40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Song of Solomon 2:15-3:5 (Episode 435)

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

You are your beloved's and your beloved is yours. The bride is searching for her groom. And the church is the place you were born. 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  

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast to check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. while you're over there. Make sure you check out everything else that 1517 is doing. By the time this releases, you know what you'll be able to do? You'll be able to sign up for the Here We Still Stand regional event in Northwest Arkansas. Yeah, that's right. The registration is open for that event, so you want to, you know, you want to get out there and check that out. Go over to the website, go to events, and you will see that event. Chad's going to be there. I'm going to be there. A whole

bunch of other people are going to be there. We're going to be talking about the Psalms of David, prayers of a shepherd king, sinner, saint. It's going to be a good time. Come check it out. Chad, we are in Song of Solomon. We're still in this second chapter, but boy, we're getting out of this second chapter today, to be sure, unless something very crazy happens, and we see something that needs a lot of explanation in these last three verses. We're at verse 15. The bride has been just gushing. That's what's been going on.

That's where he left off. I mean, it's one of those things where he says, like, seven words, and then the floodgates open. I mean, she just can't stop talking about it. I mean, I don't know what the sound of this guy's voice is like, but he hits her with these seven words, And she has just been going on and on and on about how great he is. Yeah, it's been quite the outpouring of descriptions and emotions.

I mean, we got some pretty fervent love that's happening here. And yeah, toward the end of this chapter, we have a little bit of a, at least on the surface, kind of a strange introduction here of problems, right? So let me back up to verse 14. 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 all right so you know this is her speaking for him talking about how beautiful her face is but then we transition

here in verse 15 to some fox catching which seems an abrupt kind of transition so i'll read 15 and 16 and 17 and that will wrap up chapter two catch the foxes for us the little foxes that spoil the vineyards for our vineyards are in blossom my beloved is mine and i am his he grazes among the lilies until the day breathes and the shadows flee turn my beloved be like a gazelle or a young stag on the cleft mountains so i uh i did some looking because i was not familiar with this at all this image of foxes or this also can be translated as uh not foxes but jackals this is a thing i thought about this this morning when i when i was thinking about this text and realized that i don't i'm not sure i know what a jackal is like i like when now that i know what the word is

and there is something that pops into my head when i hear the word jackal but i have no reason to think that that image is correct uh i was like i in my like when i hear jackal the first thing that pops into my head is a hyena and i don't know if that's right no no not hyenas so uh jackals i'm uh actually looking at this even as we are recording because i hadn't really thought about it before so uh yeah they're uh they're canines native to africa and eurasia so they've been you know historically used for a lot of different kinds of uh these uh these canines but yeah they're you know small to medium-sized animals scavengers uh so i guess they're they're similar to foxes and as far as far as like their size go but they're they're not the same thing

okay all right for some reason i had like the lion king popping in my head like that I hear jackals, and I think about the three dumb hyenas from The Lion King. It's kind of scavengery, you know, that kind of thing, but maybe just a little smaller. Yeah, so I think probably maybe around the size of a fox. But anyway, whether it's jackals or foxes, these little hoodlums are causing some problems. They're spoiling the vineyard.

And evidently, I mean, I've never worked in a vineyard, never owned a vineyard, so all of this is secondhand research but evidently these foxes or jackals actually will they'll you know dig around uh the vines and cause problems in in vineyards all right so just like you know anywhere in the south we have to worry about wild hogs even my neighborhood here in texas uh we have wild hogs so like if you see one you just kill it no questions asked because they're such such a menace evidently these jackals foxes would do that all right well if that's the if that's literally what happens how is it being used here and there's a couple of different possibilities

that i've read one is that evidently in in some non-israelite love poetry such as we have in in egypt then foxes are a representative of sexually aggressive men okay kind of like maybe wolf would be used in you know our english idioms so that's that is the actual explanation but put forward by quite a few commentaries so she's basically saying hey watch out for all of these guys that might want to get their hands on me protect me from them and it i mean if that's what it means it does make sense because she talked about how they spoil the vineyards and we've already come across where she uses vineyard as a metaphor

for her body. So it's like, hey, there's a lot of guys looking at me the way the guys look at me. These jackals, these foxes. So we need to do something. And she uses the image here of trapping or catching them. So that's one possibility.

