A Line in the Sand

1:8 – He Just Made a Commitment.  He Might Have Surprised Himself.

Scripture Text: Song of Solomon 1:8

verse 8

He sounds pretty confident when he says “If you don’t know”.
It sounds like he knows that she is well aware of where he goes.
He wasn’t confident enough in their relationship to say “you know where I go, where I’ll be”.
So he gives her directions in a kind of flirty way.

Notice also that he doesn’t say exactly where he will be, but gives her a place to go where he will find her.

Then he draws a line in the sand.
He calls her “most beautiful of women” in front of her friends.
If she is the most beautiful, then they are not.
Some translations attribute this verse to the friends but I’m going with the ones that have him saying it.

About a dozen times she is referred to as beautiful in Song of Solomon: Ten times are definitely said by him. Twice it is definitely her friends and they use this exact phrase “most beautiful of women”.
This is the only one in question. When the friends use it, I think they are throwing the phrase back at her – the phrase that they had to deal with here. If he thinks of her as the most beautiful, then he is setting her above them.

He has just declared they are a couple.
Don’t know if he meant to do it but that is what came out.
He is saying she is more beautiful and more important than any other woman – not girl.
The friends can feel it.
They are not in play, not in his vision.
He has just made a commitment.

They are a couple. He gives directions — not a good time to assume she knows for sure, not after that line she gave about a veiled woman.

He tells her where to take her goats – by the tents of the shepherds.
Many of the So Called Experts assume he is a shepherd.
But he doesn’t say here that he is a shepherd. She says that he has sheep.
If he was a shepherd, where have his sheep been while he is talking with her?

He has given her a location to take her goats.
Sounds like he is going to meet her there.
It might also be a place to leave the goats for awhile.

Be careful not to box in your thoughts too early.

The next passage is Song of Solomon 1:9.