GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
SONG OF SOLOMON 7:11-12
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11 I belong to my lover, and his desire is for me.
12 Come, my lover, let’s go out to the fields.
Let’s spend the night in the villages.
Both of these verses are examples of synonymous parallelism, even though in each case the second line is not precisely identical to the first. “I belong to my lover” is a correct view of marriage. “The husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife” (1 Corinthians 7:4). This is the explanation of Paul, and it’s in harmony with God’s judgment that the two are “one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). This seems to be looked on by the wicked as a limitation or a kind of slavery, as if a finger and a thumb are enslaved to one another. Or consider a person’s two legs. Can’t they do more together than separately? Aren’t they fulfilling their purpose together? It is only when a person openly rebels against God and his will, that marriage is the lifelong union of a man and a woman into one flesh, one couple, that there is an attempt to change the definition of marriage, or to reduce it to “a social construct.” This is the meaningless philosophy taught in universities today, and the day will come when they will discover that it is healthy for a man and woman to be loyal and faithful to each other, and for children to grow up in a home where there is a mother and father who love one another and who love their children. But the universities will take all the credit for that discovery as the result of their own research, for surely everyone knows that a doctoral student in his twenties has more knowledge and wisdom than all of the ancient wise men and women of the world, and more especially than the Holy Spirit.
“His desire is for me” is simply the same thing as “I belong to my lover,” in the true essence of marriage. They are no different. When the pledge and promise of marriage is made, the two become one. They focus all their love and desire on one another, because this is God’s will, this pleases God, and this is the gift we have from God. The desires of the human flesh for intimacy are all met with marriage, and within marriage, they find every fulfillment without any sin.
The husband and wife will take care not to hurt each other, since the Fifth Commandment is not set aside by the Sixth. And they will take care not to misuse God’s name during their passion, since the Second Commandment is not set aside by the Sixth. And they will take care not to provoke or encourage one another to desire, fantasize about, or lust after anyone else, since the Tenth Commandment is not set aside by the Sixth, either. But putting all of their romantic, passionate, sexual and intimate desire on one another fulfills the Sixth Commandment and pleases God, just as it will satisfy and please them, Then they will learn not to be jealous of one another, but to trust each other, since they belong to each other, and their desire is for one another.
“Let’s go out to the fields,” she says. “Let’s spend the night in the villages.” These are synonymous parallel statements, although someone might want to argue that this is really a case of formal parallelism. In formal parallel lines, the second line simply continues the idea of the first. The bride wants to get away, to be somewhere away from city walls. In the evenings, they will find a village with a room or a rooftop to spare. It’s a romantic idea for a true getaway; little or no planning, but practical and easy to accomplish without draining their resources. In Israel, in the days of the monarchy, small villages were much more common and were much smaller than what we expect today. A village would consist of a few houses gathered around a well. It would be a place where some people who did not farm could perform their trades and buy and sell and live in peace: tanners, potters, ropers, coopers making barrels, smiths sharpening tools, and so on. A tanner’s wife might be good at dying cloth. But then just a few miles away and within sight of that village there would be another cluster of houses around another well, or perhaps a spring, or a little tumble of a stream over some stones where they could get fresh water. An example of villages like this is found in the New Testament when we are told about Bethany and Bethphage on the Mount of Olives (Mark 11:1; Luke 19:29). Bethphage was probably so close to ancient Bethany that its ancient remains are within the village of modern Bethany today.
Sometimes translations will provide a footnote that says “villages” could also be “henna bushes.” That’s because the word here, cepharim, is similar to cepharim “henna” (Song 4:13). But words that are homophones or homonyms, that is, which sound alike but have different meanings, are common in Hebrew. The meaning of some words needs to be found in the context. Cepharim can also be one of many words for “lions” (Jeremiah 215), and the same letters with different vowels, cipurim, is the word for “atonement” in Leviticus 23:28 and other places. So just as it would be unusual to “spend the night with the lions,” it would also be strange to bed down “in the henna bushes,” since henna bushes are not particularly soft and the stems have little spikes on the ends. “Villages” is the correct translation.
Both of these verses apply directly to human marriage, but both verses can also be applied to the mystic union between Christ and the church. For here the bride says, “I belong to my lover,” and John the Baptist proclaimed, “The bride belongs to the bridegroom” (John 3:29), and the bridegroom he was describing was “the one who comes from above… the one who comes from heaven” and is above all (John 3:31).
And again, when Jesus the Groom “went out to a solitary place,” what did he say when believers came to him? He said, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent” (Luke 4:43). Through the fields he went (Mark 2:23), and village to village (Mark 6:6), until people from every village from Galilee and Judea came to him, to hear him preach and to join the wedding banquet of the Lamb (Luke 5:17; Matthew 22:10). For the commission we have from our Lord is not to stay where we are with the gospel, but to “make disciples of all nations, by baptizing and by teaching” (Matthew 28:19-20). “Go into all the world,” he said, “and preach the good news to all creation” (Mark 16:15). Let us go with our Lord out into the fields, into the villages, for we are his and he is ours.
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 7:11-12 Into the fields and villages