Alastair's Adversaria - Biblical Reading and Reflections: December 29th (Song of Songs 6 & Luke 23:26-49)

Episode Date: December 29, 2021

The Bride, awesome as an army with banners. The crucifixion. My reflections are searchable by Bible chapter here: https://audio.alastairadversaria.com/explore/. If you are interested in supporting this project, please consider supporting my work on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/zugzwanged), using my PayPal account (https://bit.ly/2RLaUcB), or buying books for my research on Amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/36WVSWCK4X33O?ref_=wl_share). You can also listen to the audio of these episodes on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/alastairs-adversaria/id1416351035?mt=2.

Song of Songs Chapter 6 Where has your beloved gone, oh most beautiful among women? Where has your beloved turn that we may seek him with you? My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to graze in the gardens and to gather lilies. I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. He grazes among the lilies. You are beautiful as ters am I love, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners. turn away your eyes from me, for they overwhelm me. Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of ewes that have come up from the washing.

All of them bear twins. Not one among them has lost its young. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil. There are sixty queens and eighty concubines and virgins without number. My dove, my perfect one, is the only one, the only one of her mother, pure to her who bore. her. The young women saw her and called her blessed. The queens and concubines also, and they praised her. Who is this who looks down like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awesome as an army with banners? I went down to the nut orchard to look at the blossoms of the valley, to see whether the vines had budded, whether the pomegranates were in bloom. Before I was aware, my desire set me among the chariots of my kinsman, a prince.

Return, return, O Shulamite, return, return, that we may look upon you. Why should you look upon the Shulamite, as upon a dance before two armies? In Song of Songs, Chapter 5, in a dreamlike passage, the bride failed to open the door to her beloved, and when she looked for him, he had gone. She was beaten by the watchmen of the city

and asked the daughters of Jerusalem for help finding her beloved, as she was sick with love. The daughters had responded, What is your beloved more than another beloved, oh most beautiful among women? What is your beloved more than another beloved that you thus adjoris? In response, the bride gave a wasif, or blazon, describing the incomparable bridegroom from his head to his toe to the daughters of Jerusalem. While initially seeming sceptical, after the wassif the daughters of Jerusalem wished to join the bride in her search. One of the features of love, as it is depicted in the song, is the desire to share it with third parties.

The lovers want others to see what they see in each other, and to share in their joy. Throughout the song, third parties are present, and the love of the couple is recounted to them and witnessed by them. The song is not the song of one voice and of one person's love. Both lovers sing to each other, about each other, and in unison with each other. Yet the song isn't even a song merely of two voices and their private sharing and their own. of their love. They continually testify of their love to a wider audience, an audience that has its own voices. As constant witness to the couple's love for each other, the community frees the couple to be who they are for each other. Unlike the common romantic image of the couple who are

absorbed in each other's gaze to the exclusion of the entire world, the couple in the song are continually relating their love to a broader public. Unlike the voyeuristic third party of the pornographic. The song's viewer is also interlocutor, guest or friend, involved in a relation enduring through the mediation of time. The lovers also desire and delight in each other as those who find a place and identity and praise in wider society. The bride desires her bridegroom as one who occupies a particular place in society. Solomon is the one surrounded by the valiant men of Israel, the one crowned as the king of Israel. Much as the lovers constantly relate their love to a society beyond them. So their desire is aroused by the perception of their beloved,

as one with public glory and honour. The mediation of the society expands the movements of love, self-gift and desire. In their union the couple wished to relate themselves to a wider public. Their union is discourse creating and meaning-producing. It's a bond that projects itself out into the world. In their union, a fountain is opened up, producing a stream of life that will flow out beyond them to others. When the Lord first created the woman for the man, he did not create her only as one to share a face-to-face, I-thou relationship with him, but also in order that they might live and act side by side, creating a world and a society together. While marriage has at its heart an intimate private bond, a bond that even has the dreamlike character of another place and time, that bond has

