40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Song of Solomon 1:15-2:14 (Episode 434)

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

The beloved responds with few words but they are more than enough for his love. Who needs a house when you have nature? And the beloved is coming to steal her away in the night. Have a listen. Show Notes: ·      HWSS NWA Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Junk Drawer Jesus By Matt Popovits Listen to 1517 Executive Director Scott Keith and Magnus Persson on the latest Re:Formera podcast Signup For Free Advent Church Resources for 2024 Clothed with Christ by Brian William Thomas The Inklings: Apostles and Apologists of the Imagination with Sam Schuldheisz More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

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can give one time gift, whatever you want to do. We very much appreciate it. Keeps everything going. Chad, we are in the Song of Solomon chapter one still. I mean, two episodes in, still in chapter one. Now, we did do a pretty heavy intro, so that's part of it, but we didn't get that far last week either because, you know, the bride wants to know, hey, I understand that I got this tan. The skin is dark. Could you just tell me where your sheep are?

I'm wandering around the pastures here trying to find you. Just let me know where you are. Of course, the groom says, just follow the sheep. You know, just follow the path where the sheep have trodden. That's where I'm going to be found. Apparently, she does find him because, next thing you know, they're real close. I mean, real, real close. On the couch.

On the couch, and everything's smelling great. Mm-hmm. Got all kinds of perfume. Perfume all the way from the Himalayas to local products. So she's smelling good. and he is very close to her because she says, my beloved is to me like a sachet of myrrh

that lies between my breasts. So got these two lovebirds snuggled up on the couch. They're enjoying one another's company, and she has just spoken. She finishes this perfume-laden couple of verses by talking about henna blossoms. my beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of aim getty so uh yeah that and that that concludes that little speech from her and so he's going to pick it up here at verse 15

we're going to have this back and forth he she he she through uh for the rest of the chapter so how's he going to respond to this i mean she has just laid it on pretty thick here we're talking about perfumes and whatnot he's gonna respond like a guy uh which is a guy here which is few words right to the point and concentrating upon he doesn't say you smell great he's like no he says you look great you're looking good you're looking great that's basically what he responds is so as we mentioned i think in the first episode this rings so true to the the approach of love talk and flattery from the two sexes you know the girls they're hitting all the senses the guys like you look great he's concentrated on how how she looks so he says now his it's it's poetic language

he says behold you are beautiful my love and he uses here the uh his favorite nickname for for her right yeah my love she goes calls him dode and he calls her right yeah so you're beautiful my love behold it's gonna say it again you are beautiful and it is going to make a metaphor here your eyes are doves one of the commentaries i looked at here said that uh doves figure prominently on seals and other iconography as a symbol of lovemaking or seduction in fact they're sometimes understood as messengers of of love now that got me to thinking about something i never thought about before what if so this might be a stretch maybe it's not but think of uh think of the baptism of jesus jesus uh is in the water and baptized the father is up in heaven and he says

you are my beloved son in whom i'm well pleased you're the son whom i love and then bam what do you see immediately a dove holy spirit comes down to the form of a dove and lights upon him now i will admit up until i read this comment the other day i had always associated the dove with uh well you know genesis one two spirit of god fluttering or hovering over the face of the waters and of course you have the dove as a symbol of the end of the flood in in the account of genesis six through nine but maybe maybe also there's uh at least a hint of dove being a symbol of love, because the father does say, you're my beloved son, and

then immediately a dove appears and lights upon him. Aren't turtle doves always associated with love? There's always a pair? Isn't that how that works? Yeah, turtle doves are icons of love. In fact, no one ever has a turtle dove.

It's always two. Yeah, right. It always is two. Yeah, they're a picture of romance, of love, and so later in chapter two he yeah it's he talking about her we'll compare her to a turtle dove yeah yeah maybe i don't know maybe that is a kind of hovering in the the background of of matthew chapter three there well i'll tell you what though i mean just to get just to bring

this down to real earthy so now that we've like connected all these really grand things what if you i read this and i i see like typical dude thing where he's like she says all these things And she's just, like, gushing, and everything smells great, and you're warming my heart, and I want to be close to you forever. And he says, I think you're beautiful. Look, I mean, you're beautiful. And then she's maybe looking at him like, that's it? And he's like, I like your eyes. You know, you're just trying to come up with something.

