The Power of Love

The power of love cannot be overstated. Song of Solomon is a book about love between a husband and wife as a picture of God's love for us in Christ and our requisite love for Him. The book is in the Bible because of love's unrelenting power. Studying this short book reminds me that God is fully aware of our reality, our emotions, and our true need to know and love Him as we know His love for us. 

Song of Solomon 8:6 (ESV) Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD.

Notice those words in verse 6. "Love is strong as death" and "jealousy as fierce as the grave." Wow. Everyone who has ever loved or lost loved knows this is true. Love can make us do incredible things, and foolish things, and love can be one of the riskiest things we do in life. 

Song of Solomon 8:7 (ESV) Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.

Love cannot be stifled or drowned. If you think you can purchase it, you're a fool. Why? Because love is more than a tangential reality. It's beyond our physical world and it surpasses our mental acuity. Why do we love someone? At first, it may seem obvious. But sometimes you can see two people loving each other beyond the superficial realities that brought them together. Marriages grow deeper and stronger with time in many cases despite some of life's most challenging moments. What keeps them together? Something more powerful than looks or attraction. Love. 

With all that is said about love in Song of Solomon, there is wise advice in the final passages for those who seek it out. 

Song of Solomon 8:8 (ESV) We have a little sister, and she has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister on the day when she is spoken for?

Notice the communal and familial protection for the little sister in this passage. We should understand this to highlight the importance of keeping yourself away from the dangers of love when one is too young. You need guardrails established to keep you safe. 

The brothers go further:

Song of Solomon 8:9 (ESV) If she is a wall, we will build on her a battlement of silver, but if she is a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar.

The image of a "wall" is referring to a young girl not yet developed. The image of a door is that of a woman seemingly open to sexual advances. They are determined to protect her at all costs. Would that every young woman had people like this in her life. 

For the man's approach to love, verse 11 and 12 read thus:

Song of Solomon 8:11–12 (ESV) Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he let out the vineyard to keepers; each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver. 12 My vineyard, my very own, is before me; you, O Solomon, may have the thousand, and the keepers of the fruit two hundred.

The image of the vineyard refers perhaps to Solomon's harem. But verse 12 shows the main woman in his life would not be like one of those loose women. She was to be cherished and kept in a sanctified manner. The point is simple, love between man and wife is far more intensely satisfying and fulfilling than all the sexual congress imaginable. We are made for singular devotion to one person. This is a picture of our union with Christ. This is God's offer to us in grace.