Song of Solomon 3
Big idea: Two scenes that could not be less alike: a woman alone in the streets at night looking for someone who is not where he should be, and a royal procession coming up out of the desert in a cloud of incense with sixty armed men around it. The Song puts them back to back and explains neither.
The procession ends with a crown, a wedding day and a glad heart. Chapter 4 is the groom's speech, and it is the longest continuous praise in the book.
3:1–5 — Him whom my soul loves
Four times in five verses she calls him the one my soul loves, and three times she says she looked and did not find. The search moves from the bed to the streets to the squares to the watchmen, and the watchmen are given no answer to her question — the poem simply moves past them. When she finds him she takes him to her mother's house, which in this book is where the safest things happen.
1 By night on my bed, I sought him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I didn’t find him. 2 I will get up 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 I didn’t find him. 3 The watchmen who go about the city found me; “Have you seen him whom my soul loves?” 4 I had scarcely passed from them, 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, into the room of her who conceived me. 5 I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, or by the hinds of the field, that you not stir up nor awaken love, until it so desires.
3:6–11 — Solomon's carriage
The question 'who is this coming up from the wilderness' is asked of something seen from far off, and the answer is a spectacle: a litter carried through the desert with sixty picked soldiers around it, swords on their thighs, because of terror by night. The construction is inventoried like a royal commission — Lebanon timber, silver posts, a gold base, purple upholstery — and the last verse turns it into a wedding.
6 Who is this who comes up from the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all spices of the merchant? 7 Behold, it is Solomon’s carriage! Sixty mighty men are around it, of the mighty men of Israel. 8 They all handle the sword, and are expert in war. Every man has his sword on his thigh, because of fear in the night. 9 King Solomon made himself a carriage of the wood of Lebanon. 10 He made its pillars of silver, its bottom of gold, its seat of purple, the middle of it being paved with love, from the daughters of Jerusalem. 11 Go out, you daughters of Zion, and see King Solomon, with the crown with which his mother has crowned him, in the day of his weddings, in the day of the gladness of his heart.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).
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