you know this seems like something he's running through options here like see hawks no grows no doves like can you imagine a situation imagine your wife she's like uh she's having all this stuff and you're like yeah you're you're you're beautiful she's like what you're like look i mean just think you're beautiful and she's like what do you like about me and you're like um your eyes like i love your eyes it's great like it's just you just got one thing like yeah your eye i like i just like your eyes you know you got beautiful eyes uh like because guys would just like start naming stuff you know like your eyes uh your teeth i mean your teeth are like sheep basically but just a little mouthful of sheep i love it your neck uh you're just like

and of course you just like naming body parts you know yeah by beautiful let me tell you let me let me tell you like i like every part of your body for guys who've ever spent time like trying to find a valentine's day card or whatever for for their wife almost all of these cards start out with an apology and if you've ever spent any time with it's like i know i don't usually say or express how much i love you but and then it goes on you know with a card put these words in his mouth but it's like the cards themselves acknowledge that guys struggle to come up with some sort of language that easy equal of what a woman can give to uh to her what is funny though is like is her response to this is like you know she agrees

that you know like okay i'm beautiful like also you're beautiful but instead of just being you know like talking about his eyes or like his shoulders or something she just starts talking about like the couch and like the beams of the house and stuff you know she's gonna which is obviously you know poetic and metaphorical language but like yeah he's doesn't have that in his bag really no he doesn't yeah she echoes it right back this is verse 16 she says he says behold you are beautiful and then he repeats it you are beautiful and then she's like yeah well you're beautiful too it's the same word uh i think some translations will render this a bit her saying behold you are handsome but it okay it's the same word she even says that he's delightful

oh yeah delightful yeah yeah beautiful and is her beloved and delightful but she doesn't go on to say you know your biceps are grizzly bears or or something like that she uh she transitions to talking about where their uh where the lovemaking or their time together is is spent and she says our couch is uh i'm a little uncomfortable with couch just because i'm not not that it can't mean that but we just usually associate couches with you know slouching back watching the sofa whatever it's not the sofa our sofa yeah our our sofa you know where you have a cold one at night fall asleep watching the tv so couch here is think think more in terms of bed you know our couch the place where we as lovers spend time let's put it that way is um now green is how the

esv translates it i think probably something better would be like verdant and and i say that because so verdant has a couple of different meanings implications it can mean green like you know verdant pastors green pastors but it has kind of built into that more of the the feel of the natural world so i think verdant's probably better here than the green so our couch is verdant and i'll explain why i'm in she goes on the beams of our house are cedar and our rafters are pine now there seems to be kind of a uh maybe two different things going on here yes maybe she's describing the inside of the room the house where they get together and yeah maybe the the couch the bed is green and the beams of the house are made out of cedar and the rafters are

made out of a pine or or maybe and at the same time she's describing an outdoor scene you know they're out in the woods and they've spread a blanket under a tree and so their house is literally the trees that are above them and i think that the verdant here kind of picks up this idea of uh like a full of life vivacious or just the grass man you're just on the grass you're just It's on the grass. This is like, he's like, hey, no need to wait till we get to the house. Let's just be together right here. And it seems like he's like, out here in the open?

Like, no, no, this is a house. The grass is our bed. Grass is, yeah, grass is green. And the cedars, they're the beams. And the pines, they're the rafters. We're in a house. Yeah, which is proof this was not written in Texas, because if it were, they'd be worried about fire ants.

It's got to be located elsewhere, for sure. You get in the grass here, you're going to be jumping out of that grass real quick. Yeah, I've always kind of read that as, let's make this place our house, for now, anyway. Yeah, that certainly seems to be what's being communicated here. So they're outside, they're enjoying one another's company. there in this intimate communion, not under the stars, but under the leaves of a tree with the grass as their bed or their couch. Now the chapter ends there, unfortunately. It really should not end until chapter two, verse one. But as we've seen multiple times, you know, whoever made these

chapter divisions often erred, got the wrong, got the wrong stopping point in there because she's not she's not done i mean there is a sort of a transition of thought but she's still the one speaking and here's what she says and i think this is this is uh broadly misunderstood so esv has i am a rose of sharon a lily of the valleys did you grow up singing i'm the lily of the valley i know the song morning star yeah he's oh he's he's the lily of the valley the bright morning star he's the fairest of the entitlement to my soul yeah yeah the problem with that is it's not talking about him this isn't the problem with that whole song is i mean i grew up singing that as a as a southern baptist we sang that all the time it's playing in my head right now even as i'm

