Song of Solomon 1:17
The beams of our house are cedars; our rafters are fragrant firs.
BSB
ASV
The beams of our house are cedars, And our rafters are firs.
KJV
The beams of our house are cedar, and our rafters of fir.
The cedar is suitable for hanging roofs, because this type of wood is tall and spacious, but not burdensome to the walls. The cypress is also suitable for ceilings and gables. Hence, the Church says in the Canticles: "The beams of our houses are made of cedar, our ceilings of cypress," explaining that the decorations of its structure are in these, as if the beams sustain the crown of the Church with their own strength and adorn its peak.
The beams of our house are cedar - Perhaps it was under a cedar tree whose vast limbs were interwoven with the ברות beroth, a tree of the cypress kind, where they now sat. And this natural bower recommended itself to the poet’s attention by its strength, loftiness, and its affording them a shady cover and cool retreat. How natural to break out into the praise of a bower, by whose branches and foliage we are shielded from the intense heat of the sun!
In this verse there is an incidental allusion, in So 1:15, to the offering (Lu 2:24). So the "cedar and fir" ceiling refers to the temple (1Ki 5:6-10; 6:15-18); type of the heavenly temple (Re 21:22).
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Psalms 92:12The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
leads to
He is like a tree planted by the waters that sends out its roots toward the stream. It does not fear when the heat comes, and its leaves are always green. It does not…
He is like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither, and who prospers in all he does.
The trees of the LORD have their fill, the cedars of Lebanon that He planted,
But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in the loving devotion of God forever and ever.
I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like the lily and take root like the cedars of Lebanon.
Through
Hebrews 11:10For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
leads to
For here we do not have a permanent city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.
But our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,
Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is dismantled, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.
