Song of Solomon 4:1

Verses 1–7 are a kind of love poem known as a wasf, an Arabic word for “description”, which praises the beloved feature by feature, usually from the head downward. The Song has another in Song of Solomon 7. This one follows the bride’s search for her beloved and the royal procession of Song of Solomon 3, and the bridegroom does the speaking until the bride answers him in verse 16.

The pictures come from the fields and hills of Israel: flocks of goats and sheep, gazelles, pomegranates, gardens, springs, spices and the mountains of the north. In each comparison one quality is praised, such as the dark flow of a flock of goats or the whiteness of washed sheep, and the first hearers would have caught it at once. Many of the comparisons are larger than life, as love poetry is, and they show how much he delights in her. Psalm 45 praises a king’s bride in the same rich way (Psalm 45:10–11, 45:13).

All of this is the delight of a husband in his wife. God made the man and the woman and joined them as one flesh (Genesis 2:24). Proverbs tells a husband to drink from his own cistern and rejoice in the wife of his youth (Proverbs 5:15–19), Hebrews calls marriage honourable (Hebrews 13:4), and Paul speaks of the rights husband and wife have in each other (1 Corinthians 7:2–5). The Song gives this love a book of Scripture and speaks of it with joy and without shame, within the covenant of marriage.

“Until the day break, and the shadows flee away” sets a time: through the night until morning comes. Yôwm is the day, and the verb behind “break” means to puff or blow, so the dawn comes like the day breathing out. The shadows flee, nûwç, a verb for flitting or vanishing away, as the sun rises. The same longing for the beloved before the day breaks is heard in Song of Solomon 2:17, and the Song ends on a like plea in Song of Solomon 8:14.

“I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.” Myrrh, môr, is a fragrant resin, bitter to the taste, used in perfume, anointing oil and burial. Frankincense, lᵉbôwnâh, named from its whiteness or the whiteness of its smoke, was part of the holy incense of the tabernacle (Exodus 30:34–38). The mountain, har, and the hill, gibʻâh, a little hill, say the same thing twice, as Hebrew poetry loves to do. Both spices were costly. The bridegroom resolves to go to that fragrant place to be with his bride until morning, and the precious spices tell how precious she and their love are to him. Myrrh and frankincense, the same words, grow again in the garden of verse 14.

The dawn that drives away every shadow also turns our hope toward the coming of Christ. Malachi promises that the Sun of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings (Malachi 4:2). God will dwell with his people and wipe away every tear (Revelation 21:3–4), and Christ has promised to come again and take his people to himself, so that where he is they may be also (John 14:3).

“Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.” After praising her feature by feature, he gathers everything into one line: she is beautiful, yâpheh as in verse 1, in every part. The word for spot, mʼûwm, is a blemish of body or of character. It is the word the law uses for the defect that barred an animal from the altar, since an offering had to be free of blemish to be accepted (Leviticus 22:21). So the bridegroom reaches for the language of what is whole and acceptable.

Now he calls her “my spouse”. The word is kallâh, a bride, and the same word means a daughter-in-law. He goes on calling her so all the way to 5:1.

“Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon.” The places named are the high mountains of the north. Lebanon was famous for its cedars and snowy peaks, and its name, Lᵉbânôwn, means the white mountain, from its snow. Amana is a mountain near Damascus, perhaps a peak of the Anti-Lebanon range. Shenir is a summit of the same heights, the name the Amorites gave to Hermon, the great mountain of the north.

“Look” is shûwr, to survey or look out, as a watchman does. From the tops of the peaks she can see far, and the call to look may be a last look at what she leaves behind. The word for dens, mᵉʻôwnâh, means a dwelling or retreat, used of the dwelling of God, of men and of animals, and here of the lairs of lions. With “the mountains of the leopards” it shows that these grand heights are wild and dangerous. The bridegroom calls her down from them to be with him and safe in his care, so his call to come close is also a call to safety.

The LORD shelters his people under his wings (Psalm 91:4), and Christ calls in the same way: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). The devil prowls like a roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8), and God has delivered his people from the power of darkness into the kingdom of his dear Son (Colossians 1:13).

“Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse.” He says it again in the same breath. The verb is lâbab, which Strong’s glosses as “to unheart”, to carry away with love, and in other places to make foolish. “Thou hast taken my heart” gives the sense. She has done it “with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck”: one glance of her eyes, one strand of her necklace. Necklaces and jewels were signs of beauty and honour, like the jewels given to Rebekah when she was sought as a bride (Genesis 24:22). The smallest thing about her is enough to overcome him.

“Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb.” The verb nâṭaph means to ooze or fall in drops, as honey drips from the comb of itself. Sweetness falls from her lips just as freely, in her words and in her kisses.

“Honey and milk are under thy tongue.” Honey, dᵉbash, and milk were the riches of the promised land, “a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8). Her words are sweet and nourishing, like the pleasant words of Proverbs that are as an honeycomb. God’s own word is “sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb” (Psalm 19:10), and Paul says, “Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt” (Colossians 4:6).

“The smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.” The cedar forests of Lebanon filled the air with fragrance, and Solomon sent there for cedar to build the temple (1 Kings 5:6). Her clothes carry that fresh scent of the cedars, the fragrance of her presence wherever she goes. “Smell” is the same word in both halves of the line and in verse 10’s “the smell of thine ointments”.

Christ’s own words are spirit and life (John 6:63), he is full of grace and truth (John 1:14), and through his people God spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ in every place (2 Corinthians 2:14–16).

“A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.” A garden, gan, was a fenced plot, and Strong’s explains the word as “a garden (as fenced)”. The verb nâʻal, to fasten with a bar, bolt or lock, stands behind both “inclosed” and “shut up”, so the garden and the spring are locked by the same verb. The fountain, maʻyân, is a spring of water, and it is sealed, châtham. A seal marked something as its owner’s, kept it from tampering and vouched that it was genuine. In a dry land a walled garden and a private spring were treasures, guarded and kept for the owner.

So the bride is beautiful, fruitful and full of life, and all of it is kept for her husband. The verse praises her purity and her faithfulness: she has kept herself for him, and she belongs to him alone. This is the counsel Proverbs gives to a husband, to drink waters from his own cistern and rejoice in the wife of his youth (Proverbs 5:15–19).

“Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits.” “Plants” is shelach, a shoot or branch (Strong’s gives the same word for a spear or dart), and what grows from her is a whole orchard. “Orchard” is pardêç, a word of foreign origin meaning a park or orchard, and from it comes the English word “paradise”. Pomegranates, rimmôwn, were valued for their beauty, their many seeds and their sweetness, and they were worked into the hem of the high priest’s robe (Exodus 28:33–34). In “pleasant fruits”, meged means excellence, a choice thing, and pᵉrîy is fruit, so these are fruits of the finest kind.

Then come the fragrant plants. Camphire is henna, used for its sweet scent and as a dye for adornment. Its Hebrew spelling, kôpher, most often means a ransom or bribe, the price paid for a life, and henna is a separate word that shares the spelling. Spikenard, nêrd, another word of foreign origin, was a costly perfumed oil from a plant that grows in the Himalayas. It was costly spikenard that Mary poured on the feet of Jesus (John 12:3).

Verse 14 goes on: “Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices”. Saffron comes from the crocus. Calamus, a sweet cane, and cinnamon were both in the holy anointing oil (Exodus 30:23–25). Frankincense, lᵉbôwnâh as in verse 6, was put on the grain offering (Leviticus 2:1), and here the trees themselves grow in the garden. Myrrh and aloes, a fragrant wood different from the medicinal aloe plant, were used for perfume and for burial, and Nicodemus brought them to bury Jesus (John 19:39). “The chief spices” uses the word for head, rôʼsh, for the very best, with besem for spice and fragrance of every kind. Most of these came by trade from far lands such as India, Arabia and Egypt, and they were very costly.

Only a garden of poetry could grow them all together. The list is gathered to say that she has every excellence and is worth more to him than all the treasures of the spice trade.

These spices run through the story of Christ. The wise men brought frankincense and myrrh to the infant King (Matthew 2:11), and Christ gave himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God of a sweet-smelling savour (Ephesians 5:2). Paul calls the Philippians’ gift a fragrant offering, pleasing to God (Philippians 4:18). On the reading that sees the church in this garden, its fruits and spices are the graces the Spirit grows in God’s people, love, joy, peace and the rest (Galatians 5:22–23).

“A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.” The fountain is maʻyân again, the word of verse 12, and a “fountain of gardens” waters many gardens. A well is a deep pit dug down to water. “Living waters” uses chay, alive or fresh, and the phrase means fresh running spring water, unlike the still water stored in a cistern. The streams are the cold, snow-fed waters running down from the white mountain, Lᵉbânôwn.

