Song of Solomon 5:2

As the dew from the heavens removes the dryness of the night, so the dew of our Lord Jesus Christ descends as the moisture of eternal life into the nocturnal shadows of the world. This is the head that knows nothing of the dryness caused by the heat of this world.

There is a place with the bridegroom from which he decrees his judgments and arranges his counsels, he who is the governor of the universe, establishing laws for every creature, weight and measure and number. And this place is high and secret, but by no …

I sleep, and my heart watches. As if to say, With the cessation of persecutions for a time, I have begun to have some rest in the Lord even in this life, enjoying His leisure gladly, and now with all the desire of my heart, …

The voice of my beloved knocking: Open to me, my sister, etc. For the beloved knocks at our door when the Lord stirs us to the progress of virtues, when He admonishes us of the joys of the promised kingdom to be obtained, just as …

Because my head is filled with dew, etc. The head of Christ is God, as the Apostle says (I Cor. 11); but His curls are the collected thoughts in the minds of His faithful, which do not flow dispersed, but remain held together by discipline. …

I arose to open to my beloved. To open to the Lord in this place signifies to preach the word of the Lord. For we open to the Lord, not only when we receive His coming into our heart through love, but also when we …

Indeed, the hearts of the elect of this kind can rightly be called the heart of the bridegroom, for the more they flee the outward things that are in the world, the more secretly they come to know the inward things of the bridegroom. Of …

In this union the mind is joined to God, wherefore in a certain sense it sleeps, while in another it keeps vigil: "I was sleeping, but my heart kept vigil." Only the affective power keeps vigil and imposes silence upon all the other powers; then …

I sleep, but my heart waketh,.... Like persons that are half awake, half asleep, whom Cicero (x) calls "semisomni".

Those that by faith are espoused to Christ he looks upon as his sisters, his loves, his doves, and all that is dear; and, being clothed with his righteousness, they are undefiled. This consideration should induce her to open to him. Christ's love to us should engage ours to him, even in the most self-denying instances.

Open - Inviting me to let him into my soul. My love - This heap of kind compellations signifies Christ's fervent affection to his people. With dew - While I wait without thy door, which signifies his sufferings for the church's good.

I sleep, but my heart waketh - This is a new part; and some suppose that the fifth day’s solemnity begins here. Though I sleep, yet so impressed is may heart with the excellences of my beloved, that my imagination presents him to me in the most pleasing dreams throughout the night.

So 5:4 refers to the scene in the judgment hall of Caiaphas, when Jesus Christ employed the cock-crowing and look of love to awaken Peter's sleeping conscience, so that his "bowels were moved" (Lu 22:61, 62); So 5:5, 6, the disciples with "myrrh," &c. (Lu 24:1, 5), seeking Jesus Christ in the tomb, but finding Him not, for He has "withdrawn Himself" (Joh 7:34;

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

WE are glad to perceive in this Song the varied experience of the bride. She was the well-beloved of the heavenly Bridegroom, but she was not without her faults. Though the "fairest among women," she was human and, therefore, she had not reached angelical perfection. She was not perfect, to begin with, for at the outset she confessed, "I am black, because the sun has looked upon me: they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept."

WE are glad to perceive in this Song the varied experience of the bride. She was the well-beloved of the heavenly Bridegroom, but she was not without her faults. Though the "fairest among women," she was human and, therefore, she had not reached angelical perfection. She was not perfect, to begin with, for at the outset she confessed, "I am black, because the sun has looked upon me: they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept." She was not perfect even in the exhibition of her love to Him who had chosen her, for she has to acknowledge, as upon the occasion before us, that she treated Him in an unworthy manner. She kept Him waiting at her door in the chilly night and grieved Him so that He withdrew. She was not perfect, even, to the end of the chapter, for she could not hear her Lord's voice so clearly as certain of her companions and she cried in the last chapter of her Song, "Cause me to hear it." Brothers and Sisters, we shall not be able to claim entire perfection so long as we are this side the hills of division. Till the day breaks and the shadows flee away, our Lord will have to sanctify and cleanse His spouse "with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." We are glad, I say, to have the experience of the spouse—that is, of the Church as a whole—because we know that as is the Church, such are the members and the rule that holds good for the whole will be found in its measure and proportion to be fulfilled in all its parts.

Some time may be supposed to have elapsed since the bride’s solemn espousals with the king Cant. 4:7–5:1. A transient cloud of doubt or estrangement is now passing over her soul, as by the relation of this dream she intimates to her friends. Ancient allegorical interpreters find here a symbol of the condition and feelings of Israel during the Babylonian captivity, when the glories and privileges of Solomon’s Temple were no more, and the manifested presence of the Holy One had been withdrawn. Israel in exile seeks the Lord Son 5:8, and will find Him again in the second temple Son 6:3-9. I sleep, but my heart waketh - A poetical periphrasis for “I dream.” Compare the ancient saying: “Dreams are the vigils of those who slumber, hopes are waking dreams.” The voice - Or, “sound.” Compare Son 2:8, note. She hears him knocking before he speaks. My undefiled - literally, “my perfect one.” Vulgate “immaculata mea.” Compare Son 4:7.