“Dark am I” Meditation Song of Songs 1:5

Song of Songs” 1:5 “Dark am I, yet lovely”.  This “dark am I”  is a testimony.  A sinful woman recognizing her sin and seeing it as dark.  She see’s it as dark like the tents of Kedar.  She uses an illustration in her attempt to see her sin more clearly as evil.  She could not see her sin directly clearly but by way of the illustration of the black tents of Kedar is to transfer the idea of sin to a physical illustration.  You can think of anything dark so long as the idea of whatever you think is dark carries with it the idea of evil.  The tents of Kedar were the dwelling place of people who were evil  God hated those descendants of Ishmael.

So an illustration is used to communicate to our minds the greatness of our sin.  This will humble us.  How evil it really is.  How evil we think sin is will get greater.  If you can think of all your sins and your soul in one simple idea of black tents with evil dwelling in it.  Then will will understand her saying   “I am dark like the tents of Kedar”  Psalm 90:8  “You have placed our iniquities before You, Our secret sins in the light of Your presence.”

This happens as God is answering her prayer in Song 1:2-4.  She is being humbled by a love kiss.  A show of affection.  It is a show of affecting to reveal ones beauty to another.  Should the beauty of Christ be revealed to the believer some degree of their own sin or darkness is revealed to them.  There is a stark contrast between how beautiful He is in light of who I truly am.  Dark like the tents of Kedar, yet lovely in the righteousness of Christ.

Again, In the light of God’s holiness you will see your darkness.  When God reveals Christ’s love to you then you will see your ugliness, this is the darkness that she is admitting to. The Greater view of God’s holiness you get the greater your dark sin will seem to you.  Also in like manner, when Christ reveals His Love to you over and over as in Song 1:2, you will see the holiness of God, His Moral Excellency.  Having seen His Light and Moral Excellency you will get a clearer view of how evil and dark you are.  “Dark am I” will be the language of your heart.  He who has been forgiven much loves much!!  The more you know what you have been forgiven the more you will love Luke 7:47. In the light of God’s holiness you will see your darkness.

