Intimate Love Always Involves Risk
Have you ever been rejected by someone you loved? In Song of Solomon 5, we see the continued theme of sexual intimacy, this time in the context of a bride who is lying in bed waiting for her husband to return.
Song of Solomon 5-6
Today's Scripture Passage
A Few Thoughts to Consider
Have you ever been rejected by someone you loved?
In Song of Solomon 5, we see the continued theme of sexual intimacy, this time in the context of a bride who is lying in bed waiting for her husband to return. She is ready, and he is ready, but then things do not go as planned. In verses 2-8, she says,
2 I slept, but my heart was awake.
A sound! My beloved is knocking.
“Open to me, my sister, my love,
my dove, my perfect one,
for my head is wet with dew,
my locks with the drops of the night.”
3 I had put off my garment;
how could I put it on?
I had bathed my feet;
how could I soil them?
4 My beloved put his hand to the latch,
and my heart was thrilled within me.
5 I arose to open to my beloved,
and my hands dripped with myrrh,
my fingers with liquid myrrh,
on the handles of the bolt.
6 I opened to my beloved,
but my beloved had turned and gone.
My soul failed me when he spoke.
I sought him, but found him not;
I called him, but he gave no answer.
7 The watchmen found me
as they went about in the city;
they beat me, they bruised me,
they took away my veil,
those watchmen of the walls.
8 I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
if you find my beloved,
that you tell him
I am sick with love.
This vivid account shows a picture of both euphoria and disappointment. There is the excitement of sexual intimacy and then the pain of miscommunication. When the bride realizes her beloved has turned and walked away, she goes into metaphorical action.
It does not seem that she physically gets up to go after her husband. Rather, Duane A. Garrett explains, “It is her heart that went after him. It is not that she is physically alone, but that emotionally and psychologically she suddenly feels herself abandoned.”[1] Garrett adds that “the manner in which the man seems to appear and disappear with amazing abruptness here and in 3:1-5 should warn us against a literal interpretation. Bodily he is, to be sure, very present. But she goes through this experience alone.”[2]
