photo by Jonathan Thorne
I remember years ago when I read the Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) in the Bible, I couldn't understand why God put this story or poem in the Old Testament. I asked God why, and it seemed he said to me, "This is how I want you to love me - as a woman infatuated with her fiancee. As a woman and man, when they first fall in love feel overcome by love - that is the love we are to have with God."
This book then became beautiful to me. I was just reading some studies on Song of Songs and thought I would share them with you. This one comes from Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary.
God is love, and Christ is the embodiment of the love of God. As the other books of Scripture present severally their own aspects of divine truth, so Canticles furnishes the believer with language of holy love, wherewith his heart can commune with his Lord; and it portrays the intensity of Christ's love...
"Shulamith" (So 6:13), the bride, is thus an appropriate name, Daughter of Peace being the feminine of Solomon, equivalent to the Prince of Peace.
She by turns is a vinedresser, shepherdess, midnight inquirer, and prince's consort and daughter, and He a suppliant drenched with night dews, and a king in His palace, in harmony with the various relations of the Church and Christ.
...the fervor of the love between Christ and us. The image of a bride, a bridegroom, and a marriage, to represent this spiritual union, has the sanction of Scripture throughout;
Love to Christ is the strongest, as it is the purest, of human passions, and therefore needs the strongest language to express it: to the pure in heart the phraseology, drawn from the rich imagery of Oriental poetry, will not only appear not indelicate or exaggerated, but even below the reality.
But the allegory is a continued metaphor, in which the circumstances are palpably often purely imagery, while the thing signified is altogether real.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
http://biblehub.com/songs/1-1.htm
