For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, as with studies elsewhere, each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read on the main Bible page.

The main male and female speakers (identified primarily on the basis of the gender of the relevant Hebrew forms) are indicated by the captions He and She respectively. The words of others are marked Friends. In some instances the divisions and their captions are debatable.[NIV text]

Passage:  6:1-3

Friends

1 Where has your beloved gone,
    most beautiful of women?
Which way did your beloved turn,
    that we may look for him with you?

She

2 My beloved has gone down to his garden,
    to the beds of spices,
to browse in the gardens
    and to gather lilies.
3 I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine;
    he browses among the lilies.

A. Find Out

• 1. What do the friends now ask? v.1
• 2. Where does she say he has gone? v.2a
• 3. What to do? v.2b
• 4. What does she declare about them? v.3a

B. Think:

• 1. How has the “chorus” of the friends changed?
• 2. How has the girl’s awareness changed?
• 3. What are we told about the man here?

C. Comment:

As the Song develop there are some significant changes or developments.  The “background chorus” of the friends, who each time seem to act as a means of prompting the girl to speak out in a different way, now ask where the man has gone, with the intent that they also may look for him. In 1:8 they told her where he was, looking after his sheep.  In 5:9 they challenged her to say why he was better than others. Now they challenge her to tell them where he is. In each case they show us something of the extent or limitation of the girl’s knowledge of her lover.

Now the girl is quite aware of where her lover is.  In chapter 1 she didn’t know where he took his flock and asked the friends. In chapter 3 she went looking for him herself and quickly found him. In chapter 5 she went looking for him when she had missed her opportunity and was chastised for it.  Now she indicates she is quite aware of where he is. She is able to say she is his, and he is hers, and because of this (implied) they share with each other what they are doing. In all this we can see a parallel with our relationship with Jesus. Initially he is a mystery to us then as our relationship develops, we seem to be able to find him easily, then he expects us to learn to be more sensitive to his presence. Finally, as our relationship develops, he shares his heart and intentions with us, what he is doing.

D. Prayer Suggestion:

Lord, thank you that you are mine and I am yours. You are totally for me and Lord, I want to be totally for you.

Passage:  6:4-10

He

4 You are as beautiful as Tirzah, my darling,
    as lovely as Jerusalem,
    as majestic as troops with banners.
5 Turn your eyes from me;
    they overwhelm me.
Your hair is like a flock of goats
    descending from Gilead.
6 Your teeth are like a flock of sheep
    coming up from the washing.
Each has its twin,
    not one of them is missing.
7 Your temples behind your veil
    are like the halves of a pomegranate.
8 Sixty queens there may be,
    and eighty concubines,
    and virgins beyond number;
9 but my dove, my perfect one, is unique,
    the only daughter of her mother,
    the favorite of the one who bore her.
The young women saw her and called her blessed;
    the queens and concubines praised her.

Friends

10 Who is this that appears like the dawn,
    fair as the moon, bright as the sun,
    majestic as the stars in procession?

A. Find Out

• 1. What words does he now use to describe her? v.4
• 2. What does he ask her to do? v.5a
• 3. What features does he describe? v.5b-7
• 4. To whom does he compare her? v.8,9a,b
• 5. How did others respond to her? v.9c
• 6. How do the friends describe her? v.10

B. Think:

• 1. Read again the notes of 4:1-5 and compare v.5b-7.
• 2. What is the similarity between 2:2 and 6:8,9
• 3. What difference is there between those verses?

C. Comment:

Are these the musings of the lover as he wanders in the gardens thinking of her?  We don’t know. In a Song much is left unsaid, they may be said directly to her. He says she is beautiful,  lovely and majestic. In this passage there is language that points towards the royal court. In saying she is majestic he says she has a royal aura about her. Later (v.8,9) he compares her with all the wives and concubines in the court of Solomon. Her beauty exceeds all of them. Previously he had said she was outstanding (2:2), as a rose among thorns, but now his comparison is of beauty with beauty, royalty with royalty.

He says turn your eyes away from me for when you look at me my knees are turned to jelly (well that’s how we might say it today!). That’s the effect of new love. it has that devastating effect. Again he describes her with rural comparisons, just like chapter 4, terms of endearment and intimacy.

How does Jesus view us?  As his bride (Rev 19:7,8,  Mk 2:19,20). How does he describe us, as his bridge, his church?  Your answer to that indicates the depth of your relationship. If you know he describes you as in this passage today, you have come to a place of intimacy with the Son of the King.

D. Prayer Suggestion:

Oh Lord, I find it almost too much to take in to think that you could love me with the passion shown here today, but thank, you do.

Passage:  6:11-13

He

11 I went down to the grove of nut trees
    to look at the new growth in the valley,
to see if the vines had budded
    or the pomegranates were in bloom.
12 Before I realized it,
    my desire set me among the royal chariots of my people.

Friends

13 Come back, come back, O Shulammite;
    come back, come back, that we may gaze on you!

He

Why would you gaze on the Shulammite
    as on the dance of Mahanaim?

A. Find Out

• 1. Where had he gone?  v.11a
• 2. What to do? v.11b,c
• 3. What happened there? v.12
• 4. What do the friends ask her to do and why? v.13a
• 5. What is his response to them? v.13b

B. Think:

• 1. How would you summarise what he was doing  in v.11?
• 2. How would you put in your own words what then happened?
• 3. What do you think is the point of the following interchange in v.13?

C. Comment:

In these verses commentators agree on only one thing: there are problems of understanding! It starts out simply enough: he went out to inspect his vines and fruit.  We know Solomon was involved in horticulture as well as many other things.  Verse 11 could be summarised as, “I went off to work”.  Then we move into difficulties. Some commentators have said that v.12 is the most obscure in the Song. You will see a note of alternative translations at the bottom of the page in your Bible.  Perhaps, trying to put it most simply, it could be put, “While I was working, I suddenly found myself thinking of you and desire for you rose up in me and I needed to run to the chariot park to get a chariot to come to you”.  We find here the man’s mind wandering to her, even in the midst of work.

The chorus of friends then speak to the girl. Again we are in difficulties as commentators do not know the meaning of the name given here – Shulammite.  Some suggest it might be a feminine form of Solomon, thus meaning “Solomon’s girl”. Using again the picture of the Song being sung on a stage. it is as if they say,  come back on stage that we may look at you Solomon’s girl. He replies, almost angrily, why should you gaze on her, she’s not a  dancing girl for the public to look at – she’s mine! 

D. Prayer Suggestion:

Thank you Lord that you are never too busy not to think about me and care for me. Thank you for your wonderful love for me