Song of Solomon 3:6-5:1: “The Real Prince Charming—The Shepherd”

Let’s take our Bibles together and turn to the book of Song of Solomon. 

The classic love story—whether it’s “Cinderella” or “Snow White” or “Sleeping Beauty”—involves first of all a damsel in distress. She has been raised in a home of poverty and struggle. She is beautiful, but overlooked. She is lovely, but unloved. And through a remarkable set of circumstances, she is noticed by a man who wants to marry her. Her Prince Charming comes calling. And he says to her, “Be my one and only.” And they kiss. And they fall in love. And they live happily ever after.

Something like that happens in our passage today, except Prince Charming isn’t who you think he is. Because there’s a pretender prince too—in fact, it’s King Solomon. He’s the wisest and smartest king who ever lived. He’s the richest king in Israel’s history. He’s the famous son of the famous King David. 

And this king comes a courtin’. But he doesn’t say, “Be my one and only.” He doesn’t say, “My beloved is mine and I am hers.” He can’t say that. Instead he says, “Do you want to join my harem?” Instead he says, “Be my one and only... of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines!” Not exactly Prince Charming. 

One of my favorite moments in that old cartoon, “Beauty and the Beast” is when Belle looks over towards the Beast and she sings, “He’s not exactly Prince Charming.” That’s an understatement!   

Something like that could be said in this passage. King Solomon... not exactly Prince Charming. 

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Look with me at chapter 3, verse 6. 

    • 6 What is that coming up from the wilderness like columns of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of a merchant? 

If you remember from last time, the Shulamite woman has just uttered her second challenge to the daughters of Jerusalem—“Don’t awaken desire until it pleases.” And she follows that up with an appropriate scenario where sexual love and feminine beauty might be compromised. 

But the scene is not what you might think. It’s not a temptation towards premarital sex. It’s actually a temptation for sex in the context of marriage... just not monogamous marriage. 

Look at verse 7.

    • 7 Behold, it is the litter of Solomon! 

A litter is a “portable bed.” It’s a traveling coach with a couch. So this is Solomon’s “portable love shack.” And it’s well-guarded. 

    • Around it are sixty mighty men, some of the mighty men of Israel, 8 all of them wearing swords and expert in war, each with his sword at his thigh, against terror by night. 

Solomon’s coach needs to be well-guarded, because Solomon’s an ancient king. He’s got enemies foreign and domestic. And Solomon needs a portable love shack, because he’s got lots of queens and concubines to service. And he’s constantly adding to their numbers.  

And to add to the allure of this carriage, look at verse 9. 

    • 9 King Solomon made himself a carriage from the wood of Lebanon. 10 He made its posts of silver, its back of gold, its seat of purple; its interior was inlaid with love by the daughters of Jerusalem. 

Solomon’s litter is incredibly ornate here. And he was probably carried into town on this carriage by his trusty servants. So think of this carriage like a cross between a Rolls-Royce and the Ark of the Covenant.

All of this sounds positive and inviting and fantastic, until you get to the end of verse 10. 

    • its interior was inlaid with love by the daughters of Jerusalem.

If that last statement sounds a bit icky, that’s because it is. Solomon’s carriage is absolutely beautiful. He built it himself with the finest materials. But he didn’t build it just for one wife. He built it for his multitude of lovers.  

Let me say it this way—this five-star hotel room is exquisite. This is like a trip to the Caribbean on the private yacht of a Hollywood celebrity. It’s wonderful. It’s dreamy. The only problem is that there’s more than just one girl who has experienced it with this celebrity. 

Look at verse 11.

    • 11 Go out, O daughters of Zion, and look upon King Solomon, with the crown with which his mother [Bathsheba] crowned him on the day of his wedding, on the day of the gladness of his heart. 

There’s some debate as to who is talking here in verse 11. I actually think this is the Shulamite woman talking. And I think this is a reiteration of the warning she gave in verse 5. She said there, 

    • 5 I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, 

  Now she says, ironically in verse 11, “Go out there, daughters of Zion! Go see King Solomon. He’s impressive. He’s got his crown. He’s got his gilded carriage. He’s got his sixty guards. He’s wise and he’s rich. And maybe he’ll invite you to be his wife. Or maybe, you’ll just be one of his concubines. It’s every young woman’s dream—wealth, security, happiness, and fame. There’s just one itty-bitty little catch—you’ll be one of a thousand girls. You’ll be part of his harem, if that’s what you want.”

