2025-01-30A
WHEN WORDS ARE COLOURED IN BLUE, THE TOPIC HAS BEEN DISCUSSED IN A PREVIOUS GUIDE.
THE GROOM RESUMES HIS LOVE SONG
THE BRIDEGROOM: 7:1 How beautiful are your steps in sandals (shoes), O noble daughter! The flowing lines of your hips are like chains of jewels, the work of the hands of an artist.
He addresses her as, “noble daughter” because she is a child of God, a princess from the nobility of the King of the universe. The sunburnt Shulammite peasant girl was raised from her fallen earthly state by her rebirth and given a golden chair with purple upholstery in the council chamber of the Palace above because those He ordained, He called, justified and glorified (Rom 8:30). They are already seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:6).
Her shoes are not the shepherd’s flimsy sandals or the dancer’s high heels, but the all-terrain walking shoes of willingness to go wherever the Gospel of Peace leads her (Eph 6:15). With them she climbs over mountains of human impossibility, wades through swamps of doubt, and traverses thorny valleys of painful experiences. During her “40 years” of walking through the earthly wilderness, they will not wear out (Deut 29:5), yes, not even a shoelace will come loose.
… As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things!” (Rom 10:15).
Her steps are firm and purposeful, directed towards heaven, because she walks in his paths of righteousness (Ps 23:3). She does not allow herself to be misled by all kinds of strange signposts because she treads, step by step on the pavement of his Word (Ps 119:133, Ps 17:5). She does not stumble because his Spirit strengthens her ankles so that her foot will not slip (Ps 121:3).
THE GROOM: 2 Your navel is a round bowl—let not the mixed wine fail. Your body is a heap of wheat, surrounded by lilies.
When a child was born to a woman of nobility, the midwife professionally cared for the baby. The umbilical cord was cut to the correct length and tied off, according to the custom of the time. The body was then washed clean and rubbed with salt. An umbilical band was wrapped around the baby’s waist to ensure that the navel would not later bulge unsightly outwards, but rather shrink inwards. Finally, the little one was wrapped tightly in swaddling clothes to make it feel secure and laid in the mother’s arms. A baby girl who was thus cared for at birth would, when later developing into a young woman, have a navel that would contribute to her beauty, by adding a soft additional curve to her slender waist. (Derived from Eze 16:4).
Thus the Holy Spirit cared for the future Bride of Christ during her rebirth. She was spiritually, professionally handled from her first moment; no scar from her old life was transferred. She was perfect from the moment the Spirit of Life was breathed into her.
Her navel is now “a round bowl” – a feast for his eyes. It also reminds him of his royal drinking cup filled with wine of different cultivars. He circles its rim with his index finger as he inhales the delicious scent. That is how desirable her waist is to him. It is difficult to connect it with a specific spiritual virtue, but it is part of the beauty of love that she offers Him, with which she draws Him to her. He circles it with his finger and whispers: “You are altogether beautiful to me”.
Her body is as valuable as a heap of threshed wheat, the fruit of a full season of surrender to His devoted cultivation. Her heart was fertile soil. First He sowed the seed of the Word in it. Then He watered it regularly with living water, weeding out the weeds the enemy had sown into it and removing the unfruitful stalks. It was painful, but she did not shrink back; she did not push Him away. Day by day she was willing to be chastened by Him (Heb 12:11). Thus the season drew to a close and the harvest was brought in: thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold (Mark 4:20).
In her flower garden, next door, He grew lilies, more beautiful than all the riches in Solomon’s kingdom (Luke 12:27). The proverb says: “In the blackest mud, the whitest lily grows”. That was the case with her. She grew up in a sinful society, surrounded by evil, but she guarded her purity and kept herself spotless for her Bridegroom:
Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world (James 1:27).
THE GROOM: 3 Your two breasts are like two lambs, twins of a gazelle. 4 Your neck is like a tower of ivory, your eyes are like pools in Heshbon by the gate of Bath-rabbim; your nose is like the tower of Lebanon that looks toward Damascus.
Her neck . This is like an ivory tower. Ivory is, of course, obtained from elephant tusks. The teeth of hippos, warthogs, etc. are also of ivory. Poaching of elephants now-a-days resulted in a strong resistance against trading in anything made of ivory. However, throughout the centuries it has always been a sought-after commodity collected by kings and the rich. It was especially used to make the finest carvings imaginable.
But the artist first had to obtain such a tusk. Sometimes it had to be imported from distant countries. Solomon had his throne made of ivory (1 Kings 10:18). In the Book of Amos we also read of couches (6:4) and even houses of ivory (3:15) and in Ezekiel 27:6 of ship decks inlaid with ivory. The value of the ivory objects was subjectively linked to the courage of the hunters, some of whom lost their lives in the process. A possessor of large quantities of ivory was therefore rich and powerful.
