Come with me from Lebanon, [my] spouse, with me from Lebanon: look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards.
Ver. 8. Come with me from Lebanon, &c.] Or, Thou shalt come with me - by way of promise. And it is doubled for more certainty; q.d., Nothing shall hinder thee, but thou shalt indeed come with me, and enjoy my continual presence. This she had begged hard for in the former Chapter s, and this she is now sweetly assured of, with a new largesse of love sealed up in the kindest compellation, "spouse," which signifies the wife married and already joined to her husband. Yea, in the next verse he calleth her both "sister" and "spouse." The nearest affinity is spouse, and the nearest blood sister. Thus Christ is better to his people than their prayers - better than their hopes. Hezekiah asked one life; God gave him two, adding fifteen years to his days. David asked life, and God "gave him life for ever and ever." Psa 21:4 "Hitherto ye have asked me nothing," Joh 16:24 saith Christ; that is, nothing to what I am ready to give you. He stands disposed to his suitors, as Naaman did toward Gehazi. 2Ki 5:22-23 Gehazi asked but one talent. Nay, take two, saith Naaman; one is too little, take two. And he pressed him, and heaped them upon him. God deals with his servants as the prophet did with that widow, when he bade her borrow vessels, and the cruse never ceased running till there was no room. 2Ki 4:1-7 Or as he dealt with the Shunammite in the same chapter, when he bade her ask what she needed, and she found not anything to request at his hands; he sends for her again, and makes her a free promise of that which she most wanted and desired, and tells her that God would give her a son.
From Lebanon, look from the top of Amana.] Or Abanah, as the river running under it was called. 2Ki 5:12 And Strabo saith, a that it was a mountain forcibly possessed by many tyrants. Of Shenir and Hermon, see Deuteronomy 3:9. These all were haunted with wild beasts, even Lebanon also, 2Ki 14:9 though otherwise a pleasant and plentiful place. Deu 3:25 Hereby is signified, that the Lord Christ from all parts will call and collect unto himself a people; and although he find them lions and leopards, as here, untameable and untractable, he will soon subdue them to the obedience of the faith, so that "the lion shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the kid." Isa 11:6 All bloodiness and rapine shall be laid aside, as it was with the wild beasts in Noah's ark. Thus Paul, that ravening wolf of the tribe of Benjamin, Gen 49:27 is made to "preach the faith which once he destroyed." Gal 1:23 Thus the ancient Britons, our forefathers, though like that demoniac in the Gospel, "fierce above measure," and inhospitable savages, so that the Romans could not come at them, Christo tamen subditi, saith Tertullian; yet they were easily subdued by Christ; and then sensim evanuit feritas indies, exulavit immanitas, corruit crudelitas, b saith one, they were suddenly and strangely altered - not civilised only, but sanctified. So was Justin Martyr, Cyprian, Augustine, Vergerius, Latimer, Julius Palmer, that Popish priest of Canterbury, who said mass on one day, and the next day after came into the pulpit and made a long sermon against it, desiring the people to forgive him, for he had betrayed Christ, &c. As long before him, in Wycliffe's days, and by his means, one that was the Pope's chaplain renounced him, professing that he came out of his order, as out of the devil's nest, &c. And although not a scholar in Oxford would look upon the good Bishops Ridley and Cranmer, prisoners in Bocardo, but generally set against them, yet the whole body of that university gave a glorious testimony under their public seal of Wycliffe's religious life, profound learning, orthodox opinions, exquisite writings, all furthest from any stain of heresy. c See what Christ can do where he pleaseth to come in by his mighty Spirit.
a Lib. xiv.
b Bond in Horat. Carm., lib. iii. od. 3.
c Acts and Mon., 924 and 1555. - Ibid., Anno 1755. - Speed, 761. - Acts and Mon., 1565. - Speed, ibid.