Song of Solomon 2

Today’s Passage: Song of Solomon 2

The second song of this book opens like a window thrown wide onto the spring. The bride names herself simply, a wildflower of the plain and a lily of the valleys, and her beloved answers that she is a lily among thorns, while she calls him an apple tree among the ordinary trees of the wood, whose shade she loves and whose fruit is sweet to her. From there the poem climbs into some of the most beloved lines in all of Scripture: he brings her into the house of wine and lifts over her a banner, and that banner is love. She rests in his embrace, then turns and charges the young women of Jerusalem not to stir up love before its time. Suddenly her beloved is heard coming, leaping over the hills like a young stag, calling her out into the new season, for the winter is past and the flowers have appeared. And into that bright picture the poem sets a small, sharp warning about the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, before the whole chapter comes to rest on the great confession of mutual belonging.

As you read, hold this: Covenant love rejoices in belonging wholly to another under the banner of love, and it must be guarded from the little foxes, the small neglects that quietly spoil it.

Song of Solomon 2:1–3 (BSB)

¹ I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valley. ² Like a lily among the thorns is my darling among the maidens. ³ Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my beloved among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste.

Listen to how the two lovers speak of each other, and notice that neither one is boasting. The bride calls herself only a wildflower of the field and a lily of the valleys, a common bloom you might pass without a second look. But her beloved will not let the humble word stand. Yes, he says, a lily, but a lily among thorns, so that set beside every other young woman she is the one flower in a field of brambles. And she returns the tribute in kind. To her he is an apple tree standing among the plain trees of the forest, the one tree whose shade is worth sitting in and whose fruit is worth tasting. Here at the very start we are shown the temper of covenant love. It does not inflate itself; it exalts the other. Each counts the beloved as the one who stands out from all the rest, and each is content to be chosen and delighted in. That is the glad music of belonging, and it runs all through this chapter.

Song of Solomon 2:4–7 (BSB)

⁴ He has brought me to the house of wine, and his banner over me is love. ⁵ Sustain me with raisins; refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love. ⁶ His left hand is under my head, and his right arm embraces me. ⁷ O daughters of Jerusalem, I adjure you by the gazelles and does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until the time is right.

Now we come to the line the whole church has treasured. He has brought me to the house of wine, she says, and his banner (דֶּגֶל) degel, pronounced DEH-gel. Strong's H1714, banner, standard. The word is a military one before it is ever a tender one. It named the standard or ensign that each tribe of Israel carried in the wilderness, the flag around which a whole company mustered and under which it marched, so that everyone knew at a glance whose they were and where they stood. When the bride says his banner over her is love, she is borrowing that soldierly image and filling it with warmth. Her beloved has not merely felt affection for her; he has lifted love over her like a raised standard, a public, unmistakable claim that she is his and he is hers. That is the shape of covenant love, and it is the very shape of God’s love for His people, who are gathered and led all their days under a banner that reads, from first to last, love. over me is love. Think of what a banner was. It was the standard an army carried into the field, the flag that told every soldier whose he was and where he belonged. So the bride is saying that over her whole life her beloved has raised one great flag, and its name is love. She lives under it, gathered and claimed and protected by it, and she is glad to be seen belonging to him. This is why the Scriptures can take a human love song like this one and let it whisper of a greater love still, for the God who saves His people raises exactly such a banner over them and marches them home under it. Yet even in the fullness of her joy the bride turns and speaks a word of restraint to the young women listening in: do not stir up love, do not awaken it, until the time is right. Covenant love is a strong and beautiful fire, and precisely because it is so strong it must be kept for its proper season and its proper place, within the covenant God made it for, and not roused carelessly before then.

Song of Solomon 2:8–9 (BSB)

⁸ Listen! My beloved approaches. Look! Here he comes, leaping across the mountains, bounding over the hills. ⁹ My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattice.

The mood quickens now, and you can almost hear her heart lift with it. Listen, she cries, and look, for her beloved is coming, and nothing in the landscape can slow him. He comes leaping across the mountains and bounding over the hills like a young stag, swift and glad and eager to be near her. Then, having crossed all that distance, he stands just outside, behind the wall, gazing through the window, peering through the lattice, close enough to be seen yet waiting to be welcomed in. There is something deeply true about love in this picture. It is not slow to seek out the one it loves, and yet it does not force the door. It comes with all speed and then stands and calls, longing to be received. The one who loves rightly is both ardent and reverent at once, hurrying across the hills and then honoring the beloved enough to wait at the window.

