Notes
Song of Solomon 2:12: The time of the singing of birds iS come.
‘The time of the singing,’ עֵת הַזָּמִיר (eth ha-zamir). Two meanings given to זָמִיר (zamir). GESENIUS and others derive it from זָמַר (zamar), ‘to prune,’ as in Leviticus 25:3; and so understand the expression as the ‘time of pruning the vines,’ or spring. So the Septuagint, Vulgate, and the ancients generally. RASHI, KIMCHI, ABEN EZRA, and most of the modern interpreters, understand the word rather as denoting ‘singing,’ from זָמַר, ‘to sing.’ So EWALD, who observes that vineyards are not mentioned till Song of Solomon 2:13, and that the Greek ψάλλειν (psallein), equivalent to זָמַר is used of the singing of birds. ZÖCKLER understands the word of singing, but rather the ‘merry songs as of shepherds and country people.’ Some understand it of the ‘plucking and gathering of flowers.’ So GREGORY OF NYSSA, DU VEIL, TIRINUS, and POOLE. HARMER and KITTO think allusion is made to the nightingale, which is heard in Palestine during the greater part of the garden season, singing delightfully in the day time among the pomegranate groves, and from trees of loftier growth in the night season. The time of singing, as more agreeing with that of the turtle’s cooing. FAUSSET. SANCTIUS observes that vines are not pruned in spring, and prefers—‘the time of cutting the Cyprus in order to obtain its balsam in the gardens of Egedi.’ LUTHER simply translates: The time of spring. Variously allegorized. TARGUM: Time of cutting off the first born in Egypt. RABBINS: Time of Israel’s redemption, cutting off of the first born, and rooting up of idolatry. WEISS: Cutting off of the idolatrous nations of Canaan. ORIGEN: Pruning at the end of the world, when the axe of judgment is laid to the root of the trees. GREGORY: Removing the reprobate from the Church, that the end of the world may come. DEL RIO: A spiritual pruning in baptism and repentance for the remission of sins. FOLIOT: In sacred confession. WILLERAMUS: By the preaching of the Word. CASSIODORUS: The pruning of the saints in and by Christ. PHILO: A daily pruning from all sin necessary to those who wish to be Christ’s spouse. HONORIUS: Pruning the Church of its rebellious members. FROMONDI: Putting off of the old man and cutting away of the old shoots of vices. WICKLIFF: By the preaching of the Gospel. THREEFOLD MYSTERY: Pruning of the Gentiles after Christ’s coming. ABEN EZRA. Time of singing the song by the Red Sea. BROUGHTON: Time of the Jew’s return from the Babylonian captivity. FAUSSET: Time of rejoicing at the advent of Jesus.
PART SECOND
The Huptials
CHAPTER Song of Solomon 2:8, TO CHAPTER Song of Solomon 3:11
SCENE FIRST. Place: Shulamite’s home in the country. Speaker: Shulamite alone with the Daughters of Jerusalem, or Ladies of the Court.
NARRATIVE OF THE BRIDEGROOM’S VISIT
The voice of my Beloved!
Behold, he cometh,
Leaping upon the mountains,
Skipping upon the hills.
My Beloved is like a roe or a young hart:
Behold, he standeth behind our wall;
He looketh forth at the windows,
Shewing himself (glancing, like a rose bud) through the lattice.
My beloved spake and said unto me
Rise up, my love, my fair one,
And come away.
For lo! the winter is past;
The rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth:
The time of singing is come;
And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs;
And the vines, with the tender grape, (or, now in blossom), give a good smell.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
Shulamite relates the visit of her Beloved when he came to take her to the nuptials. The visit probably made in spring. The bridegroom’s invitation, from its pleasant nature, poetically represented as a call to come forth and enjoy the beauties of that delightful season. The language implies a previous absence of the bridegroom. The believers most comfortable state on earth not abiding. Its interruption, however, subservient to higher advancement.—The parts of which the Song is composed appear to shift and melt into each other like the dissolving views of a diorama.
