WWUTT 1804 As Majestic as an Army With Banners (Song of Songs 6:1-10)

The Bride’s Nightmare and Her Companions’ Encouragement

In Song of Songs chapter 6, the husband compliments his wife with words that he used on their wedding day, as though to say to her, you are still as lovely to me now as you were on that day. When We Understand the Text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.

Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study of the Song of Songs, and we're up to chapter 6. If you want to open up your Bible and join with me there, I'll be reading from the Legacy Standard Version. So to catch you up with where we are, the woman, the bride, has had a nightmare.

Her husband desired her, but she did not respond to him, and when she finally went to him, he was gone. So she went to the city to look for him, where she was instead met with abuse by the watchman on the wall.

And this was symbolic of her conscience making her feel guilty, because she did not desire her husband back the way that he desired her. So now she thinks that he's gone off to try to find his satisfaction elsewhere.

Now that's not a reflection of his character. That's just her insecurity, or her guilty conscience that is plaguing her here. So her maidens, or the others, have asked her to describe who her beloved is.

Tell us who he is. Show your love and affection for him. And so what we examined last week is the way that she describes her husband. That was in chapter 5, verses 10 through 16, the affection that she does indeed have for him.

So now what we see at the start of chapter 6, the others are going to respond to the maiden's description of her husband, her desire for him. And they're going to help her find him, and she's going to say where he is, and then he comes back in to describing his bride.

That's in chapter 6, starting in verse 4. So at the start of chapter 6, let me read the response of the others, and then the answer from the woman in verses 2 and 3, and we'll stop there and kind of examine what we've read.

Song of Songs, chapter 6, starting in verse 1. Where has your beloved gone, O most beautiful among women? Where has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you? She responds, My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to shepherd his flock in the gardens and gather lilies.

I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine, he who shepherds his flock among the lilies. So once again, in her nightmare, she calls out to her maidens or to the others, if you find my beloved, what will you tell him?

Tell him that I am sick with love. And the others respond as though to say, tell him yourself, how would you describe your beloved? And when she describes him with such affection, their response at the start of chapter 6 is, where is he gone?

We're going to help you find him. Where has your beloved gone, O most beautiful among women? Where has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you? Now it's interesting to consider how her companions speak contrary to her conscience.

If the watchmen on the wall in chapter 5, verse 7, if they represent her guilty conscience and they beat her up because of how guilty she feels for not loving her husband the way that she knows that she should have, they speak contrary to her conscience by calling her most beautiful among women.

And like many of the things that we've seen in Song of Songs, that's not just descriptive of her appearance, it is descriptive of her character. They recognize this is a woman who truly desires her husband.

Now she is pursuing him. She is looking for him. This is not a woman who is sitting at home going, oh, he's gone off to have one of his fits. I'm going to have my fit here. And whenever he feels like it, he can come back to me.

Now she and her guilt, feeling like she should have loved him better, is going out to go and find him. And now the others, her companions, acknowledge this is a woman who is in pursuit of her husband.

We see that she is looking for him and we have heard the way that she desires him. So where has your beloved gone? Where has your beloved turned that we may seek him with you? And let me just say what kind of a beautiful picture that is of the way that the church should treat one another.

How many times has there been where you have felt beat up? You beat yourself up. Your conscience makes you feel guilty and you wonder, am I even still a Christian anymore? Have I sinned so much and so gravely that God doesn't love me anymore?

And then we have brothers and sisters in the Lord who can remind us what the scriptures say that we understand, you know, maybe there are some things we do need to feel guilty of. But if we've repented of those things and come back to Christ, the scriptures tell us that if we ask forgiveness for our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

First John one nine. And though our conscience may beat us up, we have brothers and sisters in the Lord who can remind us of the promises of God and help to build us up and encourage us in the word. So we see that kind of a thing happening here with the woman's companions.

It's almost like they recognize that she is she does feel guilty and and is therefore repentant of whatever wrong that she has done. So we're going to help her. Let's go find your lover together. So in verses two and three, she says, and this is actually kind of a down response on her part because she hasn't found her love.

She doesn't know where he is. So in verse two, she says, my beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices. Now, now that is praising of her husband. She's speaking highly of him. She's no longer looking for him in the city.

