Alright, well good morning everybody, welcome back to Sunday School. Glad to see all of you again. I do hope that y'all were here last week and got to hear from our brother Astreet, who is serving the Lord in Albania. I think I saw a lot of you talking to him after the service, some of you came out to the event. at the Foster's Barn on Saturday evening. So I hope that was an encouragement. I think we definitely did a good job extending quite a bit of, just welcomed him well, and I think we're really good to him while he was here. So that was, thank you for your help in that. That recording of his presentation is on YouTube, I think, on the FCL channel. So if you missed it and want to kind of get an update on what's going on in Albania, you can access that recording there. So let's go ahead and begin our time with a word of prayer, then we'll begin. Father, we are thankful for this church, thankful for a time to study your word this morning as we look and work our way through the Old Testament. Pray, Father, that in all these things you would reveal to us the glory of your plan, the glory of your Son. Pray this morning as we turn to the book of Song of Solomon, that you would help us to, again, to see things in it that delight us. Help us, Lord, to apply it in a way that enriches our lives, our marriages. And Lord, that ultimately reflects who you are and what you've done. So be with us, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. So as promised today, we're going to be turning our attention to a book which is often overlooked. The book that we're going to survey this morning is The Song of Songs or Song of Solomon. It kind of goes by both names. And it's really a book which has been historically debated. It's been debated and even today there's many different approaches to the book which can make it a matter of some controversy. In fact, every single resource I had, and I had about six books that had some notes about the Song of Solomon in it, and every single resource I had had a slightly different take, which made this book pretty interesting to study. Now, I think it's unfortunate that it's so frequently overlooked, given that it's not only a beautiful book, but also because it's part of Holy Scripture, and is therefore given for our edification. So do you agree with me that this book is often neglected? What do y'all think? Am I correct in that assessment? Okay, why do you think that is? What are some reasons for that? Okay, it's misunderstood, yep. I think that's true. Hard, I think it's hard, I think it's actually very difficult to follow, like just the, because it's all poetry, so it can be very difficult to follow and kind of make sense of. What else, what else do y'all think? How to apply it, yeah. Yeah. Any other ideas? It can be a little uncomfortable to read maybe, just to be honest. We'll have some of those conversations today, so I hope you're ready for them. Okay? Good. So I think you're right, and hopefully what this class will do for us as we're working through it will just help you to have some pegs to work through the book on your own and to think about it. Maybe they help you think through how to interpret it, and then, you know, really try to answer the question, what is this even about? That's really kind of what our goal is. Hope everybody has a handout, because I did put a lot of work into it at this time, just to send it with you to be able to read through it, follow along, but also study the book yourself. So I think it's, as we begin, I think it's instructive to remember that this book is included in the section of the Old Testament known as the writings. And this in particular is commonly referred to as wisdom literature. So this book, along with Job, along with Proverbs, along with Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon is a book which really does have something to teach us. Okay, it has something to teach us. It teaches us something of what it means to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Okay, hopefully you hear that coming from Genesis 1.28. It provides to us a picture of the joys, the pleasures, and even the heartaches of romantic love, particularly marital love, where the man and his wife were naked and were not ashamed. Okay, Genesis 2.25. So in addition to this didactic message, this teaching message, it's also a book which reveals some profound truths to us as it is received by the church as canonical scripture. So I don't want you to make too much of these two distinctions between what it teaches and what it reveals, but in my mind that just helped me to kind of understand what the whole point of the book is. And I hope by the end of this study, you're gonna be able to answer the very basic question, what is the Song of Solomon about? And I really think that's kind of, when you look over the course of history, that seems to be where a lot of the disagreement can be. And I think there's a way to kind of harmonize the different emphases on the book and come out with a faithful interpretation that does justice to really all sides. So let's turn now to the Song of Solomon. The authorship of the book is one of those things that's debated. Solomon is traditionally understood to be the author, but even the way that Solomon is identified in chapter 1 verse 1, so it says, the song which is Solomon's, right? 