The text a poetical and allegorical representation of what takes place in the history of the Church as a whole, and in the experience of believers individually. Historically, the Church’s experience—
(1) At the return of the Jews from the captivity in Babylon;
(2) At the time of the Saviour’s incarnation and earthly ministry;
(3) At any time of great revival in the Church—pre-eminently, at the commencement of the Gospel Dispensation on the Day of Pentecost, and at the Reformation in the sixteenth century. A time of the Church’s
Revival,
a time of Spring. The voice of the heavenly Turtle-dove, like the harbinger of an oriental Spring, then heard in the land. The Gospel,—the voice and dispensation of the Spirit—then clearly and earnestly preached, and accompanied with the Spirit’s own power. Sleepers awakened and the dead made alive. The anxious inquiry heard: What must I do to be saved? Sanctuaries thronged with thirsting hearers. Converts multiplied. Believers quickened—made holy, happy, and useful; bold in testifying for Christ, and their testimony blessed. The spirit of prayer—the voice of the Turtle-dove in the believer’s heart—eminently poured out. Gatherings for prayer, numerous, lively, and largely attended. The fruits of the Spirit conspicuous. Love, peace, and goodwill prevailing in the Church and in the neighbourhood. Satan may rage, and some may persecute; but the believers are unmoved, rejoicing to walk ‘in the footsteps of the flock,’ and to be counted worthy to suffer shame for their Master’s sake. Observe—A necessity laid on believers to pray for such a Spring-time to the Church and the world (Zechariah 10:1).—The Church’s experience farther indicated in the text—
(4) At the time of the Saviour’s second coming. The new heavens and the new earth then created. The whole creation, now groaning and travailing in pain together, then ‘delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.’ No more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain; ‘for the former things are passed away’ (2 Peter 3:13; Romans 8:21; Revelation 21:4).
The experience of individual believers exhibited—
(1) At the time of their first enjoyment of Christ’s manifested love;
(2) At subsequent repetitions of the same;
(3) In revived spiritual life and joy after a season of deadness and discomfort;
(4) At their departure to the ‘better country.’
There everlasting spring abides,
And never withering flowers.
The passage includes a lively and beautiful description of
Spring.
Spring the emblem of all that is sweet and lovely, joyous and refreshing. The spring in nature only a picture of the spring in grace, and still more of the spring in glory. Its lessons manifold:—
1. That God is love. This proclained in the months of spring from every wood and hedge-row, every field and garden. Sung by the lark as it soars in the air; hummed by the insect as it flits from flower to flower; whispered by the daisy that shows its smiling face again after the snows and storms of winter. Spring a continually recurring testimony that God delights in the happiness of His creatures.
2. That He rules by His providence. By His care, the creatures he has made are again provided with the means of support and comfort which seemed for a time to be suspended. Life bursts forth out of death, and plenty out of want. His hand looses the bands of winter by preserving the earth in its motion, and the sun in its power. He brings back the sweet influences of the Pleiades, and looses the bands of Orion (Job 38:31).
3. That God is faithful to his promises. The time of the singing of birds comes, however long it seemed to be deferred. The voice of the turtle or cuckoo is again heard in the land, proclaiming that God is mindful of His promise that, while the world remains, seed-time and harvest, summer and winter, shall not cease (Genesis 8:22). Weeping may endure for a night; joy, according to His promise, comes in the morning. ‘They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.’ (Psalms 30:5; Psalms 126:5). The fulness of the time arrives, and the Saviour appears.
4. That God is the author of beauty. Himself the perfection of beauty, He delights in imparting it to His creatures. Beauty the robe of Spring. Conspicuous everywhere,—in “the blue sky, green earth, and gleaming sea.” The world not a mere granary. The hand that fills the ear with the full corn for man’s food, clothes the grass of the field with beautiful flowers for man’s enjoyment. The voice of spring: “How great is His goodness, and how great is His beauty!” (Zechariah 9:17).
An interesting feature of Spring is the return of the migratory inhabitants of the woods. More especially that of the herald of Spring—with us the cuckoo,—in Palestine,
The Turtle Dove.
‘The voice of the turtle is heard in our land.’
The turtle-dove in the natural, an emblem of the Holy Ghost in spiritual, world His chosen form, in descending on the Saviour at His baptism. Probable allusion to the figure in the account of the Creator (Genesis 1:2): ‘The Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.’ Literally, ‘brooded,’ as a bird over its young. ‘Dove-like, sat’st brooding’ (Milton). The dove an emblem of the Holy Spirit, as—
(1) Distinguished for its faithful love. In love, the Spirit visits loathsome hearts, which He renews for His abode, and then never entirely leaves.
(2) The cleanest and most delicate of birds. The least sin hateful and grieving to the Holy Spirit. Creates, in the soul He dwells in, the same holy hatred.