Now this Bride’s neck is spiritually compared to a TOWER of ivory, higher than all the buildings of Jerusalem. With great effort and sacrifice she gathered and assembled it during her lifetime. No connoisseur of spiritual ivory can walk past without pausing and admiring it; trying to decipher the artistic carvings upon it. Some of these can be understood by all that pass by, but others contain deeply hidden secrets known only to her Bridegroom.
Her eyes . When He looks into them, He brings to mind the murmuring, sparkling waters bubbling merrily from the fountains at Heshbon’s Bath-Rabbim entrance. Oh, how refreshing they must have been to a tired, dust-laden traveler who had been on his way there since dawn. On arrival he would hold a pitcher aloft beneath the falling stream and once full, lift it to his lips, letting the contents flow gently down his parched throat. Then he would fill his cupped hands from the dancing abundance and dip his face into it. Peace would flood his inner being.
So were the eyes of his Bride to the Groom. On looking into them, He witnessed the results of the new-birth of the sin-scorched Bride and his inner being was refreshed. Like the woman at the well of Samaria, she had found living water for her soul.
Her nose : “Like the tower of Lebanon that looks toward Damascus”. Not only her neck, but also her nose is represented as colossally high to emphasize its excellence. This tower was apparently built on the Lebanon mountains as a guard post against enemies approaching from the north. The nose is also a sense organ. In the animal kingdom, it is highly sensitive to warn the otherwise defenseless deer of the stalking lion, leopard, jackal or other predators, long before they are visible to the eye and becoming a danger.
So is his Bride: sensitive to impending evil. The proverb goes: “He immediately smelled danger,” meaning that the person noticed danger long before it was visible to others. His Beloved is trained to notice and avoid spiritual attacks. consequently she saves herself the trauma of confrontation. This leaves the evil one confused and frustrated.
In 2 Kings 6:12 we read that the prophet Elisha was able to tell the king of Israel what his enemy, the king of Aram, was planning against him, even in the secret of his bedroom. In this way he was able to avoid the places where the Aramean marauding bands wailaid him. This happened repeatedly so that the king of Aram was later highly frustrated and feared that there was a traitor in his midst. The king of Israel, on the other hand, saved himself much trouble and loss of life by this supernatural knowledge.
The unbeliever unexpectedly steps into a trap, but the believer gives it a wide berth.
THE BRIDEGROOM: 7:5 Your head on you is like Carmel, and the flowing locks of your head like purple—a king caught in locks!
Her head is like Carmel. Again a mountain that everyone around looks up to, is mentioned. Spiritually she is an example to everyone around her, a model of justice and care like a capable, venerable king who rules well over his kingdom; impressive. (Read more about such a bride/woman in Prov 31:10-31).
Her hair is purple in colour; the colour of kings and styled in wavy locks which, among other things, indicates her distinctive personality, her uniqueness. The Bride, universally, is essentially radically different from the community around her and the individual bride within is moreover each unique in personality but always in line with that of her Groom. This makes her so interesting and attractive to Him, makes everyone special to Him and He loves each one a little differently than the other.
THE BRIDEGROOM: 7:6 How beautiful and how lovely you are, O love, above all delights!
Love. He calls her LOVE. Darling? She is divine love in human form, the image of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In Gen 1:26 we read this:
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…
The reborn man is the embodiment of God’s love! The love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit is so intense and satisfying that God, Triune, needs nothing outside of Himself to live completely fulfilled. On earth He enjoys everything He created on it, but only man can return His love. The animal kingdom can only experience the fruit of it. For them it is a one-way song. Therefore the Bridegroom exclaims: how sweet you are, O love, among all pleasures!
THE GROOM: 7:7 Your stature is like a date palm, and your breasts like clusters of fruit. 8 I said, “Let me climb the date palm, let me take hold of its clusters; and let your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the smell of your breath like apples, 9 and your palate like the best wine, which goes down gently for my beloved, and flows over the lips of those who are asleep.”
Firstly, he compliments his Bride on her tall stature. Some date palm species grow to 10 meters and higher. She towers above everything around her. This is how He sees his universal Bride. She is more important to him than anything else: than the tallest skyscraper, the largest, most graceful, fastest jet that cuts through the blue space above.
She bears the tempting spiritual fruit of her love beyond the reach of all but her Beloved. Only He can reach out his hand to it as to the clusters of the grapevine. Then He steps closer and perceives the fragrance of her breath. He perceices the Holy Spirit, intoxicating like wine, flowing inward over her lips even when she is asleep.
How delightful to hear from the very lips of the Son of God how He feels about us as His Bride, what effect our love has on Him.
O SPIRIT OF GOD, TEACH US TO LOVE WITH THE SAME PASSION AS WE ARE LOVED BY THE SON!
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