1. She see’s and know’s the effect this light has on her mind.  This is not something she is ignorant about.  She is ignorant about how to get close to the one she loves in Song 1:7 but here she knows something for sure.  She knows she is dark.  She see’s it.
2. The dark is an intense dark so the darkness has degree’s.  Levels of darkness.  She was really dark.  Slave laboring for quite some time.
3. She know the effect this light has on her emotions.
   1. She may feel hopeless if Christ’s love and forgiveness is not understood and felt.
   2. She may fear God’s wrath Rev. 1:17 or even want to push Christ away Luke 5:7
   3. She may harden her heart by suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.  Believing some lie may ease the conscience so that hopelessness will go away. and the hope will now be in doing good works to please God.  The soul can go from feeling hopeless when truth is illuminated in the mind to feeling hopeful by believing that their good works will save them.  A non-believer can’t put their hope in Christ then put their hope in works then put their hope in christ.  They just go from feeling hopeless because they can’t see Christ, to feeling hopeful can they now further deceived believe that their works will save them.  The heart got harder after seeing it’s true darkness and evil.  I suppose their to be other lies that could be believed in order to a hardening of the heart but I just can’t think of them now.
   4. Then the good works are done out of fear of punishment and not love to God.  Since they had no hope they feared the punishment of God.  No hope of forgiveness in a surety even though Jesus said “it was finished”  The debt paid for and His love on Display clearly for all to see and read and understand that we deserved punishment from God so out of fear of God punishing them they do more outward good works thinking their good works will please God.  When they should have understood Christ died for your sins and there is hope for those who fear the wrath of God.  Understand that Jesus demonstrated His love to us by feeling the wrath of God for us.  The believer will see their darkness and know they deserved wrath, they will feel sorrow, grief and guilt.  This is good but now that you saw and felt your darkness now look to Jesus who paid the penalty for you being guilty.  He suffered the wrath of God that you feel when you see your darkness.  He took the darkness upon Himself and God turned His Back on Jesus and He cried “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”.  Our darkness was imputed to Jesus Christ and the whole world was dark for 3 hours while the Wrath of God was poured out on Jesus.  Jesus felt the Wrath of God on your behalf to demonstrate His love to you.  You see He loves you and paid the price for you to be brought back to a living by enjoying God and glorifying Him forever!
4. Some light in the mind is needed to see your darkness. “I once was blind but now I see” my darkness and sin.  I see that I have offended God and that He is angry with me.  “Dark am I”
5. Tents of Kedar also had descendants of Ismael living in them intimating that her soul is the dwelling place of sin.  A person under the curse and wrath of God. 1 Chr. 1:29
6. Since she was in forced labor 1 Kings 9:20-21 and her parents were enemies of David and God.  This makes her a natural born enemy of God and therefore born dark.  She is just confessing it now with heartfelt sorrow.
7. Be convicted that you are a sinner, fully convinced of your guilt, in offending and affronted so Great a God, who hates sin and the sinner that continues in sin Ps. 5:5. Seeing your sin ever before you will bring to light the Justice of God and it being right Ps. 51:4 if he were to send you to Hell. Basically all of Psalm 51 will become your prayer as well.  It is good to go to this Psalm when confessing your sin to God.
8. Be convinced of All your sins from birth to now, sins of commission sin of omission, sins of the heart and sins of word, in life and body.  Your darkness reside in your flesh, the unredeemed part of you.  Not your physical body but your soul is dark.  that part of you is sinful and corrupted through and through Gen. 6:5 , out of this evil heart comes your sins Matt 15:19.
9. The soul is “undone” Is 6:5. Not function properly.  Not holy. Dark from birth.  All faculties of the soul are corrupted, the mind, understanding, knowledge.  The will, how we choose, what we feel, our longings and desires are all corrupted, diseased and leaprous.
10. Be convinced a spiritual sins.  This are sins that the Saints are commanded to do in Scripture.  Like evangelism, “Go and make disciples”  Jesus said.   So do you feel guilty that you haven’t shared Jesus lately?  Feel the guilt, know you deserve punishment, look to the cross where Jesus Christ took your punishment, see the love, feel the guilt, let the grief flow, weep mourn and wail” James says.  This is your dark tent!!  The dark tent of your soul should get darker and darker the longer you practice putting all those thoughts of sin, guilt, evil, feeling undone, wretched man that you are, shameful dark thoughts all in the idea of a “dark tent” or and your skin getting darker because The Son of God shone Light into your mind.  The knowledge of Himself communicated to your mind will allow you to see yourself for who you are. And then Christ and His Love and Grace satisfying the desire of your soul to be forgiven and not shameful and clothed in His Righteousness given to you will allow you to see yourself as “lovely” Song 1:5.
11. Truth is known when darkness is revealed.  The Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit reveals these things to you.  Truth about God and truth about yourself.  “Dark am I …like the dark tents of Kedar” Song 1:5-6 and my skin ever getting darker from the sun.”  As I work my soul gets harder hardened by the Fiery Wrath of God through His Son/sun. If saved you were in forced labor for the profit of the devil.

There are a few different ways in which this darkness is revealed to persons

1. The darkness revealed to the continually growing believers.  This darkness is revealed to believers in order to humble them.  Humility defined is “a right view of yourself in relation to God with the proper heart response” Jonathan Edwards.  So when Christ Love is revealed to you and you see yourself more evil and dark then before then you are having a right view of yourself.  Not perfectly knowing how sinful you are but you see yourself worse than before.  How much you have sinned and the greatness of how bad your sin is will become clearer to the believer thus humbling them. All this darkness gets darker as you mature and see God’s holiness better.  Not that the dark gets darker in a way that you sin more but you will see it darker.  It’s not that your sinning more, God is just revealing more of your sin to you if you are a growing believer.  You will see yourself more miserable.  Dark. Darker and darker still.  Your laboring apart from Christ is meaningless work.  Here is the darkness revealed to the growing believers.
2. The darkness revealed to non-believers.  Pharaoh, Saul and Judas.  All said “I have sinned”  they saw they were dark.  They saw their sin.  Even acknowledged it, but went to Hell.  Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.  Saul was unrepentant and Judas hung himself and then went to a fiery place reserved just for him.  When darkness is revealed to a non-believer without hope then despair and suicide will ensue.  Some feeling of hopelessness will arise.  Sometimes to the point that there is no reason to live.  This is a stark contrast to the believer that see’s his sin.  A believer has hope in Christ therefore no or lessening feelings of hopelessness.  The non-believer going to church will often feel condemnation and have no clue how to go to Christ to feel forgiveness.  They are powerless apart from God’s Spirit working in them to quicken their dead dark hearts.  This is the darkness revealed to non-believers.
3. Lastly the darkness of the soul revealed to the believer continuing in sin.  This darkness is similar to the darkness revealed to the non-believer in the fact that it causes deepening feelings of hopelessness for a time.  The main difference is that eventually the continuing in known sin believer will eventually be humbled by their sin and then see their sin like a growing believer.  A non-believer never see’s their sin the same way a growing believer does.  So a continuing sinful believer will eventually see their sin the same way a more steadfast continuing believer will.  God is humbling the continuing in sin believer and He is also humbling the growing believer.  The humbling of the believer leads to more joyful communion with God, but the humbling of the believer continuing is known sin will feel weaker and weaker still and sinning worse and confessing less and less overall Christian duties will start to weaken like the church that lost their first love Rev. 2:4 and Song 3:1.  And the prodigal son eventually came back.  This is the darkness of the soul revealed to the believer continuing in sin.

