Aspire to Higher Love

Song of Songs 7:1-13 

1 How beautiful are your feet in sandals,
O prince's daughter!
The curves of your thighs are like jewels,
The work of the hands of a skillful workman.

2 Your navel is a rounded goblet;
It lacks no blended beverage.
Your waist is a heap of wheat
Set about with lilies.
3 Your two breasts are like two fawns,
Twins of a gazelle.

4 Your neck is like an ivory tower,
Your eyes like the pools in Heshbon
By the gate of Bath Rabbim.
Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon
Which looks toward Damascus.

5 Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel,
And the hair of your head is like purple;
A king is held captive by your tresses.

6 How fair and how pleasant you are,
O love, with your delights!
7 This stature of yours is like a palm tree,
And your breasts like its clusters.

8 I said, "I will go up to the palm tree,
I will take hold of its branches."
Let now your breasts be like clusters of the vine,
The fragrance of your breath like apples,

9 And the roof of your mouth like the best wine.

   The Shulamite

The wine goes down smoothly for my beloved,
Moving gently the lips of sleepers.

10 I am my beloved's,
And his desire is toward me.

11 Come, my beloved,
Let us go forth to the field;
Let us lodge in the villages.

12 Let us get up early to the vineyards;
Let us see if the vine has budded,
Whether the grape blossoms are open,
And the pomegranates are in bloom.
There I will give you my love.

13 The mandrakes give off a fragrance,
And at our gates are pleasant fruits,
All manner, new and old,
Which I have laid up for you, my beloved.

Though this is primarily a serenade of physical and emotional lovemaking, there is a higher love for God echoing in the background of the word pictures and in Solomon’s mind.  He aspired to look to a higher love.  Verse 8 talks of going to the palm tree which Ambrose in the Six Days of Creation remarked on as, “The laurel and palm are emblems of victory. The heads of victors are crowned with laurel; the palm adorns the victor’s hand. Hence the church, too, says, “I said: I will go up into the palm tree, I will take hold of the heights thereof” [LXX]. Seeing the sublimity of the Word and hoping to be able to ascend to its height and to the summit of knowledge, he says, “I will go up into the palm tree.” So he may abandon all things that are low and strive after things that are higher, to the prize of Christ, in order that he may pluck its fruit and taste it, for sweet is the fruit of virtue.”  The physical descriptions serve both as straightforward talk of being enraptured with love and its physical allures between the lover and the beloved, yet call us to look higher to the parallels with spiritual love of God for His Son’s bride, the church.  We then respond to our Lord’s love and desire with our own desire to look higher to Him for that love in our own lives, not the excesses of king Solomon with so many women.  Yes, we belong to our Beloved because His desire is towards us!  He brings fruitfulness as we give Him our love, just as the Shulamite woman gave to her beloved in the midst of fruitful seasons (Song of Songs 7:12-13).  We lay up our fruit to God in Christ as we give Him our love.  May we ultimately aspire to a higher love than what we find in this world apart from Him.