A Series on Song of Songs - #7
Speaker Notes
Song of Songs 6:4-7:13 Peace Only Through Cataclysm
He
4 You are as beautiful as Tirzah, my darling,
as lovely as Jerusalem,
as majestic as troops with banners.
5 Turn your eyes from me;
they overwhelm me.
Your hair is like a flock of goats
descending from Gilead.
6 Your teeth are like a flock of sheep
coming up from the washing.
Each has its twin,
not one of them is missing.
7 Your temples behind your veil
are like the halves of a pomegranate.
8 Sixty queens there may be,
and eighty concubines,
and virgins beyond number;
9 but my dove, my perfect one, is unique,
the only daughter of her mother,
the favorite of the one who bore her.
The young women saw her and called her blessed;
the queens and concubines praised her.
Friends
10 Who is this that appears like the dawn,
fair as the moon, bright as the sun,
majestic as the stars in procession?
He
11 I went down to the grove of nut trees
to look at the new growth in the valley,
to see if the vines had budded
or the pomegranates were in bloom.
12 Before I realized it,
my desire set me among the royal chariots of my people.
Friends
13 Come back, come back, O Shulammite;
come back, come back, that we may gaze on you!
He
Why would you gaze on the Shulammite
as on the dance of Mahanaim?
7.1 How beautiful your sandaled feet,
O prince’s daughter!
Your graceful legs are like jewels,
the work of an artist’s hands.
2 Your navel is a rounded goblet
that never lacks blended wine.
Your waist is a mound of wheat
encircled by lilies.
3 Your breasts are like two fawns,
like twin fawns of a gazelle.
4 Your neck is like an ivory tower.
Your eyes are the pools of Heshbon
by the gate of Bath Rabbim.
Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon
looking toward Damascus.
5 Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel.
Your hair is like royal tapestry;
the king is held captive by its tresses.
6 How beautiful you are and how pleasing,
my love, with your delights!
7 Your stature is like that of the palm,
and your breasts like clusters of fruit.
8 I said, “I will climb the palm tree;
I will take hold of its fruit.”
May your breasts be like clusters of grapes on the vine,
the fragrance of your breath like apples,
9 and your mouth like the best wine.
She
May the wine go straight to my beloved,
flowing gently over lips and teeth.
10 I belong to my beloved,
and his desire is for me.
11 Come, my beloved, let us go to the countryside,
let us spend the night in the villages.
12 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.
13 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 beloved.
“Death Fugue” from “Poems of Paul Celan” by Paul Celan (1952)
Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown
we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night
we drink and we drink it
we dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined
A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writes
he writes when dusk falls to Germany your golden hair
Margarete
he writes it and steps out of doors and the stars are flashing he
whistles his pack out
he whistles his Jews out in earth has them dig for a grave
he commands us strike up for the dance
…
Black milk of daybreak, we drink you at night,
we drink you at noon, death is a master from Germany,
we drink you at sundown and at morning we drink and we drink you.
Death is a master from Germany,
his eye is blue, he strikes you with leaden bullets,
his aim is true. A man lives in the house,
your golden hair Margarete,
he sets his pack onto us,
he grants us a grave in the air,
he plays with the serpents and daydreams.
Death is a master from Germany.
Your golden hair Margarete,
your ashen hair Shulamite.
“War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy (1869) [Part One, VIII pg. 631]
… “Don’t think that grief is caused by people. People are His instruments.” … “Grief is sent by Him, not by people. People are His instruments, they’re not to blame. If it seems to you that someone is to blame before you, forget it and forgive. We have no right to punish. And you will know the happiness of forgiveness.”
“The Four Loves” by C.S. Lewis (1960) [Eros, pg. 153]
His (Eros’) total commitment is a paradigm or example, built into our natures, of the love we ought to exercise towards God and Man. As nature, for the nature-lover, gives a content to the word glory, so this (Eros) gives a content to the word Charity. It is as if Christ said to us through Eros, "Thus just like this with this prodigality not counting the cost you are to love me and the least of my brethren."
David is a Theologian and Ethicist.