Write this down as #1 in your notes. We’re going to see two scenes in the passage today. Two contrasting options. First of all there is...

    • 1) Solomon’s Pomp: The Counterfeit (3:6–11)

I find it interesting that after Solomon’s death, the leaders of Israel came to his son, Rehoboam, and said, “Give us some relief from these excessive tax burdens that your father instituted” (1 Kgs 12:1–4). And you might wonder, why was the financial situation in Israel so bad after Solomon’s death? Didn’t Solomon make gold and silver abundant in the land (1 Kings 10:27)? Didn’t he travel around by sea and bring all kinds of riches to Israel (1 Kings 10:22)?

Yes, he did. But also, Solomon had expensive tastes. And you don’t materially support 700 wives and 300 concubines in the kingdom without a little thing called taxation. 

I remember hearing some citizens of the UK complaining about this recently. They were frustrated about how much the British government spends taking care of the Royal Family every year. And I sympathize with that. But what if King Charles had 700 wives and 300 concubines? And what if he was asking the British people to finance that for him? That might be just a little burdensome. 

But the issue presented here in Song of Solomon is really about the cost associated with another royal wedding. The issue here is this—what’s the better way for the young women of Israel? As a young woman in Jerusalem, do you want the riches and the security of being a royal bride? Or do you want something simpler? Something poorer? Something less fantastical? You might still have to shepherd your own sheep, but at least you’ll have one man to yourself.   

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Go ahead and write this down as a second point in your notes. Here’s the contrast.

    • 2) The Shepherd’s Devotion: The Covenant (4:1–5:1)

Watch the contrast starting in 4:1. Notice that the plural of “the daughters of Zion” becomes the singular of “you” and “my love” and “my bride.” 

    • 1 Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold, you are beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil. 

Now notice a few things here. The scene has completely shifted in chapter 4, verse 1. Solomon and his love shack aren’t mentioned again. And the speaker changes too. 

If you have an ESV Bible, you see “HE” above verse 1. And that’s correct. And that “HE” isn’t Solomon. We know from the use of language in the passage.

Notice the statement “my love” in verse 1. That’s the word רַעְיָתִ֥י that I gave you last week meaning “my friend” or “my companion.” This is the word that the shepherd husband uses for his shepherdess wife. She’s his friend. She’s his love. She’s his one and only.

Solomon doesn’t get to use that term רַעְיָתִ֥י (“my friend”). He’s not friends with his 700 wives and his 300 concubines. He might know their names. He might know which children of his they bore. But he’s not their friend, and they are not his friends. 

Notice also the word “my” and “you” in verse 1 are singular. This is the language of exclusivity and monogamy. In fact, just notice the words “your” in the following verses: “your eyes” (4:1), “your hair” (4:1), “your veil” (4:1), “your teeth” (4:2), “your lips” (4:3), “your mouth” (4:3), “your cheeks” (4:3), “your neck” (4:4), “your two breasts” (4:5). Every single one of those possessive pronouns is singular. This is one man admiring over and over again his singular love, his one bride.

And his admiration is the admiration of a husband for his wife. 

    • 1 Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold, you are beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil. 

There may be allusions here to their wedding day, when she took her vows behind a veil. But this word “veil” could also be translated “locks.” So this isn’t necessarily their wedding night. This could be just another Saturday night together. 

    • Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead. 

Gilead is a mountainous region just east of Israel and the Jordan River in modern-day Jordan. And goats in Israel were black not white. Keep that in mind with the next statement. 

    • 2 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. 

In other words, you’ve got all your teeth and they are beautiful. They are white and sparkly like freshly washed female sheep. 

And the whiteness of her teeth is a perfect contrast with the darkness of her hair. Remember, this is a Jewish girl. So she’s got long, dark, wavy hair. And her black hair is dark and beautiful like a goat’s, and her teeth are beautiful and white like sheep. That’s high praise from a shepherd!  

Notice too that he’s going from the top of her head all the way down her body. And the use of color is emphasized again in verse 3.

    • 3 Your lips are like a scarlet thread, and your mouth is lovely. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil. 

Scarlet lips. Red cheeks like a pomegranate. Black hair. White teeth. This woman is a masterpiece in the eyes of her beloved. And you might say to this cynically, “Yeah, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” To which I would reply, “Touché.” That’s true. And this beloved beholder is beholding true beauty.  

Look at verse 4.

    • 4 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. 