I think a lot of the historical commentaries which tend to allegorize the text will treat foxes or jackals as sort of a symbol for anything that might disturb the relationship between christ and his church right i think a lot of times it's applied to like false teachers or heresies or i think we could probably generalize it to say listen there's some things that could cause problems to this

wonderful romance and love that we have and so let's get rid of those or protect ourselves from those as as much as possible because our love our love is in blossom so let's not make Let's make sure nothing spoils what we have. Yeah, you've sort of got this imagery of like there's an enemy, there's a foe out there that would like to pollute what we have going on. Yeah, and I mean, that fits perfectly with kind of the flow and the image that's there. And then we have this beautiful statement coming next in verse 16.

My beloved is mine, and I am his. I mean, you could just stop there and you could probably write a pretty good sermon just based on that. Yeah. My beloved is mine and I, and I, and I'm his and probably have quite a few sermons that have been based on that, especially, you know, if you're in some sort of wedding context, you're talking about marriage in general, where what I have is my wife's and what she has is mine. I remember years ago, there's a pretty well-known book by St. John Chrysostom. I think it's called on marriage. What is it? It's on marriage and something else. But I read it two or three times years and years ago. And he's got this one line in there where he talks about how when you get

married, it's no longer mine and yours. It's only ours. That line always stuck with me. I mean, of course, it's thoroughly biblical. The two shall become one flesh. And that seems to be what is communicated here i've got a uh i got a friend uh pastor friend named landon ledlow and he texted this to me uh a while back it's a quote from luther that fits with in fact he quotes this line so it's a very short quote i'll just i'm not sure where it came from but it's a luther quote so and she that is christ bride his church she has that righteousness in christ her husband of which she may boast as her own and which she can confidently display alongside her sins in the face of death and hell and say if i have sinned yet my christ in whom i believe has not sinned

and all his is mine and all mine is his as the bride in the song of solomon says my beloved is mine and i am his yeah that's great uh yeah pretty pretty great quote there so my uh my beloved uh his righteousness belongs to me so i've got yeah i got plenty of sin but his righteousness is mine just like he took my sins he who knew no sin took my sin so that i might have his righteousness in that that great exchange yeah this is everyone that's married kind of knows how this works I have an example of this just this morning where another family called me, and they wanted to know this question, and they just asked it just like this. I didn't have to ask any questions about what they were talking about.

They said, are you guys tailgating for the homecoming game? Now, the way this works at the school that my daughter goes to is actually the only school in the state that does this. during for homecoming they get the whole day off school and they clear out the all the school parking lots and you get to bring out grills and like all this stuff and like every all the families like tailgate like the whole like the whole day and they bring out tvs and stuff yeah it's a good time so you have to reserve a spot though and your spot in the parking lot so when this person asked like are you guys they didn't mean my daughter she'll be there of course like she has she usually goes to school like there so she has she gets out of class but she can't not be there

but they meant when they said you guys it's me and my wife and i didn't have to ask like why are you asking about us why are you referring why are you referring to me in the in the like as if i'm more than one person uh what do you mean by us i don't know what this other person's doing yeah you can ask me what i'm doing no i didn't have to ask that at all i knew immediately she meant, are you and Jess going to do this? Are you guys going to do this, right? Because we're one thing, right? There is no, like, me and her, there's just us. Yeah, and man, when you take that example, or examples like that from our marriages, and you apply it to the marriage of Christ and His bride, that's some beautiful stuff. I mean, that's comfort. So whatever belongs to

