I see a lot of great teaching here for us who want to be close to our Lord, longing for him, panting for him as the deer pants for the water brook. And a bride yearning for her bridegroom. And all of this is a picture for church. The church today awaiting the return of Jesus.

Who might I add one more? Last thing I know, I said one more thing. Isn't it interesting that in Jewish weddings what would happen is a bridegroom would get betrothed to his wife and what would happen is the bridegroom would leave his wife for a time or his betrothed wife and he would go to his father's house.

And he would start to build an extension to the house to prepare the way for the future wedding. We learn about this in John chapter 14, where it says in John 14, verse two, in my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am there, you may be also, I can't help, but see a Jewish picture of marriage here in this passage. Where you see the bridegroom leaving for a time until there can be that consummation and beautiful union of

That's so good. Oh, Joey, it's beautiful. Yeah.

A couple of the verses just in this section in chapter three, you see the same longing, right? It's, this is what this section does. It sets up the next section, right? But it says, by night on my bed, I sought the one I love. I sought him. I didn't find him.

I will rise now, I said, and go about the city in the streets and in the squares. I will seek the one I love. I sought him, but I didn't find him. So I just, I love the virtue of this book. It's like the virtue of the book of Ruth with combined with the pursuit of God that we see in other wisdom, literature, other parts of the book of the Bible.

But I just think, Joey, this second section of absence and longing for a family we all know what it's like, but I love how it's portrayed virtually here. Even though some of the language can be a little bit hard to understand on first blush. If you know what's happening, it helps you understand it.

So I think it's so good. But the biggest section of the book that we really felt you wanted to highlight is really the rest of the book. From after verse five. So chapter three, verse six, All the way till the end is enjoyment, exploring and experiencing marriage. So Joey, unless you have anything else on chapter two of absence, I'd love to just spend the rest of our time talking about the divine design of marriage.

Cause what we have here is the, is just basically this mutual expression of love. private love in all of its wonder, but not just that, how it affects others around it as well.

So a couple of key verses here just to even start is basically in Song of Solomon 4, 12, and verse 16. I'm going to hand these to you, Joey. Why these verses? What do they offer us in this third section on on enjoyment?

So in this section, as we're going into the deep Intimate places of marriage, the experience of what happens when a man and a wife are able to be together. This is some of the imagery that actually does highlight in a poetic way, the way that God designed sexuality that it has certain aspects here that explain the physiological biological reality of a man and a woman coming together.

But the beauty of why, you know, this is for the Lord, this is for. Something to produce greater love. And so here's what it says this is Song of Solomon 412. And verse 16, it says a garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse, a spring shut up a fountain sealed awake, Oh, North wind and come Oh, South blow upon my garden that it's spices may flow out.

Let my beloved come to his garden. And eat it's pleasant fruits. Now, a lot of imagery here. I'm not going to break down all of the typology here or all the details here. But what I can tell you is this is a picture of intimacy. This is a picture of you know, We're talking about a sort of a likening to a wind blowing over.

We're talking about spices flowing out. There is definitely aspects that are very intimate here, but I also want you to notice that the beloved is coming to his garden and eating its pleasant fruits. In other words, when a man is betrothed to a wife and a wife to a man, the Bible says in the first Corinthian seven, their bodies belong to each other.

There's a sense in which there, there could be a ownership. I mean, in a healthy sense, that is, you know, this is my wife and

have become

my husband, a woman says, right, there's a mutuality of love. There's been covenant and vows expressed to allow this to happen. And so, don't miss even the order in verse 12, it says, my sister, my spouse.

I love this because this shows you the Christian theology. Behind marriage. First, you should be marrying somebody who's a sister or brother in the faith. So the bridegroom would say, you're my sister first, then you're my spouse. When we get to heaven, we know there's no giving of marriage in heaven.

So my wife Tiffany, and I will always be brother and sister in the Lord, but we'll not always be husband and wife. 'cause one day we will hand each other off to Jesus and we will. Be able to enjoy the fruits of his labor on the cross and resurrection to make us sons of God and thus heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.