Let me help you with that one. She’s wearing a necklace that bears the resemblance of a strong tower with weapons hanging off of it. But he’s saying more than you look like a strong tower. He’s saying of her that her neck, as an entry point to the rest of her body, is a well-defended fortress. Nobody’s getting past her neck, visually or otherwise. Her purity and her commitment to him are something that he treasures. 

Look at verse 5.

    • 5 Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that graze among the lilies

We’ve seen these terms (deer and gazelle) used before for masculinity and femininity. The breasts of the woman are described with the young feminine terms for deer and gazelles.

By the way, this isn’t the only place in the Bible where language like this is used. Solomon wrote something similar in Proverbs 5:15–20: 

    • “Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love. Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?”

We’ll talk more about intoxication in just a moment. Look at verse 6.

    • 6 Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, I will go away to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense. 

Now verse 6 might not seem to be related to verse 5, but it is. Last week I told you about “cleft mountains” or “cleavage mountains” in 2:17. The woman in that passage invited her man to join her on her body and enjoy love and sex as God created it. 

In this verse, we have the man admiring the woman’s body. And he refers to her two breasts as gentle and delicate like fawns grazing among lilies in verse 5. Then in verse 6, he refers to her breasts as Mt. Myrrh and Frankincense Hill. 

He’s perhaps reminiscing about their sexual delights in the past. He’s perhaps anticipating another invitation to join her on her body! Stay tuned for her response. 

In fact, one way to translate verse 6 is “I will go to that which is mine... the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense.” Up to this point, it was you, your, and yours. Now it’s “I want to visit that which belongs to me.” Can a man say that to a woman? Is that allowed? It depends. It depends on whether there’s a ring on that finger and vows in their rearview mirror... not vows forward through the windshield, but backward in the rearview, if you catch my drift. 

And to cap things off in verse 7, he sums up his bride in one encapsulating statement. 

    • 7 You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.

I bet someone else could find a flaw in this girl. She found some flaws in herself in chapter 1. But this man sees her as flawless. Once again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And this beloved beholder is beholding true beauty.  

By the way, just a typological nota bene here. Jesus, our eternal groom, sees us, his church, as flawless. Not because we don’t have blot or blemish. We do. But he sees us as flawless, because he covered over those blemishes with his grace.   

 Write this down as a subpoint. Let me give you a, b, and c for “The Shepherd’s Devotion.” First of all, we see devoted delight. 

    • a) Devoted Delight (4:1–7)

Let’s observe the contrast between 3:6–11 and 4:1–7. Solomon can offer riches. He can offer security. He can offer safety. He can offer fame. Maybe he can even offer delight—he’s an experienced lover. He’s had lots of practice. His traveling bed is famous and “inlaid with love by the daughters of Jerusalem.” But he can’t offer “devoted delight.” He can’t offer friendship and loyalty and exclusivity like this shepherd offers his shepherdess.

Will the real Prince Charming please stand up? It’s not Solomon. Solomon didn’t say this:

    • 7 You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.

This guy is absolutely charming. He might not be “Prince Charming.” More like “Shepherd Charming.” He doesn’t have the wealth and reputation of King Solomon. But he’s got plenty to offer his wife.

And speaking of loyalty and commitment, write this down under b. This shepherd offers her Devoted Delight, but he also offers her...

    • b) Exclusive Intimacy (4:8–15)

Look at verse 8.

    • 8 Come with me from Lebanon, my bride; come with me from Lebanon. 

Notice in verse 8, this is the first time that the shepherd calls the shepherdess “my bride.” And some commentators think that’s because chapters 3 and 4 intimate a marriage ceremony. They were dating in chapters 1 and 2. They get married in chapters 3 and 4. They have conflict and resolution in chapters 5 and 6. And then, they reenact their honeymoon in chapters 7 and 8. That’s not my view, but I understand why people hold to that. It’s because “my bride” becomes explicit here. 

My view instead is that they were always married. The language from chapter 1 of this book was the language of a married couple. A wife says to her husband in ancient Israel, “let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth” (1:2). You don’t get to say that to a person unless you have a ring on your finger already. 

And so when I see “my bride” here in 4:8, I don’t see a new development in the Song. I just see another term of endearment. This has been true all along, but he’s making it explicit here. And the author is contrasting the exclusivity of their relationship with the inclusivity of Solomon’s harem in the previous passage. Which way looks better to the daughters of Jerusalem? Choose wisely, young ladies.   

Notice too in verse 8 he’s asking her once again to come away with him. 

    • 8 Come with me from Lebanon, my bride; come with me from Lebanon. Depart from the peak of Amana, from the peak of Senir and Hermon, from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards. 

