Song of Solomon 2:1-7: The Meaning of Marriage

[She]  
[2:1] I am a rose of Sharon,
a lily of the valleys.
[He]  
[2] As a lily among brambles,
so is my love among the young women.


[She]  
[3] As an apple tree among the trees of the forest,
so is my beloved among the young men.
With great delight I sat in his shadow,
and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
[4] He brought me to the banqueting house,
and his banner over me was love.
[5] Sustain me with raisins;
refresh me with apples,
for I am sick with love.
[6] His left hand is under my head,
and his right hand embraces me!
[7] I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
by the gazelles or the does of the field,
that you not stir up or awaken love
until it pleases.


(Song of Solomon 2:1-7 ESV)

This post will largely be a response to my previous post about Song of Solomon 2:1-2.  This passage is so significant and so rich in meaning that it will take a while to fully explore.  So today will be more of a reflection on verses 1-7 as a whole, talking about the relation between verses 1-2 and the reaction they evoke from the woman in 3-7.  The next post will deal with verses 3-7 phrase by phrase, like the rest of the posts have been.  

After hearing her beloved's response from v2, the woman responds by proclaiming how enraptured she is by Solomon.   She said she is plain, like all the other women; he said she is a rose among a field of thorns, utterly unique, the height of beauty.  

Now she nows she is safe with him.  She knows he won't be checking out other women.  She knows his heart is filled with her, with no other woman.  

And so she finds her beloved to be utterly refreshing and comforting.  She will gladly rest in his shade, because she knows their love is safe.  She is not worried; she is not anxious; she is not protective; she is not manipulative.  She has no need to be.  She knows her man is focused on her alone, so she is free to simply rest and enjoy his presence with great delight.

Men and women, take note of this: this married delight, the ability to rest in peace and joy with each other, only comes after they have each made the conscious choice to be devoted exclusively to each other, and after they have reassured each other of this.  

Men, take note: they are already together as a couple, already promised to each other, but the woman still needs to hear that her husband is choosing her, in his heart.  This is normal in a woman's heart; she needs to hear that you are choosing only her.  You need to say this repeatedly; saying it once on your wedding day is not enough for your wife to feel safe with you.  If you aren't saying it regularly, she may very well begin to worry that you are setting your heart on someone else, especially as age begins to take its toll on her body.  Even if your heart is set on her, if you don't tell her this, she will worry.  To put her at peace, to enable her to rest in your presence instead of being filled with anxiety, you need to reassure her that you are choosing her, that she is your standard of beauty, that no one else can ever compare to her, in your eyes.

Women, take note: she doesn't nag her husband.  She doesn't confront him and demand to know what he thinks of her.  Instead, she baits him.  She makes a comment about herself and waits to see what he'll say.  I don't think I have to say much about making these baiting-style comments; most women learn how to do that somewhere between learning to crawl and walk.  But please do take notice, women: she doesn't come out combative, with either nagging or direct confrontation.  When men are approached combatively, we tend to respond combatively by getting defensive.  When a man is feeling attacked and defensive, he's generally not going to say something kind, unless he's got tremendous self-control and self-lessness.  So women, if you want to find out what he thinks about you in that tender center of his heart, draw it out of him gently.  She uses herself, speaking about the doubts she legitimately has about her own beauty.  If your man truly loves you, he won't want you talking down about yourself; you're his treasure, and no man wants his treasure to be spoken of derogatorily.  If he doesn't respond immediately, ask him what he thinks about what you said.  Hopefully he'll respond as Solomon did, speaking truly from the depths of his heart that you are his height of beauty.  If he does not, if he indicates something else, then get pastoral counseling for both of you.  There will undoubtedly be selfishness and sin in his heart, and a lot of pain in yours.

It can take time to get to Song of Solomon 2:3-7.  In our culture, we are constantly bombarded with images of beautiful people, with sexual advertising, with appeals to our emotions.  There is great profit to be made by manipulating our hearts, by getting us to feel things for models, actresses, video game characters, newscasters.  People spend their entire lives trying to get us to commit emotional adultery, because of how much they can stand to profit from it.  Much of this we aren't even aware of, as single people.  But when we start dating someone, when we're engaged and married, it will start revealing itself.  It can take time to train your heart not to respond to these cultural pleas, and to remain focused on your spouse.  To get to this place, you both have to know that you are completely safe with each other, that your hearts aren't going to stray because you won't allow them to stray.  You're going to keep choosing each other no matter what, no matter how much you offend each other, no matter how much you sin against each other, no matter how much age wears on your bodies, no matter what happens in life.  We announce this before family and friends at our weddings, but that's only the beginning.  Whether or not we will truly do this is revealed each and every day of our lives together.  It will not happen by chance; it has to be a conscious choice, one that you fight for, because culture, sin, selfishness, doubt, fear, and the Enemy are all fighting to pull you two apart.  You have to fight for each other, to constantly choose each other, if you want to arrive at this place of peace, safety, tranquility, joy, rest, and refreshment.

http://nsns33.deviantart.com/art/Your-Heart-Safe-with-me-179264819

This moment, this peace and joy between these two lovers, is something that cannot be had outside of committed marriage.  If you live a Desperate Housewives kind of life, where you can sleep with whoever you want as long as you don't get caught, you will never enjoy this kind of peace and joy with your spouse.  If there is no lasting commitment binding you two together, then you won't be able to enjoy this feeling of safety with each other, this complete lack of anxiety, this joyful tranquility.  This couple has no fear of losing love, of losing each other.  Peace comes through knowing that your beloved is committed to you for life; rest comes from knowing that you won't have to fight to keep them away from everyone else, because you know they won't allow their heart to be lead astray.  This is the beauty of commitment.

