Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages.
Ver. 11. Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field.] Being now fully assured of Christ's love, she falls to praying. She makes five requests unto him in a breath as it were: (1.) That he would "come"; (2.) "Go forth with her into the field"; (3.) "Lodge with her in the villages"; (4.) "Get up early to the vineyards"; (5.) "See if the vine flourish, pomegranates bud," &c. And further promiseth that there she will "give him her loves." Assurance of Christ's love is the sweetmeats of the feast of a good conscience, said Father Latimer. Now, it were to be wished that every good soul, while it is banqueting with the Lord Christ by full assurance, as once Esther did with Ahasuerus, would seasonably bethink itself what special requests it hath to make unto him, what Hamans to hang up, what sturdy lusts to subdue, what holy boons to beg, &c. How sure might they be to have what they would, even to the whole of his kingdom! Suitors at court observe their mollissima fandl tempora, their fittest opportunities of speaking, and they speed accordingly. A courtier gets more many times by one suit than a tradesman can do with twenty years' painstaking. So a faithful prayer, made in a fit season, "in a time when God may be found," as David hath it, Psa 32:6 is very successful. Beggary here is the best trade, as one said. Common beggary is indeed the easiest and poorest trade: but prayer is the hardest and richest. The first thing that she here begs of him is, that he would "come," and that quickly, and this we all daily pray, "Thy kingdom come," both that of grace and the other of glory. The Jews also, in their expectation of a Messiah, pray almost in every prayer they make, "Thy kingdom come," and that " Bimherah Bejamenu, " quickly, even in our days, that we may behold the King in his beauty. Let our hearts' desire and prayer to God be for those poor seduced souls that they may be saved; and the rather because "they have a zeal of God and his kingdom, but not according to knowledge," Rom 10:1-2 as also because their progenitors prayed hard for us; and so some take it to be the sense of the spouse's second request here, "Let us go forth into the field," that is, into the world, for the field in the parable is the world; Mat 13:38 let us propagate the gospel all abroad, and send forth such as may "teach all nations," Mat 28:19 and reveal "the mystery that hath been kept secret since the world began, that obedience may be everywhere yielded to the faith." Rom 16:25-26
Let us lodge in the villages.] That is, In the particular churches; for, vilissimus pagas, est palatium eburneum, in quo est pastor et credentes aliqui, saith Luther, a the poorest village is to Christ and his spouse an ivory palace, if there be but in it a godly minister and some few believers. Melanchthon, going once upon some great service for the Church of Christ, and having many fears of the good success of his business, was much cheered up and confirmed by a company of poor women and children whom he found praying together for the labouring Church, and casting it by faith into Christ's everlasting arms. b
a Tom. iii. p. 81.
b Selneccer. Paedag. Christ.