christ by definition also belongs to his bride righteousness yep holiness yep all the gifts of heaven belong to to her and so i mean you think of of course as the church then also as queen she is uh she's reigning there with with christ so my beloved is mine and i am his and then it goes on to uh use more nature imagery i talked about he grazes among the the lilies and uh yeah i don't know for sure if this is the way to go with this but earlier uh lilies are connected with a woman's lips so some people say when he grazes among the lilies this is him enjoying her kisses so you know a distinct possibility of the kind of the the symbolism that's being used there that's where he likes to hang out that's where he likes to hang out yeah

and then it wraps up of course grazing uh for people that you know i don't know if you don't know this so if if if a farmer says i put the cows out to graze he is talking about them going around and using their mouths like they're going around and eating and stuff so uh if you're grazing among the lilies, and the lilies are this other person's lips. That makes sense. That's what's going down. He's going to enjoy

her kisses, or as Solomon would say, going to graze among the lilies. There you go. That's a good one. You're talking about confuse your wife. I was thinking about grazing among the lilies today.

What do you say? she will have no idea what you're talking about yeah not the kind of bedroom talk that's going to really connect to these days right and uh she wants to wants this to happen you know for a while and that's what verse 17 says until the day breathes and the shadows flee turn my beloved be like a gazelle or a young stag on the cleft mountains so uh you know this this this occurs a couple of other times, or maybe one other time at least, in the Song of Solomon. Chapter 4, verse 6, uses the same imagery. And if I remember, it's been a couple weeks since I looked at this verse, but I believe it's kind of uncertain. Does this mean like all day? So is the day going to

breathe and the shadows flee at morning, or is this evening? But either way, I mean, you get the idea. Let's keep doing this for a while. And then at the end here, it's, turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle or a young stag on the cleft mountains. So here is more animal imagery applied to the lover. And that wraps up chapter two.

Hey, we did it. We're going to have a bit of a transition though. This is definitely the place. They did not mess up when they put the chapter divisions here because we're going to switch here to the next few verses which are

a bit odd. But it's, I don't know, for me anyway, it's difficult to know exactly which direction to take these. So do notice right away that chapter 2 ends with this language of the day. Until the day breathes and the shadows flee. And then we transition to chapter 3, verse 1 to night. So we're going to deal with something while she's on her bed. And this is happening at night. And what's going to go down in these next few verses, verses 1 through 5, is kind of the basic theme, and you'll see this when I read through it, is seeking and finding or seeking and not finding.

And this becomes a relatively common theme. You see this in the scriptures like a search through the city. so if you turn to ezekiel for instance it's a very negative context in in ezekiel but it's the idea of the messengers from god are searching the city they're looking through the city for people not engaged in idolatry and this theme you'll find in other literature as well but you know looking for and and maybe finding or or not finding so that's what's going down and she's going to be doing this now is the question is is this literal is this uh a dream is this just kind of extended metaphor you know a bunch of symbolism here what's going on so we'll we'll

see i'm gonna let me go ahead and read through these five verses on my bed so this is the the woman speaking on my bed by night i sought him whom my soul loves i sought him but found him not i will rise now and go about the city in the streets and in the squares i will seek him whom my soul loves i sought him but found him not the watchman found me as they went about in the city. Have you seen him whom my soul loves? Scarcely had I passed him when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him and would not let him go until I had brought him into my mother's house and into the chamber of her who conceived me. I adjure your daughters of Jerusalem by the gazelles with the does of the field that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases

all right so uh what we what we want to do with this if if this is literal as uh uh christopher mitchell he's got this massive like thousand page concordia commentary on the song of songs he uh was checking out his his take on this this morning he believes that this is like something that really happened. So this is something that she actually did. Others believe, I can't think of the commentator's name, maybe Garrett, he takes this as just kind of full of all sorts of symbolism

to where like the watchmen are symbols of the protectors of her virginity and a bunch of other stuff going on there too. Some people think this as a dream. And I honestly have not landed for sure on any of these. I mean, it kind of does have a dream quality to it, that this is something that she's just kind of is happening in her mind. On the other hand, I mean, there is kind of a,

there's somewhat of a literal feel to it. Maybe in the end, it's just a descriptive way, whether it literally happened or not, descriptive way of talking about this courtship this longing that she has to be with her lover and what she experiences the frustration and then the delight that she finally experiences when she when she finds him i don't know that's kind of my my beginning thoughts at least on these these verses so i think if you decide like okay i'm gonna try to figure out this is a dream or if This is like an actual story.

