“My lover is to me a cluster of henna blossoms” Solomon’s Song of Songs 1:14
Im going to try something new. Im going to write as if Im speaking to the bride herself. Im wondering if this would help you put yourself in her shoes. So as to make it easier for you to think and know what she knows so that you can feel and also delight in the one/One she loves and delights in. Speaking to the bride of the Second Person of the Trinity…
Who would you say this to? You are saying this to the one you love for you call him “My lover”.
Yes you do love him and you adore him, the one you love is on your mind and you want to compare him to something. Your mind scans everything it knows about beautiful things to find the best comparison. Your beloved is a cluster of beauties. Not just one beauty but he is like a cluster of them
You are in his presence yet you don’t speak out loud, you let us know what you think of your beloved and what he is similar to when you say “My lover is to me a cluster of henna blossoms…” You are saying this as you contemplate and delight in his moral excellencies. Your taste for holiness is evident in the delight you have in it when manifested to your mind. Love is in your heart. Love to God is in your heart for Him and all whom you are united to in love.
In the presence of the one/One you love there is fullness of Joy. This is a subjective feeling you have but the feeling ought to come from the contemplation or meditation on the moral excellencies of the Second Person of the Trinity wherever they manifest themselves. In any marriage the excellent love of God’s Son is illustrated when a husband loves his wife. So when the Father you love manifests His love to you through your Messiah, his moral excellency is both understood and experienced. The LOVE of the LORD is understood in your mind and felt in heart as you contemplate who he/He and what he is like.
If you have no delight in holiness then you have no delight in God for God is Holy. To delight in holiness is to fear the LORD and shun evil.
Holiness, moral excellency, Beauty of God, or the Love of God when seen and delighted in is the spring of all other holy emotions. 2 Cor. 3:18
Loves greatest delight is in beholding the beauty of the one you love in all its various manifestations. She knows the one she loves to be beautiful like clusters of henna blossoms.
Holiness is the beauty of the soul. Holiness manifests itself in Love to God. Love to God was in the heart of the wise king of peace, beloved son of God, good shepherd, Israel’s Messiah her lover. You experienced his most delightful love as wise king of peace, you experience his familial love in accepting you into his fellowship, you experienced his love when as a good shepherd does, he lead you to peace and rest by his side, he praised you when worthy of it and sanctified you with words of truth. Everything he did was beautiful because he was holy unto the LORD, set apart to be Israel’s greatest Messiah thus far. And he is drawing you into a closer relationship with himself by his irresistible love, for the Love of God gets its desire which is a ever closer more intimate relationship between the two bond in unity by God’s Love dwelling in you and the one you love.
Holiness adorned the one who gave himself to you in these ways. His moral beauty was lovely from all angles. Everything your prophet, priest, king of kings, shepherd, Messiah, husband and friend did was beautiful for he is “altogether lovely”. Manifesting the beauty of his heart in so many ways before your eyes like seeing clusters of henna blossoms and having much delight in the thought.
The Beauty of the LORD is the light and heat flashing in both your hearts. You are heart to heart with the one you love. You heart is holy and so is his. Your delight is in him and his delight is in you. Your greatest delight is in beholding God’s holiness reflected in your lover’s words and actions.
There was no deformity or defect in all his thoughts, feelings, words and actions towards you for you were being treated as if you were one with him. His holiness made him “absolutely lovely” 5:16 and you see the similarity of beauty between a cluster of henna blossoms and the various ways her lover manifested his love to God, his people and herself. There was no defect in the cluster of henna blossoms, they displayed their beauty in the most excellent manner just like the one/One who loves you manifested his love to you without flaw, defect or mixture of evil.
“My beloved is to me, a cluster of henna blossom’s from the vineyards of Engedi”
Your first comparison of him was the effect just knowing him did for her. Knowing his name was like perfume poured out. She describes her beloved and friend in 5:10-16. There are a cluster of beauties ascribed to the one she loves in 5:10-16. She has now seen them and compares them to a cluster of beauties in creation. His moral beauty manifested is compared to the natural beauty both seen and delighted in by beholding the beauty of a cluster of henna blossoms. Beholding who he is, what he is like and how God manifests His Love in so many ways to you through him is like beholding a cluster of pure beauty from a heavenly vineyard.
Your lover is beautiful having a cluster of beauties. Not only handsome on the outside but morally beautiful with God dwelling in his heart, for God is love and God is The Beauty whence all the other beauties are but a mere reflection of.
While contemplating all the various ways he has so far manifested his love to you, you understand and get a better idea of love. The sight is so beautiful that your doves eyes fill with love to him and you can’t look anywhere else but at him 1:15. And you never want it to end but only desire for it to get better and better knowing he has a lot more to give and you don’t deserve it. He is always on your mind and in your heart along with all the praiseworthy things he has done, is doing, and will do out of his Love to God, Israel and you his bride.
The one/One you love is beautiful in holiness. Holy in his prayer and desire for wisdom rather than riches. Holy in God’s choosing him to rule. Holy in building the temple exactly as prescribed. Holy in his work as priest. Holy as prophet. As prophet all his sweet words were holy and true there was no mixture of evil in his words. Remember holiness is his beauty and his holiness consisted in love, the very Flame of the LORD written on his heart. He was beautiful in holiness as king of kings, the king of peace was a beautiful king of both Jews and Gentiles, with the government of the nations on his shoulders. Oh, how lovely is his rule over us for he is guided by unmeasurable wisdom, during God’s reign on earth through his beloved son during a time of peace and rest under His Theocratic Monarchy.
She says “My beloved” twice. Once in verse 13 and now again in verse 14. The key point here is that for us to know who she is thinking and having feelings about. When we meditate on this text and we think of the one our heart loves and compare him to the most beautiful cluster of flowers. These truths emphasize what is true. Truth is going through the mind. Facts about the moral excellencies of the one/One you love. For any reflected moral excellency of God is something of God’s moral excellency no matter where it is manifested. Something of God is being made manifest to the heart. God is love. God is the sum of all good principles. All moral excellencies in the one she loves are good principles. All good principles are morally beautiful especially in the one who draws her closer to himself by his love.
Beloved friends, beloved bride of Jesus Christ, you were created to enjoy God and glorify Him forever. Your greatest enjoyment ought to be to think about who God is, who Jesus is and sense the Holy Spirit. The bride had her eyes transfixed on God’s beloved son, the king of peace because what he was doing manifested absolute moral beauty in various manners and degree’s all of which where absolutely lovely to behold like a cluster of henna blossoms……
I say how much more so ought our eyes to be fixed and immovable upon Jesus Christ and him crucified. We partake of the Nature of God. There is a reflected immutability communicated to our souls. We are not immutable like God in the perfect sense practically. But the more consistent our eyes are on Jesus and Him filling our thoughts the more consistent Christ will be there dwelling in Love. Holy Communion gets sweeter as your eyes stay more constantly fixed on His Beauty and Glory at the cross.
Those who see it are transformed by it. It is a transformative thought, beholding the beauty of the LORD wether here in the life of a Christian man loving his wife, in a father loving his son or friend loving an enemy. These all display love but seeing and experiencing a love relationship with God’s Beloved Son the Prince of Peace is far more delightful than the brides marriage to the king of peace. Solomon’s wisdom and love to his bride was but a shadow only a Type of Christ’s love to the Church. Jesus Christ’s love is greater. Jesus Christ’s love guided by a greater wisdom “for a greater than Solomon is here” typified. Matt. 12:42
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