Notes
Song of Solomon 2:4: His banner over me was love.
‘His banner,’ דִּגְלוֹ (diglo), from דֶּגֶל (degel), a military standard. The SEPTUAGINT and VULGATE read the word as a verb; the former in the imperative: ‘Marshal (τάξατε), love against me;’ the latter in the indicative: ‘He marshalled (ordinavit) love against me.’ WICKLIFE: He ordained me in charity. LUTHER: Love is his banner over me. DIODATI: The banner which he lifts up to me. MARTIN: Which I carry. THEODORET, expounding from the Septuagint: Teach me the manner of love. RASHI: My band who guide me to him is love. MUNSTER, MONTANUS, and PAGNINUS: His banner over me or about me. The expression, according to MENOCHIUS, equivalent to—‘He drew me with the cords of love.’ MERCER: He held love before me as a banner to attract me to himself. GROTIUS: ‘He carries his love as an ensign before me,’—I serve under his banner, which is love. Similarly GESENIUS: ‘I follow the banner of love which my Beloved presents to me, as soldiers follow a military standard and never desert it.’ TIRINUS: ‘Love,’ that is, his love to me, by which he might subdue me to himself; and mine to him, that he might take me and all I have for his own. PISCATOR, JUNIUS, and MERCER: ‘Having love towards me for a standard,—by which to call or draw me to himself.’ SANCTIUS, expounding from the Vulgate: ‘By his numerous kindnesses and sweetest blandishments he drew up all the array of his love against me.’ So Du VEIL: He subdued me entirely to himself under the banner of love: he caused that I should cleave to him alone in love, as soldiers follow their standard. PATRICK: I am enlisted under his banner whose motto is love: he has overcome my heart so as to submit entirely to his wonderful love. MICHAELIS: He attacked me under the banner of love. ROSENMÜLLER: His banner for me is love,—his love to me is conspicuous as a banner in an army. EWALD: Love was as a protecting banner over my head. ZÖCKLER: Love waves as a protecting and comforting banner over my head when I am near him. So DÖPKE, WORDSWORTH, and BURROUGHS. PERCY, and BOOTHROYD, reading the word as a verb in the imperative: ‘Spread the banner of love over me.’ FRY, following one of Dr Kennicot’s manuscripts: ‘They have set up their banner over me. FAUSSET: The banner inscribed with the name of the Captain who rescued us, Love. Some view the word as denoting the luminous standard carried before marriage processions. So PARKHURST; also HARMER: A cresset, or portable fiery standard. Others, perhaps still more correctly, as a ‘flag or pendant, probably displayed on festive occasions.’ So WILLIAMS. A banner usually displayed on the festive tent or banqueting house; perhaps having on nuptial occasions the word ‘Love’ inscribed on it. PERCY. A canopy, such as is carried over a Bride in the East. HUG.
SHULAMITE’S HAPPY EXERCISE
‘He brought me to the banqueting-house,
And his banner over me was love.
‘Stay me with flagons;
Comfort me with apples;
For I am sick of love.
‘His left hand is under my head,
And his right hand doth embrace me.’
Shulamite describes her happy enjoyment of her Beloved’s fellowship and love. Represents it under the figure of a banquet of wine. ‘He brought (or hath brought) me into the banquet-house’ (or house of wine). Such a banquet among the highest of earthly enjoyments. Hence queen Esther’s invitation to the king (Esther 5:4-6). The king’s love already declared by Shulamite to be ‘better than wine.’ She now realizes this to the full. Her longing desires after the enjoyment of his fellowship and love now fully gratified. She has found him whom her soul loved, and experienced intense delight in his presence. Observe—
(1) The soul that earnestly seeks Jesus, and the enjoyment of His fellowship and love, will not seek in vain. ‘Said I to the house of Jacob, seek ye me in vain?’ ‘Then shall ye seek me and shall find me, when ye search for me with all your heart.’
(2) The happiness in the enjoyment of Christ’s presence and love, such as infinitely to compensate for all the labour and pains in seeking Him. What it cost Shulamite to find her Beloved, forgotten in her happiness now that he is found. ‘In Christ, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory’ (1 Peter 1:8). Notice, in regard to the
Banqueting House—
I. The EXPERIENCE itself. The nature of the ‘banqueting house’ or ‘house of wine,’ indicated in the words that follow: ‘His banner over me was love.’ Perhaps in allusion to some practice of suspending bannerets with suitable mottoes or devices over the heads of honoured guests at entertainments; or to the burning cressets carried at the head of a marriage procession, to light the party to the banquet-house. The happy experience of the banqueting-house is the enjoyment of the King’s presence, and of that love which is ‘better than wine.’ The greatest earthly happiness experienced in the fellowship and love of one whom we ourselves greatly love. The poetry of every country full of this sentiment. Love, the poetry of life; the wine and cream of existence. Jacob’s hard service of seven years for Rachael seemed to him but a few days, ‘for the love he bare unto her.’ The banner that floats over the head of believers’ in the fellowship of Jesus, a banner of ‘love.’ Its emblem ‘a Lamb as it had been slain;’ and its mottoes: ‘He loved the Church, and gave Himself for it;’ ‘He loved me, and gave Himself for me.’ This love-banner manifestly suspended over the disciples at the Last Supper. The same banner waving over every Communion Table. Love, the ground of all the Lord’s dealings with His people. His love—
(1) An electing love;
(2) A redeeming love;
(3) A covenanting or bridal love. The manifestation of Christ’s love, the believer’s feast. His loving presence a banquet of wine. The assurance of His love the believer’s strength and joy in the battle of life.
