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Song of Solomon – Part 2, The Bride Confesses Her Love

‘Defrauding Christ’s Spiritual Conjugal Rights is Denying Him ~ Invalidating Marriage.’

[Study Aired November 5, 2022]

Song of Solomon 1:2-7

In this study, Part 2 of the Song of Solomon, we continue with the Shulamite’s implicit, inherent conviction by experience that through kisses, arousal comes before desire and is the ointment that cures spiritual dispassion.

We are reminded that the lengthy introductions and this part in the Song of Solomon are justifiable to understand the Bride’s six thousand years of spiritual preparations for marriage to understand her intimate expressions.

For the Bride, the Song of Solomon is the culmination of her daily struggles from dying to the flesh. Women in biblical times rarely had a say in who they married, for example Solomon’s 1,000 women who did not choose to marry him.

Gen 6:1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, 
Gen 6:2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

Joh 15:16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

Likewise, the Shulamite never had a say; however, her astonished understanding of her Lord’s intentions makes her unequivocally gladly chosen by Him. Her passion for arousal and their consummation is the fruit of her learning from life-long struggles, and her joy for its finality is approaching its zenith. Upon marrying her Lord, they are perfectly “one” spirit of all understanding; the dust she was has done its job and is behind her. At her Lord’s hand, what remains is saving her brothers and sisters ~ but first, her focus in the Song of Solomon is solely on marital consummation! At this point, all chastisement for her (the Church) is done. The Song of Solomon is her grateful expression and affirmations of truth for doctrinal understanding finalised in marital consummation and not necessarily for previously unseen theological enlightenment ~ the Bride, dressed in fine white linen, is unconditionally accepted by her Lord.

Rev 19:7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
Rev 19:8 And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. 

The Song of Solomon is the end of her fiery struggles in dying daily. In an utter joyful submission to her Lord, she is given the expression of erotic purity we see spiritually that the world breathlessly debauched for six thousand years and could never satiate. 

Before resuming the Song of Solomon, I wish to briefly share a first-hand example of arousal before desire and expected spiritual consummation.

I’m sure every one of the Lord’s teachers feels tired and a little overwhelmed after work. He (She – a joint of the Bride) struggles to excite a spiritual ‘conjugal’ desire to reactivate his passion for picking up where he left off in developing his already late bible study draft. My experience is that my ‘marital’ obligation is, as the Shulamite implicitly knew, to begin being kissed by the word of God. I find that the fine wine of truth from the Lord’s mouth arouses a Shulamite-like awakening. The Lord’s spiritual passion increasingly wells within and ravishes my heart to desire more! ~ I’m bright-eyed as His word caresses my mind in a wonderful foreplay of spiritual enlightenment. The Lord’s “good ointment” cures my naturally feminine sluggish desire by first being aroused. Arousal increases the desire to be further aroused by a cascade of exciting spiritual truth. 

The Woman’s (the Body’s) post-study discussion almost always consummates with its members exclaiming by their exciting spiritual discoveries, unwittingly, that the ‘earth moved’ for them. As with “the natural”, some studies don’t outstandingly climax, yet, the Woman contentedly drifts into a peaceful afterglow in her God-given assurance of future arousals. Never again does she withhold her body from her husband or need consent for fasting and prayer since she is at one in Him in eternity with her enemies within under her feet. Fornication and defrauding her Lord of his conjugal rights is thinking above what is written she deletes from her mind, which is significantly why she is the Bride.

Let’s continue to be aroused to desire more of the Lord’s phenomenal truth that gives eternal life and “is better than wine.”

Following are the translator’s or Solomon’s orders of books. The original manuscripts were never broken into chapters and verses in the time of scriptural writings. The seeming chaotic disorder is compliant with a fiancée’s romantic dreaming.

The Bride Confesses Her Love
Solomon and His Bride Delight in Each Other
The Bride Adores Her Beloved
The Bride’s Dream
Solomon Arrives for the Wedding
Solomon Admires His Bride’s Beauty
Together in the Garden of Love
The Bride Searches for Her Beloved
The Bride Praises Her Beloved
Together in the Garden of Love
Solomon and His Bride Delight in Each Other
The Bride Gives Her Love
Longing for Her Beloved
Final Advice

The verses we are studying are Song of Solomon 1:3-7.

