God’s Word for You
Song of Solomon 8:6-7 The blaze of the LORD
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Sunday, September 1, 2024
6 Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm.
A seal was a man’s own identification. A man often wore his seal around his neck on a cord, like the one Judah wore and had to give as a pledge (Genesis 38:17-18). Seals were used on clay tablets as a signature. The bride asks her husband to put her over his heart like a seal, and on his arm. “Wear me like you wear your own name.” We do something similar by exchanging rings, or by wearing some token around the neck. Christians are sealed in heaven with the mark of the Holy Spirit, who takes up residence in the temple of each believer’s body when they come to faith in baptism (Ephesians 1:13-14).
To bring our interpretation more closely to the text, the seal over Christ’s heart and arm is to desire both his love for us and his work on our behalf. We believe that he loves us with an everlasting love (John 3:16) and that his work in the world, most especially the labor of the passion and especially the crucifixion, was a work of his love for each one of us, “for Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (1 Peter 3:18).
For love is as strong as death,
its passion unyielding as the grave.
It burns like flashing fire, like the blaze of the LORD.
Even the unbelieving pagans acknowledge some power in love, and the strength of passion. “Like death,” Augustine wrote, “love is vanquished by none, or because the measure of love in this life is all the way to death, as the Lord says: ‘Greater love has no man than this, that he lays down his life for his friends (John 15:23).’”
Love is a flame that burns always; everyone can see it, and it will not go out. It will keep burning like the lamp in the tabernacle, which was kept alight by the duty of the high priest (Leviticus 24:3). Solomon blessed his son and said to him: “May you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer… may you ever be captivated by her love” (Proverbs 5:18-19). “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Paul asks (Romans 8:35). “Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).
We must describe the final Hebrew word in the verse. It is shulhevet-yah (שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה). In Ezekiel 20:47 and Job 15:30, shulhevet by itself means “flame, flames.” In each case, the fire is the unquenchable fire of God, but this is more clear from the context than from the word itself. Here, the addition of the Lord’s abbreviated name, -yah, either refers to a mighty flame (so many translations) or “the flame of the LORD,” which is the translation I have adopted here. We see the addition of this abbreviated form of the Lord’s name in many names: Elijah, Zechariah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and so on.
7 Many waters cannot quench that love.
Rivers cannot wash it away.
If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love,
it would be utterly scorned.
Raging waters can do incredible damage in the world. Houses, trees, hillsides, villages, and even cities can be wiped away by water when it is unleashed with enough force. It does not take a tsunami or a hurricane or a breaking dam, but simply enough rain at just the wrong time, and what was there yesterday is gone today. Jesus said about the house of the foolish man, “The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell. And how mighty was that fall!” (Matthew 7:27). But what about the love of the wise man, whose love is like a house built on bedrock? “The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, but it did not fall, because it was firmly built on bedrock” (Matthew 7:25). Rivers cannot wash such love away. So “enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days… God has given you under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 9:9).
A good spouse will agree: Money cannot buy real love, and real love is worth more than anything. Only a fool or a whore would marry for money. And on the other side of that coin, it is a fool’s errand to perform good deeds as if to gain heaven but without love. As Paul says: “If I give everything I have to the poor and surrender my body to be burned, but I don’t have love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3).
Love is the answer to the question: “Why did God make me?” In eternity, God thought of you, loved you, cherished you, planned for you, and then set the world spinning to give you a home here below before bringing you home to himself in heaven. Here, we come to faith, and in faith we set aside sin. Of all the gifts God has hidden as treasures in the world for us to enjoy, love is the greatest of all. Love is the prized fruit. David sings: “O LORD, turn and deliver me. Save me because of your unfailing love” (Psalm 6:4). And again: “I trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in your salvaiton” (Psalm 13:5). In those and many other lines of the Psalms, being saved; being given the sure promise of life in heaven, is exactly parallel to God’s love for us. This is why he made us, so that he could bring us home to Paradise and the wedding feast of the Lamb.
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.