‘With Thee conversing, I forget
All time, and toil, and care;
Labour is rest, and pain is sweet,
If Thou, my Lord, art there.’
Heaven but the full bloom of this enjoyment. Christ’s enjoyed presence and love the great attraction of Christian ordinances, especially of the Lord’s Supper. The keynote in the Song of Solomon. The Song, like Psalms 45, a ‘Song of Loves.’ The happiness in the enjoyment of Christ’s love, and the language of the Song in describing it, perfectly natural. The naturalness of such language in the case of mere earthly love unquestioned. Why in the case of a Divine and spiritual one? Infinitely more in the God-man to fill the soul with delight in the enjoyment of His fellowship and love than in the loveliest, most loving, and most beloved creature. Mere creature love and creature loveliness, beside Christ’s, a taper beside the sun. The love of the Man that is Jehovah’s fellow, revealed in His thorn-rent brow, His nail-pierced hands, and His spear-wounded side. The language of each scar in His sacred body, love—love unspeakable, inconceivable; love of the most worthy to the most worthless; love of the Prince of the kings of the earth to a beggar on the dunghill; love of the all-glorious Creator to the degraded creature; love of God to a contemptible worm, though a worm originally made after His own image, and capable of loving Him with the ardour of the loftiest seraph. This love and loveliness able to be apprehended, realized, and felt by the human soul, made at the same time deeply conscious of its utter unworthiness of it. The soul capable both of enjoying that amazing love and of reciprocating it: and of experiencing, while so doing, a joy superior to that connected with any mere earthly love—a joy characterized by one who knew it as ‘unspeakable and full of glory.’ Such joy in Divine fellowship and love, man’s normal experience as a rational creature in an un-fallen state. The object of Redemption to restore man to its enjoyment; with the superadded element, that the Creator has, for man’s sake, assumed his nature, and in that nature endured for his deliverance the awful curse incurred by his sin. Delight in the love and fellowship of a Divine Redeemer the experience even of Old Testement saints before that Redeemer became incarnate. Hence the impassioned language and longing of the ‘sweet Psalmist of Israel’: ‘In His favour is life.’ ‘My soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee, in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; Thy loving kindness is better than life; my soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips, when I remember Thee upon my bed, and meditate upon Thee in the night watches. ‘As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee. O God.’ ‘My soul longeth, yea, even faintech, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God’ (Psalms 30:5; Psalms 63:1; Psalms 63:3; Psalms 63:5-6; Psalms 42:1; Psalms 84:2). Isaiah sings: ‘I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall be joyful in my God’ (Isaiah 61:10). Zephaniah exhibits the joy on both sides: ‘Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord in the midst of thee is mighty: He will save; He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love; He will joy over Thee with singing’ (Zephaniah 3:14; Zephaniah 3:17). This joy in the Divine Redeemer and His love the experience of the early Christians. Raised them above the smiles and the frowns of the world, above the fear of torture and of death, of the lions and the stake. The experience of the Church in its times of greatest and spiritual prosperity, and of believers in their first-love and highest attainments in grace. Often specially realized by the Church and believers in times of suffering and persecution. The experience which gives such life, sweetness, and power to the hymns of Charles Wesley, the Moravian Brethren, and others. The ‘banqueting-house’ not confined to time or place; but especially found in the ordinances of God’s house, and most of all in that of the Lord’s Supper.
II. The AUTHOR of the experience. ‘He brought (or, hath brought) me,’ &c. The king recognized by Shulamite as not only preparing the banquet of love, but also bringing her to it. Her language that of amazement, admiration, gratitude, and joy. Our experience of the love and fellowship of Christ as our Bridegroom-Redeemer due entirely to Himself. Himself not only the Author of the bridal relation between Him and His people, but of their knowledge, acceptance, and enjoyment of it. The relation itself, with all the blessings connected with it, freely offered to men in the Gospel; but, apart from the grace of Christ, neither apprehended nor cared for. ‘Who hath believed our report?’ Wisdom hath mingled her wine, and furnished her table, and sent out her maidens with the invitation to the feast; but men reject the counsel of God against themselves, and begin to make excuse (Proverbs 9:1-3; Matthew 22:2-6; Luke 7:30). Blindness, carnality, pride and unbelief, only overcome by the same royal grace that spreads the feast. ‘Why was I made to hear Thy voice?’ &c. Christ brings to the banqueting-house—
1. By His electing love. ‘Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.’ His love an everlasting love, which in time lays hold of its object (Jeremiah 31:3).