What was that symbolic of? Well, he he did not get his satisfaction from me. So he's going to go find his satisfaction somewhere else in the city. But she says of him, that's not where he is and she's gone to the city to find him.

She doesn't find him there. Instead, she gets beat up by her conscience. So where has he gone instead? He's not in the city. He's gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices. What have we seen throughout Song of Songs that is reflective of of of a good aroma, of a good fragrance?

It is symbolic of one's character. So she is saying of her love, he didn't go into the city. He didn't go try to find his kicks with somebody else because I would not satisfy his desires. He's a man of good character.

Where has he gone? Wherever he has needed to go to preserve his character. He has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to shepherd his flock in the gardens and gather lilies. Now, so far in Song of Songs, lilies has been comparable to the other maidens or or the other women.

Right. The woman, the wife, before she was his bride, she described herself as a lily of the valley, meaning that she's just common. She's just, you know, one woman among many. But then he says to her, you're like a lily among thorns.

So is my darling among the maidens. If you're going to see yourself as a lily, well, then all the other maidens are our thorns. You are the greatest of all of them. That's the way that he describes his bride.

So therefore, how is the word lilies used here? He goes to shepherd his flock in the gardens and gather lilies. So is he out there gathering maidens? No, not if he's gone down to shepherd his flock in the gardens to the bed of spices.

He's a man of good character. He wouldn't be doing such a thing. However, the other women are admiring him and the bride is jealous of that. She wants to be among them. I want to be as near to my love or nearer to my love than they are.

They get to be down there and admire his good character. I have not been able to find him. But she says, and she knows this confidently in verse three, I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. He who shepherds his flock among the lilies.

Again, this is complimentary of his character. That's where he's shepherding his flock, but he's not interested in those women. They might be interested in him, but I am his and he is mine. And you see this confidence being restored.

So once again, this, this goes back to the ministry of the others in verse one, though she has felt beaten up by her own conscience. They helped to build her up and encourage her. And so she comes to understand that he is mine and I am his.

So we may also likewise come to to understand that we belong to the Lord and the Lord is ours. He is our God and we are his people. And if we are held tightly in his hand, nothing will snatch us out of his hand, as Jesus says in John chapter 10.

So we are the Lord's and we have confidence in him. We continue on here. This is going to be the man's response. Let me read this whole thing and then we'll go back through this section together. So he speaks in verses four through 10 in response to the woman who has said, I am my beloved and my beloved is mine.

The Husband’s Repeated Compliments and His Bride’s Beauty

Here is how the husband responds to his wife. Verse four. You are as beautiful as Terza, my darling, as lovely as Jerusalem, as majestic as an army with banners. Turn your eyes away from me, for they have overwhelmed me.

Your hair is like a flock of goats that have leapt down from Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of ewes which have come up from their washing, all of which bear twins, and not one among them has lost her young.

Your temples are like a slice of pomegranate behind your veil. There are 60 queens and 80 concubines and maidens without number. She is the only one, my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one of her mother.

She is the pure one of her who bore her. The daughters saw her and call her blessed, the queens and the concubines also. And they praised her, saying, Who is this that looks down like the dawn, as beautiful as the full moon, as pure as the sun, as majestic as an army with banners?

And then the bride will respond in verses 11 through 12, and the others respond in verse 13. We'll get to that if we have time. You'll notice that some of the things the husband says here, he said it before.

We have a repeat of things that he has said before regarding his bride. That doesn't mean that he lacks creativity, that he's just repeating the same compliments to her again, but rather that he has not lost his affection for her.

That's what he's saying with repeating those same compliments that he made of her on their wedding day. Verse four again. You are as beautiful as Terza, my darling, as lovely as Jerusalem. Now, when we go back to the wedding day, when he describes her, he says, chapter four, verse one, Behold, you are beautiful, my darling.

This has been the common compliment that he's had of his bride. You are my darling. You are dear to me and you are beautiful to me. Your eyes are like doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats that have leapt down from Mount Gilead.

Your teeth are like a flock of newly shorn ewes, which have come up from their washing, all of which bear twins and not one among them has lost her young. We see that here in chapter six as well, right?

