Scripture Daily

Context No. 1358 of 4322 · Song of Solomon

Context · Reflection

Song of Solomon 6:1-13: in context

1Where has your beloved gone, you fairest among women? Where has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you? 2My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to pasture his flock in the gardens, and to gather lilies. 3I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. He browses among the lilies. 4You are beautiful, my love, as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners. 5Turn away your eyes from me, for they have overcome me. Your hair is like a flock of goats, that lie along the side of Gilead. 6Your teeth are like a flock of ewes, which have come up from the washing, of which every one has twins; not one is bereaved among them. 7Your temples are like a piece of a pomegranate behind your veil. 8There are sixty queens, eighty concubines, and virgins without number. 9My dove, my perfect one, is unique. She is her mother’s only daughter. She is the favorite one of her who bore her. The daughters saw her, and called her blessed. The queens and the concubines saw her, and they praised her. 10Who is she who looks out as the morning, beautiful as the moon, clear as the sun, and awesome as an army with banners? 11I went down into the nut tree grove, to see the green plants of the valley, to see whether the vine budded, and the pomegranates were in flower. 12Without realizing it, my desire set me with my royal people’s chariots. 13Return, return, Shulammite! Return, return, that we may gaze at you. Why do you desire to gaze at the Shulammite, as at the dance of Mahanaim?

In this exchange from the Song of Songs, the daughters of Jerusalem ask the bride where her beloved has gone, that they might help her seek him. She answers that he has gone down to his garden, and then speaks the words that lie at the heart of the whole book: I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. He in turn praises her, calling her beautiful, his dove, his perfect one, unique among all women, singled out and cherished above the queens and concubines. The love poem moves back and forth between the two, each belonging wholly to the other, each seeing the other as the one desired above all.

The line at the center is the declaration of mutual belonging: I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. It is love spoken as belonging in the deepest sense, not owning but belonging, two people wholly given over to each other, each able to say of the other, you are mine, and I am yours. The Song is first of all a celebration of human love, and it honors that love as good, a gift of God worth this rich and unembarrassed poetry. But the tradition of both Jews and Christians has long heard in it something more, a picture of the love between God and his people, between Christ and the soul. Read that way, the line becomes almost too good to believe: that the soul can say of God, my beloved is mine, and hear God say in return, you are mine. The astonishing thing the whole of scripture works toward is that God does not merely tolerate or rule his people but loves them with this kind of belonging, singles them out, calls them his own, and gives himself to be theirs. The bride's confidence is worth learning: not a timid hope that she might matter to her beloved, but the settled assurance of mutual belonging, I am his and he is mine. That is the confidence the gospel offers the soul, to belong to God and to have God belong to it, wholly and without doubt.

Can I say with the settled confidence of the bride, my beloved is mine and I am his, resting in the mutual belonging God offers the soul, or do I hold only a timid hope that I might matter to him?

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