Song of Songs 4:1 (ESV Strong's)
He Behold, you are beautiful, my love,
behold, you are beautiful!
Your eyes are doves
behind your veil.
Your hair is like a flock of goats
leaping down the slopes of Gilead.
Truth: Beauty is a creation of God!
In chapters three and four of this Song, we have a very intimate setting. The references are the bride and the groom dreaming and imagining their future together, primarily the physical-sexual aspects. They long to be intimate with each other. God's Word does not objectify sexual encounters like the world does. God's Word characterizes the intimacy of a man and a women in the context of love and the bounds of marriage (at this point in the story, however, the betrothal). At this point in the text we only have the activity of their minds. Since they are not official married, the actual intimacy hasn't yet taken place. At this point there is only admiration and desire. In that desire (building up to the actual act) the bride and groom describe their emotion and their admiration and desire for each other. In these two verses the groom speaks of the beauty of the bride. Although the actual lines may not resonate with us (saying your bride/wife's hair looks like "flocks of goats leaping" may not get you any points at home), the groom is captivated with the appearance of his bride. She apparently strikes quite a figure. The key element here is that God has created our beauty to beheld by the one we love. There is no physical attraction here of a stranger. She is not attempting to be attractive to the world, but to her love. This is shared moment in which the two of them admire the appearance of the other (the entire chapter four theme). Admiration and recognition of the appearance of the spouse to be is part of the build-up of the marriage act. God created beauty and our appreciation of beauty to be part of the act of marriage. Sexual relationship in the bounds of marriage includes the aspect of the beauty of one capturing the eye of the other. When the beauty is in the bounds of the marriage it is holy and Godly. Outside the marriage it is objectifying and lustful. Here the man is attracted by her appearance in a way that will build their relationship together. Recognizing the beauty of the one you love should be a natural part of the sexual process.
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