Son 1:3 Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee. 
Son 1:4 Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee. 
Son 1:5 I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. 
Son 1:6 Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother’s children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.
Son 1:7 Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?

In Song of Solomon 1:3, her Lord’s savour [H7381 ~ scent; fragrance; aroma; odour and derivative of H7306 – understanding] from his kisses of good ointments is an arousing balm compared to the torture of trying to keep the Law under the Old Covenant, especially today when we understand that nobody will be burning in a literal fiery hell forever.

The Hebrew for “ointment” is H8081.

– Original: שׁמן
– Transliteration: Shemen
– Phonetic: sheh’-men
– Definition:

fat, oil
fat, fatness
oil, olive oil
as staple, medicament or unguent
for anointing
fat (of fruitful land, valleys) (metaph)

Ointment’s most significant representation and meaning refer to oil and figures 165 times, primarily representing God’s word by the holy spirit. The more aroused we are for the holy anointing of the Lord’s word whose ways in which we are to walk, the more “oil” we have in our lamps that light the way.

Mat 25:1 Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. 
Mat 25:2 And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. 
Mat 25:3 They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: 
Mat 25:4 But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. 
Mat 25:5 While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. 
Mat 25:6 And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. 
Mat 25:7 Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. 
Mat 25:8 And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. 
Mat 25:9 But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.

Christ’s blood was poured forth as a drink offering and sweet savour “as an ointment poured forth”. With that understanding of the entirety of our Lord’s sacrifice and what he has planned for his Bride, the collective “virgins”, the Christs are aroused with immense desire and devotion, which is why they, “the virgins [plural] love thee”. 

In the next verse, 4, see how after we are individually aroused by the knowledge of our Lord’s word, “we” as the collective members of the Bride are past being dragged; they desire to run after Him and gladly rejoice in the Temple’s innermost sanctuary remembering that the heavenly gift of His love is better than wine. The collective Bride is the upright “we” who loves Christ.

Son 1:4 Draw [H5959 – drag] me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: [H2315. 1. chamber, room, parlour, innermost or inward part, within.   (Qal) to encompass, surround, enclose] we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee. 

Verses 5 and 6 seemingly continue confusing the identity of the Shulamite; however, our Lord is not interested in the world’s physical ethnicity; he is ultimately only interested in spiritual ethnicity.

Rom 2:28 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: 
Rom 2:29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

No matter what skin tone the Shulamite has, it is of no consequence since all people on the eighth day will ultimately be one spirit in God.

Gal 3:25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
Gal 3:26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. 
Gal 3:27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 
Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. 
Gal 3:29 And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Col 3:10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: 
Col 3:11 Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.

Continuing in the Song of Solomon:

Son 1:5 I am black, [H7838 – black]  but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. 
Son 1:6 Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother’s children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.

It is well established that the Shulamite’s name and ethnicity are indistinct and not critical to our learning. Her mysterious origins and convoluted shadows of her identity are confusing. What matters is that she is the shadow of spiritual majesty among the 700 wives of royal birth depicting the completion of judgement and 300 concubines for completing that process of judgment comprising the number 10 and the completeness of the power of corruptible dying flesh. That perdition is for the entirety of Solomon’s wives representing Israel in the wilderness, including its vast mixed multitude (Exo 12:38) coming out of Egypt, and subsequently Babylonian, the world, in the Lake of Fire.

Solomon’s wives were of many ethnicities – Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites of nations the Lord commanded Israel to not take wives. The most notable wife was “Pharaoh’s daughter”. She would account for the Shulamite’s feasible colour, possibly black, since coppery-toned Egyptian skin would tan darker in the sun; still, we can’t identify her ethnicity.

1Ki 11:1 But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; 

1Ki 3:1 And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh’s daughter, and brought her into the city of David, until he had made an end of building his own house, and the house of the LORD, and the wall of Jerusalem round about.

