A Commentary in Simple English on Song of Songs

The First Poem Chapter 1:1 - 2:7

We have already said that this first poem and the last one of the seven are a pair. The last poem is 8:5 - 14.

Verses: 1 -7

This first poem is itself made up of seven parts. The first part is 1:1-7. The first verse is really a title. Then in verse 2, the shepherd girl speaks. She is not with the shepherd whom she loves. She seems to dream about life in the king’s palace (verses 2-4). By the time we get to verse 6, she knows that she would not be happy in the palace. The great ladies in the palace would make fun of her. Their skin is white. Her skin is brown. She has to work in the open air. She knows that she could not be happy in the king’s palace. So in verse 7, she wants to join her real love who is the shepherd.

It is bad for Christians to dream about money or power. Ecclesiastes 6:9 tells us that what we have is better than what we dream about. We should rather be thankful for what God has given to us. We see that here the girl is jealous of the women in Solomon’s palace. Yet she quickly sees that she would be far from happy with them. So she turns to seek her true lover. We must love Christ. All the world could not make us happy without him. We should not be jealous of people who are not Christians. (See 1 John 2:15-17.)

We can see that in verse 2, the young girl desires to be with the man she loves. So it is good if we Christians have strong desires for Christ. We want prayer to be real. Christ can make us feel and know his love to us. We want him to speak to us through His word, the Bible. When we do not enjoy this, it is good to have the desire for it.

(Verse 2) People keep the ‘perfumes’ or ‘anointing oils’ in bottles. The oils have a good smell. We may be able to smell them a little while they are still in the bottle. Yet it is only when they are ‘poured out’ that we can really enjoy them.

We want Christ’s love to be poured out in our hearts. In Romans 5:5, Paul says that the love which God has for us floods in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

In verse 3 the ‘name’ means what someone is famous for. It is what we remember about someone. It is their ‘reputation’.

God has a ‘name’ or ‘reputation’. He hears our prayers. He more than keeps His promises: He ‘fulfils’ them. He is good. He is love. He is full of grace to sinners like us. Wine may be good, but when we have drunk it, it has gone. God’s name is better. We can ‘drink in’ His goodness and His goodness has not gone. It is still there, as much as ever.

One of the promises which Christ has made is that He will draw us to Him. (See John 6:44 and 12:32.) We seek Him. We want to find Him. Yet just as the lover (v.4) draws the girl, so Christ draws us. We cannot run after Christ unless He draws us. The Christian life is a race that we run, and glory is the prize.

In the second part of verse 4, several voices speak together. They seem to be the women in the palace. They praise a man. No doubt, this man is the king. They desire to be with him.

The ‘daughters of Jerusalem’ may be the women in Solomon’s palace. Some of them may be wives and daughters of King David. David was Solomon’s father, and he was the king before Solomon. [1.1]

Right back in Genesis 2:18, God said: ‘It is not good for the man to be alone.’ It is still not good for us to be alone. The voices, which we hear now in the Song, are happy because they are not alone. It is not good, either, for a Christian to be alone. We want the company of other Christians. We want them to be our friends. But above all, we want Jesus.

In verse 5, we have a new picture. The young girl can see that the skin of her face is dark. It is not like the skin of the ‘daughters of Jerusalem’. They do not have to work in the hot sun and the wind. Their skin is white. Now ‘Kedar’ was a name for part of Arabia. People there lived in tents. Kedar was desert, and those who lived there had to move about. They were not poor. They might be really rich. People who live in tents, like Abraham, often are rich.

So the girl says that the outside of the tent may look dull and dark. Yet inside there are riches. [1.2] As Christians, we may look dull and dark to ourselves. We may look dull and dark to the world. Christ looks at us and sees a hidden beauty and worth in us. When we look at ourselves, we should look for the faith and love which every real Christian has. It is not wise to look too much at any special experience we may have had ourselves.

In the second part of verse 6, we have another picture. The girl’s brothers made her work hard. [1.3] She had to take care of the gardens where they grew vines. This work kept her so busy that she did not take care of her own ‘vineyard’. [1.4] ‘Vineyard’ here does not mean her own piece of land where she grew vines. Rather it means her good looks and her face. Perhaps because of this the shepherd went away from her.

This, sadly, is often a picture of church life. One or two people in a church often have to do all the work. There is a real danger here. They may be so busy with Christian work that they do not have time for Christ Himself. They may find one day that Christ seems to have gone away from them. Christ is jealous for our love. (See Revelation 2:4.)

So in verse 7 the girl turns away from the ‘daughters of Jerusalem’. She wants to find the shepherd whom she loves. [1.5] So she asks. He gives her a good answer in verse 8.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd. Without him, we would not find rest (Matt 11:28-30). He finds food for His sheep. In the hot part of the day, He gives His sheep rest. Yet we must ‘follow the tracks of the sheep’ of Christ. Every blessing God gives us brings a duty with it.

