The Unique Beauty of Our Love - Song of Songs 3-4

 Song of Songs 4:12-15 (ESV)

A garden locked is my sister, my bride,

a spring locked, a fountain sealed.

Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates

with all choicest fruits,

henna with nard,

nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon,

with all trees of frankincense,

myrrh and aloes,

with all choice spices—

a garden fountain, a well of living water,

and flowing streams from Lebanon.

The beauty of poetry, any poetry, is that you can have multiple interpretations and derive different meanings as to what the composer of the poem meant.  Hebrew poetry is subject to like interpretation, but the Bible tends to be viewed through consistent patterns of interpretation.   One cannot simply decide for oneself the meaning of the Bible.  

The above is a section of a poem that Solomon is addressing to his bride.  We do not know if they are yet to be married, or are married.   Most believe in chapter four we are still in the engagement period of their relationship.  The “garden locked” might be a way of Solomon saying that this beautiful creature he is going to marry is not yet available to him.   He is about to describe her as a garden.  The plants he uses to describe her are not native to Israel.   This conjures up how he, in love, views her as exotic and/or even unique.  As he stated earlier that she was an “apple tree among the forest” (2:3), she is now unique flowers, plants and fruit in a land that doesn’t see such unique and desirable produce.   He ends this section stating that his bride is:

1. A garden fountain

2. A living well

3. A flowing stream

The man is struck with love.   He sees her as no other man sees her.  She is unique and special and superb.   We do have to remember that the Bible is a story of God’s love to us, provided by Christ.  So, we also see in this language the way believers should see Christ.  He is to us a garden fountain, living well and flowing stream!   That is what true love on earth looks like.  When we see the beauty of Christ in the love of our life.   As we see the unique beauty and difference of our earthly love we are too, also, see the way Christ is above all things.   In the above passage Solomon is struck with a love for a bride, not yet available to him. He dreams of her in unique ways and imagines her as something he seldom, if ever, sees.  That is how we are to view the earthly and heavenly love of our lives.  Our earthly love ought to be viewed as a unique garden of spice and fruit and sustenance for our physical, mental and emotional well being.  So, too, Christ ought to be viewed as the same for our spiritual soul.  Love sees the uniques and beauty in the other and celebrates that beauty and desires that beauty.