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:  2:16 –  3:5

She

16 My beloved is mine and I am his;
    he browses among the lilies.
17 Until the day breaks
    and the shadows flee,
turn, my beloved,
    and be like a gazelle
or like a young stag
    on the rugged hills.

1 All night long on my bed
    I looked for the one my heart loves;
    I looked for him but did not find him.
2 I will get up now and go about the city,
    through its streets and squares;
I will search for the one my heart loves.
    So I looked for him but did not find him.
3 The watchmen found me
    as they made their rounds in the city.
    “Have you seen the one my heart loves?”
4 Scarcely had I passed them
    when I found the one my heart loves.
I held him and would not let him go
    till I had brought him to my mother’s house,
    to the room of the one who conceived me.
5 Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you
    by the gazelles and by the does of the field:
Do not arouse or awaken love
    until it so desires.

A. Find Out

• 1. Where is he and until when? v.16,17a
• 2. What does she want him to do? v.17b
• 3. How long did she wait, where?  v.1
• 4. What did she eventually decide to do? v.2
• 5. Who did she encounter in her search? v.3
• 6. When did she find her love and what did she do with him? v.4

B. Think:

• 1. What occupation had her lover had (see back to 1;7,8)
• 2. So where had he been?
• 3. What does the first part of chapter 3 tell us about her?

C. Comment:

Verses 16 & 17 are difficult to comprehend and commentators vary immensely, unless we see them as the run in to chapter 3. Should the chapter have started at v.16? Her young man is away, still guarding the sheep at night in the valleys (see v.1 with v.16). [The alternative approach to these two verses sees them as describing him spending the night with her until she sends him away in the morning, but that makes the follow on in chapter 3 difficult].

She longs for him to come to her. In the previous scene it had been his yearning for her. Now it is her yearning for him. From her bed by the window she looks out for signs of him coming to her. Eventually she can wait no longer. With a sense of desperation she gets up and goes out to look for him. She encounters the watchmen of the town, patrolling the streets. She asks them if they had seen her lover but apparently not. But scarcely has she left them when she meets him and almost drags him back to her home.

The picture her, spiritually, is of the Christian who just yearns to encounter Jesus, who can’t put up with just waiting any longer, but who cries out and goes and seeks him, whatever it may cost. This is the yearning so often that proceeds revival.

D. Prayer Suggestion:

Oh Lord, please come, please send your Spirit. We can’t wait any more. We are desperate for you.  Come to our house, we need you!

Passage:  3:6-11

6 Who is this coming up from the wilderness
    like a column of smoke,
perfumed with myrrh and incense
    made from all the spices of the merchant?
7 Look! It is Solomon’s carriage,
    escorted by sixty warriors,
    the noblest of Israel,
8 all of them wearing the sword,
    all experienced in battle,
each with his sword at his side,
    prepared for the terrors of the night.
9 King Solomon made for himself the carriage;
    he made it of wood from Lebanon.
10 Its posts he made of silver,
    its base of gold.
Its seat was upholstered with purple,
    its interior inlaid with love.
Daughters of Jerusalem, 11 come out,
    and look, you daughters of Zion.
Look on King Solomon wearing a crown,
    the crown with which his mother crowned him
on the day of his wedding,
    the day his heart rejoiced.

A. Find Out

• 1. How is Solomon first described? v.6
• 2. Who accompanies him? v.7,8
• 3. What is his carriage like? v.9,10
• 4. What are the people exhorted to do? v.11a
• 5. How is Solomon adorned? v.11b

B. Think:

• 1. How do you think this passage reads in contrast to what has gone before in the Song so far?
• 2. What do you think that says about the people of the Song?.

C. Comment:

One minute we are in a love song about a young, apparently simple-living couple, the next we are in a narrative describing the pomp and majesty of Solomon. Why?

Perhaps it is just that to accentuate the contrast. Perhaps this narrative is being used to highlight even more clearly the simplicity of the love of this couple. Perhaps the man of this couple was Solomon, perhaps as a youth.  We are reminded in this passage that Solomon was very rich and affluent (see 1 Kings 10:23) and that when he travelled he had a glorious coach and travelled with the biggest and best body guard possible.  When he travelled it was worth going out to see as he rode with this escort and crowned with the kings crown.

Yes the verses of the song are in such contrast to this. They simply speak about the simple love of this young couple. They spend time in  the woods alone, not on affairs of state but on affairs of the heart.  The young man looked after sheep, not after a nation,  and he  walked or ran everywhere, instead of being driven in a state coach. If Solomon wrote this Song, perhaps he wrote it to recapture the wonder of his first love, the love that he had known when he was a youth without the responsibilities of State.

D. Prayer Suggestion:

Oh Lord, may my love for you be simple but powerful, unfettered by the cares of the world.  Stir in me again the love I had at first, when I first met you.