Verses 8-11

In these verses, the shepherd speaks. He is the man for whom the girl feels such love. Chapter 2:10-13 is the other speech by the shepherd, which is like this one.

In verse 8, the shepherd tells the girl how to find him. He says that she is ‘the most beautiful of women’. See 5:9 and 6:1. It seems that she does as he says, and she finds him. All real Christians are the one flock of Christ. We should not want to be different from them (Psa 106:4).

(Verse 9) Then the shepherd speaks about her beauty. A ‘mare’ is a female horse. Egyptian horses were the best, and Pharaoh would use the very best of them. Mares were too good to pull ‘chariots’. This mare stands out as the very best of the best. Even so, the girl might not be pleased when she was told she looked like a horse. ‘Pharaoh’ was the name for the kings who ruled over Egypt. They were grand men. They rode around in fine wagons or ‘chariots‘, which several horses pulled. Each horse wore a ‘harness’, perhaps made from leather. This joined them to the chariot. The horses would be dressed up to look fine too. They would be ‘decorated’. They would wear ‘ornaments’. A bride in those days would wear lots of ornaments. A shepherd girl would not be dressed up like that. But the shepherd sees her and he thinks what she would look like if she was dressed up as a bride.

Look again at verse 8. The sheep here are God’s people. We are to follow them. This is the most likely way for us to find Christ. We should go where his people gather. We should go where his servants preach his word. Christ sees in his people the beauty, which he looks for (verses 9 and 10). Then in verse 11, he promises to give more. ‘The Lord will give grace and glory.’ If he gives us his grace in this life, he will give more to us. He will also give us glory in the life to come.

Real Christians fear to turn aside. They want to follow Christ not other ‘loves’. Good Christians will take care in their lives. They will not want other people to doubt their faith in Christ or their love to Him.

Verses 12-14

This is another speech by the girl. It is one of a pair. The other one is in verses 16 and 17. Either she is now in the king’s palace or she dreams again that she is there. The king did not sit up to the table on a chair when he ate. He stretched out on a low couch; he leaned on one elbow. People loved ‘Myrrh’ in ancient times because of its bitter sweet smell.

The ‘perfume’ in verse 12 may be ‘nard’. ‘Henna’ (verse 14) flowers in June. The flowers are the colour of cream, and they grow in long bunches or ‘clusters’. ‘En Gedi’ means ‘Spring of the Kid’; a kid is a young goat. [1.6] En Gedi is a place on the west side of the Dead Sea. It is very hot and dry there. Nothing will grow around there, but there is a spring of fresh water at En Gedi. Just around the spring, there is life. Plants will grow. It is an ‘oasis’.

The Song of Songs shows a knowledge of places all over Palestine. There is Jerusalem and also Tirzah, which was further north. Sharon and Carmel are to the west. Hermon and Lebanon are far to the north. Gilead and Heshbon are to the east. This book also speaks of many different plants and trees. These grow in different parts of Palestine too.

Christ is our king as well as our shepherd. We have every reason to love Him. He died for us. We are safe if we follow Christ.

Verse 15

This verse is the centre of the first poem. In the fourth poem, we shall see that verse 7 is in this position. Perhaps it is the shepherd who speaks here. The girl hears him. So she forgets her dream about the king and his palace.

Doves are beautiful and very gentle. People used to handle them and keep them. The birds were ‘pets’. They were used to people. They were tame and did not fly far. Perhaps the man says here that the lids of the girl’s eyes ‘flutter’. When her eyes open and shut, it is like the wings of a gentle bird.

There is a real beauty in holiness. We should desire to be truly holy in God’s sight. Then we shall feel no shame when the world looks at us.

Verses 16 and 17

In these verses, it is the girl who speaks again. She replies to the shepherd. He had praised her. Now she praises him. We can see that she does not dream about life in the palace here. We have a picture of fresh, green grass. Above the heads of the shepherd and the girl are branches of the ‘cedar’ tree. This tree grew in great forests in those days in Lebanon, which is north of Palestine. Sadly, there are not many cedars left now. This tree lives for a long time and grows to a great size. The wood is very useful for building. It does not ‘rot’ or go bad and it has a good smell. The fir is another tree. The branches of these trees are like a roof over the heads of the two lovers. [1.7]

Christ sees beauty in His church. Christian people know that any beauty that He sees in us comes first from Him. We must give all the praise to Him. We see, too, how quickly the girl forgets her dreams about life in a palace. She is happy to be with her lover in the open air. Christ’s love to us will help us to forget the good things that this world can offer to us. Christ always has something far better to give to His people.