The sealed fountain of verse 12 turns out to be a spring of fresh water that overflows for the one it belongs to. Her purity and her abundance belong together, and she is a source of life and refreshment to her husband, like the tree planted by the rivers of water in Psalm 1:3.

Scripture gives this picture its highest meaning in God. He calls himself “the fountain of living waters”, whom his people forsook for broken cisterns (Jeremiah 2:13), and with him is the fountain of life (Psalm 36:9). Jesus offered the Samaritan woman living water (John 4:10) that would satisfy her thirst for ever (4:14), and he promised rivers of living water to all who come to him and drink (John 7:37–38). Isaiah says that God’s people will draw water with joy from the wells of salvation (Isaiah 12:3), and Revelation ends with the river of the water of life flowing from the throne (Revelation 22:1–2) and the water of life given freely to the thirsty (Revelation 21:6).

“Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south.” Now the bride speaks. The word for north, tsâphôwn, properly means hidden or dark, the north being the gloomy and unknown quarter, and têymân, south, is the quarter on a man’s right hand as he faces east. The north wind blows cool and the south wind warm, bringing growth. She calls them both to blow on her garden “that the spices thereof may flow out”. “Flow out” is the verb that gave the “streams” of verse 15, and “blow” is the verb behind the day’s “break” in verse 6. She wants the fragrance of the garden to rise and reach him.

“Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.” Dôwd, “beloved”, is the name she uses for him in the Song. In one verse “my garden” becomes “his garden”. She gives herself to him gladly, and what was locked is opened to the one it was kept for. The “pleasant fruits” are the choice fruits of verse 13, meged and pᵉrîy again. Her words answer his praise with desire of her own, so the love of the Song runs both ways, as she says elsewhere, “My beloved is mine, and I am his” (Song of Solomon 2:16).

Jesus compares the Spirit to the wind that blows where it will (John 3:8), and the Spirit came upon the church at Pentecost (Acts 2:2–4). On the reading that sees Christ and his church here, the bride’s prayer is the church asking the Spirit to stir up her graces so that Christ may come and delight in the fruit of his own garden, as the LORD looked for fruit from his vineyard in Isaiah’s song (Isaiah 5:1–7).

“I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse.” He answers her call at once. She called it “his garden”, and he calls it “my garden”. “I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk.” Myrrh, môr, is the word of verses 6 and 14. “Spice” here translates a different word from the spices of verse 14, one Strong’s gives as the balsam plant, and “honeycomb” is a different word from the honeycomb of verse 11. The honey, dᵉbash, and the milk come back from verse 11, and the wine from verse 10. Everything the bridegroom praised he now enjoys, and his repeated “my” shows that all of it is his. This is the consummation of their marriage, told with the reserve of poetry.

“Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.” His joy spills over into a feast. “Friends” are companions, and “beloved” here is dôwd, now spoken to the guests as dear ones. “Drink abundantly” means to drink deeply, to one’s fill. The scene recalls the wedding feasts of Israel, where the joy of the couple was shared with family and friends, who rejoiced in the marriage and honoured it. The bride’s night search for her beloved in Song of Solomon 5:2–8 follows straight after.

In this verse we see Christ coming to the people he bought with his own blood (Acts 20:28), the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), and delighting in them as his own. His invitation to eat and drink abundantly echoes Isaiah’s call to everyone who thirsts to come and buy wine and milk without price (Isaiah 55:1). It is heard at the Lord’s Supper, where Jesus gave his disciples the bread and the cup (Matthew 26:26–28), and it will be fulfilled at the marriage supper of the Lamb.

These verses give us a husband’s love spoken aloud. He looks at his wife, delights in what he sees, tells her so in detail, and calls her his own. God put this song in his word, so the joy of husband and wife, their words of praise, their faithfulness and their union are gifts he made and blesses. The garden kept for one and opened to him shows that faithfulness and delight belong together.

The passage also shows us who God is. The bridegroom who calls his bride all fair and spotless points to the Son of God, who loved the church and gave himself for it, and who washes his people and presents them to himself without blemish. He calls them from danger to himself, he delights in the fruit of his garden, and he spreads a feast and bids his friends eat and drink abundantly. In Christ, “Thou art all fair, my love” is spoken over everyone who belongs to him.