Adorning Jewels on your neck are like God’s commands written on the heart.

mostsublimesong

10 years ago

Beautify yourself for God/Christ and your husband!

Proverbs 1:8-9 “Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
9 They are a garland to grace your head
and a chain to adorn your neck.”

Song of Songs 1:10 “Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings, your neck with strings of jewels.”

This interpretation is an allegorical view. I have since changed my view and have a literal and historical view of this verse here. Love, giving and jewelry.

In other words, he is saying, “I have seen you reading your bible and obeying God’s commands, when I see you doing this your value shines like jewels!! Why?

Proverbs 31:10 An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels.

Your understanding the doctrines of God and” applying them in your life, and oh how beautiful this is, it’s what makes her precious, highly valued and desirable to possess. She understood she needed to “follow”and she obeyed Song 1:7, then he compliments her swift fearless obedience in 1:9 as being like a mare in battle for Pharaoh which shows obedience, if you love you will obey, she obeyed her master. This type of character is beautiful, desirable in a wife, precious to have and valuable in degree of worth. The truths written on you mind and love and delight you have in them is precious and most valuable to be like Jewels that adorn your neck. It’s what I value most about you and it makes you very beautiful to me seeing the commands of God written on your heart and bound around your neck like jewels are very precious, valuable and desirable.

World Bible Commentary OT

The governing topic is the question, What enhances the woman’s beauty? The man and the chorus desire to adorn her with expensive ornaments of gold and silver. This sentiment is not bad, and it is born of love for her, but it substitutes a superficial embellishment for true adornments. She asserts rather that her desirability is enhanced by her fragrances of spikenard, myrrh, and henna and that her beauty is enhanced by the love of her lover. She gives off the fragrance of spikenard as she waits for him to come to her. She will have him, like her myrrh, between her breasts. He is like henna in that he adorns the beauty of her, the vineyard. The fragrance of these perfumes is like love itself; it is invisible but powerful and sweet. Her real adornment, she asserts, is the groom and the love she has for him.

Since Solomon is the one who adorned her with jewels her real adornment Solomon is and also not Solomon for God gave her Solomon, therefore God is her True Glory and Solomon is her precious and valuable adornment worth giving her life for in order to have close to her heart.

Song of Songs 4:9-10

“You have made my heart beat faster, my sister, my bride;You have made my heart beat faster with a single glance of your eyes, With a single strand of your necklace. v.10 How delightful is your love.”

Each loving glance she takes at him is like a beautiful strand on her necklace. Imagine a Solomon, husband king asking her to do something v.8 “Come with me..”and she looks to him in love and obeys. (She humbles herself before the leopards that haunt mountain tops get her. This is what makes his heart beat faster and steals his heart away to her! It her love and obedience to him that ravishes his heart. And in loving, obeying and submitting top her “own husband” she loves and obey God, for it is God who says to love and obey your husband. Ephesians 5:22-24

Listening to Solomon’s instructions, God’s word, His commands and not forsaking your mother’s teaching is likened to a “garland” that graces the head or a chain that adorns your neck. In Song 1:10 Solomon says “Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings, you neck with strings of jewels.” Now yes, Solomon is talking about the Jewelry that was given to the poor slave girl to wear upon meeting Solomon. So she does have adorning jewels. These Jewels are also what makes her beautiful. In the Song her neck is beautiful with strings of jewels. Implying that her neck alone would not be beautiful by itself. It needs adornment then it’s beautiful. Her neck with Jewels adorns her like “listening and not forsaking God’s instruction” adorns the heart. The point of Song 1:11 is a promise, Solomon see’s her beautiful moral character consisting in love “Song 4:9-10” and basically says in 1:11 that “you are morally beautiful and I will make you more beautiful.”

Key verses

Solomon in Song 1:10

is talking both about the cheeks and her neck. This is just a poetic way of saying the same thing. The point is that it’s her obedience to God’s commands that makes her beautiful, precious and valuable to him, therefore beautiful, so he praises her outer and inner beauty at the same time. Her outer beauty being only a reflection of the inner beauty of God. His moral excellency and holiness consisting in love to Himself.

1 Peter 3:3-4

3 Your adornment must not be merely external—braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; 4 but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.

Proverbs 4:7-8

7“The beginning of wisdom is: Acquire wisdom;
And with all your acquiring, get understanding.
8 “Prize her, and she will exalt you;
She will honor you if you embrace her.
9 “She will place on your head a garland of grace;
She will present you with a crown of beauty.”