You might miss what may be going on here. So this is the bride. So this is the church. I have difficulties finding the groom here. I have difficulties seeking Jesus, but I can't find him. I don't know where he's at. So I'm going to get up and go seeking him out. And then you have this, the watchman found me as I went about the cities.

and uh and then you know they said she says hey have you seen him who my soul love and then after you encounter the watchman you find this is where you this is when you find him now uh depending on like what you think a watchman is uh but you know this isn't the only time that that watchman appear in the bible you have um sometimes in prophetic literature they set up a watchman this kind of thing. Ezekiel's called a... Yeah, Ezekiel for sure is called a watchman. Yeah, so this would be... Prophets are referred to that way, or someone

that then would be a herald, right, in that way, that they would be able to tell what? To tell everybody else what's coming, that's what you're doing. That's the job of a watchman. Yeah. And so, I don't know, Chad,

the first thing I think about when I read this is that the Church needs proclamation. The church needs a herald, and so you might be, like, seeking and trying to find that person that you love, and what you need to do first is encounter somebody who's going to tell you. So this—you might need a preacher. You might need a watchman to tell you, oh, let me tell you where he is. And that's when you're going to find him. He's not—you're not just going to—you can seek and seek.

And this is just true. that you can—nothing wrong with this—you can seek after God and seek after God and seek after God, but you won't find Him until you find a preacher. Yeah. Yeah, and I do like that. And by the way, this isn't a one-time thing, by the way, either. That's why I would say this, too, is that you're like, well, they already have their relationship. She's already found Him. I'm like, yeah, I know, but I still have to go find a preacher so I can find Him again, and so does chad so does everybody else so do we all yeah even preachers need preachers for sure yeah i think that especially if you view the this chapter well the whole book in the in the broad canonical context

it fits it fits with that uh in in lots of ways and all the ways that you just described the uh i think the when we get to chapter five it's going to be interesting because we have a similar scenario where in this case he knocks on her door and she at first is hesitant to get up because she's already in bed and then when she finally decides oh i'm gonna get up open the door he's gone and she goes out to look for him in the city it's another image of you know seeking looking and there the watchman find her and beat her up they they beat me they bruise me they took away my veil those watchmen of the walls that's in chapter five verse verse seven uh and i and i and you know to be completely honest i have not uh uh spent enough time on those verses to have a

good grasp of the full import of those but this is a a two-fold occurrence this this theme of looking and searching and the watchman and well you know finding him or not finding him so i mean i'd have to jump ahead and look at that but you do know chad that the watchman does have two words and one of those words will in fact beat you up and one of those words will beat you up for sure yeah and that might be exactly what's going on there here they don't in a sense you get the impression look like i think you said or at least hinted at that they help her yeah right because it's like right after they find her in fact that's that's that's an obvious implication of this that i found him not i found him not and then they found me the watchman so it's like almost

like they're looking for her while she's looking for him and there the implication would be that after this or as a result of this after she says if you've seen him who my soul loves then barely does she get away from them and then she finds him so they come across there as very much not just kind of watchmen but helpers preachers those who point point her toward him and we'll get to we'll get to chapter five eventually but anyway just kind of keep those two chapters in mind uh uh listener the listeners out there when you're when you're working your way through this because there's a certain certain parallel between these yeah the other thing i do the other thing about this that's uh you know hey we're getting a little scandalous here but like

You found them, and then you take them to your parents' house. I mean, I'm going to take them to the chamber of the one who conceived. This, by the way, parents don't like this. I'm just telling you. This is not something you're wanting to happen. If you're a mother. Tell you what, I don't think mom's home. We could go over here.

