Song of Songs 6
Chapter 6 begins with a group of friends asking the woman, “Where has your beloved gone, O most beautiful among women? …” They offer to help seek him.
She answers that he has gone to his garden, to “graze” and gather lilies. If you have ever been in a really beautiful, well planted garden, you may be able to close your eyes and envision the metaphors that appeal to our senses in these chapters: glorious colors delight our eyes; soft petals brush our hands; fragrant, sometimes spicy flowers waft on a breeze; even different fruits are ripe for tasting. In other words, we are invited to enjoy love in every way we can experience it. And I suggest we are invited to enjoy God’s presence in these same ways, as best as we can in our hearts.
The intimacy and exclusivity of the relationship is once again affirmed in verse 3: “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine; he grazes among the lilies.”
Song 6:4-10 offers more descriptions of the beloved, but interestingly, they include comparisons to great cities and armies with banners (vv. 4, 10), giving her honor that is not simply physical beauty, but dignity and strength as well.
And among all women (“sixty queens and eighty concubines and virgins without number” —v. 8), to him “my dove, my perfect one, is the only one, the only one …” (v. 9). Wow.
Verse 13 ends the chapter with an interesting exchange between other men and him:
The Others:
Song of Songs 6:13
“Return, return, O Shulammite, return, return, that we may look upon you.”
He:
“Why should you look upon the Shulammite, as upon a dance before two armies?”
We see the other men desiring to look at her beauty—what good can come of that? But her Lover protects her and admonishes them. Can this verse be likened to our protection from evil in Christ? I’d like to think so.