Proverbs 6:20-21

20 “My son, observe the commandment of your father
And do not forsake the teaching of your mother;
21 Bind them continually on your heart;

Tie them around your neck.”

God doesn’t mean us to take this passage literally only. The literal “jewel” or ornament is there for us to ask, why does he give her this compliment? What is it about her that makes her precious and valuable to him? What is added to her that adorns her appearance? Obviously it is her character. Liked to a mare in battle in 1:9. What good would writing God’s commands on something then putting them around your neck do for you? Do you think that would make you beautiful, valuable and precious? Of course not, Solomon is speaking figuratively about treasuring God’s word “in your heart.” Psalm 119:11 This is what makes her beautiful to him. Moral excellency on her heart. Holiness consisting in Love to God is the beauty that captivates the heart of Christ.

Love=obedience. If you love you will obey. Pharaoh had the most obedient horse pulling his chariot in battle. Not some stubborn mule. What adorns her is her love and faithfulness.

1 Timothy 2:9

In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; Timothy 2:10 But (which becomes women professing godliness) with good works

Proverbs 31:30

**Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.**

and one last one

Proverbs 31:28-29

28 Her children rise up and bless her;
Her husband also, and he praises her, saying:
29 “Many daughters have done nobly,
But you excel them all.”

Solomon, king of kings, unmeasurably wise, loves, charms and encourages her by praising her the noble character of the one he loves and adores while courting her! He does this in the most beautiful metaphoric language.

Proverbs 25:12 “Like an earring of gold and an ornament of fine gold, Is a wise reprover to a listening ear.” The wise reprover is thought of as someone who adorns them and makes them valuable, because they brought the Word of God to them. They where happy to listen and thought the shepherd as valuable in and of Himself for being wise. and

Ex. 33:1-6 “They weren’t listening to God so God’s presence left them and Israel took off there ornaments.” to symbolize God’s presence was gone. If they had the ornaments on then God was with them.

Proverbs 25:12 As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear.

Proverbs 3:3 Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart.

Proverbs 3:22 So they will be life to your soul And adornment to your neck.

Proverbs 1:8-9 “My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.”

Neck

Isaiah 61:10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.

Proverbs 25:28 “Like a city that is broken into and without walls
Is a man who has no control over his spirit.

Is 5:7 7 “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant”

Matthew 21

2 Chronicles 10:4 “Your father made our yoke hard; now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke which he put on us, and we will serve you.”

Ps 90:15 And the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that thou madest strong for thyself.

Arguing from Jewels to love and faithfulness or her graces and virtues

On the surface literally Solomon is complimenting her outward physical appearance, specifically her neck and cheeks. If you leave it here then your thinking something like they are at the dinner table v. 12 and she is beautified by the jewels he gave her to wear to dinner. She was a slave needing redemption 1:5-6 so where did she get the jewelry? He gave it to her. I’m not saying she wasn’t beautiful in his eyes without them but in this context he is complimenting her cheeks with earrings and her neck with strings of jewels. At this point there is no clear mention of Solomon’s intent to compliment her inner beauty. It all looks external and physical.

Notice Solomon just doesn’t say her neck is beautiful by itself. Her neck is beautiful with jewels. The jewels make her neck beautiful. He is seeing her neck and the jewels at the same time and says “your cheeks with earrings and your neck with strings of jewels”

Yet it’s not her neck and cheeks alone that make her beautiful. It is her neck and cheeks with Jewels, implying that without them she is of no worth or value. A bride adorns herself as much as possible, not overdoing it but making herself beautiful, yet how much more lovely and worthy of praise is a woman who fears the Lord, she is more precious than jewels.

So her outward physical appearance is beautiful, precious, valuable to him thus drawing out his expressions of love to her. Therefore the question arises “Is there an inner beauty of our soul that without we are not morally beautiful”? And can a proper analogy be drawn from the text between Solomon complimenting her outward beauty and Christ complimenting the inner beauty of His Bride?

Does Jesus Christ delight in our inner beauty? Our inner beauty is holiness consisting in love to God and others. Does Jesus think that our holiness is beautiful to Him? If so how, when, what and why would He thought our holiness was beautiful to Him? Our holiness is His image in us, and there is nothing more beautiful than Jesus Christ! That love to God written on our heart is the moral beauty of our inner being that is most precious and valuable to our infinitely morally excellent and holy Bridegroom King, our Lord Jesus Christ. This is true.