OK, so this compliment that we start with in verse four, slightly different. You are beautiful as Terza, my darling. So you still have the you're you're beautiful, my darling. But now we've added in a couple of locations, Terza and as lovely as Jerusalem, as majestic as an army with banners.

Now, the reference to Terza, I'm going to say is actually kind of confusing and we don't really know for sure why Terza is mentioned. Terza was a city that Israel conquered when Joshua led them into the promised land.

There was a king there that they had overthrown. And then Terza becomes a capital city when the kingdoms are split into the northern and southern kingdoms. But what Terza's significance is in between, we don't know, because Terza was mentioned in the taking of the promised land.

And then it's not mentioned again until the splitting of the kingdoms. So whatever Terza was to the Jews in between, the scripture doesn't really tell us. It could be that Terza was just a really lovely place.

It was near Mount Ebal and Mount Gilgal. That was the place where the curses and the blessings were issued in the book of Deuteronomy read the blessings from this mountain, Mount Ebal, read the sorry.

No, the curses were from Mount Ebal. The blessings were from Mount Gilgal. And so Terza was near to those. Maybe there's a reference there, but I wouldn't know for sure. So Terza, the meaning of Terza is kind of lost to us.

It was obviously some sort of a beautiful city that he's comparing his bride to as lovely as Jerusalem. Well, Jerusalem is that's the city where all the Jews wanted to be. That's where the temple was.

That's where God dwelled. So we want to be near to God. There may be a reference there to the husband saying, I want to be near to you as God's people want to be near to him. You are as lovely as Jerusalem.

You are as desirable as Jerusalem is to God's people as majestic as an army with banners, he says next. And we have seen the husband say before, make these comparisons of his wife to something military, just like a guy.

Right. So going back to chapter four, verse four, where he says, your neck is like the Tower of David built with rows of stones on which are hung one thousand shields, all the small shields of the mighty men.

You might think of the husband being described with these military terms, not using or not referring to his bride with these military terms. But as we talked about when we were back in chapter four, this was him talking about how majestic she was, how graceful she was when the neck on a woman is is symbolic of her grace.

And so the the reference here to being as majestic as an army with banners, there's something that's awe inspiring about that. It's even kind of intimidating, especially when you consider his next line is turn your eyes away from me.

When we see a large army that is marching forth with their banners, there's something intimidating about that. This is an army with a lot of power that commands respect because of of what they can do.

And so it's almost like he's saying, you've conquered my heart. I know what you can do to me. And even though he did not have a conscious presence in her dream, you know what I mean? She was dreaming in chapter five when she rejected him.

It's not like he's thinking about, well, remember when you rejected me because he wasn't there. It was her dream. But nonetheless, if she does not respond to his desire for her and he feels rejected, he he he feels defeated.

And that's all kind of coming out of the way that he describes his bride as lovely as Jerusalem, as majestic as an army with banners. Turn your eyes away from me, for they have overwhelmed me. Now he's at work.

Remember, he's with the sheep tending the goats among the lilies, and he's got to focus on work. He's doing work right now. And if his wife is there and if she is showing her desire with her eyes, it's difficult him for him to concentrate on what it is that he has to do.

So turn your eyes away from me. They've overwhelmed me. Now, this really goes more so with what we had just seen in the previous verse, even though the next part of verse five is your hair is like a flock of goats that have leapt down from Gilead.

It's still in the same verse, but turn your eyes away from me, for they have overwhelmed me really goes with that. You are as lovely as Jerusalem and as majestic as an army with banners. Those lines fit together.

The line turn your turn your eyes away from me really doesn't go with the flock of goats line. Just because it's in the same verse doesn't mean it belongs there. It goes with the husband saying that you are as majestic as an army.

So turn your eyes away from me. You have conquered me. I am. I am defeated by you. It doesn't necessarily mean that in a negative way, but just to say I lose my mind when I'm around you. I can't concentrate.

All I want is you and then goes on to say your hair is like a flock of goats that have leapt down from Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of use which have come up from their washing, all of which bear twins and not one of them is lost or young repeating those things that he had said on their wedding day.

So this is to say to her, you are still as lovely to me as you were on that day. Husbands, we need to take. We need to take some advice from that to compliment our bride as much as we loved her on our wedding day.