(3) A very timid creature. A hawk’s feather said to be sufficient to make it tremble. The Holy Spirit easily grieved, and creates in us a holy fear in regard to sin and spiritual danger.
(4) A gentle bird. The gentleness of the Spirit seen in the gentleness of Christ, in whom He dwelt in His fulness. ‘I am meek and lowly in heart.’ ‘He shall not strive nor cry. A bruised reed He shall not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench’ (Matthew 11:29; Matthew 12:20). Among the fruits of the Spirit are—long-suffering, gentleness, and meekness (Galatians 5:22-23).
(5) The turtle takes up its abode in the land renewed under the genial breath of Spring. The Holy Spirit loves to dwell in the heart He renews by His own gracious influence. The believer’s body as well as His soul the temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 3:16; 1 Corinthians 6:19). Care to be taken by the believer to cherish so blessed a guest.
The ‘voice’ of the Holy Spirit ‘heard in the land’—
(1) When the Gospel is preached in its purity. The Gospel the Dispensation of the Spirit. ‘The Spirit and the Bride say: Come.’ ‘As the Holy Ghost saith, Today, if ye will hear His voice.’ ‘He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches’ (Revelation 2:11; Revelation 21:17; Hebrews 3:7).
(2) When the Gospel is preached with power. The Gospel to be preached ‘with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.’ ‘Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me’ (1 Peter 1:12; Acts 1:8).
(3) When the fruits of the Gospel appear in the lives of those who hear it These fruits—love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance (or self control). Exemplified in the first hearers of the Gospel at Jerusalem, at Samaria, Philippi, Corinth, &c. (Acts 2:44-47; Acts 8:8; Acts 16:15; Acts 16:33-34; Philippians 1:3-7; 1 Corinthians 6:11). The voice of the turtle-dove never entirely silent in the earth since the first promise of a Saviour. Heard in the preaching of Enoch and Noah, in the Psalms of David, in the Proverbs and Song of Solomon, and in the strains of all the prophets. Carries in the Gospel the olive leaf of peace to a perishing but pitied world.
From the language of Shulamite in reference to her Beloved, observe—
1. The warm affection of a believer’s heart towards the Saviour. ‘The voice of my Beloved!’ The first faint sound of His voice eagerly caught as it falls on the ear. Shulamite speaks as if her heart leaped within her at the sound. ‘As soon as the voice of Thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy’ (Luke 1:44).
(2) The waiting and expectant state of the believer in regard to Christ. For His first Advent in the case of the Old Testament Church; His second Advent in that of the New; and His spiritual visits and appearances in the case of believers in general. Shulamite on the eager look out for her Beloved. The proper posture of believers in regard to Christ. His second and glorious Appearing the Church’s ‘blessed hope’ (Titus 2:13; Luke 12:36)
(3) The love of Christ to His Church. Shulamite’s Beloved represented as coming to her, in the eagerness of his desire, like a swift and sprightly gazelle or young antelope, bounding over mountain and hill. No obstacle too great for Christ to overcome in redeeming and blessing His Church. ‘He loved the Church and gave Himself for it.’ Jacob’s love to Rachael shewn by a hard service of fourteen years in keeping Laban’s flocks. A human life of thirty-three years to fulfil the precepts of the law; and a painful, ignominious, and accursed death, with the added misery of the hiding of His Father’s face, to satisfy its penalty—not too much for the love of Christ to His Church. ‘Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldst not: then said I, lo, I come to do Thy will, O God; a body hast Thou prepared for me’ (Psalms 40:6, &c.; Hebrews 10:5-9).
3. The Saviour’s desire for the believer’s love and fellowship. Shulamite’s Beloved having reached her dwelling, waits outside till he obtains her consent to follow him. ‘He standeth behind our wall,’ &c. He addresses her by the most endearing titles, and employs arguments taken from the removal of every obstacle—‘the winter is past,’ &c.—and from the most attractive features of the country in the lovely season of an oriental Spring, as expressive of the sweetness enjoyed in the fellowship of love. Souls invited to receive and follow Christ by the blessedness imparted by His presence and love. ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in unto him, and will sup with him, and he with me’ (Revelation 3:20).
4. The natural backwardness of the heart to the blessedness to which Christ invites His people. Shulamite’s backwardness indicated by the arguments employed by her waiting Beloved to overcome it. The believer’s spirit willing, while the flesh is weak. Weights hanging on the soul which have to be laid aside. The natural tendency, through the remains of the carnal mind, to settle down in a state of sloth and indolence, satisfied with little of spiritual life and communion with the Saviour. ‘My soul cleaveth to the dust; quicken Thou me according to Thy word’ (Psalms 119:25).
