Chapter 29 SONG OF SONGS
I bet you were never taught from this book in Sunday school!
I will rephrase the question for the sake of the Puritans. Were you ever taught from this book in Sunday School? The Puritans were not the first to ask what is this book doing in scripture? God is not mentioned in it. At least the book of Esther has God hidden in acrostic form and has a tale to tell of how God’s people survived. Is there anything spiritual in this book? There is nothing about salvation, prayer of heaven. What makes it unsuitable for Sunday school? The teacher’s embarrassment perhaps? But it has all the elements of Cinderella in it.
We are told Solomon wrote one-thousand-and-five songs. This is the only one that survived. The song takes place in lower Galilee where Solomon owned estates and stables. If Solomon had not taken six-hundred other wives, (we are not told if before or after this account with the Shulamite shepherdess), this would have a perfect picture of God’s intention of marriage and the perfect picture of how God views his bride the Church. In short, as it is written, it could be the same story repeated a thousand times in Mills & Boone books.
Some commentators teach that in this song Solomon is a type of Christ and that the Shulamite is a type of the Church. In this book Solomon is most definitely not a type of Jesus Christ. But the story in its intended form teaches much about the relationship God looks for in His Son’s bride the Church.
King Solomon decides to take time away from politics at the palace of Jerusalem and spend a holiday on his estates at the foot of Mount Herman. He took off his robes and put on his jeans to spend time with his beloved horses and sheep in the cooler hills of Lebanon. On those estates, a tenant farmer had died and left his farm, splitting it between his sons and two daughters, the youngest daughter was still under the care of the older sister. The sons treated the elder daughter like Cinderella. She ran their farms and looked after the youngest sister. She become so exhausted she had to neglect her own small holding. One day, this Shunammite woman, tired, dishevelled and in her working cloths, met the king in his jeans as he watered his sheep and horses at the watering hole. They started chatting and love developed. King Solomon never revealed his true identity and by the end of his holiday break, Solomon said simply that he had business to attend to in town but would be back to marry her soon. The couple parted and the woman is left wondering if this was just a holiday romance on the part of this young man. It could happen to anyone!
What happens next? A series of dreams what else? So far in our studies, dreams have been important. They are usually prophetic and interpreted by a trusted spiritual person to mean something obscure to the dreamer, but of significance to the nations as a whole. In wisdom books we need to be careful, lessons to be learned there are in plenty, but they are like parables based on real people. Song of songs has two obvious parallels, Jesus and His bride the church and the new believer and his or her Lord, the lessons are the same. At first the lover expects her suitor to come looking for her, everything else in life is cast aside for her expectation that he will turn up and spend time only with her. But as the relationship develops she becomes disappointed because he does not turn up at her beckoned call. Gradually it dawns on her that he has other responsibilities that are essential to his office, if she wants to be with him she will have to find where he is and get out there and join him. The immature church is the church that thinks God should show up on a Sunday and satisfy their passion for worship and give them undivided attention. Moving on to maturity means to find where God is working in the world and get out there alongside. Those that expect God to show up at their house all the time, not only miss the point but also quickly lose interest for lack of passion. This book more than any other demonstrates the misconception that God loves you alone. God so loved the world that gave his only son that you who believe might have eternal life but you have no right to stop there because Jesus did not. You must continue in the context of the next verses because his work is not complete in saving you but must continue on into the whole world. Whosoever is only part of the whole. Don’t miss the three little dots joining John three-sixteen with John three-twenty-one:
But those come to the true love go into the light in order that their light may show that they were obedient to him. 310
The woman at the well saw the link in the example. Immediately she saw the love of a saviour she went and brought her neighbours. That’s the reality of it not the practicality of it. How this principle is to worked out in real life required a good deal of thought on the part of the Shunammite woman. Her returning love made sure she found the answer to being with her lover. She must go to him not expect him to come to her. That requires initiative on the part of the bride but it also limits the scope to being where He is. Good works are not always God’s works.
310 John 3: 21 see BBE version