GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
SONG OF SOLOMON 6:1-2
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Friends speak
6:1 Where has your beloved gone,
O most beautiful of women?
Which way has your beloved turned?
We will seek him with you.
This verse does not just float here without any connection to the rest of the Song. In chapter 5, the bride made a mistake; she did not open the door for her husband when he came home and knocked. Then, when she finally did get up, he was gone. Yet there was a pledge of love there at the door (myrrh on the lock, although he was no longer there). She ran out into the night, and she was beaten up by the night watchmen. After that, she asked her friends to help look for him. They questioned her: Why? Their words almost brought up the suggestion: Is he worth looking for, this man you love who left? But she described him, or at least what he looks like, ending with: “He is altogether desirable.”
Now the friends have come back around to her side. We will help you look! You describe him as the most attractive of men, and you (they assure her) are the most beautiful of all women. Which way would he have gone? We will seek, seek, seek for him and seek some more. We will seek everywhere (the verb is a repetitive form: “seek, and keep seeking”).
Which way? The question of the friends settles the bride’s hurrying thoughts. She has been so distraught since he left that she has given no thought at all as to where he would most likely have gone. She simply ran out into the streets in a panic. It is even possible that a couple of watchmen tried to settle her down by grabbing her by the shoulders, or even shaking and slapping her– a thing that the reader must understand would have been not only possible but likely in their time. It might not have been an act of abuse, but of trying to quiet a citizen who was disturbing the peace. This is only a conjecture, of course, but we certainly know that she wasn’t thinking straight when she hurried out of the house that night. Now the question brings her back to her senses: Which way would your man have turned? Should we go this way or that way?
Suddenly, the possibilities were no longer endless. One way leads to a dead end. Other ways lead to locked gates and more guards. But over there– that’s the way he usually goes when he goes out to look after his…
She knew. It had to be the case. She had nothing to worry about at all.
The Wife
2 My beloved has gone down to his garden,
to the beds of spices,
to pasture his flock in the gardens,
and to gather lilies.
The wife now realizes that her husband, her dear love, has gone to the place she calls “his garden.” This is the place where he rests his sheep. There must have been a quiet, slow-moving stream or a little pond there, the kind that sheep need (Psalm 23:2). It is in such water that lilies grow, and surely at this time of year her husband would be collecting lilies for her! Instead of panic and irrational running around, she understands completely. She is confident that he is simply doing what he does every day. Even the spice beds there, cinnamon or balsam, are called up by her memory. She can picture him there. There is no need to worry. No need to search.
Spiritually, these verses show us the importance of the encouragement we give one another in worship. Just what benefit does one member of the church (you) give to another (me) in worship? Hebrews says: “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another” (Hebrews 10:25). At the meeting we call the Jerusalem Conference (Acts 15), the prophets or pastors Judas and Silas “said much to encourage and strengthen the brothers” (Acts 15:32). Paul sent Tychicus to Ephesus to do the same thing (Ephesians 6:21-22). But it is not always ministers who do this. We do it for one another by confessing our faith together, receiving the sacrament together, singing together, praying together and praying for one another.
What is the significance of the lilies? Lilies were a symbol of springtime, of growth, of new life (Hosea 14:5), and also of the resurrection. Their beauty, along with that of new roses, was used as a comparison for the high priest of the people in all his splendor. But just within the context of the Song, we return to 2:2, where the Church is honored with the title, “a lily among the brambles.” A lily is far above and beyond brambles in beauty, as the church is compared with the rest of the world. And just as brambles prick the lily with their thorns and barbs, so the unbelieving world brings suffering and persecution on the true church. The lilies show God’s favor, therefore, and his constant love, renewed again and again, like each year’s new growth of lilies.
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 6:1-2 We will seek him with you