In the tenth century BC, Lebanon was a mountainous, remote region north of Israel. These mountain peaks are found near there—Amana, Senir, Hermon. And in those mountains, there were dens and lairs for big cats. 

Here’s a picture of Mount Hermon today, which is right near the border of Israel, Syria, and Lebanon.

Mount Hermon [Click to view]

Now he’s not asking her to go to Lebanon with him. He’s asking her to come down from Lebanon. Why is she in Lebanon? Well, she’s not literally in Lebanon. This is akin to him asking her, his dove, to come out of the crevices in the rocky cliffs. He is saying, “Don’t be aloof and remote, darling! Don’t hide out away from me. Come with me, my bride. Come to me! Let’s be together!”   

Why? Because... look at verse 9.

    • 9 You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride; 

Literally, “you have hearted me my sister bride.” “You have pierced my heart like an arrow through a deer.” This guy is lovestruck. He’s thunderstruck. She’s gutted him in a good way. And he can’t get over it. 

She said she was sick with love in 2:5. Now he says he’s pierced by love in 4:9. She’s lovesick; he’s lovestruck. 

These two have it bad for one another. They are hopelessly hung up on one another. It would be embarrassing and unforgiveable, if it weren’t for the fact that they are married and it’s adorable. 

By the way, this is one of the reasons that you don’t give yourself over to someone you’re not planning to marry. Breakups are unbelievably painful. I’ve seen people go into a complete tailspin because their boyfriend or girlfriend of six months or a year dumps them. That’s incredibly painful. You’d be better off guarding your heart and waiting emotionally and physically for the person that you never have to break up with. Be lovesick! Be lovestruck! By the person you’re going to share life with. 

Then you can say this positively not negatively. This is positive here in verse 9.

    • 9 You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride; 

Sister Israelite, not sister-sister. This is not an Abraham and Sarah kind of thing. 

    • you have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. 

Man, this guy has fallen hard. He’s smitten. I know what that’s like.

    • 10 How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice! 

“Love” could be translated lovemaking here. And wine was treasured by the ancient Israelites, especially good wine. To say that her love is better than wine, or that her lovemaking is better than wine... that is saying something as a Hebrew. 

This statement about the “fragrance of your oils” is confusing and ambiguous. But obviously something sexually suggestive is meant there. I hesitate to speculate.

Speaking of sexually suggestive. Look at verse 11.

    • 11 Your lips drip nectar, my bride; honey and milk are under your tongue; 

I don’t think that verse needs a lot of explaining. The reference to honey and milk is fascinating. Her body is a wonderland, and her body is the Promised Land. 

    • the fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon. 

Wow, this Lebanon must be an amazing place. I need to check that place out. 

    • 12 A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a spring locked, a fountain sealed. 

Wait, why is she locked? Why is she sealed? I thought they were married.  

Well, he doesn’t say this as a negative thing. He’s not saying that she’s a prude and a cold fish when it’s time to get intimate. He’s talking about her purity here. He’s talking about her commitment to him. Her “locked garden” is protected from intruders. Her love and her body are reserved for him. She’s locked, and only he has the key. 

Look at verse 13. 

    • 13 Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates with all choicest fruits, henna with nard,

Goodness gracious, I don’t even know what that means. I’m afraid to hazard a guess. 

    • 14 nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all choice spices— 

This is the Hebrew equivalent to “sugar and spice and everything nice.”

    • 15 a garden fountain, a well of living water, and flowing streams from Lebanon.

There’s another reference to Lebanon. In addition to having beautiful mountains and the best forests, Lebanon was also famous for its clear and good tasting water.

And this is where all of the imagery and euphemisms collide into a barrage of sights and smells and tastes. There’s so much going on here, I don’t even know where to begin. But the gist of what he’s saying is, “You look great. You smell great. You taste great. You are a well of living water to me. I’ve got to have your love or I’ll die.” 

Listen, that’s not NT living water. Don’t allegorize this! He’s not talking about eternal life like Jesus does in the book of John. He’s saying here, “I need to be refreshed by your love and by your body. I will shrivel up and die if I don’t get that. I need it.” 

By the way, abstinence and chastity are expected of people who fear God outside the marriage. But the opposite of abstinence is expected of people who fear God inside the marriage. Inside the marriage covenant, sexual intimacy needs to be consistent and frequent when both parties are healthy and able. 

Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 7, 

    • “The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (7:3–5). 