What great motive we have to put of sin and put on Christ and holiness and wisdom. Solomon thought his bride was beautiful with jewels. How much more beautiful and precious is her wisdom. “Wisdom is more precious than rubies. Nothing you can desire compares with possessing wisdom” Prov.

Jewels are compared to what is most valuable about her in His eyes. Her Love and faithfulness to Himself is what is most valuable to Him. This is written on her heart. Ez. 36:26

This love

So she has a right understanding of God, love to Him and delight in Him. This right idea of God and love to and delight in Him is what makes her beautiful. Her moral beauty is her holiness consisting in Love to God. In order to have Love to God we must have a right idea of Him. This knowledge of God comes only through Christ. If you have seen me you have seen the Father. The loveliness of our soul depends upon how clear, right and high a view we have of God in Christ and the degree and constancy of our love to and delight in Him. Through her union and communion with Christ her love to Him gets purer and more beautiful. As the stars in the sky are all light and heat so the soul of a believer has both light of the knowledge of God and heat, the very Flame of God Song 8:6, in varying degrees of brightness(light of the knowledge of Christ) and heat(desire for and love to and delight in Him). Grow in the grace and knowledge of God in Christ and your heart will be on fire for God. She knows she has this loveliness about her given to her and not of herself, but she is lovely none the less. Adam had this loveliness originally but lost it. The angels are holy.

This loveliness consists in the understand and will. The heart. The soul. In the understand we have knowledge of God and the will chooses God or has love to and delight in God. This renewed image of God upon the heart is lovely to God and continues to get lovelier forever as the souls union and communion with God in Christ gets stricter.

So she has a right understanding of God, love to Him and delight in Him. This right idea of God and love to and delight in Him is what makes her beautiful. Her moral beauty is her holiness consisting in Love to God. In order to have Love to God we must have a right idea of Him. This knowledge of God comes only through Christ. If you have seen me you have seen the Father. The loveliness of our soul depends upon how clear, right and high a view we have of God in Christ and the degree and constancy of our love to and delight in Him. Through her union and communion with Christ her love to Him gets purer and more beautiful. As the stars in the sky are all light and heat so the soul of a believer has both light of the knowledge of God and heat, the very Flame of God Song 8:6, in varying degrees of brightness and heat. Grow in the grace and knowledge of God in Christ and your heart will be on fire for God. She knows she has this loveliness about her given to her and not of herself, but she is lovely none the less. Adam had this loveliness originally but lost it. The angels are holy.

This loveliness grows. Yet in proportion to the greatness of our sin. We see our sin great and any act of obedience is

Our minds are dark. We have darkened understandings yet lovely. Our minds are not all light, light or knowledge of God does shine in our somewhat dark but renewed hearts giving us a greater beauty or loveliness as we behold the glory of God in the face of Christ. 2 Cor. 3:18

Beautiful Cheeks are symmetrical and proportionate and harmonize with the rest of the face and body.

Cheeks have thinner skin than other area’s of the body. Thin skin allows for blood to rush to the face in times of anger, blushing and even ovulation. Her holiness of heart, holy emotions express themselves in her cheeks. There is symmetry and proportion to them just like her temples they perfectly match and express emotions. There is no disunion between her cheeks and her emotions. Sincerity of heart?

Cheeks express emotions and feelings. The way she expresses her feelings toward him is beautiful with adornments. What adorns her cheeks with beauty? The ornaments. Valuable ornaments. The purpose of an ornament is to add beauty and value to the object or person adorned. Beautiful to see adorned. By themselves, the text doesn’t say how her cheeks were to him. But to him they are beautiful with earrings. “With” is a key word here. With ornaments her cheeks are beautiful. So for now we interpret Solomon to be complimenting her cheeks and earrings. Yes, he is talking about her external appearance. But again the beautiful appearance of someone’s cheeks is dependent upon wether or not holy emotions are in the heart. The cheeks can express shame, guilt and fear. In his/His presence her expressions of her feelings toward him/Him are beautifully adorned with holiness. She has a holy love. Expressed in holy joy that holy joy is what makes her cheeks precious, valuable and desirable to behold. Her cheeks are beautiful with earrings. No fear of punishment from God, no fear of the enemies of God and no fear of man therefore no shame, no embarrassment, no red expression on the cheeks for her cheeks were morally beautiful as well as physically. ( I am also thinking here about the fact that feeling shame when convicted of sin is a good thing and a proper emotion fit for a believer.) Cheeks without some expression of emotion is like a body without a soul. The shame the soul feels expresses itself on the cheeks. Cheeks with shame are opposite to moral beauty. These unholy cheeks are not beautiful.

