God’s Word for You
Song of Solomon 5:7 Wounded by watchmen
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Sunday, June 2, 2024
7 The watchmen found me
as they made their rounds in the city.
They beat me. They wounded me.
They took away my cloak,
those watchmen on the walls.
The wife runs out into the streets of the city, looking for her husband. This is one of several clues that counters the theory that the poems of the Song are about a shepherd and his girl out in the country. The couple is clearly married and living within a city with walls and watchmen, almost certainly Jerusalem.
Watchmen were guards posted to look out for enemies and other things such as fires, lions, or other dangers. They might be stationed on naturally high places such as hills (Jeremiah 31:6), on walls (Isaiah 62:6) or in towers (2 Kings 17:9). Not all watchmen were paragons of virtue, just as not every public servant is an upstanding or righteous man to this day. When the bride runs out in the night and is assaulted by the watchmen, we don’t get the impression that her treatment was a surprise. Like a person living in any military state, she is beaten and robbed by her own local policemen. The word “wounded” means that the beating left ugly bruises on her body. They tried to detain her, but she tore free leaving her cloak behind, like Joseph running from Potiphar’s wife (Genesis 39:12) or the young man that Mark reports who avoided capture when Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane (Mark 14:52).
How shall we understand these watchmen and what they do to the bride, who is the church?
A, Some see them as good angels or leaders in the church, who strip away the cloak of the woman which they see as carnal desire (perhaps thinking of 1 Corinthians 11:10?), but “this seems difficult to justify in the context.”
B, They might be those leaders in the church (often called watchmen, Isaiah 62:6) who do not stop when a sin is confessed, but keep digging and digging to bring even more sins to light. They are like the companions in Job who should comfort but who do the opposite instead. They are enemies, who steal away the cloak of true religion and bring suffering and wounds instead of help.
C, They might be false teachers who trample on the faith of the faithful. They are the kind who deny Christ’s divinity, deny that there is a resurrection, or a heaven, or a hell. They deny anything in the Scriptures that seems unlikely or irrational. They laugh at the thought of miracles, angels, the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament, or of the need for forgiveness. They turn people away from confession and absolution, and make tantalizing arguments about the good of throwing away the liturgy in worship and just using music and prayer, often condemning even the Lord’s Prayer as “an invention of the church.” They crush true faith and think of the cross only as the sad end to the life of a good man. God’s anger burns against them: “A fire is kindled in my anger, and burns to the depths of hell” (Deuteronomy 32:22). Jerome said: “God’s fire and vengeance always burns against sinners and pursues them all the way to hell.”
D, They could be those things that the church has set up over the centuries as unscriptural necessities, such as icons and other things (Luther cites “worship of saints, indulgences, and other godless nonsense”) that give no help at all in times of trouble; they are things that only cause confusion and uncertainty.
The second, third and fourth of these are both possible and probable. The enemies of faith do not bring comfort when the believer needs comfort. As the great father of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod said: “The Word of God is not rightly divided when the Law is preached to those who are already in terror on account of their sins, or the Gospel to those who live securely in their sins.” When false teachers and those who invent useless requirements for salvation destroy the faith of the poor Christian, God thunders down: “I will heap disasters upon them and spend my arrows against them: wasting hunger, burning consumption, bitter pestilence. The teeth of beasts I will send against them, with venom of things crawling in the dust” (Deuteronomy 32:23-24). The true pastor of God’s flock “speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort… he builds up the church” (1 Corinthians 14:3,4). So when someone is already trampled down and crushed by the law, what is the role of the church? It is nothing else except to hold out the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. “You ought to forgive and comfort him,” says Paul, “so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow” (2 Corinthians 2:7).
Pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! We know that our help comes from the Lord, who binds up the bruises of his people and heals their wounds (Isaiah 30:26). “The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him” (Nahum 1:7). He himself encourages us to look only to him for all good things. “Then Lord will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life. The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore” (Psalm 121:7-8). Even when he must send storm, cold, heat or disaster to do it (Jonah 1:4, 4:7-8), the Lord has our good at heart. By his grace he has given us “eternal encouragement and good hope” (2 Thessalonians 2:16).
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.