the most profound public consequences and naturally projects itself into a common history and community, especially in the bearing of children. Children are the primary, but by no means the only third parties with whom couples share their love for each other. From the perspective of the third party, love can also be a source of great joy. The couple are rejuvenated in love, but that renewal is not exclusive to them. Those who celebrate their love can share in their joy and experience renewal for themselves as they rejoice with them. While it might provoke envy in some, most find vicarious delight in witnessing a young and beautiful couple and their love for each other. Perhaps there are a few better examples of this phenomenon than royal weddings,

as the joy of a couple in each other can transfix entire nations and represent a symbol of hope for a whole people's life and future. Over the course of the song, the place of the daughters of Jerusalem changes. While they are initially addressed by the bride on various occasions, in this broader scene in the book, they become more active as speakers, and participants. In the opening verse of this chapter, they offer to seek the bridegroom with the bride. By now, they recognise the once-despiesed brides surpassing appearance, referring to her as most beautiful among women. And their willingness to seek the bridegroom makes them active participants

in and supporters of the couple's love. Besides officiants, alongside a bride and bridegroom at a wedding, one typically finds a best man and groomsmen, bridesmaids and a maid of honour, the father of the bride, and the other parents, and a witnessing congregation. All these parties have their own share in the couple's joy and the joy of the occasion. In scriptural uses of marital metaphors for Christ and the church and wedding images, there are many examples of such third parties, the father of the bridegroom who gives the wedding feast for his son, the friend of the bridegroom, the wedding guests who are supposed to attend in spotless attire, the mothers of the bride and the bridegroom, the virgins who go out to meet the bridegroom upon his arrival, etc.

The eschatological wedding is depicted in scripture as an event of cosmic joy to which all are invited and in which meaning all are implicated. As love is brought to its fullest flowering, it brings more and more people into its orbit. As the bride asks the daughters of Jerusalem, who on another level of symbolism are the cities of Israel depicted as bridesmaids surrounding the bride of Zion, to help her to find her beloved, we might expect that chapter six would recount that search, especially as it begins with further questions directed to the bride from the daughters of Jerusalem, to assist them in the search for him.

Yet we are surprised to discover that the beloved does not seem to be lost after all, as the bride declares that he has gone down to his garden, returning to the imagery at the heart of the song in chapter four verse 16 and five verse one. In fact, she is not separated from him, rather she is enjoying the most of the most of the song. most intimate relationship with him. He is grazing among the lilies, familiar imagery used to describe his taking of delight in her. Here the refrain from chapter 2 verse 16 is repeated, my beloved is mine, and I am his, he grazes among the lilies. The inseparable bond between the two lovers, comparable to the bond described in the covenant formula, I will be your God and you will be my people,

prevents any final division of the lovers. How do we understand the strange narrative shift here? The impression the song gives us is that, as the bride lovingly described her beloved, the beloved appeared to her sight once more. Many of the themes of this passage are explored in the Gospel of John, where Mary Magdalene seeks desperately for the man that she loves, in imagery that should remind the reader of the song, in John's Gospel, Jesus is buried in a sealed and previously untouched tomb in a garden, filled with the richest spices.

Mary, coming to the tomb in the darkness of the very early morning, finds the stone removed and the bridegroom nowhere to be found. Distraught she tells others. Weeping in the garden after the others have left, she is addressed by one whom she initially presumed to be the gardener. And behold, it is Jesus. From that open garden and fountain will come forth the blessing of the spirit's spiced wind and the water that would renew the earth. The bridegroom's voice re-enters in verse four as he praises the beauty of his bride. This passage parallels with that of chapter four verses one to six in the macro structure of the book, and it directly repeats several of its details. Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are doves behind your veil.

Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes that have come up from the washing, all of which bear twins, and not one among them has lost its young. Your lips are like a scarlet thread, and your mouth is lovely. Your cheeks are are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil. Your neck is like the Tower of David, built in rows of stone. On it hang a thousand shields, all of them shields of warriors. Your two breasts are like two fauns, twins of a gazelle that graze among the lilies. Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, I will go away to the mountain of Mur and the hill of Frankencents. However, in the description of this chapter, the bride has become even more dazzling and radiant, as is evident in the

elaboration of the earlier description in verses 8 to 10, the praise of chapter 4 was the bridegroom's own praise of the bride. Now, however, he speaks of the way in which his voice has been joined by that of a mighty company of others. In chapter 3, verses 7 and 8, Solomon's palanquin was surrounded by the majesty of a mighty company of warriors. Around it are 60 mighty men, some of the mighty men of Israel, all of them wearing swords and expert in war, each with his sword at his thyself. Each with his sword is his thigh against terror by night. Now the bridegroom is also surrounded by 60 queens, 80 concubines, and all the maidens of the royal court. Yet even in such a regal, glorious and beautiful company, she is utterly incomparable and unique. She has always been the only one. She was like the only

begotten child of her mother, the apple of her mother's eye, and now she is the one dove of her beloved. On the one hand, the bride is set an ever greater company. On the other, she is set a from others all the more. In Proverbs chapter 31 verses 28 and 29, the praise of the virtuous woman is described. Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also and he praises her. Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all. In a comparable statement, the voices of all the women of the court are united in the praise of the ragrum, extolling her dazzling radiance. They compare her to the beauty of the moon, the splendor of the sun, which one cannot bear to gaze upon, and the awesome glory of a great army before whose manifest might and majesty

all would surrender. Verses 11 to 13 are difficult to understand and interpret, especially verse 12, which has several textual issues. The speaker in verse 11 is unclear. Is it the man or is it the woman? Cheryl Exum and Ed May Kingsmill are among those who argue that it is most likely the woman, while Michael Fishbane and Arthur Keel understand it to be the speech of the man. Dwayne Barrett suggests that we understand this as the woman's willing response to the man's invitation in Chapter 2, verses 10 to 15. There he invited her out into the joy of the springtime, whereas Keel notes that the imagery of vines and pomegranates is more typically used of the woman. While most commentators understand the speaker of verses 11 and 12 to be the same,

Keel argues for a shift from the man to the woman, and that verses 12 and 13 should be read as a unit. transported by her desire in a dreamlike state she seemingly finds herself in a great procession of chariots presumably with her beloved by her side seeing the woman radiant in such a glorious spectacle verse 13 might describe the daughters of Jerusalem calling upon her to dance so that they can see her beauty

or perhaps wanting her to turn back to face them after the procession has moved beyond them they are rebuked however such a sight belongs to the bridegroom alone while they can share in the joy of the couple's love, their gaze can only venture so far before it is prevented from becoming intrusive by going further. The daughters of Jerusalem here describe the woman as the Shulamite. This name, some suggest, recalls the character of Abashag the Shunamite,

the beautiful young woman who helped to keep the elderly David warm, yet without having relations with him. After David's death, Adonijah, his son, had sought to marry Abashak, which Solomon recognised was part of a strategic play for the kingdom. Keel notes the possibility of an illusion then to a beautiful young woman from the country who unsuspectingly becomes caught up in courtly intrigues. This verse is the only place where the title Shulamite occurs, and the most important connection it seems to me is between it and the name Solomon itself.

Shulamite is like a female form of the name Solomon. The woman has become a glorious female counterpart to Solomon, reflecting his radiance in relationship with him. Something similar happens in the greater narrative of the scripture. In the Book of Revelation, for instance, we begin with a vision of the glorious bride and end with one of the unveiling of the glorious bride, whose light is a reflection of the light of the Lamb himself.