talking and of course it's about christ i mean in the song that you know he's the lily of the alleys the bright and morning star but this is her talking about herself this isn't the groom talking about himself or this isn't her talking about the guy this is her and and it's not even like she's patting herself on the back saying you know she's this rock star of beauty instead what she what she's talking about here is she's a flower we're not sure about rose uh that's just a that's a guess basically we don't a lot of the the flora and fauna certainly the the flora of ancient israel i mean it's kind of guesswork it could be this it could be that isn't it like a flower bulb and it could be like any flower so yeah i i'm looking here on on logos and so here's

how it defines it as a uh i'm gonna totally butcher this pronunciation so they say meadow saffron or uh asphodel is that the way you say that anyway that's two of the definitions they give they also give a crocus and a rose but the only reference to rose is here in song of solomon chapter two verse one so maybe it's a rose maybe it's a crocus maybe it's something else but when it says sharon uh this even though this is portrayed as a as a proper proper noun like a particular place it's more like the uh the coastal plain which extends like from uh from oh what's that mountain uh come out carmel on down south so if you have the mediterranean and you begin having kind of the foothills of of israel of judea but between there

you have the coastal plain and so what she's saying is i'm a flower rose crocus whatever of this coastal plain and that's all i am i'm just a common flower that grows in the coastal plain i'm just like a lily that's growing in one of the valleys so this is her kind of like when she earlier was using this self-deprecating reference to her sun tanned skin she's saying oh, all I am is just a lowly flower growing in the coastal plains of Israel. I'm just a lily of the valleys. That's all I am. And the reason that's important is because after she explains herself to be this,

then he is going to respond to that with these words. He says, and I'm just adding this, oh, my dear, You are instead, quote, as a lily among brambles. So is my love among the young women. So she says, oh, I'm just I'm just a lily. I'm just a roser crocus that grows in the coastal plain. He's like, oh, no, no, you're far more than that. OK, we'll say you're a lily, but you are a lily among brambles.

And that's the way that you compare to all of the other all the other young women. So they're brambles. You're a lily. It seems like more a diss to everyone else than a compliment to her, right? It really does, yeah. Like, I'm just some ordinary flower. Yeah, well, maybe, but everything around you is terrible. You're like a flower in a thorn bush. You're the biggest, most beautiful fish in this small pond.

yeah yeah it does kind of seem uh you know a little anticlimactic in the uh the compliment phase but this is the guy i guess we need to we need to keep in mind so uh he's complimented her she's described herself he said no well you're actually a lily among brambles and so she's going to respond to him and this is in verse three she goes on and say well if you're going to compare me to a lily among brambles well then here's what you are as an apple tree or an apricot tree this is another one of these guesswork kind of words apple tree apricot tree apple trees were not native to ancient israel so some people guess this was a different kind of tree but we'll just stick with apple as an apple tree among the trees of the forest so is my beloved among the young men

so they're just exchanging compliments he says to her oh dear you're like a you're a lily among the brambles and she says oh well let me tell you what you are you're an apple tree among the trees of the forest so in both cases of course the the message is you are unique you're the best you're the best so much so much better than everything around you yeah i think her compliment is a little better you know yeah lily among brambles or an apple tree among the trees of the forest a little fruit tree that's actually useful that's useful yeah you're walking around there's a pine there's a there's a uh you know there's an oak there's a whatever oh wow look here's an apple tree you can actually you know eat from this you get some fruit from that in fact

she's not done he was pretty brief in his description she's a lily among brambles she goes on after comparing him to an apple tree among the trees of the forest to say uh that it's with great delight that she sits in his shadow and that his fruit is sweet to her to her taste. So she one-ups him, basically. He just basically says, compared to everybody else, you're awesome. She says, compared to everyone else, you're awesome too, and let me tell you why you're awesome. She complained earlier about being in the sun, and it resulted in her not being able to take care of her body which she described as her vineyard you know where her skin is tanned and the girls from the city are making fun of her but now looks she's found a place for some shade

so she's able to sit in his shade and probably metaphorically this also means like you know under his protection which is often a metaphor for protection in the shade or the shadow of something. And not only that, but his fruit was sweet to her taste. You know, some sensual language being used there in reference to her lover. So we have this back and forth exchanging of compliments between these two lovebirds. And as is typical of a lot of the Song of Solomon, having said all this, then it's like we're going to jump to something else. there there's a lot of kind of jumping here and there with with the poetry here you know you would think it would go on to kind of develop the well i don't know maybe the nature imagery or we'll go

on back and forth uh complimenting each other comparing him or her to other people but instead she's gonna shift location completely you know they were under the tree in the grass and now they're going to end up in a, I don't know, like a wine house or something, which is where she goes in verse four. He brought me to the banqueting house, which is literally the Beit Hayayan, which in Hebrew is the house of wine. I don't know if we would call it. I hesitate to translate this as a bar, maybe a wine bar. This is the place where you go to drink wine. Let's put it that way. Whatever that might be in your culture, you're going to go to the wine house, the banqueting house. A banqueting house, I mean, sounds great, not quite literal, but they would, yeah, they would banquet there.