2. By His renewing grace. The carnal mind enmity against God, and so without any inclination to the banquet of His love. Its taste the swine-trough. Its enjoyment the creature, not the Creator.
3. By His gift of faith. Such amazing love to the worthless and undeserving not readily believed. Unbelief as to the freeness of the Gospel offer and the reality of Christ’s love, to be removed by divine grace. This done by Christ Himself through His Spirit. Christ the Author as well as Finisher of our faith. His to give as well as ‘increase’ it. Exalted to give repentance, which includes it.
4. By His conquest of the heart. His people willing in the day of His power (Psalms 110:3). Loved with an everlasting love, and, therefore, drawn with lovingkindness (Jeremiah 31:3). Drawn with cords of a man, and with bands of love (Hosea 11:4). His free, forgiving love, apprehended by faith, breaks and conquers the heart. The case of the woman in Simon’s house. Her many sins freely forgiven. Hence she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little (Luke 7:47, &c.)
5. By helping the soul over every discouragement in the way of its full enjoyment of Christ’s fellowship and love, and preparing it, both by His providence and grace, for such enjoyment. So the woman ‘that was a sinner’ enabled to enjoy the banquet of love at Christ’s feet even in the Pharisee’s house.
6. By pouring His love into the heart, and affording the rich realization of it through His Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). Christ able to speak comfortably (margin, ‘to the heart’) even in the wilderness. ‘I will love them freely’ (Hosea 14:4; Hosea 2:14). So with the woman in Simon’s house: ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee.’ Christ able to tell the soul, ‘I have loved thee with an everlasting love;’ ‘I have redeemed thee; thou art mine’ (Jeremiah 31:3; Isaiah 43:1).
III. The EFFECT of the experience. ‘Stay (or support) me with flagons (or cordials—perhaps raisin-cakes); comfort me (or surround me—strew my couch) with apples (or citrons—fruits of reviving fragrance): for I am sick of (or faint with) love. His left hand is (or, let His left hand be) under my head, and His right hand embrace me.’ Shulamite, overpowered by a sense of the king’s love, and the happiness she enjoyed in his fellowship, calls as if for aid in her fainting state, to the ‘daughters of Jerusalem,’ or ladies of the Court, perhaps waiting at some distance; though probably intending only the king himself, as indicated in her concluding words: ‘Let his left hand be under my head,’ &c. The effect of her present rapturous enjoyment a sense of fainting, which requires the application of reviving ordials and odours, and the support of the king’s own loving arms. ‘I am sick of (or faint with) love,’ implying—
(1) Overpowering sense of present enjoyment in the king’s love;
(2) Inability to sustain more of it in present circumstances;
(3) Need of support under it. The sense of Christ’s love sometimes attended with similar effects on the physical system. The human frame often unable to endure unusually powerful emotions without sensible weakness and derangement as the result. The language of one under the sense of Christ’s love: ‘Stay Thy hand or the vessel will burst.’ Mr. Flaved, under a similar enjoyment while riding on horseback, felt himself at length so weak as scarcely to be able to retain his seat, and discovered that the blood had been oozing from his limbs, and flowing into his boots. Two of the writer’s own friends the subjects of a similar experience. Observe—
(1) That love must be precious, and the experience of it desirable, which can cause the soul to faint under the sense of it.
(2) Such Divine love-sickness only relieved by more of that which is its cause. The fruit of the Apple-tree alone able to cure the sickness it makes. The Bridegroom’s own arms must support the soul fainting under a sense of His love. Such sickness followed by a blessed healing, both here and in a better world.
(3) Sense of Christ’s love the highest enjoyment to be experienced on earth. Such sense, enjoyed in a high degree, next door to the felicity of heaven.
(4) The soul filled with, and fainting under, Christ’s love, languishes for the fuller enjoyment of His presence in heaven. Full satisfaction only found where Christ is seen face to face. Love-sickness only on earth. Sense of Christ’s love the most effectual means of weaning the affections from the world. The ‘expulsive power of a new affection.’ The love-sick soul only longs the more for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
‘O Christ, He is the fountain,
That deep, sweet well of love;
On earth the streams I’ve tasted:
More deep I’ll drink above.’
(5) Affecting contrast between sickness from Christ’s love and surfeit from the pleasures of the world. The former followed with a still richer manifestation of that love, but with an enlarged capacity for its enjoyment. The latter succeeded by an eternal thirst, with nothing to allay it (Luke 16:19-25).