We love her just as much today, if not more. My love for my wife has grown since our wedding day. We've just grown closer and closer to one another. Age will get the better of us. We get older. We lose her attractiveness.

I actually think I'm better looking than I was anyway. That's an aside. But we lose our attractiveness as we get older. You know, things wrinkle and sag and weight gets gained in different places. Your wife's body has been really beat up with how many kids she's had, especially.

That's that's a pretty difficult thing on a woman's body. That's part of the curse. And so as we get older and we feel less lovely and less attractive, how much more does your wife need to hear those things from you, fellas, to say to her that she is beautiful to you still is beautiful to you, if not more beautiful to you than the day that you were first married.

Going on to verse seven, your temples are like a slice of pomegranate behind your veil. Same as the comment before. And this is reflecting her entire countenance. Everything about the person is seen in the face.

So everything about you is lovely to me. Now, this next line, this is new. Verse eight. There are 60 queens and 80 concubines and maidens without number. She is the only one. My dove, my perfect one. Now, there are some that will take those lines in verses eight and nine and say, see, this is talking about Solomon because of all the wives and concubines that he had.

But there's this one woman that's dearer to him than all the rest. I would actually argue that this line demonstrates this is not about Solomon. This is not Solomon. Solomon is an idealized figure in Song of Songs.

He's not the main character. He's not the man. He's not the husband that is talking to his bride. He's talking about how Solomon has all of these wives and all of these women. There are 60 queens and 80 concubines.

We know eventually it was many more than that. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines. So this must be earlier in Solomon's reign before all of those women, maidens without number, all of these women who want to be in Solomon's harem.

So the husband is saying, but he says of his wife in verse nine, she is the only one. My dove, my perfect one. There are not all these other wives and all these other maidens. There's just her. It's just me and her one man and one woman as God intended marriage to be.

She is the only one of her mother. He says now. Now that may mean she is the only one of her mother's daughters that I want, or it could mean quite literally what it says that she is the only daughter we read from the Shulamite earlier in Song of Songs in chapter one.

I believe it was she referenced her brothers, but we haven't heard anything about biological sisters. So it could mean here she's the only daughter, but still speaks of her uniqueness is why he even says such a thing.

She is the only one of her mother. She's the only one, the only the only one that I want. She's my perfect one. She's the only one of her mother. She is the pure one of her who bore her. The daughters saw her and call her blessed.

So that's not necessarily talking about her sisters, though. It could. That could be the reference. Her sisters refer to her as blessed. She is the pure one of among the daughters, but could also be the daughters of Israel.

The daughters saw her and call her blessed the queens and the concubines also. And they praised her saying, who is this that looks down like the dawn as beautiful as the full moon, as pure as the sun, as majestic as an army with banners?

He is saying to his bride, the queens in Solomon's court don't have anything on you. Even they envy you there with Solomon there in the palace, but they envy what you have because of how pure you are because of how good you are.

And they say of you that you are as pure as the sun. And they likewise say as majestic as an army with banners. What a thing for a queen to say that she is intimidated by a woman who is common. But this man is saying she is not common to me.

She is pure to me, my precious bride. And so our Lord Christ says that of us. We are not common to him. We are precious to him. We who are Christians, who are his followers, brothers and sisters in the Lord, we are his church and his church is his bride chosen by the father given to the son.

And he sees us as precious and lovely. And so my brothers and sisters in Christ know that you are loved by the Lord today. He who died for us, he gave his life for his bride, the church. He is sanctifying us through his word that we would be grown in holiness.

We are being washed by the water of the word and he will glorify us as we join him in his eternal kingdom as fellow heirs of that place that we have been promised with him. Know that you are loved by the Lord today in Christ Jesus.

Christ’s Love for the Church and the Bride’s Worth

Heavenly father, we thank you for your goodness to us. Goodness that is reflected even in the song of songs. May we understand how we as spouses love our spouse. We understand how we as brothers and sisters in the Lord love one another.

And we understand the love that you have for us and that we show for God by being obedient to your word. And then we desire to share this word with others that they too may know the goodness of God and turn from sin to Christ and be saved.

It's in Jesus name that we pray. Amen.