Questions from the Scripture text: How does she introduce her exclamation (Song of Songs 1:16a)? What does she exclaim about Him? What does she call Him? What else does she exclaim about Him (verse 16b)? What else does she describe (verse 16c)? As what color? What else does she describe (Song of Songs 1:17a)? As of what wood? And what else (verse 17b)? As of what wood (verse 17c)?
How does the Bride respond to the Bridegroom’s praise? Song of Songs 1:16–17 prepares us for the opening portion of the holy assembly on the coming Lord’s Day. In these two verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us that the Bride responds to the Bridegroom’s praise by praising both Him and her fellowship with Him.
In Song of Songs 1:16, the word that's being translated ‘handsome’ is the masculine form of the word ‘fair’ in Song of Songs 1:15. And what we have is the response of the church to Christ. Whenever He praises the beauty that he has attributed to us, the beauty that He has worked in us, the beauty that He sees in us (verse 15), we immediately want to throw it back onto Him—because any beauty that is in us is from Him. The beauty is natively, rightly, properly His. The beauty is only ours derivatively. It's ours as a gift, but it's His by virtue of Who He is and what He is like in Himself. He is inherently beautiful.
It's this way and should be this way with believers: that, in any good thing, as soon as we receive any commendation, or possess any good thing, or any praise whatsoever, we would always want to turn it, immediately, to the praise of the Lord Jesus.
He never finds us more lovely (Song of Songs 1:15), or make us more lovely, than when we are expressing our love to Him (Song of Songs 1:12-14). Never do we perceive the loveliness of Christ (Song of Songs 1:16-17) so much as when He is displaying His love to us (Song of Songs 1:15).
The riches of the glories of Jesus (Song of Songs 1:16) are known especially when He is saying, “Behold, you are fair, my love, behold, you are fair” (Song of Songs 1:15). And the church ought to respond, recognizing that whatever good is in us is rightly and properly from Him, and rightly and properly to His praise.
He had commanded, “behold.” She responds, “behold,” not as a command, but as a form of obedience—as if to say, “yes, behold; I'm looking, and this is what I see; I see your beauty. Any beauty that might be in me has come from you.”
The beloved is the origin of His bride’s beauty. And His beauty is of a different quality, a different character. So she hurries to add the word, “pleasant” (Song of Songs 1:16b)—a second word that means a similar thing, with more emphasis on the experience of beauty, rather than the content of beauty. He is beautiful in Himself, and beautiful to enjoy.
By calling her “My love” (Song of Songs 1:15), He gave to her to find her identity in Him, and to know Him especially in his union with her. So now, she responds, “my Beloved” (Song of Songs 1:16). Again, she's recognizing that it is in union with Him, and in shared life (communion) with Him, that she has whatever beauty she has. He is the One Whose beauty is ultimate (verse 16a–b). He is the One Who is ultimately pleasant. And she has come to be beautiful (“fair,” Song of Songs 1:15), only because she has been united to Him, Whom she knows now as her Beloved.
But it isn’t just He Whom she experiences as beautiful. Her shared life with Him beautifies everything else that she is experiences (Song of Songs 1:16-17). Notice the shared life: not “Your bed,” but “our bed”; not “Your houses,” but “our houses.” She is experiencing her life as something in which she has a joint interest and experience with the Lord Jesus (cf. Romans 8:17).
And so, the church’s experience of the most comfort and intimacy with Christ (“our bed,” Song of Songs 1:16c) is given a color of refreshment and life and fruitfulness (“green”). And the structure and order which He has erected for their life together (“the beams of our houses,” Song of Songs 1:17a; and, “our rafters,” verse 17b) are given a substance of strength and beauty and endurance (“cedar” and “fir”). And there is certainly some allusion to the cedar of the temple that Solomon himself had built, where the Lord made a life for His people with Himself, by provision of priesthood, sacrifices, etc.
But the house of God is not ultimately the structure that Solomon built out of cedar. That house itself—by use of cedar, by use of gold, by use of the great stones that were used in it—looked forward to the life of God with His people, in His ordinances, as they would ultimately be experienced in Christ: Christ leading our worship, Christ drawing us near to God, Christ addressing us with God's word, Christ consecrating us as our high priest. And He has furnished for us those ordained servants by whom He Himself leads us before God. The structure that He has provided should be strong, enduring, beautiful and sweet to us, as cedar and fir are.
And so as the bride responds with her praise of His beauty, she is also responding with praise of intimacy with Him, and of the provision that he has made for the house.
Finally, this word rafters, refers to a covered walk, a third concentric circle, out from the bedroom and the household. The first is very intimate. Then there's the household, which is the life with Him which He provides. But then there's also these rafters, some sort of structure in which to walk. And so, even in her going out to do business, or daily life, or whatever she's going out to do, she still has that fellowship with Him that goes wherever she goes.
As you do, in your, life all the things that you go to do, you go accompanied by, bordered by, the fellowship that you have with Him. His beauty, His pleasantness, fills the whole of the life of the church, the whole of the life of the Christian. May God give you to have this experience of Christ.
How are you enjoying Christ? How are you enjoying times of intimacy with Him? How are you enjoying the structure that He has provided for drawing near to Him? How are you enjoying fellowship with Him, even as you go out into the rest of your life?
Sample prayer: Lord, we thank You for this song. We thank You for the poetry of it. We thank You most of all for the reality that this poetry is being employed to describe. Give us, we pray, to have a life, not only of intimate moments with You, but then, in your church, and in our engagement even in the world, that it would always flow from, and be accompanied by, the fellowship that we have with our Lord Jesus. For we ask it in His Name, Amen!
Suggested songs: ARP73C “Yet Constantly, I Am with You” or TPH425 “How Sweet and Awesome Is the Place”
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