A question to consider, what are some of the ways that the couple's love is related to other parties in the song? Luke chapter 23 versus 26 to 49. And as they led him away They seized one Simon of Sireini Who was coming in from the country And laid on him the cross To carry it behind Jesus

And there followed him a great multitude of the people And of women who were mourning and lamenting for him But turning to them Jesus said Daughters of Jerusalem Do not weep for me But weep for yourselves and for your children For behold the days are coming When they will say

Blessed are the barren And the wombs that never bore And the breasts that never nursed then they will begin to say to the mountains fall on us and to the hills cover us for if they do these things when the wood is green what will happen when it is dry two others who were criminals were led away to be put to death with him and when they came to the place that is called the skull there they crucified him and the criminals one on his right and one on his left and Jesus said father forgive them for they know not what they do and they cast lots to divide his garments and the people's stood by watching, but the ruler scoffed at him saying, He saved others, let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, his chosen one. The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him some sour wine and saying, If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.

There was also an inscription over him. This is the king of the Jews. One of the criminals who were hanged, railed at him saying, Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. But the other rebuked him saying, Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.

And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And he said to him, truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun's light failed. and the curtain of the temple was torn in too. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, Father into your hands I commit my spirit. And having said this, he breathed his last.

Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God saying, Certainly this man was innocent. And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance watching these things.

In Luke chapter 23, as Jesus is led out to his crucifixion, Simon of Sireini takes up his cross and follows Jesus. Notably he's a Gentile. Simon of Bessada denies Jesus, but Simon of Sirene follows him. At this point, when the 12th have largely abandoned Jesus, it is the unlikely disciples, converts and figures, along with the women that come to the foreground, people like Simon of Sirene, the Centurion, Joseph of Arimathea. What is happening to Jesus is just the harbinger of more terrible things to come in Jerusalem when its leaders have favoured the way of insurrection over the way of Jesus.

Jesus is followed by a multitude and many women mourning and lamenting for him. We might perhaps hear the voice of Zachariah chapter 12 verses 10 to 14 here, and I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, a spirit of grace and please for mercy so that when they look on me on him whom they have pierced they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only son and weep bitterly over him as one weeps over a firstborn on that day the mourning in jerusalem will be as the morning for hadad rimon in the plain of megido the land shall mourn each family by itself the family of the house of david by itself and their wives by themselves the family of the house of nathan by itself and their wives by themselves the family of the house of

Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves, the family of the Shimiites by itself, and their wives by themselves, and all the families that are left, each by itself, and their wives by themselves. Jesus addresses the women as daughters of Jerusalem. Jerusalem was iron is often spoken off as a daughter in the prophets, and the city is represented by its women. Jesus presents his death as a foreshadowing of Israel's own fate. The people following may weep for him, but they should recognize that Jerusalem as a whole will suffer the same fate in its time. He quotes Hosea chapter 10 verse 8. The high places of Avon the sin of Israel shall be destroyed. Thorn and thistle shall grow up on their altars and they shall say to the mountains cover us and to the hills

fall on us. Jesus has led a way to be crucified with two criminals. Luke has a much lighter narrative brushstroke than Matthew for instance but he wants us to notice prophecy being fulfilled in the background. Isaiah chapter 53 verse 12 for instance. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors. One criminal is on his right and another on his left. Jesus is like an enthroned king flanked by others. If Simon of Sireini illustrated discipleship in carrying the cross after Jesus, the criminals illustrate those positions that disciples that wish to be exalted

must occupy. Jesus responds to the situation by prayer for the very people who are crucifying him. He intercedes for the transgressors. He appeals to the fact that their sin is unwitting, and this unwitting character of the people's sin is also asserted by the apostles in Acts chapter 3 verses 13 to 19. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the holy and righteous one, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And his name, by faith in his name, has made this man strong

whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all. And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers, but what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent, therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out. They will have another chance. However, if they reject the message of the church, only certain judgment will await them. Jesus is here fulfilling his own teaching, given near the beginning of his ministry in Luke chapter 6, verse 27 to 29, but I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you, to one who strikes

you on the cheek, off the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. In the dividing of his garments by lot, we again hear the voice of the of scripture, this time from Psalm 22 verse 18. They divide my garments among them and from my clothing they cast lots. Jesus is then mocked by the rulers, the soldiers and even one of the criminals crucified

alongside him. The mockers decrease in their social status manifesting how humiliating Jesus' position is. The mockery focuses upon Jesus' claim to be the Christ and his supposed identity as a failed saviour. We might remember the challenge of Satan back in chapter 4.