Song of Solomon 2:10–13 (BSB)

¹⁰ My beloved calls to me, “Arise, my darling. Come away with me, my beautiful one. ¹¹ For now the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. ¹² The flowers have appeared in the countryside; the season of singing has come, and the cooing of turtledoves is heard in our land. ¹³ The fig tree ripens its figs; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come away, my darling; come away with me, my beautiful one.”

Then he speaks, and his words are an invitation to a new season. Arise, my darling, he says, come away with me, and he tells her why: the long winter is finally over, the cold rains have spent themselves and gone, and everywhere the world is waking. The flowers have broken open across the fields, the birds have come back and the land is full of their singing, the fig tree is putting out its early fruit and the vines are in blossom, spreading their fragrance on the air. So he calls her, twice over, to rise and come and share the spring with him. This is the way covenant love moves. It does not want to keep its joy shut up indoors; it calls the beloved out into life, into the open, into all the good seasons God gives. And the reader who has ears will hear something larger here too, for this is exactly how the Lord calls His own, out of the long winter of sin and death into the springtime of new life, saying, arise, come away, the old season is past and gone.

Song of Solomon 2:14–15 (BSB)

¹⁴ O my dove in the clefts of the rock, in the crevices of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your countenance is lovely. ¹⁵ Catch for us the foxes—the little foxes that ruin the vineyards—for our vineyards are in bloom.

He calls her his dove, hidden away in the clefts of the rock and the secret crevices of the cliff, and he pleads with her to come out where he can see her face and hear her voice, for both are sweet to him. It is the language of a love that treasures the whole person, the sight and the sound and the nearness of the beloved. And then, right in the middle of all this tenderness, comes the small sharp warning that has helped so many marriages: catch for us the foxes (שׁוּעָל) shual, pronounced shoo-AHL, here in the plural **שֻׁעָלִים** (*shualim*), pronounced shoo-ah-LEEM. Strong's H7776, fox, jackal. This was the small wild fox that haunted the vineyards of the land, and every farmer knew it as a persistent little thief. It did not need to be large to do its damage; it only needed to be constant, slipping among the rows to gnaw the fresh growth and spoil the ripening grapes. The poem chooses this homely creature on purpose, for it is the perfect picture of how a flourishing love is undone. The danger the beloved names is not some towering catastrophe but the little foxes, the small and easily excused things that creep in while no one is watching. Covenant love, the book is telling us, is guarded the way a vineyard is guarded, by catching the little foxes early, before the small neglects have quietly eaten away the fruit. foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, for our vineyards are in bloom. Notice that he does not warn against some great beast that might trample the vines in a single night. He warns against the little foxes, the small creatures that slip in almost unnoticed and nibble at the tender shoots and spoil the fruit before it can ripen. This is how good and blooming loves are most often lost. Not usually to one enormous betrayal, but to the little foxes, the small neglects and unkept words and quiet compromises that are let go and let go until the vineyard that was full of blossom bears nothing. Love in bloom must be guarded, and the guarding is done in the small things.

Song of Solomon 2:16–17 (BSB)

¹⁶ My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures his flock among the lilies. ¹⁷ Before the day breaks and shadows flee, turn, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of Bether.

And now the whole chapter gathers itself into a single line that says everything. My beloved is mine and I am his. There is the heart of covenant love, laid out in seven plain words. It is a belonging that runs both ways and holds nothing back, each one wholly given to the other and wholly claimed in return. This is the settled, exclusive, glad devotion that marriage was made to picture, and it is the same devotion the Lord speaks over His people again and again, I will be their God and they shall be My people. The chapter closes with the bride still longing, asking her beloved to come to her across the hills before the day is done, so that we are left not with love grown cold but with love still reaching, still wanting the other near. That is the note the Song wants ringing in our ears: the deep, unashamed joy of belonging to one another, guarded from the little foxes, and lived out under the banner of love.