They would enjoy uncorking some bottles and having a little wine while they're there. So he brought me there. And this fits with the image of wine that we've seen earlier. You know, his love is intoxicating to her. And then she goes on. Well, then she finishes that sentence with one of the better-known lines from Song of Solomon. I think at least this is one of the ones I've heard the most. Yep, yep.

His banner over me was love. Yeah, isn't there like a famous song or hymn that's based on that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it is one of the more famous images, either just because it's preached a lot or because it's made into poetry or hymns or songs. Yeah, it's kind of an adaptation of almost a military image, right? Like you have this warrior who has his banner, and he's waving it over her like kind of a triumphant figure who's protecting her. so it's yeah it's a pretty it's a pretty cool image especially when you kind of step away from

the more literal love song man and woman solomon and and his lover to the bigger salvation story when you think about christ waving the banner over his bride of love that's a pretty awesome image yeah yeah you picture uh christ the victorious warrior over death and he's uh he's got his love his bride beside him and he's got this banner unfurled over her uh waving this this victory victory flag and i mean if i want to take this in even even a step further you know he's brought his bride that he's waving this banner over to the the house of wine i mean somebody could take this and make it into a beautiful lord's upper him yeah yeah there you go well i mean it's a good thing that he's into this

because she's sick, man. She's ill, and she's going to need to be taken care of because, man, she's really sick. She's sick with love. Yeah. She goes on. Who's going to take care of me? So sad. Yeah, she needs some apples and raisin cakes is what she

needs. Sustain me with raisins. Refresh me with apples, for I am sick with love. Now, this is one of these cases where I'm sure we have some folks out there that uh read in the in the king james and maybe they're even like you know really really attached to the king james version which is fine but this is what these cases

were language changes so kjv has for i am sick of love now that maybe you know when the king james was translated that meant lovesick if i say to someone today or if i overhear into this conversation, two people talking, and one of them says, no, I'm just sick of love. That doesn't, that's not good. No. I mean, I'm tired of these bad relationships that I've been in, and I'm just sick of it all.

I'm done. But this is, it's a picture of like, I'm lovesick, or Robert Alters translates it, I am in a swoon of love. How's that for some romantic imagery? Yeah, the... She needs him, right? love is with right i mean so you know i mean yeah it's yeah this sound that just sounds like old

kind of king's englishy kind of thing like uh and the whole family you know was sick of the pox or whatever you know like it ever is yeah and uh and it's this is like a whiff that kind of thing so i'm sick with love right yeah and anyone who uh who's been in love you know kind of knows knows what this is like especially when you're younger you know when you're lovesick man it's like yeah you got to be with the one that you that you love yeah and she and she loves it so i mean like she's all about it and so much so that she wants to it seems here like in this next section that she's trying to advise people like hey don't try to manufacture this you got to wait until the real thing comes when the when the real when you actually get you know if you catch some love

you know if you actually get sick with the love man that's what you want you don't want you don't want it to you don't want to try to force its hand too soon yeah yeah that seems to be uh what is being communicated by this at least initially odd kind of kind of verse here so first of all in verse six she says his left hand under my head is under my head his right hand embraces me so he's holding her up she's sick with love she needs some raisin cake she needs some apples to sustain her. Now, whether that's meant literally, or if these are like, again, metaphors for some kind of sensual touch, it's hard to guess. But either way, he's holding her. He's holding her up. He's embracing her. She needs something to give

her strength. And then she pauses to direct her attention away from him to talk about the daughters of jerusalem she says i adjure you oh daughters of jerusalem she's talked about them before by the gazelles or the does of the field that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases so it's kind of semi-formal legal kind of language you know you'll often have in the scriptures god or his prophet calling upon the heavens and the earth to serve as witnesses and here you have instead of heaven and earth or somebody else you have gazelles and does of the field which uh based upon the reading that i've done were often associated with romance in the ancient world and i was trying really hard to come up with some modern equivalents and the only thing

that i could come up with were like uh lovebirds something like that you know we i don't i don't Correct me if I'm wrong. We don't really associate many animals with images of romance or love, do we? Besides doves? Lovebirds? Not that I can think of. Yeah, I don't think so. I mean, we use...