Paul said that as a single man! He said that to the married men and women of the Corinthian church, because he was looking out for them. He knew that sexual intimacy was a kind of “living water” to married couples. He knew that sexual intimacy needs to be consistent and frequent in the marital relationship, especially in a sexually immoral place like ancient Corinth. And whatever could be said about ancient Corinth, can be said twice over about twenty-first-century America. 

And to that, some people in the room might say, “Okay, Pastor Tony. Sexual intimacy needs to be consistent and frequent in the marital relationship. Got it! But, how consistent? How frequent?” Well, there’s no way for me to answer that question without getting myself into trouble. But I’ll risk it. 

Martin Luther said this, 

    • “Twice a week and 104 times a year, should give neither husband nor wife cause to fear.” 

God bless you, Martin Luther!

And by the way, Martin Luther said that as a middle-aged man. He was a monk until age 41. He knew all about chastity and abstinence. And yet after marriage, he knew the importance of “coming together,” as Paul put it. 

And use those numbers as a rule of thumb (i.e., Twice a week and 104 times a year). Okay! I understand that in marriage, complications sometimes arise. Trust me, I get it. Sometimes there are health issues. There are pregnancies. Sometimes there are extended periods of stress and mental anguish. Et cetera, et cetera. And so, sometimes intimacy isn’t possible. But this is a good goal. It’s a good rule of thumb. 

Just so you know, whenever I meet with a fiancé who is a soon-to-be married man, I always ask him, and press him, “Okay, God forbid something happens, and your wife becomes a paraplegic. Your commitment to her needs to go beyond just your ability to have sex. You need to stay faithful to her throughout the duration of your lives, regardless of what happens. That’s part of what it means to vow in sickness or in health.” 

And when I have that conversation with that man, he’d better not blink. Or else I’m going to start second guessing whether I should officiate the wedding. Because, yes, sex is important. It’s an important part of marriage. Song of Solomon says as much. But marriage is not sex. And the vows transcend sexual intimacy. 

So, yes, the Bible talks about this. This is important. This is “living water,” to use the language of the husband in Song of Solomon. It’s living water to the husband and to the wife. But don’t confuse sex and marriage and equate them as if they are the same thing. They’re not. 

And notice too, men in the room. Notice how this man is not demanding this of his wife. He’s not giving her an argument of “conjugal rights.” This is a man that is wooing and pursuing his wife. “You don’t just woo to marry; you marry to woo for the rest of your life.” This guy in Song of Songs is continuing to woo. He’s continuing to pursue. He’s continuing to invite his wife into this sexual union as part of their marriage covenant. 

And speaking of invitation to sexual union, write this down at c. 

    • c) Mutual Giving and Sharing (4:16–5:1)

C.S. Lewis said once, 

    • “The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union.” 

That’s true. The covenant is the key. And after the covenant of marriage is instituted, you share everything together. You share your heart. You share your soul. You share children. You share a house together. 

You share joys. You share sorrows. You watch your parents age together. Her parents become your parents. Your parents become her parents. Your pain is her pain. Her happiness is your happiness. That is the mutuality of soul as God intended it. 

And speaking of mutuality... speaking of giving and sharing... look at the end of chapter 4, in verse 16, the woman responds to her man. She’s been wooed. And she says, 

    • 16 Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden, let its spices flow. 

The statement about her garden is a statement about her body. Let’s just say that she is physically and romantically stirred by the words of her beloved. 

    • Let my beloved 

There’s her word for him דֹּודִ֔י —“my beloved.” He calls her, “my friend,” “my love,” “my sister,” “my dove,” “my bride.” He’s got lots of terms of endearment for her. But for her, he is almost universally referred to as “my beloved” (דֹּודִ֔י).

And she says quite provocatively to her beloved,

    • Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits. 

This, friends, is the sweetest of invitations to come and enjoy the sexual delight of marriage as God intended it. This is not a woman who is just begrudgingly obliging her marital duty, abiding conjugal rights. This is a woman who loves her man and offers herself to him in mutual giving and mutual delight. 

And here’s what he says in chapter 5, verse 1. Here’s how he responds. You probably anticipated this.  

    • 1 I came to my garden, my sister, my bride, 

Notice “my garden.” They are one flesh. They have mutuality of soul and mutuality of physical bodies. There is something proprietary in marriage. She belongs to him and he belongs to her. This is an expression of their exclusive and monogamous relationship. 

    • I gathered my myrrh with my spice, I ate my honeycomb with my honey, I drank my wine with my milk. 