It is obvious, especially to Solomon, that young women of any ethnicity can be outstandingly beautiful; what matters to God is the beauty of their hearts, not their outward appearance.

Most notably, Moses saw the stunning beauty of Ethiopian women ~ one cannot help but think since Moses was particularly good-looking (“exceedingly fair” ~ normally not meaning fair-skinned – Act 7:20,21) and he married an Ethiopian, there was potential startling elegance in his children. It is strange for the Shulamite to say that she is black but comely, as if being ethnically black isn’t comely. Since the Shulamite was scorched by the sun, her skin tone was no doubt more “dusky” as noted for the Hebrew for ‘black’ in the KJV Pro 7:9 In the twilight, in the evening, in the black [H380] and dark night: 

The Lord does not make a physical distinction of one ethnicity having greater superiority over another by the seeming inequality of the Shulamite being “black but comely”.

Interestingly, the word “but” doesn’t feature in the original Hebrew text, as noted in the Hebrew Interlinear Bible.

ה : shchure dusky אֲנִ י ani I וְ נָאוָה u·naue and·comely בְּ נת bnuth daughters-of יְ רוּשָׁ לָ ִם irushlm Jerusalem.

The YLT has the translation in keeping with the original Hebrew:

Son 1:5 Dark am I, and comely, daughters of Jerusalem, As tents of Kedar, as curtains of Solomon.(YLT)

The Shulamite familiarly associating herself “as” the tents of Kedar would add credence to the possibility that she is Egyptian and maybe Pharaoh’s daughter since Kedar was the habitation of the Ismaelites, Abraham’s first son born to the Egyptian, Hagar, the bondwoman. The Shulamite is both black/dusky and comely “as” the tents of Kedar and Solomon’s curtains. However, the colour of any curtains in Solomon’s Temple or his palace is not mentioned in scripture and is assumed to be black.

There are several potential connections as to why the Shulamite is, or associates herself with, “black”. The negative of black in scripture relates to sickness, disease, plague, blindness, foreboding and death (Lev 13:31).

In the previous study, we saw that the name Shulamite^H7759 means “the perfect or the peaceful” and is the derivative of H7999. Jerusalem likewise means city of peace, and since the Shulamite regards herself as “black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem”, she can be prophetically referring to the imminent famine, disease, destruction and death of the beautiful comely city of peace; its physical distinction peaked in Solomon’s time. Of course, and for us, it is the blackness and destruction of our Old Man Jerusalem below and the creation of the New Man, the Heavenly Jerusalem above clothed in pure white linen.

The Bride’s “oil”, the Lord’s spirit within, is never “hurt” since she shall soon see that she is the apple of her Lord’s eye.

Rev 6:5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. 
Rev 6:6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. 

A positive connection with the Shulamite linking herself with “black; as the curtains of Solomon” and the name Solomon [H8010] and its definition of “peaceful” and H7965  bonds them both as one in “completeness; soundness; welfare; safety; health; prosperity; quiet; contentment and covenant with God” as does the name Jerusalem.

The Shulamite stating that she is black can be aligned with the casting off of her dead old man within, indirectly juxtaposing her spiritual comeliness. The Ishmaelites, like the Egyptians who pursued Israel out of Egypt, had their minds darkened, even pitch black as the tents of Kedar and Solomon’s curtains. 

Upon Moses lifting up his rod and parting the Red Sea to deliver the Israelites to the east bank, utter darkness shadowed by the pillar of cloud pervaded the Egyptian camp. Still, to the Israelites, a pillar of fire lit their way.

Christ is the cloud of blackness and the midday son of righteousness that has shaded her for endurance, hidden her from her enemies, lit up her way and burnt up her previously uncircumcised heart. The blackness of chastising grace resulting in her comeliness, mentioned five times in the Song of Solomon, is the symbol of the past trials of her faith that to God is as gold refined in the fire. Her Lord will not give her glory to her Babylonian sisters who claim Christ’s name.

