“I have compared you, O my love, To a horse in Pharaoh's chariots. Your cheeks are comely with plaits of hair, Your neck with strings of jewels. We will make you plaits of gold With studs of silver.”
The young maiden's beloved now speaks, and his words fit in well with the idea that it is Solomon who is in mind. For he likens ‘his love' (a phrase regularly used as the description of the young maiden in these songs) to a horse in Pharaoh's chariots. He would have been well familiar with Pharaoh's chariots, and as a lover of horses he could have paid her no higher compliment. He has in mind the sleek beauty of such a horse, its thoroughbred appearance, its stateliness, its carefully tended mane, and the gorgeous decorations with which it is arrayed, covered over with studs of gold and silver. For these are the horses in Pharaoh's chariots, and have to demonstrate the splendor of Pharaoh. Similarly he sees his loved one also as having a splendid ‘mane' of hair as it hangs enticingly down over her cheeks, while her neck too is ‘decorated', in her case with strings of pearls. And he assures her that he and his family, or he and his leading courtiers, will ensure that she too is adorned in gold and silver.
The words here can equally be translated as ‘a mare among Pharaoh's chariots' where the idea would then be of the disturbance caused by a mare in heat among the stallions who drew the chariots. But the following description suggests that it is the appearance of the horse that is in mind, not at this stage any disturbing qualities of its propensities.
Israel had similarly been invited to be God's loved one, and to be suitably bejewelled. She was often likened to a young maiden whom God had bejewelled (see Ezekiel 16:10-14; Jeremiah 2:2-3), and as destined to be His wife (Psalms 45:13-15; Isaiah 54:1-6; Isaiah 62:4-5; Jeremiah 3:20; Hosea 2:2). But she had turned away from Him and had despised His love (Hosea 1-3). Thus would they spend many days without Him (Hosea 3:4) until they were willing to seek His face (Hosea 3:5). And when He did finally come in the person of Jesus Christ those among them who were His true people did seek Him, and they became His ‘church'.
In the New Testament the idea of a woman gloriously arrayed by her prospective husband is a regular picture of Christ and His church (Ephesians 5:27; Revelation 19:8). She is to ‘put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its desires' (Romans 13:14). This is a picture, not of what we are (‘I am swarthy'), but of how Christ sees us, and how He intends to make us.
THE YOUNG MAIDEN finds herself at the king's table and speaks of her satisfaction with her lot.