This is how you know. this is some young love that uh that they're talking about here this is a this is like a real real young love move yeah it's it's it's pretty unusual to because you you typically think about you know man shall leave his father mother cleave to his wife but you also think about a wife being at least certainly in this ancient context leaving her parents home and then going to the home of her of her groom of her husband she becomes part of part of that family so you would think it would be him saying hey i'm going to bring you into my my mother's house or my parents home but it's not she's bringing him into her her mother's home and later in the book

we're going to have this same language about them getting together in the place where he was conceived she kind of got both of these happening there's this element there's almost an idea of kind of a a full circle so she wants to bring him into the chamber of her who conceived her so into her mother's chamber and then later on they're getting together in the place where his mother conceived him so it's this idea that kind of a completeness you know there's a longing for continuing this kind of union that produced her and now is presumably going to produce other children as they they get together in this chamber or in this in this bedroom but she does find him and i mean that is if you think if you take these verses and you think about him historically too

uh some commentators have talked about how this is a picture of the the waiting for christ and you're looking and you're waiting and if you apply this to israel she's looking she's waiting she doesn't find him she doesn't find him and if you want to take the watchman as in reference to preachers or prophets then yeah and all of a sudden they point her toward the one who finally is going to be the one that she loves and she finds him and then you have this this coming this coming together so it's probably i'm taking this anyway as as a picture a poetic picture of the courtship, the waiting, and finally the two of them coming together. Also, I don't want to over-allegorize here,

but if you're a member of the Bride of Christ, which if you're a Christian you are, and the preacher then directs you to Christ, and then you say, okay, I'm going to cling to him, right? So I'm going to hold him, and I'm going to not let him go. And where am I going to bring him? I'm going to bring him to my mother's house, to the chamber of her who conceived me. Now, the church is always talked about in feminine language,

and the church is not father church. That's not how it's ever spoken of. It's mother church, historically speaking. And the reason that historically speaking it's that way is because the church is always spoken of in a feminine voice. And so for Chad and Yai and you, listener, spiritually speaking, who is your mother? The church is your mother, and that is where you were conceived.

So you were born the second time. You were twice born in the church, probably in the waters of baptism right this is what i would say so i have a daughter i have two daughters but say my newest one because this is more recent uh she was born but then we went where we went to the church so she was born of her mother but then we went to mother church and then she was born again in the waters of baptism and this is like where you could say that she was spiritually conceived right this is this is what it is and so is there something here where hey i'm looking all over for him, the preacher says, right there, and I'm going to cling to him,

and I'm going to cling to him in this place. I'm going to bring him—this is where I know I can have him, right? Is in the home of my mother, in the place where I was conceived. This is where I know I can cling to him. Maybe so. That's kind of how I—is that what's going on here? I'm not sure, but I like it. Yeah. And it, well, it, it fits with the biblical imagery. So I'm looking at, uh, Galatians chapter four, verse 26. And this is then that well-known allegory that Paul has between, you know, Hagar and, and then, uh, you know, Ishmael and Isaac and all of this Abrahamic narrative. And that's where he says that, uh, the Jerusalem above is free and she is our mother so i mean there's explicit language with regard to jerusalem being this image of the

dwelling place of god and giving us birth i mean our word metropolis comes from i mean just mother cities this place where you were born this is a place that birthed you it's where you were raised and for the christian that's zion jerusalem the church and therefore that's a place as you say where we have the second birth. So it fits with the image of the bride coming together with the groom, and they're in the mother's house, and what happens in the mother's house?

