Attraction - Song of Songs 3-4

Song of Songs 4:3-4 (ESV)

Your lips are like a scarlet thread,

and your mouth is lovely.

Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate

behind your veil.

Your neck is like the tower of David,

built in rows of stone;

on it hang a thousand shields,

all of them shields of warriors.

Over the centuries the human body has probably been described in myriads of ways but authors, poets and speakers.   Those same descriptions are often tied to the values and/or culture of the one speaking.  For instance, notice how Solomon describes a woman in Proverbs 5:

Proverbs 5:18-19 (ESV)

Let your fountain be blessed,

and rejoice in the wife of your youth,

a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;

be intoxicated always in her love.

I am not sure today’s society would react the same way to that description as the culture in Solomon’s time.  Someone in the city vs someone in the country would read that and appreciate it quite differently.   So, too, the above lines from Song of Songs.  Notice Solomon’s descriptions here as the man admires this woman he is chasing:

• Lips like scarlet thread.  Most people would see that as an odd way to describe beautiful lips. Especially if you liked thicker lips.  

• Cheeks like pomegranates.  Pomegranates are bright red and can grow to great sizes.  Is Solomon describing their brightness or their giganticness, or both?   

• Neck like a tower of David.  It would be assumed one of the towers in house David built.  Is that appealing to everyone? 

• This tower is built on rows of stones and a thousand shields are hung upon it.  Not as appealing in vision as it is supposed to in words.

We have to remember that the literature in the Bible is different in each of the books of the Bible. This is poetry literature and is not to be taken literally but rather figuratively.   What the man is describing is how beautiful the woman in his eyes and based upon His preferences.   Love is like that.   As the saying goes, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”   Once we are captured by love in our hearts we visually see others different.  How one man and one woman are attracted to each other can be quite confusing.   But that is how God made us.  This man is attracted to thin lips, rosy cheeks and a strong neck.   God put that in his heart so that the woman He brought to the man would capture his heart.  The type of attraction is different for all, but the fact that God uses attraction is important to all.