Song of Solomon 7:12

In Song of Solomon 7:1–9 the bridegroom praises the Shulamite from her feet to her head, and his praise ends in longing. He says he will “go up to the palm tree” and “take hold of the boughs thereof” (Song of Solomon 7:8). Verse 10 is her reply. She meets his longing with her own glad belonging, and in verses 11 to 13 she turns that reply into an invitation.

Through much of the Song it is the bridegroom who calls her out. In Song of Solomon 2:10–13 he says, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away,” and draws her into the countryside in spring. Here she calls him, to the same kind of place and the same season of blossom. So Song of Solomon 7 moves from his admiration to her welcome, and the bride’s voice has as full a place in the Song as the bridegroom’s.

The bride has said something like this twice before. In Song of Solomon 2:16 she says, “My beloved is mine, and I am his,” and in Song of Solomon 6:3, “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.” Each time the refrain is a joyful confession of a love that is exclusive and settled. In verse 10 she keeps the first half and completes it with his desire for her.

The word for beloved, dôwd, comes from a root meaning to boil, and so to love, and it means a beloved, a lover, a friend or an uncle. In the Song it is the bride’s name for her husband throughout. It returns in this passage in “Come, my beloved” and “O my beloved”, and in its plural form it stands behind “my loves” in verse 12.

“I am my beloved’s” is the voice of a wife who knows she is his and is glad of it. She gives herself to him wholly, and she finds her secure place in being his. Scripture speaks the same way of covenant belonging, where the LORD’s people are his own.

The second half tells why she can say this with such confidence. The word for desire, tᵉshûwqâh, comes from a root meaning to stretch out after something, a longing that reaches toward what it wants. She knows that her husband’s longing is turned toward her. Her belonging and his desire balance each other, so that she is wholly his and he wholly wants her. That is what makes their bond secure, and it is the pattern God gives for marriage: a husband and wife who each belong to the other and each desire the other, with trust and open affection between them.

Secure in his love, the bride takes the initiative. “Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field” is a tender and eager invitation, and the repeated “let us” makes it something they do together. The verb for “go forth”, yâtsâʼ, means to go or come out, and here it is a going out from where they are to a quieter place.

The field, sâdeh, comes from a root meaning to spread out, and it is the flat, open country. The villages, kâphâr, are the small settlements of the countryside. To “lodge”, lûwn, is to stop for the night, and the word can also mean to stay on. So the bride is asking for more than an afternoon’s walk. She wants unhurried time with her husband, through the night, away from the noise and the many eyes of the town.

Her request fits the way the Song speaks of her love as kept for him alone, the “garden enclosed” of Song of Solomon 4:12–15. The open country and the quiet villages give them a place where their love can be expressed freely between the two of them, among the simple and lovely things God has made.

The invitation grows more particular in verse 12. “Let us get up early” translates shâkam, to rise early, and it shows her eagerness to be out in the fresh quiet of the morning, before the heat and bustle of the day. The vineyard, kerem, is a garden or vineyard. In the Song the vineyard is a place of growth and fruitfulness, and it can stand for the bride herself, as when she speaks of her own vineyard in Song of Solomon 1:6.

They go to see whether spring has come. “Flourish” is pârach, to bud, sprout, blossom or spread, the vine breaking into new life. The “tender grape”, çᵉmâdar, is the grape in blossom, and the pomegranates, rimmôwn, are to “bud forth”, nûwts. Pomegranates were a prized fruit, a picture of fruitfulness and beauty, and they were among the adornments of the Temple. All this growth around them matches the love growing between them, as it does in the spring scene of Song of Solomon 2:10–13.

The verse ends in a promise: “there will I give thee my loves.” The word is the plural of dôwd, dôwdîm, which means expressions of love, the caresses and embraces of a wife given to her husband. The plural speaks of a love given fully and in abundance. She promises herself to him, there, in that private place, with the whole of her affection.

Scripture celebrates this delight between husband and wife. Proverbs tells a husband to rejoice in the wife of his youth (Proverbs 5:18–19), and the Song itself rises to its great words about love as strong as death in Song of Solomon 8:6–7. The marriage bed is a holy gift from God, and these verses speak of it with joy and with purity.

Verse 13 adds scent and abundance. “The mandrakes give a smell”: the word dûwday is the mandrake plant, and Strong’s derives it from dûd, a boiler or basket. Mandrakes were valued in Israel for their fragrance and were believed to stir love and help a woman conceive. In Genesis 30:14–16 Rachel and Leah bargain over mandrakes for that reason. Here their scent fills the air with desire and with the hope of children within the marriage.

“At our gates” uses pethach, an opening, entrance or door. City gates were public places, but “our gates” are the door of their own home, a private place of welcome kept for the beloved.

“All manner of pleasant fruits” names the best of everything. The word for pleasant, meged, means excellence, a choice thing, and it describes the precious things of Joseph’s land in Deuteronomy 33:13–16. The KJV supplies “fruits” to make the sense plain. Her store is “new and old”: fresh produce of the season and good things kept from before. She has “laid up” all of it ahead of time, which shows thought and care, and she has laid it up “for thee, O my beloved”. Everything in the passage ends with him.

The plain sense of these verses is the love of a husband and wife, and God’s Word honours that love as good. Scripture also uses bride and bridegroom for the LORD and his people. The Song has long been heard in Israel as the LORD’s love for Israel and in the church as Christ’s love for his bride, and Scripture gives that reading its ground. The LORD betroths his people to himself (Hosea 2:19–20) and loves them with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3). Christ loved the church and gave himself for her (Ephesians 5:25–27), and the story ends with the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:7–9).

“I am my beloved’s” is true of every believer. We were bought with a price and belong to Christ (1 Corinthians 6:19–20), and we are God’s children and heirs with him (Romans 8:16–17). “His desire is toward me” is truer still of Christ. He set his love on us even while we were yet sinners, and that love took him to the cross (Romans 5:8). Our love for him is an answer to his, for we love him because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).

The bride’s call to come away into quiet places also has its echo. Christ says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28–30). He tells us to pray to the Father in secret (Matthew 6:6), and Scripture promises that God draws near to those who draw near to him (James 4:8) and speaks of the soul that longs for him as a hart longs for water (Psalm 42:1). The vineyard reminds us that Christ is the true vine and we are the branches, who bear fruit as we abide in him: “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:1–5). The tender grape and the budding pomegranate can picture the fruit of the Spirit growing in his people (Galatians 5:22–23).

The fruits laid up for the beloved point the same way. Christ has gone to prepare a place for his people and will come again to receive them (John 14:2–3). The LORD prepares a table for his own (Psalm 23:5), welcomes the faithful servant into his joy (Matthew 25:21), and gives the fruit of the tree of life in the new Jerusalem (Revelation 22:2), the holy city that comes down as a bride, where God dwells with his people (Revelation 21:2–3). Some believers hear in “new and old” the old covenant fulfilled and brought to fullness in the new, as Christ came to fulfil the law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17).

These verses give us married love as God made it. A wife who knows she is her husband’s, and knows he desires her, is free to invite him, to plan for him and to give herself to him with joy. The fields, the early morning, the blossoming vines and the stored fruit all belong to the good world God made, and the Song sets the love of husband and wife among them as one more of his gifts.

They also show us who God is. The bride’s confidence rests on her beloved’s desire for her, and the believer’s rests on Christ’s. He set his love on his people first, bought them at a price, and is preparing a place and a feast for them. Because of him the bride’s words belong to every believer: “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me.”