In other words, he’s feasted on the delight of sexual intimacy with his wife. He’s satiated. She gave the invitation, and he didn’t hesitate. And this is good. It’s actually encouraged. 

Look at the final statement in 5:1. The daughters of Jerusalem say approvingly—almost as a kind of rebuttal to the polygamous counterfeit of Solomon previously.  

    • Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love! 

Wait, wait, wait! Getting drunk is a good thing! In the Bible!

The Hebrew word used here שָׁכַר (šā·ḵǎr) means “get drunk” or “be intoxicated” (see Ge 9:21; 43:34; Isa 29:9; 49:26; Jer 25:27; Lam 4:21; Nah 3:11). It’s the same word that is used of Noah in Genesis 9 when he drank the wine from his own vineyard and passed out drunk. Throughout the Bible, getting drunk is universally presented as a sinful thing and something to be avoided (see Prov 20:1; 23:20–21, 29–35; 31:4–5; Isa 5:11–12, 22–23; 28:7–8; Hab 2:15–16; Luke 21:34; Rom 13:13; 1 Cor 5:11; 6:9–10; Gal 5:19–21; Eph 5:18; 1 Pet 4:3–4). Except for Song of Solomon 5 and Proverbs 5!   

But these two aren’t getting drunk on booze. They are “drunk with love.” They eat and drink deeply of each other, and then pass out in the bliss and inebriation of lovemaking. And it’s good. This is good. The daughters of Jerusalem celebrate this. Solomon can have his riches and his wives and his entourage. This is the better way. 

Coincidently, this is the center of the entire Song. We’re halfway through this book, and Song of Solomon 4:16 and 5:1 are the epicenter of this poem. According to Ian Duguid, there are 111 lines of poetry before this, and there are 111 lines of poetry after this. 

And the central point of this Song is made clear here in the center of the Song. And it’s this—covenantal and monogamous sex in the context of marriage is delightful before the Lord. It’s biblical! It’s celebrated in the Bible! 

How biblical are you, church? How biblically do you celebrate sex like God celebrates sex in the Bible?

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I’ll close with this and then we can take communion together. 

When I lived in Chicago, I became good friends with a Christian brother from Africa. We were students at Moody together. And he told me the wildest story about his parents. He said that after his parents got married, they struggled with infertility for twenty years. And it was taxing on them. If you’ve been through anything like that, you know how painful that can be.

And he was from an African country where polygamy was perfectly acceptable. And so, my friend’s dad was being pressured by his friends, his family, and even some Christian people at church to marry a second wife. That’s what you did in that country if your first wife wasn’t producing. You just get another one. 

But this man resisted. He loved his wife. He made vows to her. And he was determined, “If God doesn’t give me children with her, then God doesn’t want me to have children. The end.”

And this went on year after year. They were Abraham and Sarah, but there was no Hagar. And eventually, after two decades, she got pregnant and had a baby. Then she got pregnant again and had another baby. Then another baby. Then another baby. Then another and another and another and another. They had a total of eight children born to them after twenty years of infertility. And my friend—I can’t remember what he said—he was either the seventh of eight or the eighth child born. 

And you could tell, as he told this story, he was beaming with delight. He was proud of his parents. He was proud of his mom, of course. But he was especially proud of his dad—his integrity, his godliness, and his commitment to his mom despite pressure from people to desert her for someone else.   

Now look, very few of us are going to be tempted towards polygamy the way that my friend’s dad was or the way that women in Israel were tempted 3,000 years ago with Solomon. I don’t see a lot of men or women falling into that right now. 

But that doesn’t mean that we are immune in our day to settling for less than God’s best. We have temptations for sex outside of marriage. We have temptations for sex before marriage. We have temptations for fantasy sex and lust in isolation—pornography, voyeurism. We have temptations for sinful heterosexual sex and we have temptations for sinful homosexual sex. There is no shortage of ways to pervert what God has given us as a good gift. 

And so, there needs to be a resolution among God’s people. There needs to be tenacity—“I will not settle for less than God’s best for love, sex, and marriage. I will not cave to the societal pressures around me... so help me God!”

And if you or I have made mistakes in the past, God’s grace is sufficient. God’s grace is good. It’s better than we deserve. But moving forward, there needs to be tenacity. We can do better. God help us! By his grace and for his glory, God help us all! Pray with me, church!

Song of Solomon 3:6-5:1: Why we should choose a shepherd’s covenant love over Solomon’s royal harem? Discover the beauty of exclusive, godly intimacy in marriage!