I mean, I don't know that people speak this way much anymore. But, you know, there was a time when you could describe a beautiful woman as a fox. But I don't really think we use that much anymore. Yeah, no, there's not... I don't think there's an animal... I mean, if I was going to say, if I had to choose an animal that was, I'm trying to think of like if you had a, yeah, if you had like a Valentine's card, like, all right, what animal would you, like, a dove is the only thing. I mean, like maybe a teddy bear. Yeah, maybe a teddy bear.

There you go. But I don't think a bear itself, I don't think a bear itself is associated with love. No. But here, in their culture, it was these gazelles and these does of the field. So she calls upon them. She is speaking to the daughters of Jerusalem, and she's using as witnesses gazelles and does of the field, that they basically don't rush things, don't interfere,

let love just kind of do what love does. That's kind of the way I take don't stir up or awaken love until it pleases. but it almost seems like something you can't you can't manufacture or force right so she's saying like i don't know maybe someone would i mean they did just like rejoice and say man look at this love this love is pretty spectacular maybe i should go get some of that for myself i'll go find someone to love like that and she's kind of like yeah it doesn't really work like that like you can't you can't make it happen you know you can't stir up or awaken it just when you feel like Like, oh, it kind of just has to happen.

Yeah, yeah. And it's only time. Yeah, and we'll see this same kind of language occur a couple of other times in the course of the book as well. So that brings us to the close of that little section. And this dude's still not going to speak. I mean, she's still got so much to say. Oh, I tell you, she dominates. Her speeches, her compliments, her praises dominate the poem.

That's one of the things that's really striking about this is how central she is to the entire movie. I mean, he called her beautiful, and she just went off. That's all it took. So that was it. As soon as he said, your eyes are like doves, bam, yeah, she's got a lot to say. So now we're going to shift to what seemed to be the images like she's at home. We've gone all over the place here,

but she's been out looking for him in the sheep. They had a little, you know, love blanket thrown under the trees and the green grass. And then they were at the wine house. And now in verse 8 and following, she's at home. And it's a little bit unclear as to whether it's like evening or morning. But either way, she's at home and he's been away. And she sees him coming or hears him coming. Sees and hears him coming.

So here's what happens. Verse 8. the voice of my beloved or as uh one translation puts it uh hark oh my lover is coming uh i i hear him and he he behold he comes leaping over the mountains bounding over the hills you can kind of see a guy you know this is a hyperbolic language for he is he is on his way to her house and he cannot get there fast enough you know pedal to the metal he's going thousand miles an hour leaping over the mountains bounding over the hills why does he do this well she says my beloved he's like a gazelle or a young stag he can get there quick he can run fast jumping over

mountains bounding over hills he's almost like a superman kind of kind of figure here so she hears him she sees him he's on his way he can't get there fast enough either for himself or or for her so here he comes and uh he pauses he doesn't just like run through the front door and sweep her up in his arms and tell her once more how her eyes are like doves he like pauses this is the midpoint of verse nine where you have another behold so behold he comes verse eight and now behold he stands there he stands where's he standing he's behind our wall don't picture like the like some sort of walled house like you have like a fence or something like that this is like the the wall of the house itself so he's behind the wall of the house and he's like looking through

the windows he's he's gazing through the windows looking through the lattice in both those words in hebrew are plural like lattices and windows so you almost get the image where he rushed to the house he's this stag bounding over the hills but when he gets there he's like moving all around the house he's like looking in this window and he's looking in that window he's peering through what we today would more than likely call the screen you know he's looking at the window he's peering through the screen and he's looking for her right where's she at yeah i mean if it was anyone else you'd be like this is very creepy behavior yeah anybody else would be calling the cops or you know pumping your 12 gauge or something but it seems like the idea here is like you know like there's

some uh you know there's a funny thing right that uh i used to tell my wife that my wife used to was a he was a barista at a really popular coffee shop here um when she was younger and uh when we first got married and stuff and and there was all these other people that were her age that worked there and you know they're all in their 20s at that time and i always found it interesting that they you know they had like some regular customers that like all the people that all the girls that worked there thought were like super cute and then they had like the customers that they thought were like super creepy but here's the thing is that like the super creepy guys and this and the super cute guys in their mind do the same things it's just that whether or not they

