Starting Slowly

4:1-8 – Making it good for both of them

Scripture Text: Song of Solomon 4:1-8

verses 1-8

The couple is now alone.
The wedding ceremony is over.
They are in their room together.
Both are ready to join together physically.
They have joined together mentally, emotionally, legally and now they are ready to physically come together.

They didn’t give themselves excuses.
Excuses like – we got carried away, I had too much to drink.
We’ve done so much kissing and groping that I felt I had to get married.
She isn’t pregnant so they don’t have to ‘do the right thing’.
They have no excuses to fall back on.
They both are going into the marriage by choice.

They are alone as husband and wife for the first time.
He slowly starts to praise her.
He tells her twice how beautiful she is.
Describes her eyes.
Describes her hair.
Then her teeth and lips and mouth and temples.
She still has on her veil.
He is describing the parts he can see.
This is not really the description I would use for her neck but notice he is saying she has strength, she isn’t some weak person.

And the shields would be hung on the tower in times of peace.
He is saying this is a time of peace between them.

Now he sees more

If you watch gazelle fawns feeding, they keep the back legs straight and stick the front legs out in front keeping them straight.
This leaves their bottom up in the air.
From the back you see white, from the front it is a brown color.
And the little brown stub of a tail is sticking up, moving back and forth as they feed.
An incredible description of two breasts that are visible.
The tail in his description is the nipple.

Remember how she wished for him to be like a gazelle or young stag on her breasts.
He is going farther than that.
He is saying all night long he will go to the mountain of myrrh – a breast and the hill of incense – the golden triangle.
Again he tells her she is beautiful that she has no flaw.
I think this time he is saying it after seeing her physically.
Seeing all of her and telling her he still has the same opinion that he has been expressing since they got together.

In verse 8 he describes how she has been the equivalent of being on one of these mountains in Lebanon (which is a nearby country).
No one goes to the lions den or where the leopards are living.
He is describing her as a virgin.
Her body has been unseen, out of reach and now it is time to be seen and to be in reach.
Now it is time for her fantasies to meet reality.

The next passage is Song of Solomon 4:9-15.