Song of Solomon 5:13

These words are Christ's answer to the church's prayer in the close of the foregoing chapter, Let my beloved come into his garden; here he has come, and lets her know it. See how ready God is to hear prayer, how ready Christ is to accept the invitations that his people give him, though we are backward to hear his calls and accept his invitations.

IN this chapter the spouse describes in detail the Person of her Beloved. She is not satisfied with saying, "He is altogether lovely," but she delights to talk of the charms of each part of His sacred Person and to picture the beauties of His Divine form and features, so that thereby she may, perhaps, win some other heart, first to admire and then to love Him. Dear Friends, there are some things about which you will be wise not to go into details.

Yet men smote and spat on them (Isa 50:6). bed--full, like the raised surface of the garden bed; fragrant with ointments, as beds with aromatic plants (literally, "balsam"). sweet flowers--rather, "terraces of aromatic herbs"--"high-raised parterres of sweet plants," in parallelism to "bed," which comes from a Hebrew root, meaning "elevation." lips-- (Ps 45:2;

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IN this chapter the spouse describes in detail the Person of her Beloved. She is not satisfied with saying, "He is altogether lovely," but she delights to talk of the charms of each part of His sacred Person and to picture the beauties of His Divine form and features, so that thereby she may, perhaps, win some other heart, first to admire and then to love Him. Dear Friends, there are some things about which you will be wise not to go into details. You had better speak in general terms of half the things on earth, for if you once describe them in detail, you will have to confess that they are marred by a thousand imperfections! You may be content to give merely a surface glance at them, for if you dive beneath the surface, you will soon discover much that will alter your opinion of the thing that, at first sight, looked so lovely. But it is not so with Jesus, our Well-Beloved! You may talk of Him as long as you please and praise Him as much as you can, yet you will never discover that you have exaggerated His excellences. You may go into detail about Him and dwell with much minuteness upon everything relating to His Character, His offices, His Words, His deeds and you shall be made to wonder at the perfection of each one of them. You may apply the microscope to Christ. You may examine His little things, if, indeed, anything can be little that refers to Him. You may look into the deep things of Christ, the hidden things of Christ, His secrets—and the more closely you look, the more you will be amazed, astonished and filled with delight! It is of Christ, the Heavenly Bridegroom, that we perceive the spouse to be speaking and mentioning in detail at least 10 particulars, dwelling with delight upon the beauties of His head and His locks, His eyes and His cheeks, His lips and His hands and every part of Him.

His cheeks are as a bed of spices - Possibly meaning a bed in the garden, where odoriferous herbs grew. But it has been supposed to refer to his beard, which in a young well-made man is exceedingly beautiful. I have seen young Turks, who had taken much care of their beards, mustachios, etc., look majestic. Scarcely any thing serves to set off the human face to greater advantage than the beard, when kept in proper order. Females admire it in their suitors and husbands. I have known cases, where they not only despised but execrated Europeans, whose faces were close shaved. The men perfume their beards often; and this may be what is intended by spices and sweet-smelling myrrh. His lips like lilies - The שושנם shoshannim may mean any flower of the lily kind, such as the rubens lilium, mentioned by Pliny, or something of the tulip kind. There are tints in such flowers that bear a very near resemblance to a fine ruby lip.