My argument that Solomon is complimenting her moral beauty and her physical is based on a few key truths.

You can’t separate the horse from its character and you can’t separate cheeks from their emotional expression on them also the neck seems to be the will, stiff-necked people like Israel in the dessert. A stiff-necked people would not wear ornaments.
Exodus 33:5

For the Lord had said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. If I were to go with you even for a moment, I might destroy you. Now take off your ornaments and I will decide what to do with you.’”
1. You can’t have a beautiful horse in battle unless the character of the horse is excellent. Characteristics of a horse that make it beautiful in battle for her king are that she is swift, powerful, fearless, valuable and obedient “like a mare harnessed to pharaohs chariot in battle” Song 1:9. Meaning that what Solomon is complimenting her outward appearance but you have to ask yourself why is that mare praiseworthy? What are the excellencies of pharaohs horses that were used in battle? Solomon is complimenting her virtues and holy character qualities in metaphoric language.
2. Turning the head is compare to a turning to God Exodus 33:5 For the Lord had said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. If I were to go with you even for a moment, I might destroy you. Now take off your ornaments and I will decide what to do with you.’” In complimenting her neck in Song 1:10 there is a compliment to her moral inner character turning toward God and away from sin. Her neck is adorned with the right bent toward God. His will is hers, He commands 1:8 she obeys and he compliments it in 1:9-10. He compliments her obedience. She wanted instruction on where he shepherds his flock and where to find rest from hard labor. He gave her motivation and instruction in 1:8 then she obeys and he compliments her expression of love by comparing the manifestations of it to a fearless mare, holy cheeks and a will full of delight in holiness or delight in God.
3. Being stiff-necked is compared to resisting the Holy Spirit
  Acts 7:51 “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!
Love delights in the holiness and happiness of the object of its affection. Holy love delights in holiness above all. The beauty of the soul is more important than the beauty of the physical body. Solomon is praising her noble character constant with what Proverbs 31:28-10 says. A woman who fears the Lord is worthy of praise. Solomon sang sweet praises of character, holy emotions and holy will in Song 1:9-10.
This praising of the bride to be is not flattery for many reasons
1. Sincere praise is not flattery. Viewed as Solomon praising her character will not make it flattery since Solomon is praising her noble character in accordance with Prov. 31-28-30 then this is not flattery but sincere praise. And she is worthy of it and it is proper and holy for the husband to praise her noble godly character.
2. The Solomon in the Song would not flatter because of his superlative godly character. The Solomon portrayed in the Song of Songs is a beloved above all others Song 5:9 So the Song is before Solomon worshipped other gods and slept with other women. His name is like perfume poured out. Song 1:3 He is the chief among ten thousand other husbands. Song 5:10 The Solomon in the Song of Songs is superlative in holy character and possessed unmeasurable wisdom 1 Kings 4:29
3. A flattering sex hungry Solomon who sinned in the Song would not sync with the title of the Song of Songs. The Song is a love song. To flatter is not love but to praise a humble wife is what a husband ought to do. The lover’s possess the love of God Song 8:6 which is compared to a flame, the very Flame of the Lord. Since they possess God’s love then they possess a holy love for one another for God’s love is holy.
  1. If you see Solomon as flattering then your in good company with others who see the Song as a trio. Solomon trying to woo her away with flattery from her true shepherd lover. But this view leads to way to many problems and dancing around then text to fit the trio view rather than let the text speak for itself.
  2. Maybe Solomon flattered her in the beginning and later repented and became a lover above all lovers Song 5:9-10. This couldn’t be true either because Solomon continues the so called flattering on into chapters 6:4-9 and 7:1-7 as well.

She is not deformed, ugly, undone or full of flaws. Her cheeks are not beautiful with allergies or some face muscle defect. Her cheeks are beautiful with ornaments. A glorious joy is a beautiful joy. A joy inexpressible and full of glory. A holy joy is a beautified joy. An unholy joy is tainted with evil. Her beautiful cheeks were morally excellent and holy. No flaw in them for they were adorned with something precious and valuable to him. What is more precious than rubies? Wisdom, him in her is what beautifies her cheeks. Apart from union with Solomon.

Plumper cheeks are a sign of health. Is there a spiritual health that the cheeks are being compared to? according to a study out of England. “Women are effectively advertising their general fertility with their faces,” said Miriam Law Smith, Ph.D., the lead researcher, adding that fertile women display fuller lips, plumper cheeks, brighter eyes, and smoother skin.