Solomon wrote 1004 songs. The Song of Songs is the best Love Poem he wrote. His intention was to help us get a right idea of what love is. Though love is not just an emotion, affection or feeling it is in the category of being an affection. Since love is an affection then a definition of an affection would be appropriate to help those reading understand what I believe an affection is.
Jonathan Edwards defines an affection as “no other than the more vigorous and sensible exercises of the inclination and will of the soul.” JE (Religious affections pg. 24). Or “The more vigorous and sensible exercises” of the heart which “are called the affections.” (pg.25) From this definition we can see 5 things.
1 More Vigor 2 More Sensible 3 An exercise 4 Exercise of the inclination or will 5 Exercise of the soul
In this definition an affection, emotion or feeling is “vigorous”. A feeling has some sort of vigor or liveliness to it. An affection in order to be called so must not only have vigor but have “more vigor” than less vigorous motions of the soul. Not only does an emotion have vigor but a great degree of it. Enough vigor and liveliness that it can be sensed. This has to do with the intensity or severity of the feeling being sensed in the heart and soul.
Examples of more intense vigorous sensible exercises of the heart and soul are love, joy or delight, hope, hatred fear, anger, grief, pity, jealousy, zeal and pity.
Some examples of exercises or acts of the soul that change definition by greater degrees of the same. Some motions of the soul have a degree of vigor like being pleased with the smell of ointments 1:3. Yet when we have the same exercise of the soul to a higher degree that more vigorous act is no longer called pleasedness but joy or delight, which are emotions. So you have liking to love when liking is in a greater degree, more lively and more vigorous. So also pleasedness to joy or delight, displeased to grief or sorrow, inclination to a person not present to desire, disliking or disinclined to hatred.
Intense vigor in Scripture. Loves jealousy is “more vigorous”, more intense, is a higher degree of exercise of the soul. Naamah when describing the holy jealousy that came with her love to Solomon uses the word “qasah” to describe it. The Hebrew word “qasah” is often translated fierce, intense or vehement.
Naamah uses fire as an analogy to help describe the intense degree of the emotion she is feeling. It Like a fire with much heat. Not cold or lukewarm but vigorously hot.
In Song 8:6 Naamah is inflamed with affectionate love in her heart! Why, because she senses loves power and the fervor of its jealousy. Both are intense and unrelenting as death and Sheol. She feels loves power to draw her nearer to her beloved along with a holy jealousy that is like an intense desire for him to be happy and them to act as one.
Sensible. Edwards ascribes sensibility to another aspect of an affection, emotion or feeling. You feel it, you sense the emotion or affection in your inner-most being. Some feelings that the Scriptures talks about are sensual desires 1 Tim. 5:11, anger or indignation Mark 10:41, compassion Mark 8:2, shame Zeph. 3:11. Other affections are hope, joy, peace, gratitude, delight, hatred, fear of God, anger to Devil and sin, grief for sin, pity to sufferers, zeal, jealousy and the fountain of them all is love. All of which are sensible.
How can you really know loves intensity unless you feel it? How can you know the intensity of the heat of a flame until you felt it? You could see its flame and someone tell you its really hot but would you really know what its heat felt like if you body never felt it? What she senses and feels in her heart and soul is no small spark but is rather like an ardent flame, hot coals, vigorous lightening or a blazing fire for it is intense like the all consuming fire of God’s anger in the lowest part of Sheol taking Dt. 32:22 with Song 8:6 “jealousy is as hard and cruel as (the most intense fire in) Sheol.” AMPC. “Jealousy is as severe as Sheol” LSB.
Sensible. Then Naamah compares this feeling of love, jealousy and its fervor to a fire. Just try to get a sense of what the various translators are getting from her description of what she is feeling. Loves “fires of desire are as ardent flames, a most intense flame.” MEV, “Its flashes are flashes of fire, [A most vehement flame] the very flame of the Lord!” AMP, “Its flashes are flashes of fire, The very flame of Yah.” LSB,
3 Exercise. An act of the soul. Motion of the heart or soul. What the soul does. An emotion is an act of the soul. God judges this act of the soul, whether or not it is virtuous or evil.
4 An affection is an exercise of the inclination or will.
5 An affection is an exercise of the inclination or will of the sou. An emotion belongs to the soul or sometimes called the heart. The heart and soul is the seat of our emotions. Our physical bodies are not the proper seat of our affections. Our bodies can not be the seat of our affections no more than a tree can have feelings or a robot. Only the soul can have feelings and affections.
Categories
Uncategorized