1 verse 1, the Hebrew there is really quite ambiguous. And it could just as easily be translated, a song which is for Solomon, or a song that's written for his honor. So it really could be the Hebrew is there for any of those interpretations. Traditionally, the author is thought to be Solomon, which is a perfectly fine way to look at it, but it does lead you into some different directions depending on who you think the author is. Again, there's really no strict historical context that we need to be aware of with this book, which makes the book somewhat timeless, which is real similar to the Book of Ecclesiastes, if you remember. The Book of Ecclesiastes, we made a big point that this is a book for all time, because the things that are encountered in that book are for all people. We all face the same kind of futility. I mean, it's kind of the same idea. Book of Song of Solomon is similar in that you're not given a whole lot of context about what exactly is going on, what the historical context is. And it makes the book timeless. But this book does have an important redemptive historical context. For one, the book is replete with garden imagery. There is a bit of reenactment and maybe even an inversion of Genesis 2 and 3 going on in the book. What I mean is that the beautiful relationship in the Garden of Eden between Adam and Eve, it was intended for God's glory and also their good. Now, on this side of the fall, men and women are still to relate to each other in marriage, sexually, according to God's perfect plan. And if they do, it will again be to His glory and their good. So, in Genesis you have, you know, marriage established pre-sin, and then a fall into sin and all the challenges that come with being married this side of the fall. In Song of Solomon, you have that reality of living in a sinful world with sin in marriage, but it kind of portraying back on this really idealized picture of what marriage is. So I think that's a helpful thing to think about when you read the book. Think about the context of the Garden of Eden. Okay. Yep, so if they do relate to one another in this way, it'll be to his glory and their good. And that is really, really to their good. Okay, marriage is one of these things, as many of you know, being married, that comes with its own set of challenges, but I think there's probably no one in here who would think they'd be better off without their spouse. Okay, just think about all the ways that it is really to our good that we have this institution. But if they don't, they don't, you know, treat marriage as it needs to, they will experience more of the same consequences that Adam and Eve did in Genesis 3. God will not be glorified, and men and women will harm themselves and each other. Okay, so let's think now about some themes before we actually start working through the book. We can summarize the themes of the song like this. Okay, the song teaches, there's that distinction again, the song teaches hope for those celebrating human sexuality and the context of marriage. Okay, so that's what the book teaches. It's especially common for interpreters today to see this book as wisdom literature focusing on the glory of marital love. Being created in God's image meant being created male and female. They were to image God's glory through a harmonious and pure sexual relationship. Well, with the entrance of sin, it all fell apart. Now, after the fall, even with sinful natures, men and women are called to monogamy and sexual purity. So even in spite of sin, in spite of the fall, this call remains that man shall leave his father and mother and shall cling to his wife. So the book extols the beauty and worth of living in such a relationship and warns us not to create our own sexual agendas, okay, a problem that, you know, our culture and really every culture is replete with, this desire to kind of do our own thing, right, when it comes to these things. So that's what it teaches. We'll demonstrate that a little bit more as we continue the lesson. Let's talk about what it reveals. The song reveals. This is there on your handout. The glory of the relationship revealed in this song points forward to a time when, by his king, Yahweh will renew the covenant with his people, having removed everything that separates them from himself. Interestingly, the name of God, God, I think there's only one reference where the term Lord is used in the Song of Solomon. Okay, so it really is, there's another book that does that where, I think it's Esther, the name of God is not made reference to a single time in the book of Esther. He's not referred to in the book. Song of Solomon is actually very similar. It's very much focused on this couple. But just because it's not mentioned doesn't mean that he's not there. And I think as we think about the book in terms of the canon, in terms of all of scripture, we see something quite profound. For the song to function in this way, however, it must grow out of or feed back into the broader biblical worldview with its particular understanding of marriage. Okay, so we're thinking about