wanted them to do those things or not so they'd say the same kind of things like you know yeah so like uh if it's like you know the guy that compliments yeah the guy that the guy that everyone in the the coffee shop thinks is like oh my gosh he's so cute if he comes in and says how you doing today did you do something with your hair like they're like oh my gosh did you like he noticed and then but if another guy does that they're like what a creep and uh in this instance it's like there's like a real stealing someone away like the imagery here is like he's gonna rush up and then he's gonna be like sneaky and we're gonna like sneak off like he's gonna steal me away and no one's gonna know and by the way this is the same kind of thing super romantic

if that's what you want super not romantic if that's not what you want yeah it's the difference between your you know your lover peering through the window winking at you and some weirdo who's yeah same action very different desire and results yeah so that's that's how this reads like like he's gonna he's gonna run like crazy he's gonna be jumping over the mountains and stuff and once he gets here like he's gonna be very subtle and then like and then he's gonna like and then i'm gonna i'm gonna meet him in the designated spot and we're gonna run away together and you're like oh it's so romantic okay it's also like a little kidnappy but you know yeah that's the way this goes yeah so uh and he's gonna talk so he's he's arrived uh caught his breath now from you know

jumping over mountains and she says my beloved speaks to me here's what he says he says get up arise my love my beautiful one and come away so he's i i guess he's like whispering through the window this is kind of the image i have here sneaking out you know get up get up beautiful hey come on let's go why well he must have been away for a while because he goes on to say and this is her quoting him look the winter is is done winter's past the rain is over and gone so in israel the rainy season is the winter so winter rain at same same time so in other words where are we we're in the spring of course spring is for lovers right this is the springtime this when everything's coming alive including uh including love is flowering is is budding in

the field so winter's over the the rainy season is is gone and there's flowers verse 12 flowers are appearing on the earth the time of singing has come the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land so uh in her quotations of his words he's getting a little bit he's gonna he's coming out of shell a little bit more he's got he's got some more to say he doesn't just come up there and say hey gorgeous let's go that's probably what he would say if she wasn't like if she wasn't like sort of putting these words in his mouth that's like he probably showed up and said hey are you ready let's do this and then she was like looking in her mind she's like she recounted to her for her friends so like this is how this plays out in my mind though he's doing all this probably so

he's not even done yet he's not only do we have you know singing happening and flowering everywhere and turtle doves singing but the the fig tree ripens its figs so this is still you know early summer springtime vines are in blossom they give forth their fragrance and then he says arise my love my beautiful one and come away uh so again this idea of get up let's go uh everything very of course very uh language imagery very centered on nature nature coming alive after this long dead period of spring it's our moment i mean like the time the time has come the whole the whole earth is bidding us to let's do this thing yeah it's kind of a i don't know this uh again to kind of step back from the the more literal meaning of it it's it's kind of got the feel of of like

new creation resurrection right you know the the time of winter the time of death is over and look everything is alive and and i'm here and everything is alive and i'm here because you know i was gone and i'm back i'm alive come with me so it's this union of of christ and his church uh wanting to bring her away so they can be together and enjoy the love that they they share with each other and i think we can do one more verse here he says oh my love oh my dove excuse me oh my dove in the clefts of the rock in the crannies of the cliff let me see your face let me hear your voice for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely and i think what's going on here is like the doves they're up in the clefts of the rock and the crannies of the cliff and this

is where they're they're hiding as it were and he is basically comparing her to them saying let me don't be don't be hiding away you know lift up lift up your face i want to see your face talk to me i want to hear your i want to hear your voice because your voice is sweet and your face is lovely. So he's wanting to see her, to hear her, to be with her, and to take her away. Now, we're going to get in verse 15 to the foxes, or the jackals, as it sometimes is translated, but we'll save that for next time. Right now, I mean, we're just kind of in this moment where the two lovers are together, and he's wanting to take her away so they can spend some time celebrating life and love together. Yeah, man. The thing about this Song of Solomon is that, on one hand,

If you were to take these words that she sort of says and think, man, it'd be weird to think about God talking about us like this. But then you think about, I don't know, this is a picture of someone going to great lengths, bounding over mountains and running as fast as he can to go kind of steal away his bride. And this, of course, is what Jesus does. He comes and he goes to great lengths and descends from on high

to come and be a thief in the night, man. There's just some real thief in the night kind of imagery here. And what he plans on stealing is his church. And that part is pretty cool. Great stuff. Yeah. All right.

Well, we'll continue next week, man. I'll see you then. All right. See you then.