Exo 14:19 And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them: 
Exo 14:20 And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night.

Eph 4:17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
Eph 4:18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:

Job 30:30 My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.

1Pe 1:7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: 

Isa 48:10 Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.
Isa 48:11 For mine own sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be polluted? and I will not give my glory unto another.

The most profound positive connection and application of the Shulamite considering herself black can be coupled to the following verses and particularly the definition of “apple” and two separate Hebrew connections with the same meaning:

Psa 17:8 Keep me as the apple [H380] of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings.

Apple H380
Original: אישׁון
– Transliteration: ‘iyshown
– Phonetic: ee-shone’
– Definition: 

pupil of the eye
middle of the night (that is the deepest blackness)

Zec 2:7 Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon.
Zec 2:8 For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple [H892] of his eye.

Apple H892
– Original: בּבה
– Transliteration: Babah
– Phonetic: baw-baw’
– Definition: 

the apple (pupil) of the eye; (hollow out)
– Origin:

Zec 2:9 For, behold, I will shake mine hand upon them, and they shall be a spoil to their servants: and ye shall know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me. 
Zec 2:10 Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the LORD. 
Zec 2:11 And many nations shall be joined to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto thee. 
Zec 2:12 And the LORD shall inherit Judah his portion in the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem again. 
Zec 2:13 Be silent, O all flesh, before the LORD: for he is raised up out of his holy habitation.

The Shulamite clearly is the apple, the pupil or black centre of Solomon’s eye of delight for her, and her eye for him, as is the Bride of Christ on him and he on her. The somewhat morbid connecting definition of “hollow” further substantiates the connection for the sensitivity and centrality of devotion when the eyeball (the “apple”) is set biologically in its hollow in the skull. Anything touching the eye’s pupil causes an instant reflex to protect the vital organ, and anyone touching the Bride, the Lord’s eye, touches him with deadly consequences for even seeing her holiness of Christ.

Num 4:18  Cut ye not off the tribe of the families of the Kohathites [descendants of Korah; figuratively the Bride’s Babylonian sisters] from among the Levites: 
Num 4:19 But thus do unto them, that they may live, and not die, when they approach unto the most holy things: Aaron and his sons [the Bride] shall go in, and appoint them every one to his service and to his burden: 
Num 4:20 But they shall not go in to see when the holy things are covered, lest they die.

We know that singleness of mind, depicted by “one” eye and “one” chain that in freedom bonds the Bride to Christ, compared to the chains that formally yoked her to the cooperative of Babylon.

Pro 1:8 My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:
Pro 1:9 For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.

Son 4:9 Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck.

Eze 19:9  And they put him [Israel] in ward in chains, and brought him to the king of Babylon: they brought him into holds, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel.

The Shulamite is figuratively Zion even with her sisters Israel and dwells with the daughter of Babylon, collectively taking on the name Babylon. She effectively is Judah, a spiritual Jew our Lord chose as the apple of his eye. She was called out by her Babylonian sisters and made into his personal new Jerusalem and habitation.

Continuing with the rest of verse 6, the Shulamite seems to plead kindness from her mother’s angry children. They depict the angry and jealous ten tribes of Leah’s children, Joseph’s brothers, who sold him into Egypt since Joseph was the favoured one of his father, Jacob.

As we know, Joseph represents the Bride of Christ who, under Christ, her husband, saves her brothers and sisters in the Lake of Fire.

Gen 37:3 Now Israel [Jacob] loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. 
Gen 37:4 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. 

Gen 45:4 And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
Gen 45:5 Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. 
Gen 45:6 For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.
Gen 45:7 And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. 
Gen 45:8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. 
Gen 45:9 Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not:
Gen 45:10 And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children’s children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast: 
Gen 45:11 And there will I nourish thee; for yet there are five years of famine; lest thou, and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty.

The ending sentence of Song of Solomon 1:6 speaks of the Shulamite’s brothers and sisters making her keep other vineyards, possibly theirs, to the seeming detriment of her vineyard, where her painful trials produced remarkable blessings. She worked in the scorching sun of their Babylonian Christian vineyards. She was allegorically chastised black in the furnace of affliction through lack of spiritual understanding before bringing forth faith represented as fine gold.