if you are the son of God. And hear that same challenge in the words of the scoffers here. Jesus is being marked as a king. He's served sour wine by cupbearers. He's placed with someone at his right hand and his left. He's given a royal superscription

above his head. Once again the prophetic words of scripture are lying in the background. In the mockery, we might hear the words of Psalm 22 being fulfilled again, this time from verses 7 to 8. All who see me mock me. They make mouths at me. They wag their heads. He trusts in the Lord. Let him deliver him. Let him rescue him, for he delights in him.

The soldier's mockery also fulfills Psalm 69, verse 21. They gave me poison for food and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink. The soldiers refer to Jesus as the king of the Jews, as they are Gentiles and would have thought in that category, rather than the category of Messiah. The division between the two criminals, one to be raised up and the other facing an even greater judgment, might invite comparisons between Jesus and Joseph, who was also associated with two criminals with different fates. However, whereas Joseph asked the cupbearer to remember him when he was elevated, the criminal here asked Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. A truly startling claim in the context when you think about it.

He is a man being crucified, dying on a cross, and the person next to him asking to be remembered when he comes into his kingdom. All of the appearances are against this case. condemned, seeming false Messiah entering into any kingdom whatsoever, but Jesus is still saving at this point. The penitent criminal is also an example of the divisions emerging in the responses to the death of Jesus. There is darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour. It's like the penultimate plague on Egypt, when darkness lay over the whole land. All that remains is the death of the firstborn, and these are also akin to the signs of Christ's coming in judgment,

their signs of decreation. The curtain of the temple is torn in two. A division between God and his people is removed and a way into God's presence is made open. Jesus alludes to the Psalms in a number of his sayings on the cross recorded in the Gospels. Verse 46 alludes to Psalm 31 verse 5. Into your hand I commit my spirit.

You have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God. In the crucifixion accounts, the words of the Psalms are very prominent on Jesus. his lips. Reading the words of the wider context of the Psalms that Jesus quotes is also illuminating. These are not the words of someone in the grip of despair, that the words of someone confident in the Lord, even in the severest moment of distress. These words anticipate resurrection. Our passage ends with the description of three different witnesses. The centurion, the assembled crowds, and his acquaintances with the women who had followed him from Galilee, their watching

at a distance. And the reactions of the first two witnesses, the Centurion and the assembled crowds, are described in parallel. Both are responding when they saw what had taken place. The Centurion declares the innocence of Christ. Herod, Pilate and the Centurion, who carried out the sentence, all concur in recognising Jesus' innocence. However, the Centurion goes further. He praises God. He recognises the hand of God in Jesus' death, something that was presumably apparent from the signs accompanying the death and also the manner in which Christ died. The assembled crowds also react to what they have seen.

They react in mourning and perhaps even contrition for what has happened. They beat their breaths and returned. Already perhaps we have a sign of remorse paving the way for Pentecost. The death of Jesus then is immediately followed by signs of new life and promise. Jesus' acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee are at a greater distance. And perhaps we should hear Psalm 38, verse 11 in the background here. My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague,

and my nearest kin stand far off. The role of the women as witnesses will also prove important in the rest of the narrative that follows. A question to consider, why is it that it is the words of the Psalms that are most prominent in the context of the crucifixion, especially on Jesus' lips? What might we learn from this?

about the importance of the Psalms more generally.