the Song of Solomon, we're thinking about marriage, but we need to take a step back and think about what the Bible says about what marriage is. What does marriage mean according to the scripture? I'll just ask you, when we think about the whole canon of scripture, when we talk about what marriage is, well, how would y'all answer that? What does marriage mean? Okay. Union between one man and one woman. Very good. What else? Pick that up in Genesis, right? This is the establishment of the institution. One man, one woman. Good. Yes, that's exactly right. So if you think about Ephesians, the church is likened unto the bride of Christ. Paul, talking about marriage, makes this very, very profound statement that I think is just so, so, so helpful when you think about Song of Solomon, okay? The mystery, he's talking about the mystery of marriage, is profound, and then he says, I am referring, I'm saying it refers to Christ and the church. Okay, so what does marriage mean? Well, it's an institution given in order to prepare the people and to present the people what their relationship to their creator or their relationship to their savior would be. Okay, does that make sense? Are there other examples in the Old Testament maybe where that image is kind of put forward as a way to teach the people? One book in particular I'm thinking of. Hosea, the book of Hosea, right? Now we went through it very quickly as part of our study of the 12, but in that book, God presents Hosea to go marry a harlot in order, and it's this marriage relationship that's very dysfunctional, and he does that to demonstrate his relationship to his idolatrous people. Okay, so there's many places in the scripture where marriage is portrayed in this way. And we'll kind of talk about that a little bit more as we go on. But it's because of this, and the song's place in the canon of scripture, that it is appropriate to see an allegorical relationship between God and his people, even as the song pushes its audience to greater intimacy within their own marriages. Now on this point, I do think it needs to be said, just by way of clarification, that when I'm describing an allegorical relationship, I'm making a bit of a distinction from some of the more, let's just call them fanciful, allegorical interpretations that have been offered throughout the history of the church, where every little thing mentioned in the song can represent something else. There's a lot of that if you read commentaries on the song. And I think that some of that is probably a little bit hard to justify, some of the things that we've seen. But what I do think is present and is appropriate is a more general allegorical reading which recognizes with the rest of Scripture that marriage, including the marriage found in Song of Solomon, represents a relationship between God and his people. Okay, so that's a pretty simple assertion. We're not getting into, you know, the hair of the woman represents, you know, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit or something like that. And there's all kinds of stuff if you read old commentaries on that. But I think what they were trying to preserve and trying to highlight was that there is this profound connection between the song and between this relationship between God and his people. So hopefully that's a helpful way to kind of navigate some of the different interpretations that have been given historically. Does that make sense? Any questions about that? Okay. I can give you some very interesting examples if you want to hear them later, so, about how some of this book has been used. So let's move on to structure and outline, starting with the characters. Now, this is going to be one of those lessons where I'm going to give you a lot of different options on how to interpret this, because there really are just so many. The curriculum we're using had one approach. The textbook we're using had a different approach. The three different study Bibles, all three of them had a different approach. The different books I referred to, they all had different ways of fitting this together and explaining what's going on here. So it just makes it really quite challenging. But characters, there are really three or four main characters in the song. The first is a young woman, the Shulamite, a young shepherd, who is possibly Solomon, possibly Solomon, and a chorus-like group. So there's the three characters. Now some say that the shepherd and Solomon are both present in the song, but they're two distinct individuals. So that would mean there's four characters. I think three characters is more helpful with the shepherd possibly being Solomon or possibly not being Solomon, if that makes sense. As I said, some interpreters see Solomon as the shepherd that Shulamite loves, but others think it is not Solomon, since if it was Solomon, it would raise really quite a number of difficulties. You can jot down 1 Kings 1-3 on some of the reasons for that, about what's recorded in terms of his historical marriages, and just the fact that Solomon, if you think about this exemplar of godly marriage, I don't know if Solomon would make the top of the list. Right? So it just kind of raises some concerns. There's