6. The necessity of leaving everything for Christ. Shulamite twice entreated ‘to rise up and come away.’ Like the exhortation addressed to the same Bride in the forty-fifth Psalm: ‘Harken, O daughter, and consider: forget also thine own people and thy father’s house’ (Psalms 45:10-11). The Saviour’s call: ‘Follow Me’—to be answered by a rising up, leaving all, and following Him (Matthew 4:19-22; Luke 5:27-28). ‘Whosoever he be that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple’ (Luke 14:33).
7. The whole passage descriptive of
The Saviour’s Call
I. What it COST to make it. Shulamite’s Beloved required to come from a distance, overcoming every obstacle, ‘like a roe or a young hind’ bounding over one mountain peak after another. The Son of God required to leave His Father’s house, assume our nature, empty Himself of His glory, take the form of a servant, be born of a humble woman, be brought forth in a stable, work as a carpenter, become a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, be for a time with nowhere to lay his head, endure the contradiction, reproach, and opposition of sinners, and at last the hiding of His Father’s face amid the agony and shame of an accursed death. One mountain of suffering and one valley of humiliation after another, to be passed before He could call sinners to the enjoyment of salvation,—His chosen bride to the celebration of the marriage. Many also the provocations to be come over in His saving call to sinners, and His sanctifying call to believers, before He obtains their full consent to ‘rise up and come away.’ Jesus more eager to save and bless, than the sinner or the saint to experience His salvation and blessing (Psalms 81:10-16).
II. The MEANS through which He addresses the call. “The voice of my Beloved. He standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, showing himself (margin, ‘flourishing’—glancing like an opening flower) through the lattice.” Through these openings in the wall he addressed his invitation: ‘My beloved spake and said unto me.’ Through the ordinances instituted by Himself in His Church, Christ wooes sinners to become His Bride, and invites His Bride to the full enjoyment of union and communion with Him. ‘We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you, in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled unto God.’ ‘I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin unto Christ’ (2 Corinthians 5:20; 2 Corinthians 11:2). The voice of Christ Himself in the word and ordinances the only effectual means of awakening and drawing the soul to Himself. ‘My sheep hear my voice and follow me.’ The quickened soul able to distinguish that voice as the voice of the beloved. “They know not the voice of strangers.” The voice known to be that of the Saviour from its inward power and sweetness, and from its conformity to the written Word. Known by believers as having heard and experienced it before. Observe—
(1) A wall found standing between Christ and the soul whom He seeks. Our fleshly nature, both in respect to body and mind, such a wall. The ‘law of commandments’ which we have broken, another. Visible nature at present a separating wall. Ordinances themselves a wall, but a wall with openings in it; or ordinances these openings themselves. Through these openings Christ shows Himself to the soul He seeks.
(2) To obtain glimpses of Christ and hear His voice, it is necessary to be at the lattice of ordinances. Divine ordinances the meeting-place between Christ and His people (Exodus 25:22; Exodus 29:42-43; Exodus 30:6; Exodus 30:36). ‘Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the ports of my doors.’ ‘One thing have I desired, and that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and inquire in His temple.’ ‘Wherever two or three are gathered together in My name there am I in the midst of them.’ ‘Wherever I record my name, I will come and bless you’ (Proverbs 8:34; Psalms 27:4; Matthew 18:20; Exodus 20:24).
III. The ARGUMENTS employed in the call. Three arguments employed by Shulamite’s Beloved.
(1) His own love—expressed in the titles given her;
(2) The removal of hindrances: ‘The winter is past, the rain is over and gone;’
(3) The joyful prospect before her—‘The flowers appear on the earth,’ &c. Jesus invites sinners to become His Bride, and His Bride to come forth to the full enjoyment of His fellowship on the ground of—
1. His love to them. His great argument with Israel His argument with believers and with sinners still: I have loved Thee with an everlasting love; therefore, with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.’ ‘I have redeemed thee; thou art mine.’ ‘Turn, O backsliding children, for I am married unto you’ (Jeremiah 31:3; Jeremiah 3:14; Isaiah 43:1). ‘God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him might not perish.’ ‘The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.’ ‘Came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many’ (John 3:16; Luke 19:10; Matthew 20:28). Thus Jesus gained the woman at Jacob’s well, and the sinner that washed His feet with her tears. The sinner’s heart only thawed by a Saviour’s love. The cords that draw the soul to Christ ‘the cords of a man and the bands of love’ (Hosea 11:4). Only the revelation of redeeming love able to break down the barriers and undo the bolts of a sinner’s heart. A loving voice heard outside before the door is opened within (Revelation 3:20). None so fair in the eyes of Jesus as the penitent and believing soul (Luke 15:5-7).
