“Behold, you are fair, my beloved, yes, handsome (‘pleasant), Also our couch is green. The beams of our house are cedars, And our rafters are firs. I am a crocus of Sharon, A lily of the valleys.”
The young country maiden replies with similar compliments, and then speaks of her hopes to lie with her beloved on the green grass and herbs beneath the boughs of the great cedars and firs. That will be their house. This is her view of courting, for she is not yet acclimatized to her new role. After all she is but a crocus of Sharon, on the coastal plain in the north, and a lily of the valleys, enjoying a Northern beauty. She was not to know, when she described herself in this way, that one day a greater than Solomon would declare, ‘Consider the lilies of the field, they toil not neither do they spin, and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these' (Matthew 6:28-29). Yet she is certainly aware of their beauty. She is not denigrating herself, but pointing out that she is of the valleys and the hills. So she is content with simple things, and with country life. She is not concerned with grandeur and fine palaces, only with being with her beloved and enjoying him in beautiful country surroundings. She does not yet quite appreciate whom her beloved is.
‘Also our couch is green.' Greenness was seen as resulting from the activity of the sun and as indicating fullness of blessing (Job 8:16). It was an indication of restoration after the barren summer, resulting from the effects of rain and sun, when God had blessed the earth. Note also the reference to cedars as a roof over their head. In Song of Solomon 8:9 it will be boards of cedar wood that possibly enclose her little sister in order to prevent her from straying, but here the protection for her is from the heat of the sun.
The prophets regularly looked back to the time in the wilderness as being a time when Israel were purer and sought their God more truly (Jeremiah 2:2-3; Jeremiah 2:13). Thus the song reminds God's people that He can be found in the simple things of the countryside, as Jesus would later. The great cities were regularly looked on as the sources of evil and idolatry. And it is noteworthy that when Jesus came He avoided the great cities, and tended more to minister in the country towns and the open spaces. He too felt that men and women were nearer to God there than in the cities. It is a reminder to us that we need regularly to get away from the demands of life into a quiet place where we can meet with Him. And it is interesting that when He sat down the people to eat the bread of His new covenant that too was on ‘the green grass' (Mark 6:39). Perhaps Mark had in mind these words from the Song of Solomon.
Like the young maiden we too find it difficult to become acclimatized to the fact that our Beloved is a King, and more. That is why we worry so much. And we seek to bring Him down to our level. And very graciously, as Solomon did with this maiden, He comes to us where we are and meets us on our own ground, spending time with us in our own surroundings, and assuring us of His love, waiting for a full recognition of all that He is to dawn on us.
The BELOVED again speaks.