THE YOUNG MAIDEN replies.
“Take us the foxes, the little foxes, That spoil the vineyards, For our vineyards are in blossom. My beloved is mine, and I am his, He feeds his flock among the lilies. Until the day be cool, and the shadows flee away, Turn, my beloved, and be you like a roe-deer or a young hart, Upon the craggy mountains (mountains of Bether).”
The young maiden determines to prove his love. It is all right for him to call her away from her responsibilities to run wild across the mountains, but if he really is so concerned for her, let him do something practical. She has a personal problem to deal with as the keeper of the vine gardens (Song of Solomon 1:6). Let him and his friends (plural verb) deal with the problem of the foxes that are spoiling the family vine gardens, for they are causing her great concern. The vine gardens are her responsibility and are in blossom and the foxes are causing havoc. If he does love her, here is a practical way in which he can demonstrate it, and ease her mind at the same time.
The contented words that follow are probably intended to indicate that he has carried out her wishes, for she is now fully satisfied that he loves her, and she feels that she can say with confidence, “My beloved is mine, and I am his”.
And one of the evidences that he is still hers, and concerned about her, is that he is still feeding his sheep among the lilies. He has still remained in the near vicinity. ‘Feeding among the lilies' is similarly closely connected with the phrase, ‘I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine' in Song of Solomon 6:2 after they have fled back to her tribal lands. It indicates that he is willing to be near her where she is, in the lily fields of her homeland, away from the stifling atmosphere of the big city. And she does not want him to go away. She wants him to continue with his courting, being like a roe-deer or a young hart, even though it be temporarily in the mountains of ‘separation'.
For she is still shy, and while she sees him as truly hers, ‘my beloved is mine, and I am his', and wants him to be feeding his flock among the lilies, (a woman's view of the pasturage in her own land), until the cool of the day is reached and the sun goes down so that there is no more shadow. And even wants him to turn back and return to the mountains, to leap like a roe-deer and skip like a young hart to his heart's content, in a mood for mating, rather than disappearing out of her life, she is not yet ready to commit herself, for he must know that she cannot come with him yet, however much she might wish to do so. ‘Bether' means ‘division', and thus the idea may be of divided mountains, the crags. But it is also a reminder of the separation between them (later they will enjoy instead the mountains of spices together - Song of Solomon 8:14).
Israel in a similar way called on God to deal with the foxes. Let Him deal with the day by day problems that they faced, and especially the problem of troublemakers who spoiled their possessions. But like her they did want to have to respond to God's continual call to them. That was expecting too much. They wanted Him to be close, but not too demanding. So they turned Him away, and the inevitable result was that they were separated from Him, and love grew dim.
We also desire that He will remove our troubles and our problems, the little foxes that disturb our vines. We want Him to be involved with our lives and our individual needs, and we want Him to remain close by. But we only too often do not want to become too involved with Him in His work. We do not want to be out with Him feeding the flocks. Nor do we want Him disturbing our lives. Let Him feed His flocks on His own, let Him release His energies on the mountains, for although He is our Beloved, and we are His, we prefer to not to become too involved or to be disturbed. Like the young maiden we are often not yet ready to face up to the demands of love. It is asking too much.