Well, children are conceived, and children are born, and this happens in the womb with the baptismal font. So, yeah, it fits with all of the other biblical images that you have. Yeah, and if you want to take this further, like you were saying, you might end up in his father's house, which is also a very biblical thing.

So if I'm going to—if I'm taking Jesus to my mother's house, I'm taking him to the church. Or if I'm finding him or clinging to him, it's going to be in the house of my mother, the place where I was born, the church. What he promises to do is not take me to his mother's house, but to take me to his father's house, right? Like, in my father's house, there are many rooms, man. One of them is yours, right? So this is the father-mother sort of way things work in Scripture. And so it won't be strange either, and he might say mother's house, but to go to the house that the groom has promised you

is also a very biblical thing. Yeah, yeah. I could be, I don't, I've not looked this up, but while we were talking, another verse that came to my mind is it seems like in genesis when when abraham's servant gets back with rebecca that isaac takes rebecca into his mother's tent and there they become they become one they're actually married through uh through their sexual union so i mean that's just another kind of background to this idea of the marital union taking place in the context of the mother's house where then you

you have a husband and a wife, and then, if God so wills, you have children after that. Hey, either way, whatever's going on here, she's telling the daughters of Jerusalem again that you want to wait for the real thing, right? So I'm telling you this right now. When this happens to you, it's going to be all you care about. Don't stir up or awaken love until it pleases. Yeah, this is going to take you over. and so uh don't don't go in willy-nilly yeah so you have been adjured by the gazelles and the

does of the field uh which is we talked about an episode or two ago were emblems of romance and love so you're you're getting adjured by them not to hasten love not to enter into it uh you know willy-nilly but to wait and let things run their course the way that they should yeah so if we if we take these verses as sort of a courtship, the coming together, then in the flow of the Song of Songs, what comes next makes perfect sense. It comes right from this, because even though it seems like it's a bit of a difficult transition, I don't think it really is, if we understand one through five as courtship, because six and following is going to be this clear picture of of a wedding in fact we even have that that language used down in verse 11 where it talks

about the day of solomon's wedding so this is good there's some there's some uh solomon clear solomon language it's used here and there is a lot of kind of exodus background to some of the various metaphors that are used as well when you when you read this chad like is it hard for you not to like this seems like okay so if i it's like okay i found i found my beloved here i got him in i got him in my mother's house so i got him got him in the church and uh and now you're jumping to this thing where he's showing up uh obviously this is what this is what this is about like he is he's arriving even though we just said we have him and and there is a uh this is this is how it works uh so like i have christ but i don't have him right so i'm his he's mine i have him i have

him in the church uh i know where to find him uh and then you have this and this is so to me this is this reads very much like you have the second coming like the actual arrival of christ and so that all goes down and now and and what immediately you know what immediately follows the second coming of christ well the you know like the wedding feast stuff so like what's why would you have a wedding feast because you're going to have a wedding and so this like what is this coming up from the wilderness like a column of smoke and this kind of stuff like uh after the after the the judgment then you have that you're going to have the real thing here uh so you have christ but you're but you're going to have have christ in the flesh yeah i think so

there's a lot to talk about with these verses i think we could either way is going to fit i mean either way if you think about this as like revelation 21 the marriage supper of the lamb the coming together of the bride adorned for her husband and the groom and you have this magnificent coming together i mean that is obviously kind of part of the background here i think you could apply these same verses to to the the incarnation and the ministry of christ Because then you have, maybe not in as fantastic and vivid a way as you will after His second coming, but nonetheless you have these nuptials between Christ and His bride, even then. so there's there's a bit of a there's a bit of a debate uh and you can see this reflected in some of the translations as to how we should translate verse six and the implications of that so let me

read you i'm just going to read you verse six and kind of describe what's going on here so this is from the esv esv begins this way in fact it even even has the description solomon arrives for the wedding that's not in the text that's just the header they've given to this section and they translate it what is that coming up from the wilderness like columns of smoke and then they kind of go on from there to talk about the myrrh and frankincense and then verse seven says behold it is the litter of solomon that is this you know royal couch is being carried along it's the royal couch being carried along the royal couch of solomon okay so esv obviously translate this as uh with with a watt referring to this litter or this this couch right and the reason they would

