Monday • 10/31/2022

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 56; Psalm 57; Psalm 58; Song of Songs 6:1-13; Revelation 14:1-13; Luke 12:49-59

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2-6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94)

For our Old Testament reading the past two weeks and this week, I am treating the Song of Songs instead of the lectionary’s Ecclesiasticus. Together, I hope we are discovering or rediscovering the wonder of this enchanting “Best of Songs.” Today’s portion is Song of Songs 6:1–13.

Song of Songs. “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine” — Song of Songs 6:3. This is not first time this phrase has come up in Song of Songs, and is seemingly an intentional evoking of the covenant relationship between Yahweh and his people: “I will be your God and you will be my people.” The Song explores an analogy between that relationship and the covenant bond between husband and wife. Earlier, in Song of Songs 2:16, the woman uses this phrase to express her joy at the arrival of her beloved who “leaped mountains” and “bounded hills” to come to her. There the point was to stress the couple’s delight in each other. Here in chapter 6, there seem to be threats to the relationship, and the phrase clarifies the exclusive love that the man and the woman have for each other. It’s as though she were saying here, “I am my beloved’s (and nobody else’s) and my beloved is mine (and nobody else’s).”

It is difficult to determine just what the threats to their relationship are. But they are there. Some commentators think the chorus of women who ask about the whereabouts of the beloved are contesting the strength of the bond between lover and beloved, and are themselves trying to become competitors for his affections (6:1). The female lover responds: I’m his, and he’s mine. Back off!

Then the male lover, or husband, chimes in. He praises, once again, the loveliness of his wife, and attests that though there be queens and concubines and “maidens without number” that could avert his eyes and heart, there is only one woman for him: the “Shulammite” (Song of Songs 6:8,13). Interpreters have puzzled over the term “Shulammite.” I think the best explanation is that it is a feminine form of “Solomon.” Worthy of consideration is Jenson’s suggestion: “Thus, just as elsewhere the Song calls the male lover Solomon, since every male lover is a great king, so here the female lover is a female Solomon, since every female lover is a great queen.”

Another threat to the relationship lies in the urging of a male chorus that the Shulammite “return, that we may look upon you”—specifically, that she dance for them, putting her femininity on display (Song of Songs 6:13). The last half of verse thirteen is her demurral: “Why should you look upon the Shulammite (i.e., me), as upon a dance before two armies?”

Despite the complex imagery and the difficulty in discerning the details of the story line of the love relationship between the man and the woman, the theological takeaway from this chapter is straightforward. God’s design for love between a man and a woman is one of exclusive love, desire, and commitment— and that, precisely because the love between Yahweh and Israel in the Old Testament (updated to Christ and the Church in the New Testament) is one of exclusive love, desire, and commitment.

Revelation. Today’s reading in Revelation underscores the point that our love for the Lord is to be exclusive. So jealous is Christ for the love of his Bride that Babylon, who “has made all nations drink of the wine of God’s wrath,” must fall. Babylon seduces with deceptive charms: blasphemy and excessive luxury—Revelation 17:3-6; 18:3-19. Against her wiles and her persecutions, the saints must endure, “keep the commandments of God, and hold fast the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12). And those who have “been redeemed from the earth,” and who “have not defiled themselves with women” (Revelation 14:4, which I take to be not literal, but metaphorical of those who resist Babylon’s temptations to blasphemy and luxury) find themselves playing harps (presumably joyfully!) and singing a “new song” (presumably exuberantly!) before the throne of God! Those who keep themselves as part of Christ’s pure Bride know joy and exuberance—exactly like the bride of Song of Songs.

Luke. In its own way, today’s reading in Luke makes a similar point. The cost to Heaven’s Groom for winning to himself a pure Bride was exorbitant. It entailed the baptism of Christ’s death. And during his ministry on earth, anticipation of that baptism weighed on our fully-human-and-fully-divine Savior mightily: “I have a baptism with which to be baptized and what stress I am under until it is accomplished” (Luke 12:50). Because his jealous love is driving him to such lengths, this one whose mission is at bottom one of peace (Luke 2:14) declares war on all that defiles and degrades his bride: “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” And his coming demands we make a choice—for his love, or against it. May you and I wisely “interpret the present time,” and, like the bride in Song of Songs, surrender to him all of our love, all of our desire, and all of our commitment.

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+