God’s Word for You
Song of Solomon 6:4-5 The pulchritude of the church
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, June 29, 2024
The Husband
4 My darling, you are as beautiful as Tirzah,
lovely as Jerusalem, majestic with banners.
5 Turn your eyes away from me; for they arouse me.
Your hair is like a flock of goats
descending from Gilead.
From the beginning of chapter 5 through the beginning of this chapter, the woman has searched for her man after being too lazy to open the door for him. After an unfortunate run-in with the night watch, she and her friends have agonized over where she might look for him. After a short digression about how attractive he is, she calmed down enough to realize that he would probably be where he always was: watching the sheep in their pasture.
There is no description of what happened next. A poem does not follow a complete chronology of events. But her husband speaks at last; they have found one another. Whether she ever actually went out again or whether he simply came home is not presented. But he comforts her with the words of a loving husband.
“You are as beautiful as Tirzah” is coupled with “lovely as Jerusalem,” but what or where was Tirzah? It was a city in the north country of Israel, almost exactly midway between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, a few miles west of the Jordan valley. It served as the capital of the Northern Kingdom in the early days of the divided kingdom, but in Solomon’s time it was best known as one of the cities captured from the Canaanites in the days of Joshua (Joshua 12:24). The name means “lovely,” and that might be why Solomon uses it here, like saying, “You’re as beautiful as Pretty-Town!” Any city with walls and ramparts looks lovely from a distance. Solomon adds that the fluttering banners of a strong city also remind the husband of his wife, a strong woman with banners to display both her protector and her allegiance. Recall that earlier the wife said, “His banner over me is love” (Song 2:4). Also, the first altar Moses built during the exodus was called “The LORD is My Banner” (Exodus 17:15). The generally accepted view that the bride is from Galilee might also explain why Tirzah is brought out as the first comparison of her beauty, since few other northern cities would compare so well with Jerusalem.
Moving directly to his wife’s physical appearance, he admits that she can’t look at him without making him aroused. The verb means “cause to be fierce,” a perfectly accurate verb about a man’s desire for his bride.
Once again we hear the description of her hair like goats, and just as in chapter 4 the word for goats is gizim, “she goats.” The wife’s hair is her glory, and the image of the wealth of goats is the husband’s way of connecting her wavy hair with everything he treasures, not just in his life in general, but in his marriage with her in particular.
When Christ describes the church and praises it, which is to say, he praises us, we are overwhelmed by his generous words. Why would he praise us, miserable sinners that we are? We dwell on the guilt of our sins, and we “hang on such thorns” and see nothing of the good that God sees. Too firmly we grip our guilt when the Lord of peace gives peace at all times and in every way (2 Thessalonians 3:16). The terror of guilt overwhelms our puny faith. We know that in the end Christ “will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8). We see ourselves in the vat of guilt (Jeremiah 30:14-15), and we disregard so easily his promise, that he has placed us safely up on the shelf of righteousness. Do not remove yourself from the delightful place where Christ has set you. Do not rebel against his grace. He will praise those with faith: “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink” (Matthew 25:35). Since God imputes our faith as righteousness (Romans 3:22, 4:5), we should not be surprised that he also praises the faith he sees (1 Peter 1:7), for to him, in his holy eyes, that faith is not stained with error and fault (as we see it), but as the pure and perfect holiness he demands. So a husband describes his wife’s beauty in glowing terms that make her seem like the finest specimen of feminine pulchritude ever to stride through a flower bed with bluebirds dancing in the air above her sublime head (even though she might be somewhat lacking in perfection in the eyes of other men), for to him she is everything, the only woman in his life. And so it is with Christ and the church. He made a demand of her, which is summarized by the word: faith. And having that faith, the whole church is all his desire, his companion at the banquet of eternity, pulchrified by his grace, his table-companion for the revelries of his Father’s house and its many rooms.
Rejoice in the judgment and the praise of Jesus. Of course mankind will feel beneath his surmounting words and ever-towering praises. But he tells us to let go of our guilt just as he has, and to put our trust in him even there, in the great judgment. He has removed your guilt forever. Do not expect to feel it is so while you are still under the burden of the sinful flesh. Listen and rejoice in the words of the people of Jericho:
“Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you” (Mark 10:49).
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.