And so we don't want to miss the order of my sister, my spouse. That's a very important thing repeated through this

book. And yes, there's intimacy between a man and a woman here, but there's also some theology here. There's divine order here. There is the fact of possession here of only take what belongs to you.

Never take don't drink from the well. That's not yours as the Proverbs talk about. Right.

Exactly.

I think those are some important nuances of why we started with these verses and why we should explore and experience marriage according to God's design and the enduring enjoyment of that

Well, and I love that, Joey. And I love that. Another verse we want to highlight. This is a verse that gets repeated three times in this book. We're reading for you the last of its instances,

but Song of Solomon 8. 4 and then verse 8. 7 says, I charge you daughters of Jerusalem, do not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. So what's happening here is that this is now said three times, and it's a warning to the watching community to make sure that this is at the right time and done in the right way.

Right? And why? It goes on, verse seven says, many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it. If a man would give for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly despised. So what the, but the warning here is that yes, love is incredible, but it has. to be in the right time with the right person and then they're done in the right way because it's not just about the people.

It's not just about the lovers. It's about the community. So when it's done well, though, it blesses marriage is a blessing, not just to the man and wife, but to the community, to the family, to the friends. That's why we have weddings. But so the warning here is that this is a fire. If you let it out in the wrong way too soon, it will burn you. And so be wise with how you stir up love in your own hearts.

Yeah. That's so important, you know, for all who are listening, it doesn't matter your age. If God has you in a season of your life where you're not married, there's a level in which you need to learn to put to sleep, if you will, that passionate part of your life where you don't stir up or awaken it. Now one of the things that our culture doesn't do. Help us out in is it's constantly pushing objects of affection our way.

Our world is centered around sexual lust and kind of like almost in some way suggesting that if you don't have a partner as the world would say, or somebody in your life to express affection with that you're missing out. But understand this, there's a difference between lust.

Lust is something you can't wait to get, whereas love is something you can't wait to give. And when you're going to give love and put the object of your adoration and attention on somebody else, it should be in a way that pleases. And who pleases? Well, yes, you'll be pleased. And sure, the other person should be pleased, but God.

Ultimately should be pleased. And of course in Ecclesiastes, we read in chapter three that God makes all things beautiful in its time. And so if it's not time for you to experience the passion of that kind of love, that aeros love then continue to enjoy the agape love and the phileo love of your life.

In other words, that love that centered on God. And that's relational with people. Enjoy friendship, enjoy. community, enjoy your church life and find contentment in your singleness. The Bible says that godliness with contentment is great gain. I've often likened the picture of lust being like a fire out of a fireplace, you know, when a fire is in the fireplace, It's a lovely thing.

That's where the love is. You see, it brings warmth to the house. Everybody loves the ambiance of a fire in a fireplace, but what happens if the sparks fly out of that fireplace and it gets on the carpet or on a couch? And before you know it, the whole house goes up in flames. It brings utter destruction.

This is what happens when you stir up love. And awaken it before it pleases. It brings destruction. It brings dishonor. It gives your years away to the cruel one proverb says. And so we have to really protect our hearts. We have to make sure we're patient. Love is patient and wait for the opportune time.

And then, and only then can we experience love the way God designed. And so if we're, if you're struggling and you don't find that you're winning this battle song of Solomon Replace those passionate desires with the

Lord. Fall in love with Jesus. Spend time walking with him. Cause if you walk in the spirit. You will not fulfill the lusts of your flesh, Galatians 5, 16 says. So those are some just insights that I'd like to share on this section

Well, and when we remember that the Bible is a book about God, and this book as well, though it does talk about intimate human relationships, when you start in the beginning of that communion, this is the communion God wants to have with you. This is the delight God has for you. And so, yes, if that season for you has not arrived physically, you still have, as Joey just pointed out and reminded us, the framework of your ultimately love, because so often we see.

seek to find the enjoyment or the satisfaction of God in other people. And that's where we get disappointed because we set ourselves up with false expectations. There's no way that you can out love God. And song of Solomon shows us the heart of the fatherly heart of God, especially in the beginning and the absence.

I think even the absence Joey is how he feels when we could be distant as well. So this is very much a book about God. One of the things I just love most about it, but yeah, anything else, you want to go to our last book, question or do you have any final thoughts on this? Because I think we're pretty much wrapping up the episode.

