The Intimacy of Love - Song of Songs 1-2

Song of Songs 2:5-7 (ESV)

Sustain me with raisins;

refresh me with apples,

for I am sick with love.

His left hand is under my head,

and his right hand embraces me!

I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,

by the gazelles or the does of the field,

that you not stir up or awaken love

until it pleases.

Since the book of Song of Songs is a collection of poems, the interpretation of it can get quite difficult.  By calling it the Song of Songs (1:1), it is saying it is the best ever.  In our modern day vernacular we would say this song is the G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time).   It is a series of poems said back and forth between a woman (main speaker) and her man. Throughout the book, they seem to come quickly together and then separate just as fast.  They seem to be looking for each other, then find each other and then lose each other again (sounds like a modern day married cycle).  The book is about love.  It could have been a metaphor for God’s love for Israel (the traditional Jewish interpretation). It could be a picture of Christ’s love for the church (the traditional church interpretation).  It could just be a love story and collection of love poems to show us the beauty and value of love.  

In the above few verses we read about this couples desire for each other and a warning to others about any interaction with them.   These  two are madly in love.  The visuals of raisins and apples brings in the senses of smell and taste.  The visuals of hand under head and arms embracing brings in the sense of touch.  The warning to those on the outside to not disturb the couples love. The speaker uses the picture of gazelles and does, invoking the sense of sound.  It is a warning to “be quiet.”    Any noise disturbs resting gazelles and does.  This is a picture of great intimacy of the two lovers and they are not to be disturbed.  We have to remember that this is “poetry” literature.  The picture these words paint is the beauty of intimacy and the way the senses play into their expression of love.   Their love is not to be disturbed by any outside entity. In the above verses the outside entity is referred to as the “daughters of Jerusalem.”   The speaker (the main woman) does not tell us who this is, but will use the phrase over and over in the poem.  It might be wise to not try to identify what the author leaves intentionally ambiguous.  But it might be that the woman is simply saying, “Don’t disturb the intimacy of love with the noise and people of this world.”   The point is, intimacy is to be left as intimate between the two.  Let the two of them express their love.  All others have no part in the love of the two.  This conjures up one of the first instructions God gave about marriage in Genesis:

 Genesis 2:24-25 (ESV)

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Love is to be expressed and when it is the senses are invoked and allowed to be full in all measure.   However the above verses are interpreted, the lesson is the same: Love is powerful and when expressed the right way, is beautiful.