God’s Word for You
Song of Solomon 7:2-4 Intimate praise
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, July 27, 2024
The Husband
(Recall that the numbering of the verses in this chapter vary from translation to translation. I am following the Hebrew verse numbers here, but in the NIV these three verses would be 7:1-3).
2 How beautiful are your feet in sandals,
O prince’s daughter!
These are verses of intimate praise. Her husband praises the way his wife looks, He did this previously in chapter 4, moving from top down. Now he begins with her feet and proceeds upward. He notices her feet; she is wearing sandals. He calls her feet beautiful. Is this a continuation of the dance that was just mentioned in verse 1, the dance of the Mahanaim (two camps)? As they are talking in private and he describes what he finds beautiful about her (which is of course everything about her) he can’t help but describe even the way she moves across the room in terms of a dance. He calls his wife “a princes’ daughter,” that is, a princess. We know that she is a country girl, one who was bullied into getting sunburned while tending the vineyards by her brothers. But her husband just loves everything about her.
Your hips curve like a necklace,
the work of a master craftsman’s hand.
These lines are not easy on a translator. Some prefer to use “legs” for the subject, but yarecayim refers to the area above the knee and below the waist (thigh or hips), such as in the tailor’s instructions in Exodus 28:42. In this case, the reference to a necklace is probably the way a chain or leather necklace sways on the body, gracefully bending here and there, and the husband finds the curving movements of her hips delightful. He chooses to compliment the one who made the necklace, while at the same time complimenting God who made his wife. It is not unlike the old Maurice Chevalier song, “Thank heaven for little girls / they grow up in the most delightful way.” But the writer of this Song places the work of making beautiful women directly into the hands of God. He made men and women attractive to one another, to help along his command for us to marry, and to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 2:24, 1:28).
3 Your navel is a round bowl
that is never empty of blended wine.
Your belly is a mound of wheat,
encircled with lilies.
4 Your two breasts are like two fawns,
the twin fawns of a gazelle.
The husband’s compliments continue as he describes her navel (with words that make us scratch our heads a bit), and her round belly like a pile of harvested wheat. None of the terms here are particularly sexual. The word for “navel” is certainly her belly-button, since it is related to the term for umbilical cord (Ezekiel 16:4). The suggestion of unlimited wine is a hint of their lovemaking, or simply the shape of her navel. The belly comparison isn’t necessarily a comment that she is fat, nor pregnant, although the latter is a possible meaning (some husbands find their wives even more attractive during pregnancy).
Once again, when the writer mentions her breasts it is in close proximity to the mention of lilies (4:5 and perhaps 2:16). Her breasts are not exposed, but covered as with many blooming flowers covering a pair of fawn gazelles browsing for grass in a field or at the break of the shadow on the edge of the woods.
We have been taking the Song as a description of the mystic union of Christ and his Church. In a passage like this one, the application to marriage is simple, since the husband is privately sharing with his wife some of the reasons that he is attracted to her. They are not an ideal couple; they are an ordinary husband and wife. Not every man can articulate with words what he feels, but his eyes and his smile say many things.
What about our spiritual application? The Maker praises what he has made. These verses can carry us to those words spoken by God in Genesis; the judgment of each and every day of creation. Again and again, God judges what he has made with the words, “And it was good” (Genesis 1:10,12,18,21,25). Then, in the end, he judges it all: “It was very good.” How is this any different from the husband’s words in our text, except that in Genesis 1 everything is more general, and the praise is for everything God made. Here in the Song, the Savior is praising his church in particular.
Just as a husband praises his wife’s feet, the Lord praises the places his church moves toward as they reach out with the gospel (Isaiah 52:7; Romans 10:15). And just as a husband praises his wife’s dance-like movements as she crosses a room, so also the Lord praises the orderly work of the church as his people use his word for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. The round bowl and the unending supply of wine? A simple reader might think of either baptism in the “rounded bowl” or the Lord’s Supper with the wine and the mound of wheat. And I am myself nothing more than a simple reader. These are the things I think of. If I am not clever enough to move beyond the means of grace in this imagery, then I count myself blessed. Of course, there was not yet any holy communion when this was written, but there certainly were baptisms, which were ceremonial washings to remove sin and guilt. And there was wine shared at fellowship meals in the temple near the altar of the Lord. And so our New Testament application is not so far out. How could the Holy Spirit be offended if our thoughts dwell on his greatest gifts?
Finally in these verses we notice the breasts described as twin fawns, just as we did in 4:5. Even in private, her husband is content when they are covered. The lilies suggest a woman’s decolletage, the way that a wife covers her neckline and upper chest. Applications might drift toward the nourishment and special care we take with our smallest children, but we can also notice that even here, in a love song between a married couple, “the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special modesty” (1 Corinthians 12:23). The wife’s body, and especially the most private parts of her body, are for her husband alone, and should be treated that way. The Tenth Commandment is not only there to warn each of us when we run the danger of lust. It is also there for each of us to protect one another by not presenting ourselves as sexual temptations for anyone who is not our spouse. As we commented in chapter 4: Praise and thank God for the gifts he gives, including the delight you have in your spouse and the love you share. But be private about it. The world does not need to hear your most intimate thoughts; they are best reserved for the one who is flesh of your flesh.
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.