Song of Solomon

Song of Solomon 3

11 verses · Wisdom · Old Testament

1By night on my bed,

I sought him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I didn’t find him. 2I will get up now, and go about the city; in the streets and in the squares I will seek him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I didn’t find him. 3The watchmen who go about the city found me; “Have you seen him whom my soul loves?” 4I had scarcely passed from them, when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, into the room of her who conceived me.
5I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, or by the hinds of the field, that you not stir up nor awaken love, until it so desires.
6Who is this who comes up from the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all spices of the merchant? 7Behold, it is Solomon’s carriage! Sixty mighty men are around it, of the mighty men of Israel. 8They all handle the sword, and are expert in war. Every man has his sword on his thigh, because of fear in the night.
9King Solomon made himself a carriage of the wood of Lebanon. 10He made its pillars of silver, its bottom of gold, its seat of purple, the middle of it being paved with love, from the daughters of Jerusalem. 11Go out, you daughters of Zion, and see king Solomon, with the crown with which his mother has crowned him, in the day of his weddings, in the day of the gladness of his heart.

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1 commentator · 11 notes on this chapter

John GillParticular Baptist / High Calvinist · 1746–176311

The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.

Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.

v. 1

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth,.... The day being not yet broke, the night of Jewish darkness still on the church, and the shadow of the ceremonial law as yet stretched upon her; and having some knowledge of Christ by types and…

v. 2

I will rise now,.... Perceiving she had taken a wrong method, and therefore unsuccessful, she fixes on another; and, in the strength of divine grace, determines to pursue it, and "now", at once, immediately, without any delay, "rise" from her bed of sloth and…

v. 3

The watchmen that go about the city found me,.... By whom are meant the ministers of the Gospel; who are called watchmen, as the prophets were under the Old Testament, Isaiah 52:8; in allusion to watchmen in cities; and are so called in regard to themselves…

World English Bible — Public domain