Isa 13:11 And I will punish the world [first for the Bride] for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. 
Isa 13:12 I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.

The Shulamite’s brothers and sisters made her attend their vineyards with the command, “… my mother’s children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept”, is reminiscent of Christ reaping where he did not sow.

The Bride of Christ is well versed with her not having a say in her Lord’s choosing her as his Bride. She worked in the fiery furnace of affliction with her brothers and sisters in their vineyards while her Lord was attending to her vineyard within.

To help understand Shulamite’s statement of not keeping her vineyard in good order, we need to look at the end of the Song of Solomon. Solomon had a vineyard which he let out to keepers whom he required a return on his investment of 1,000 pieces of silver.

Son 8:11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baalhamon; [H1174 – meaning, Lord (possessor) of abundance; husband; and derivative H995 – the possessor of a multitude] he let out the vineyard unto keepers; every one for the fruit thereof was to bring a thousand pieces of silver.

The number 1 is unity, and the collective of 1,000 (10x10x10) is the completeness of the flesh, the power of corruptible dying flesh, and ultimately the dying of Babylon. It affirms that the Shulamite has come out of her brothers and sisters in Babylon, their “mother’s children”, as Solomon’s “choice” wife among the 1,000 other women. Her vineyard is suggestively unpruned and in disarray, yet she knows that she is her Lord’s handiwork to complete her vineyard within.

Son 8:12 My vineyard, which is mine, is before me: thou, O Solomon, must have a thousand, and those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred.
Son 8:13 Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice: cause me to hear it.
Son 8:14 Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.

We shall leave examining the above verses in detail until the end of the Book of the Song of Solomon. In the meantime, the Shulamite’s vineyard, she says, is hers she compares to Solomon’s vineyards numbering 1,000. She and her Lord are one and a witness of two (two hundred) in each other since He dwells in her vineyard and harkens to His voice, which is why she is immensely spiritually aroused. Her brothers and sisters do not hear the voice of her shepherd. The completion of tending her vineyard is in her Lord’s hands; she is his workmanship and has no fear of what happens to her physical garden of her dying old man within.

Her 1,000 sisters of Babylon reap the fruit of their disobedience, and dance their whoredoms in their physical vineyard and unwittingly produce rotten fruit that they think is a fine wine, but are lies ~ Deu 28:39  Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them, but shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. 

Yet, the entire harem of Solomon’s 1.000 wives has lavishly indulged in the flesh of his abundance and drank from their vineyard of ‘vanities of vanities’ (Ecc 1:2-12). Remembering that Solomon was righteously betrothed to his wives, yet, in his old age, his many wives caused him to fornicate by turning his heart away from the Lord.

Rev 18:3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. 

The Shulamite is given a jaw-dropping understanding of her predestination. She says ~ Son 1:7 Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions? 

Remembering that in the previous verses, the Shulamite is passionately kissing her Lord and receiving his love that is better than wine ~ her teeth are like a flock of sheep coming up out of the wash (Son 4:2, 6:6) to feed on his righteousness and rest at noon peaceably in the fiery heat of blessed trials while retaining a breath as sweet as apples. (Son 7:8) Job’s wife, initially like he, couldn’t understand the nature of his fiery trials. 

Job 19:17 My breath is strange to my wife, though I intreated for the children’s sake of mine own body.

The Shulamite is likewise being entreated in her own body for her brother’s and sister’s sake yet to come out of Babylon.

While considering her sisters, who appear similarly beautiful, in all righteous humility, the Shulamite says, “… for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?” She effectively says, ‘why should I be the chosen lamb drafted aside from the other 1,000 sheep?’

The Shulamite today is given to know the answer to her humble question:

1Pe 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

Psa 17:8 Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings, 
Psa 17:9 From the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies, who compass me about. 

This concludes the study. At the Lord’s hand and next week, we will look upon the Bride’s beauty in verses 1:8–17.