do that is because in hebrew uh the watt which could also translate it as who we'll get to that in a second is is feminine and if it's feminine therefore it must refer to something else that is feminine and the word that is translated here as litter could also be translated as couch or you know this this royal couch is being carried along is also feminine gender all right that's one way you can translate this so what what's coming up it's the couch of solomon that's what's coming up the other way that you can translate this and this is actually more in keeping with the the typical way that this hebrew particle is used in hebrew it's me and that me in hebrew usually means who so some translations will render as who is this not what is this but

who is this coming up from the wilderness like columns of smoke perfume with myrrh and frankincense and all of this and if you take it that way that feminine particle then could be used to describe actually the bride who's coming up and she is the one who's seated upon this royal couch that Solomon has made for her. And then as it goes on to say, she's surrounded by all of these, these warriors. And then verse nine is going to pick up with Solomon having his own carriage or, uh, you know, some, something that he's carried upon and the two of them are kind of coming to meet one another. So there's one or two things going on here. Either the whole thing, six and following, is about Solomon arriving, and he's sitting upon the litter of Solomon, or she is

arriving, and she is seated upon this royal couch, surrounded by all these warriors, coming up from the wilderness. And who's going out to meet her? Solomon, King Solomon, who has his own carriage, his own royal couch and he is coming to meet her and kind of the two of them are coming together so that's the two possibilities either the first part's talking about the bride the second part's talking about the groom or the entire thing is talking about the groom and you can make an argument grammatically for either one of these and you can see this reflected in various translations as well i am leaning toward seeing the first part five through six through seven as describing the bride she's coming up from the wilderness and part of the reason i believe that is because

where she's coming from she's coming up from the wilderness and she's surrounded by these pillars or columns of smoke she's perfumed by myrrh and frankincense got all of these fragrant powders she's on this royal couch and because it's a royal couch of solomon but that doesn't necessarily mean that solomon's one sitting on it could you know made by him and then surrounded this couch is surrounded by 60 of these warriors these mighty men of israel they all have a sword on their hip they're experts in war and they're there to then protect her as she's brought in this royal parade from the wilderness to meet to meet her groom that that's anyway that i'm the way that i'm taking that and i think one of the attractions of that is it fits beautifully and

perfectly with the exodus themes of the people of god the bride of bride of the lord coming up from the wilderness to meet him who is her her groom that is to meet the lord lord himself i know that's that's direction i'm leaning what do you think man no i i think i think so it also so you have yeah you have the exodus thing this is also uh don't misunderstand what i'm about to say as some kind of uh eschatology that i don't have uh but uh also if you are talking about also like the sort of second coming this the way that the second coming is described is a meeting It's not simply a coming down, but also a going up, right? And so when you're going to actually, you know, when the wedding draws nigh,

like the real deal wedding, it's not going to be simply Christ coming down, but also the Church going up to meet Him, right? I'm not suggesting that this happens. I'm not talking about some pre-trib rapture. You can go listen to 30 Minutes of the New Testament and go over our Revelation series if you want to know my eschatology. That's fine. But what is biblical, without a doubt, is this sort of meeting together so that both things happen, right? It's not you don't just stand there and wait for Christ to come to you, but that you meet him.

And so that makes sense to me. Hey, who is that coming up from the wilderness? Well, I mean, it's a church. and it's been protected and it is rising up to meet the groom and so I think that works with that as well yeah

good and I guess we're out of time we can unpack that a little bit more tomorrow but at least listeners will know kind of the direction we're going with this and we'll jump into some of the details next episode hey that's a tasty little cliffhanger there so

come back and find out find out how we're going to take this apart. All right, Chad, I'll see you next episode. All right, see you then.