Do your love admire the beginning and the end of a life? Song of Songs 5-6

Song of Songs 5:10

“My beloved is dazzling and ruddy,

Outstanding among ten thousand.

In the remaining part of chapter five of this section the women begins a description of the man she is in love with.   The entire chapters (5 & 6) are up to debate as to what they mean, what they are describing, where they take place and who is talking.   Some believe chapter five is a dream and the women is having a passionate dream of her lover that is disrupted by a nightmare of his leaving.   Others see sexual innuendoes in the writing that the man and the women are either dreaming of a sexual encounter or are having one.    However, no matter the line of interpretation taken, the above verse seems to be the women talking and describing her lover.   This is especially true if you see the words that follow in her description.   Note what she says about her man:

v. 11 - HIs head is like gold & his locks like clusters of dates

v. 12 - His eyes like doves

v. 13 - His cheeks like a bed of balsam and his lips like lilies

v. 14 - His hands are rods of gold and his abdomen is carved ivory

v. 15 - His legs are pillars of alabaster

v. 16 - His mouth is full of sweetness

For those who think the physical body is to be covered and concealed and tossed aside for the more eternal and spiritual, these verse created quite an issue for them.   This section is entitled by most Bibles as, "The admiration of the bride."    It is typically the male who is said to have physical needs and attraction toward the female.   We are often told that the female is not drawn toward the physical but the emotional.   These verses would argue with that premise.   It is the physical she is admiring.  She, no doubt, is drawn to him spiritually and is fully in love.   We have seen this in the beginning chapters.  As a result of true love and true spiritual connectedness, the women now admires what God has created in this man ... his physical attributes.  These are not the reason she loves him but they certainly are not missed by her watchful eye.   If you were to describe a man to any women using the above descriptors, most women would say, "this is a man who is easy on the eyes!"  We must remember that God gives beauty and proportion and attraction through the physical.   God created beautiful things in this world.  This bride believes her groom is one of those things and sings his praise.   It is funny that in old age, these descriptions will change.  If this groom is indeed, Solomon, read how he describes himself in old age in Ecclesiastes 12:1-7.  In those verses Solomon's legs and hands are droopy and dull.   His mouth is no longer full of sweetness but decay.  His eyes, described her like doves, have flown away in old age ... he can hardly see.   His hair is no longer gold and cluster of dates, but falling out and wrinkled like dead raisins.   The lover, here, needs to embrace the look of his youth now.  Her love, will, eventually, have to focus on something entirely different later.