Song of Solomon 8:8 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

These are manifestly the words of the bride, still continuing her speech. The present church, which was that of the Jews, speaks of another future church, which was to consist of the Gentiles, which she calls little, because she was the younger sister, and then scarce had a being; and she calls her her sister, partly because she was so in the purpose of God, their common Father, though at present she was a stranger to him; and partly to intimate that the Gentile church should be admitted to the participation of the same privileges with that of the Jews. She hath no breasts; no grown and full breasts, as virgins have when they are ripe for marriage, Ezekiel 16:7. This signifies the present doleful estate of the Gentiles, which as yet were not grown up into a church estate, and wanted the milk or food of life, as for itself so also for its members. What shall we do for our sister? teach us to know and perform our duty to them, which is to embrace them with sincere and fervent affections, to promote their coming in to Christ, and to rejoice in it, and not to envy it, and murmur at it, as the Jews did in the days of Christ and of his apostles. In the day when she shall be spoken for, to wit, for bringing her into the state of matrimony; when Christ and his apostles, and others, the first ministers of the gospel, who were members of the Jewish church, did speak and act for the conversion of the Gentiles.