GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
SONG OF SOLOMON 4:6
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6 Until the day begins to breathe and the shadows flee,
I will go to the mountain of myrrh
and to the hill of frankincense.
The reader should not press too heavily on this verse, since it is not exactly clear who is speaking, the wife? Or the husband? The verses leading up to this one (4:1-5) were a poem spoken by the groom in praise of his wife’s beauty; her beautiful body. She is the ideal woman in his eyes, and he has eyes for no other. Therefore this verse, and probably the rest of the chapter (4:6-16) are a poetic illustration of their love making. Spiritually, this is the mystic union of Christ and his church. But we return to our question: Who is speaking, the bride or the groom?
If it is the bride (this is the view of Delitzsch, Luther and others), then the image we have is of a bride overwhelmed by her husband’s compliments. She doesn’t think she is worthy of such praise, and she slips out of the house to visit the gardens until dawn comes. Things like myrrh and frankincense were and are not native to Israel or Galilee. When the wise men brought these things to the infant Jesus, they brought them from far away, from the east. Judging from those gifts for the baby Jesus, we usually associate frankincense with its pleasing aroma, often spoken of in the Bible as symbolic of our prayers (“Let my prayer rise before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice,” Psalm 141:2). Myrrh is a resin with a distinctive perfume (Esther 2:12), used in burial (John 19:39-40). Ancient Christians often saw the references here to “the mountain of myrrh” and “the hill of frankincense” as meaning the two natures of Christ: the one who died and was buried has risen; our prayers rise to him: “I seek him who died for us; I desire him who rose for us.” But since frankincense and myrrh were not native to Israel, did the couple have a couple of trees that these things were made from growing out in the garden in their yard?
However, if the one speaking here is the husband (this is the view of Elke, Brug, and others), then the verse seems to conclude the description of the wife’s physical attributes (4:1-5) and the hill imagery might be a poetic representation of her breasts (which is where the description ended). But rather than sexualizing her body as pagan poetry so often did and still does, here she is compared with the delights of nature and God’s creation in general. The hills that make up the contours of her body are idealized as treasures, to be valued and kept as a dowry for their marriage; their life together and their love. This may help us to understand the “mountains” earlier in the book (2:17), where I translated “mountains of bether” as “rugged mountains,” and commented that “she might be referring to her body once again, with her feminine curves a not-so-rugged mountain chain for her stag.”
While we can’t say for certain which spouse is speaking, their love for one another is surely the point and the application we make for human marriage. But the verse continues with other words: “The breathing of the day, and the fleeing of the shadows.” In chapter 2 (verse 17), these words were the beginning of an invitation by the bride for her husband to approach and enjoy her love: “Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, turn and be like a gazelle, my love, or like a young stag on the rugged mountains.” Here, if the husband is speaking, then it seems appropriate to think of him echoing the words of her invitation with words of his own desire. But if she is the one speaking, she might seem overwhelmed by his compliments (as we considered above) and that she needs “to take a break” out in the garden, catching her breath as the day itself begins to breathe with the morning breeze, and as uncertainties about her own private doubts flee like the evening’s shadows. In this sense, the verse shows the bride (here, the individual Christian) overcome by the weight of sin and our own sinfulness. Such things as doubt, shame, the stresses of ordinary life, and other concerns become too heavy to bear. We run from God’s gaze with the same ridiculous excuse that Adam gave: “I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid” (Genesis 3:10).
But our grief over sin, which leads to fear, shame, unworthiness, and other feelings, are overcome by Christ, who “loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). Indeed, do Paul’s words about the fragrant offering and the sacrifice to God echo not only the true worship God desires, but even our verse here, with its mountain of myrrh and hill of frankincense?
Let us ascend, with the bride, onto the mountain of myrrh, for true worship. There are times when our worship becomes like David’s altar (1 Chronicles 21:28-30), built on a bare hill with no trappings, no ark, no tabernacle, none of the usual surroundings, and we open our hearts and pray. This is when we are overcome by sorrow over our sins but we are far from our home and far from the Lord’s house. We are, in fact, still in the wilderness where we sinned (I am using a figure of speech, but there might be those who see only a memory here of a real event and no figure of speech at all). We vent our feelings and our sadness over our sins, helpless to make any free choice in life apart from sin, and we are crushed by the weight of that sin. Have mercy, O Lord! Lord, save us!
What does our Lord Jesus do? He has already done it, but he reminds us with loving and gentle words. He entered into the world as one of us. “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). He does not see our sins any longer, but loves our beauty, and he praises our most beautiful attributes: faith and trust. We believe in him and his message, and we trust him and all his promises. These should not be rugged mountains for us to sit upon and to graze on as the people of his pasture. These are the words, the nourishing feast upon which we graze; the words that lead to everlasting life (John 6:68).
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Song of Solomon 4:6 Mountain and hill