Our American culture, our sex-soaked orgy of selfish pleasure, tells you to sleep around.  If you do this, you will experience some joy as you sleep with various people.  But if all you do is sleep with people, you will never know the joy of sleeping next to one person, your beloved, knowing that they will always be there in the morning because you are committed to being committed to each other.  If you are open to sleeping around, you will sub-consciously (or consciously) put up mental and emotional walls, protecting you from the pain of getting attached to someone only to find them going off with someone else.  These walls don't come down without commitment, without the safety of knowing that you are constantly choosing each other.  Until these walls come down, you will never know love that is devoid of anxiety.  

In short: Men, a woman may be attracted to you without this safety, without this intimate knowledge of each other.  Yet she will never be this at peace with you, this free of anxiety, this deeply delighted by your presence, until she knows that she is your only standard of beauty, and that you will always be devoted to her and delighted by her.  

Note also that it's not enough just to say that your wife is your standard of beauty.  You have to mean it; it has to be true.  You have to be truly delighted by her.  If you're not there, then get on your knees and pray for God to help you lead your heart to making her your standard.  It can happen, and it will if you want it to.  If you don't want it to, if you want to keep lusting after other women/men/things, then you need to get help before you further destroy your wife's life, as well as your own.  But if you are a Godly man, or if you want to be, and if you want to be truly delighted by your wife more than any other woman, all you have to do is pray to God and make the choice to lead your heart away from everything else and only to your wife.  If you are delighted in her and she knows it, then she will be delighted with you, safe in your shade, deeply enjoying the refreshment of your fruit.

This passage has a great deal to tell us about who we are, as human beings.  The same God who created us inspired the writing and preserving of these words, giving us the freedom to mine these words for all they're worth in showing us who we are.  Right now, this passage is telling us something that goes to the core of who we are: it tells us that we feel safe and happy as humans when we are known by someone we know, when we love them and they love us, and we know neither is going to leave.  

This is why teenagers often avoid their parents but are drawn to their friends.  They know their friends will welcome them and won't judge them.  Then they return home and all their parents can do is yell at them or criticize them.  These teenagers don't feel safe at home; their parents don't know them as deeply as their friends know them, and their parents aren't emotionally safe to be around.  

If we want to be safe, if we want to make others safe around us, we need to know and be known, we need to love and be loved.  There is a place for feedback and calling someone out, but that is always secondary to the message of love and acceptance.  Criticism should never outweigh love, to the recipient.  God always has more love for His children than criticism.  Many feel otherwise; they are offended by a God who would judge them.  Yet they feel this way because they don't know the truth; they are believing lies about God.  If they truly grasped how wide and long and high and deep is the love of God for them, they would never again feel unfairly judged.

Consider this woman and her husband.  She feels inferior, but he says she is a stand-out, more beautiful than every other woman.  He is more on her side than she is!  This kind of care is what assures us that someone is safe.  We all have imperfections, emotional baggage, regret, etc.  Because of this, we will never be fully convinced that someone loves us until they know all of our junk, and yet love and accept us anyway.  When we know someone loves us in spite of our imperfections, the bond between us grows exponentially.  Conversely, when someone sees our failures and can only criticize, our bond weakens dramatically.  Parents, remember this.  Husbands and wives, remember this.  Friends, remember this.  Children, remember this.  Pastors, remember this.

http://thefamilystore.net/PicturesPlaquesShadowBoxes.htm

This is ultimately why the love of God has such power to transform lives.  God knows everything about us, including the dark secrets we never fully admit to ourselves, and yet His response to us is unshakable, unending, never-weakening, over-powering, imagination-defying love.  Ephesians 2 declares this boldly, stating that while we were absolutely dead in the trespasses and sins in which we once walked, while we were children of wrath, God had mercy on us because of the great love with which He loves us!  Even when we were at our absolute worst, God's love for us was so enormous that it reached through all of our sin, shame, guilt, and failure, making us new, bringing us new life, seating us with Him in the heavenly realms, now and forever.  Because He loves us, He destroyed all of the darkness in our lives, so that we could spend our lives loving Him back!  This is the message of the Cross and the Resurrection!  This is the Gospel of Jesus!

And it is this sublime, amazing, life-transforming message that is intended to be repeated in every marriage.  Husbands and wives will get to know each other's darkness more intimately than anyone else on the planet.  Yet they should also be the ones who show more love to each other than any other living person.  The message of the Cross must be proclaimed in every marriage, if it has any hope of being healthy: I know who you are, I know your darkness, I forgive you of every wrong-doing, and my love for you knows absolutely no bounds!  

This is precisely the message Song of Solomon 2:1-7 is communicating.  This is the meaning of marriage.  More than happiness, more than child-bearing, more than comfort, the meaning of marriage is to communicate boldly to our hearts on a daily basis the message that frees us to enjoy all of life: I know you, and I love you!