2. The removal of hindrances. The winter of a Legal Dispensation now past. The covenant of works superseded by a covenant of grace. ‘Do this and live’ exchanged for ‘Believe and live.’ Fulfilment of moral precepts and observance of ceremonial ordinances no longer a term of union with the Beloved. The invitation: ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ ‘Ho, every one that thirsteth; come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money; Come, buy and eat; without money and without price.’ ‘Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely’ (Matthew 11:28; Isaiah 55:1; Revelation 22:17). Divine justice that demanded the sinner’s damnation now satisfied with the Surety’s blood. The sword that should have smitten the guilty sheep bathed in the blood of the Shepherd, and so put back into its scabbard. The way prepared on the cross for a righteous reconciliation with God, and the full forgiveness of the sinner. God now able to be just while justifying the ungodly. A just God now a Saviour. All things now ready for the salvation of the sinner, and his marriage with God’s own Son (Zechariah 13:7; Ephesians 2:13-16; Romans 3:21-26; Matthew 22:2; Matthew 22:4). Nothing wanting but the sinner’s consent. ‘Wilt thou go with this man?’ ‘To as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God’ (John 1:12).
3. The joy and blessedness attending compliance. ‘The flowers appear on the earth, &c.’ The soul invited by Christ to the joy and blessedness of an eternal spring, in the enjoyment of His society and love—in the new heavens of the new earth ‘wherein dwelleth righteousness.’ A rest remaining for the people of God, of which Canaan, clad in all the beauties of a lovely spring, was only a type. A time in prospect for the sinner that accepts the Saviour, when all the chill and gloom, the clouds and storms, the darkness and discomfort of the present state, shall give place to the sweetness and sunshine, the brightness and beauty, the light and gladness, of a land where the sun shall no more go down; where flowers that never fade bloom under cloudless skies; where the harps of angels and the songs of the Redeemed fill the air with celestial music, and where the tree of life bears its perennial fruit on both banks of the river that waters the Paradise of God. A ‘better country’ in prospect to every believing soul, where purity and peace, and joy and love—the voice of the heavenly turtle—is everywhere heard, and where the true Vine diffuses its fragrance, and with its precious clusters fills the happy inhabitants with ‘a joy unspeakable and full of glory.’
III. The CALL itself. ‘Rise up and come away.’ The call addressed by the Saviour to His first disciples: ‘Follow me.’ In obedience to it, they ‘rose up, left all, and followed him’ (Matthew 4:18-22; Luke 5:27-28). The general law: ‘Whosoever he be that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.’ ‘If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.’ ‘Let us go forth unto Him, without the camp, bearing His reproach’ ‘Hearken, O daughter, and consider; forget all thine own people, and thy father’s house: so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty’ (Luke 14:33; Matthew 16:24; Hebrews 13:13; Psalms 45:10-11). The world to be given up in order to ‘come away’ with Christ. No man able to serve two masters of different interests and demands. ‘Ye cannot serve God and mammon.’ ‘If the Lord be God, serve Him; if Baal be God, serve him.’ A resolution and effort to be made to leave our present state in order to follow Christ. ‘Rise up.’ So the Prodigal Son: ‘I will arise and go to my father,’ &c. And he arose and went. The strength to arise is Christ’s: the act and effort our own. So with the Paralytic: ‘Take up thy bed, and go into thine house; and he arose and departed to his house’ (Luke 15:18; Luke 15:20; Matthew 9:6). Christ’s call is—
(1) To come to him;
(2) To come after Him. We are to come to Him as sinners; to come after Him as disciples. The former verified by the latter. The blessing of coming to Christ realized in coming after Him. ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,’ followed by—‘take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; and ye shall find rest to your souls’ (Matthew 11:28-29). Unspeakable gainers in giving up all for Christ. Christ the One Pearl of great price that makes a man up for time and eternity. Everything, therefore, wisely given up to obtain possession of it. The case of Paul that of all believers: ‘What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ; yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things,’ &c. (Philippians 3:7-8).