Chapter 2 verses 1 and 2

Now the young man speaks again. (Verse 1) ‘Sharon’ is the part of Palestine in the west, next to the Mediterranean Sea. It is a part of Palestine where plants grow very well. The rose is a flower which has a sweet smell and beautiful colours: but the ‘rose of Sharon’ here may well be some other flower. The lily is another very fine flower that has a rich, sweet smell or ‘scent’. (Verse 2) The lily is in rather an unhappy place. All round it are rough plants (brambles) with sharp thorns. They have no fruit. They are the other young women. The young man thinks that the girl he loves is far, far better than all the other girls are.

This is a picture of the church in the world. This is how Christ sees the church that He loves. To him, it is like a beautiful flower. Yet all round His church is the world. The world is like the thorns. They hurt. They get in the way, and they do no good. They have no beauty.

Verses 3-7

These verses are the last part of the first poem. It is the young girl who speaks now. She is at last with the young man whom she loves. In verse 3, she says that he is like a fruit tree. This is not an apple tree, but rather an ‘apricot’ or ‘peach’. This fruit tree grows among the ‘trees of the forest’. Most of the trees that grow wild in forests do not have fruit on them. This girl is happy to sit in the shadow of this tree. There she will not be too hot. With her lover she feels safe. She is happy to be quiet with him.

In verse 4, the two lovers move on. [2.1] They go to the ‘house of wine’. This might only be a building for the people who looked after the vines. They might do some work there on the wine, which they made from the grapes. Still, you will find that most Bibles think of something much grander than this. A ‘banquet’ is a meal but it is not an ordinary meal. You do not have a ‘banquet’ every day. A rich man will give a ‘banquet’ in honour of someone who is very important. There will be a large number of people there. They will all dress in fine clothes. The great hall will also be a fine room or ‘banqueting house’. The man who gives the ‘banquet’ will go out to meet the people that he has invited. They will be led into the banquet hall. Someone will show them their places. Wine, of course, will be part of the ‘banquet’. So here, the young man wants to honour the young woman. He takes her into the banquet hall.

A ‘banner’ is a kind of flag. Armies used to carry ‘banners’. We cannot be sure that this is exactly what the Hebrew word means. ‘Raisins’ are small fruit, which we dry. They stick together in ‘cakes’. They are useful on a journey, because they will not go bad. The girl asks for raisins and apples because her love is so strong that it makes her feel ill.

So we can look back to verse 3. Christian people see that Christ is different from all the world. He bears ‘fruit’. He gives us peace and his love, and much else. The whole world, like ‘the trees of the forest’ has nothing to give to us. We enjoy the comfort that he gives. We ‘sit in His shade’. We need him when life is ‘too hot’ for us! We are small; we do not matter very much. It is good to know that we have a great Saviour. We have the right to the blessings that he gives. ‘His fruit is sweet’. We need what Christ can give to us. Let us take it and give our thanks to him.

In verse 4, we see that the young man leads the girl he loves into the banqueting hall. So we do not enter the Kingdom of God alone, or by our own will. Yet it is not against our will. Christ brings us in by his great grace, not just by his power. His banner over us is love as he brings us in.

In verse 5, the young girl is really excited. When we first become Christians, we may be very excited. We go into a new world, where God is king. We know that Christ loves us. The Spirit of God is at work in our hearts. We are ‘faint with love’. It is good for us to know that Jesus is close to us (verse 6).

In verse 7, the ‘gazelles’ and ‘hinds’ or ‘does’ are kinds of deer. The deer is an animal, which is usually gentle. A little sound is enough to frighten it. If it sees someone move, it will run away very fast.

We may think of the verse like this. In verses 4-6 the Christian has a wonderful sense of the grace of God. He feels the love that Christ has for him. So the Christian wants to share this. He talks about it. This is not at all wrong. We should talk to people who do not share our faith. We should remember that they do not share our feelings. We do not know quite what the ‘daughters of Jerusalem’ think.

Now we must be careful not to argue. We may frighten people away from the truth, which we love. They may run away from us like those deer. Then we must remember that Christ is free. This is at the end of the verse. What matters to the young girl is not what she wants. It is what the man she loves wants which matters to her. So Christians must know that they may not always enjoy a wonderful sense of God’s love. Christ may seem to go away. Really he does not. He will always be with us.

There is one other thing we must remember. Our sins will quickly bring to an end such times of joy. It may only be a hard or silly thing that we say. It will be enough to cut short our time of joy in Christ’s presence.

Verses 6 and 7 are a ‘chorus’ which marks the end of the first poem. There are verses like these at the end of the third poem (3:5) and at the end of the sixth poem (8:3,4).