God’s Word for You
Song of Solomon 7:13-14 The Mask of Mandrakes
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Sunday, August 18, 2024
13 Let us go early to the vineyards
to see if the vines have budded,
if their blossoms have opened,
and if the pomegranates are in bloom—
there I will give you my love.
14 The mandrakes send out their fragrance,
and at our door is every delicacy, both new and old,
that I have stored up for you, my love.
Chapter 7 comes to an end with another invitation to get away. The wife’s idea in the verse before this was to go out into the fields and just find villages in the evening where they could get a place to sleep. Now she expands her thought: Let’s visit the vineyards and the groves of fruit trees in the mornings after we get up. We’ll see whether things are growing as they should.
These verses are simple and clear. There are one or two grammatical things to notice, but nothing too pressing. There is a question about the verse with all the flowers: Is it a teasing conditional, “If the flowers have bloomed, then I will give you my love”? No, the word sham (שָׁם), which is very common (although it occurs only here in the Song) means “there,” as in Jonah 4:5, “There he made himself a shelter.”
The thoughts of vines (and grapes), of blossoms of other fruits such as apples or “love apples” (pomegranates), leads to the strange mention of the mandrakes. Mandrakes grow most everywhere in Palestine, although it is rare in and around Jerusalem or that part of Judea. It is quite common in Galilee, and even appears in deserted wastelands around the Mediterranean. It is related to nightshade perennials (like the tomato) and to potatoes. Mandrakes have purple flowers that ripen in May into yellowish-green fruits like plums. But it is the large fleshy roots, usually forked into vaguely human-looking forms, that are prized as an aphrodisiac. There was always a superstition that the plants help in conception, whether ground up and used as a narcotic (roots and leaves are quite poisonous, hallucinogenic, and can be deadly), or simply as a kind of charm. In Genesis 30:14-16, Leah’s son Reuben finds some mandrakes, which Leah trades to her sister (also her rival wife), although in their case it is a trade so that Leah can sleep with Jacob their husband rather than Leah using the mandrake in order to conceive, and yet this is the account of how the patriarch Issachar was conceived.
This also brings up a strange side-note about the Song of Solomon. Behind this mask of mandrakes (either supersitiously or medicinally thought to help with conception or attraction) is the closest that the Song comes to ever mentioning children—and this is strange, since children are especially prized in God’s plan for marriage: “Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me” (Isaiah 8:18). “Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him” (Psalm 127:3). Why would the writer of the Song omit references to children? The Song seems to dwell on the beginning of marriage, the early days and months, from just after the wedding onward. Children are naturally not yet part of the life of the couple; they simply don’t have any children yet—but perhaps here in the bride’s comment about the mandrakes, she is seeking to begin their family.
The bride also mentions “every delicacy.” She has things in mind that are both “old and new.” She wants to keep their love and their romance fresh, finding many ways to say I love you. This is excellent advice for all marriages, whether husband and wife are rolling along like best friends, like cooing turtle doves, or even if they are struggling with health troubles, memory troubles, depression, absence, loss, or even abuse or unfaithfulness. Pastor Elke says: “God can restore troubled marriages. He can do it even where there has been unfaithfulness and abuse. I’ve seen it happen. No doubt you have too. So if your marriage is less than perfect—and whose isn’t?—don’t give up. Even when there is no miraculous change, the Lord can give his people strength, courage, and love to carry on.”
The desire to examine blossoms and young plants is also a hint about children and Christians who are new to the faith. While the couple in the Song see to the needs of their own love, they are also concerned about the young growth around them. Married couples must of course look after the needs of their children, but must not forget about one another’s physical, emotional and spiritual needs as well. Through Christ, we see the reflection of God’s faultless and lofty face. Through Christ, the eyes of our hearts are opened. Through Christ, our foolish and darkened understanding blossoms toward the light. It is a part of our happy duty toward one another to look for such blossoms as they open in faith, and to praise God for this springtime of the soul.
Spiritually, they also remember to store up “treasures old and new,” just as Jesus mentions: “Every teacher of the law (scribe) who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old” (Matthew 13:52). The scribes were well-versed in the Old Testament Scriptures, which are valuable for knowing the will of God and are a part of the word of God. But those same men, instructed in the kingdom of heaven (the gospel of Jesus Christ) had also received the rest of the word of God, the New Testament as well as the Old. One is not greater than the other, except that the New shows the fulfillment of the Old. Both are valuable. Both are the word of God. Both show that way to eternal life. That way is Christ Jesus alone, the one who will also come at the Last Day looking for fruit as he looked for figs even when it was not the season for figs (Mark 11:13). We keep one another prepared for his coming, beginning with husbands and wives, parents and children, because we share the word of our holy God with the people we love. For while the public reading of Scripture and preaching is the work of our pastors and ministers (1 Timothy 4:13), the private reading of the same Scripture, along with meditation, study, and prayer, is the privilege of all Christians and their families.
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.