GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
SONG OF SOLOMON 4:2-3
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2 Your teeth are like a flock of sheep ready for shearing
coming up from the washing.
Each has its twin; not one of them is left alone.
3 Your lips are like a scarlet cord;
your mouth is lovely.
Your temples behind your veil
are like the halves of a pomegranate.
The husband has just described his bride’s hair “like a flock of goats” descending from the mountain. Now he says that her teeth are like a flock of sheep coming up from the washing. Perhaps the one simile suggested the other. But the unusual comparison of teeth to sheep is helped along more by “the washing” than by “the shearing” to our ears. Should we translate “ready for shearing” or “having been shorn”? Both are possible, but Dr. Brug’s explanation of his choice (“ready for shearing”) is so apt that it needs to be quoted: “Shorn sheep are neither white nor beautiful.” It is not the wooliness but the whiteness that is held up. But then, “coming up from the washing” also makes us think of sheep that are wet; they have been in the stream or the pond, and teeth that are licked clean gleam with a beauty that is even more apparent if none of them are missing, and here “each has its twin; not one of them is left alone.”
Physically, the husband likes his wife’s pretty smile. Spiritually, God’s people are all together; none are missing. The beauty of the smile also reminds us of Israel’s blessing upon Judah (Genesis 49:12). Outside of that passage in Genesis and here in the Song, references to teeth are a proclamation of the law and not the gospel. Here, the beauty and glory of the wife’s teeth are high praise from her loving man, who is of course Christ.
Poetically speaking, should we take lips and mouth as two items, or as one? Lips are mentioned as often as the mouth as the organ of speech (even in this chapter, in 4:11).
In either case, the application will be similar. In a sense, the lips show and the mouth makes a sound. But lovely lips ask to be kissed; a husband’s affection is real and permanent as he thinks of kissing his wife every day for the rest of their life together. Spiritually, Solomon also says: “Someone who gives a straight answer gives a kiss on the lips” (Proverbs 24:26).
The mouth (and its tongue) speak the truth but also tell lies; it speaks both right doctrine and also heresy. The tongue is the rudder, “a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts” (James 3:5). With the same mouth and lips we worship, pray, preach, teach, and sing. Joshua told the people: “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night” (Joshua 1:8), for meditation is something done aloud as well as in silence. Speak about what you discover in the word of God; share it. This is God’s will in the Second Commandment.
From here the husband praises his wife’s temples; really her cheeks as her cheek bones are lifted by her smile; here is the comparison, it seems, to the halves of the rounded pomegranate. It is in many ways the rest of her face, surrounded by the hair, eyes, lips, and so on. Here is a woman’s attractiveness to her man, the ineffable quality of her beauty. Two women might have similar eyes, two might have mouths shaped the same way. But how her features are set within her cheeks and temples is what makes a man’s pretty wife look the way she looks. Here is the set of her face, and the opacity or luster of her skin. Many husbands go their whole married lives without truly realizing the almost inexpressible beauty of his wife’s temples and cheeks; the flesh of her face. When she uses her whole face to smile, she truly smiles. When she doesn’t, something is very, very wrong.
Spiritually, we remember that our Lord is the one who gave each one of us our lips and mouth to use to his glory and in his praise.
Once again, the veil is singled out for special mention. It was a common part of their culture. Our obedience to God is much like a veil that keeps us mindful of Christ, just as the veil of a woman focuses her attention more than ever on the voice and the will of her husband. She shuts out many distractions by muting them with the veil over her eyes. In a similar way, God’s holy Law, his will, is a path that protects us from sins as well as displaying sins we have already committed. The veil of obedience shelters us from being too easily drawn (we pray) into the many great sins and temptations that surround us everywhere.
When our Savior praises us in small ways, we pray that we will not become puffed up about our own accomplishments, but that we will be humbled, and that we will seek to follow after him and his will for us more and more closely, day by day.
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 4:2-3 Her lovely face