Other views of this text

Some think that they look askance at her, or with indignation at the boldness of her words; but that is quite unnecessary, and would be inconsistent with the dignity of the bride.

Spence-Jones, H. D. M. (Ed.). (1909). Song of Solomon (p. 3). London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company.

 

Some continuing thoughts

Greater feelings of hopelessness may arise from seeing your darkness.  Your dark tent of kedar is really dark, more dark than you think.  God just won’t let you know how Beautiful His Light is all at once in a perfect sense, this will happen in Heaven.  But here darkness of mind, death of the soul, and sin are all part of our unredeemed flesh. True Light increases in the soul and you see your darkness clearer.  Fear of being punished by God may arise and further understand of Christ’s love for us at the cross will be needed to cast out this fear of punishment.  Thus the fearless mare compliment of Song 1:9

Light is more knowledge of God.  Light or more light is when you gain more knowledge of Jesus.  More knowledge of His will.  More knowledge of His love.  So Light reveals things to our mind previously not known.  In degree of the knowledge of the same, like God’s holiness and our sinfulness.  But maybe a promise was better understood.  A lie of the devil combatted.  Fasting learned.  Better ways to pray.  These are other categories of knowledge so when you grow in this knowledge it is a growing in another kind of things not yet known.  You are learning how to pray God’s will not your own.  You are learning that God looks at your heart with eyes like blazing fire so you know you need to get your motives right.  You see the selfishness and pride and guilt arises and tears start to flow.  Psalm 34:18 ” The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.  Saves those who are crushed in Spirit Be of good cheer, rejoice for this is how light shines in the darkness and cleans the filth of our hearts.

As life goes on your working with less resources to get the same feeling, getting harder and harder to get what you want, your hearts desire stays unfulfilled, further deceived

No goodness at all mixed with the bad, all is dark, and altogether corrupt, not altogether lovely.

We behold the beauty of Christ ps. 27:4  and thats on the only thing we desire.

Seeing this darkness is in the Babe phase of the Song.  Yet the child still see’s his darkness as well and so does the young man, but the Strong Young man really does humble himself really low after so long of praises from Christ.  Here are the phases of Christian Growth from the lowest to the highest attainable level of sanctification here on earth!!

 

I am black all the days of the week and comely on the Sabbath

I am black all the days of the year, and comely on Yom Kippur

I am black in this world, and comely in the world to come.

I am black from the torturous tribulations of the exile, but comely at the prospect of redemption and resumed service of God.

I am black from the lime points in Egypt, but comely with the blood of the Pascal offering and blood of circumcision.

I am black with the stigma of the generous offerings of the people to build the Golden Calf, but comely at their generosity in constructing the tabernacle.

Shir Hashirim, Song of Songs, Artscroll Series

Instructions

1:5 “dark”

Learn what true repentance is.  The nature of true repentance by Thomas Manton

Resources for further understanding of your darkness, sin and flesh.

Phil Johnson  sermon on Ten Commandments

Ralph Venning “Sinfulness of Sin”

Romans 3:10-18

Jonathan Edwards on Original Sin.

 

Seeing this darkness is in the Babe phase of the Christian life.

The bride wants to go from slavery outside Solomons kingdom to sharing in their inheritance.

Col. 1:12  who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.¹³ For You rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of Your beloved Son