So if you can get past some of the odd descriptions and get to the father, the heart of the father, you will be blessed when you read song of Solomon. So, but anything specific, Joey, anything you personally love that we haven't talked about yet as we wrap up our episode today,

Yeah. I think we've covered the book well for the listeners to get hopefully excited to reread this book or to read it for the first time. I love the marriage picture. In the Bible. I think it's important for our listeners to remember that not only did God allow an entire book of the Bible to be on marriage, but remember that God showed us the last thing that he wanted us to see before sin entered the world.

Was a marriage in the garden between one man and one woman. And it tells us that they were naked and not ashamed. Very important that we highlight that the Bible ends with a marriage in heaven, between Christ and the church. And that's why this book is so powerful to me is because not only does it highlight the beauty.

Of marriage and intimacy in marriage for husbands and wives on earth. But of course, it's always pointing us to something greater, something that is something we all have to look forward to. And we're going to be united with Jesus in glory. And it makes me think of when Paul writes in second Corinthians chapter 11 verse two, where he says I am jealous for you with godly jealousy.

I love that word, godly jealousy for, I have betrothed you to one husband that I may present to you as a chaste virgin. to Christ. That was the way Paul saw his ministry. I want to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. Jesus gave a parable at the end of his ministry, about 10 virgins, five who are ready to meet the bridegroom and five who are not.

And the Bible ends with the calling, the spirit and the bride say come in revelation 22.

So I just love the imagery of marriage altogether. I love the covenant of marriage. I love my marriage with my wife. I But I'm longing for the ultimate marriage, Bodie, between Christ and the church and all the descriptions that you'll read in these chapters of love and marriage.

You'll notice that there's details to every part of the body. They have spiritual undertones. For the allegory of Christ in the church, and I think it's important to realize that even when you consider the love intimacy, reality of marriage, there is something more that is spiritual when we think about what awaits us in heaven.

And so let us befriend the Lord. Let us get intimate with the Lord. Let us draw near to the Lord. Let us hear those words say, come away, my beloved, and think of the way Jesus draws us by his spirit to himself.

That's so good. Somebody said that in church, what we're doing in church is we're preparing people for glory. And I love that vision of what church is, right? And I think that this is a part of it. It's the physical intimacy, but really it's the longing for Christ that we see. That's one of the things that I love about this. When you look under the surface and you get past some of the funny descriptions, you see a heart of love for you that you cannot possibly compare it with anything else in the world. And it's just beautiful.

So I absolutely love this book. It's such a blessing. But Joey, I think we're done. I think that's Song of Solomon. I think that's episode 28. That is also the wrap up of our wisdom literature section. I pray that this whole section has been a blessing. Cause Joey in episode 29, we're going to take a major turn to a whole different book and a whole different genre. One of the most important books in all of the Bible. Where are we going in our next episode?

Yeah. We have the long book of the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah is one of those books, 66 chapters filled with messianic prophecies and specific prophecies for the nations of the world and so many things to learn. Beautiful language enveloped throughout that book as well. But it's the beginning of the book. Of the major prophets.

And so we're going to get into some really unique scripture and helpful tools for you to dive into the prophetic books. And so excited about it, Bodie. Looking forward

so exciting. There's so much gold in the prophets as there is in each and every book of the Bible. That is why we do this.

So if this has been a blessing for you, we wanted to make sure that you knew that there is a video version of this on YouTube. Of course, there's the audio on Apple podcast and Spotify.

If you'd like a summary of everything that we gave you in this episode, you can go to YouCanLearntheBible.com/Notes. That is. YouCanLearntheBible.com/Notes. We are committed, Joey, to helping people learn the Bible, because there's nothing better that we could give them, right? It is where we meet with God. It is where we learn His love and His presence.

And so, friends, go read Song of Solomon with some of these insights in mind, and then come back for our next episode, for episode 29, Isaiah Explained, because, Joey, we believe that you can learn the Bible, don't we, brother? So, it has been a blessing, and we're going to sign off.

Grace and peace, and we will see you again real soon. God bless you guys.

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