His Favorite

DEVOTION

SONG OF SONGS

HIS FAVORITE

Song 6

6:1

Where has your lover gone, most beautiful of women? Which way did your lover turn, that we may look for him with you?

2 My lover has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to browse in the gardens and to gather lilies. 3 I am my lover's and my lover is mine; he browses among the lilies.

4 You are beautiful, my darling, as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, 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 alone. 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 maidens saw her and called her blessed; the queens and concubines praised her. 10 Who is this that appears like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as the stars in procession?

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.  

13 Come back, come back, O Shulammite; come back, come back, that we may gaze on you!

Why would you gaze on the Shulammite as on the dance of Mahanaim?

NIV

If we were to ascribe to this conversation, or play consisting of various roles, this would be the daughters of Jerusalem asking the Shulamite where is her beloved with her answer and then the beloved’s words as he searches for her and as he described her beauty, with her response again and then his and ends with her question about him. It seems very much in the realm of humanity and we have to ask again as to why God would inspire Solomon to write about fleshly lovers. He has already indicated more than once that a husband and wife are one, that we are united together. So this searching for a lover is not in the realm of humanity, but has everything to do with God searching for us, and our response and how he sees us and us him. Jesus has told us that he and the Father are one, and his desire is for us to be one with him, to be united with him. But there is the everlasting searching going on. It is that we lose sight of him and he keeps after us to return to our first love? Who are the lilies that he gathers? Is this garden the world in which he browses looking for those who are lilies, to gather them to himself? The lilies are then we believers who he has gathered. Certainly we can say that the Lord is ours and we are his. So God describes again how he views the lilies, the people he has gathered to himself. The main thrust is how much he loves us, and sees our individual beauty. We are not just the church as a whole, the body of Christ, but God sees each one of us as his perfect one. Although they are many queens and many concubines and many more virgins we are seen as this one perfect one, unique, the only one born like us. As similar as all people are, as far as a species, there is no two of us that alike. With perhaps the exception of identical twins, no two of us have the same appearance, and even with the twins there personalities are uniquely different. God sees us just that way, in our individual appearance, personality, and abilities. Although we as individuals are his favorite one, he does not show favoritism, so then each one of us are his favorite one. That seems difficult to understand in our human minds, because we cannot have more than one favorite. Those maidens are the world, the people of the world, the non-believers who notice how we are blessed. The see the peace we have, the contentment in our spirit. They see that we are like the dawn, the moon and the sun as well as all the stars, majestic and they do not understand. That is of course if we are living as the favorite of the Lord. This idea of the Shulamite going down to the grove, and the plea for her to come back, is about how we can look somewhere else. We might look to the world for new growth, new blooms, new excitement or entertainment, finding pleasures in the things of the grove. In so doing we can get caught up in the ways of the world and before we realize it our desire set us among the royal chariots of other people. We are running a chariot race as in Ben Hur, just going in circles, around and around with the cheers of the people. The Lord beckons us, come back that he might gaze on us, be delighted in us. This should give us reason never to go down to the grove in the first place. Let us stay in the garden with our Lord being as always his favorite.