answers, so if you want to go with that interpretation, I think you're perfectly permitted and right to do so, because there's good arguments. But those are some of the complications that get raised if you view the shepherd or the young man in this song as Solomon. And I really don't think the meaning of the book is lost in whichever direction you choose. So for the remainder of this study, just to not, you know, I will kind of pick a side, but not to completely pick a side, I will just refer to him as the shepherd or the beloved. So content, some view this book as an anthology, so like a collection of love songs or love poetry, which are just put together and they don't really reveal any kind of progressive story. It's just a collection of songs, which if you read it, you can kind of see why someone would think that, because it's hard to follow a story and discern this narrative. Others see it as a single song, which does tell a story. I think the Reformation Study Bible probably is most helpful when it says this, the song is a moderately structured anthology of love poetry with some movement from the beginning to the end, movement that may fall short of a full plot development. So is it an analogy? Yes. Is it structured to tell a story? Yes, but not in the way that a really watertight narrative would tell a story. Which again, this just introduces some of the challenges of interpreting the book. So the plot describes love, the love between the Shulamite and her betrothed. Now traditional readings have seen the couple's love leading to marriage, and only after marriage, sexual relations. Different approaches place the actual wedding, so here's another thing to wrestle with as you read through it. Different approaches place the actual wedding procession and wedding day at different places in the book. Some see Song of Solomon's chapter 3, verse 6 through 4.16 as the wedding day, with 4.16b through 5.1 as the consummation of the marriage. Whereas others see 3.1 through 6.3, we're going to go through this a little bit in a minute, so don't feel like you have to remember all that I'm saying. Others see 3.1 through 6.3 as a dream that the Shulamite is having, an anticipation of the marriage and its consummation, which actually doesn't really occur until Song of Solomon chapter 8 verse 5. Okay, that was a new way of thinking about the psalm as I was studying this, and actually was one that I pretty much, I became pretty convinced of for a few textual reasons. And so that's really what I'm going to focus on. In both interpretations, the consummation does not occur until after the two are wed. So again, even how you put this together, the meaning, the principles that it presents, the wisdom it gives, none of this has changed. Okay, so whatever view you take, whatever view of those two that is presented, whether it's the early wedding followed by consummation or the latter wedding followed by consummation, the picture of the true lovers in the Song of Solomon is an ideal one. You might even say it's an idealized one. The picture provides the pattern into which God wishes to shape his faithful people, which is also the pattern towards which they will freely give themselves to be shaped. Indeed, one function of wisdom literature is to make that pattern attractive, as the Song of Solomon does in full measure. So the Song of Solomon, in presenting in a wisdom literature kind of way, is trying to make this pattern of fidelity when it comes to marriage attractive so that people reading it would want to follow it. So read it like that, okay? It's helpful. Now, on the back of your handout, I do have two outlines for you to look at. And this is why I say I'm giving you choices. And both of these came out of the ESV Study Bible, which I just found so helpful on this book. On the back of the handout, I provided you two different outlines of the book. I would encourage you to read the book on your own and follow them both to see which one you find more convincing. It's a very short book to read. You can do it very quickly. Let me find my notes. So look on the back there. And I just want to point out a few of the things I'm talking about. There's the earlier marriage outline. That's what I was talking about. The wedding there is in chapter three. If you look at the latter marriage outline, you see that the marriage is not until the very end of that outline, with the largest bulk of the text being this dream that the Shulamite enters into as she anticipates the wedding and the consummation. So two different things. The first one I called it the Solomon-Shulamite interpretation because that's how it was presented in the ESV Study Bible. The other one, the Shepherd-Shulamite interpretation, again, you could read it as though it's Solomon, but if you take the latter of these two outlines, it doesn't necessarily have to be Solomon. Because where Solomon's mentioned in the dream, it could just be that she is comparing her beloved, the one that she loves, the highest and most idealized version of a male that's around, which at the time would have been King Solomon in all of his glory. So that's one of those things as you read it. That's why people, because Solomon is referenced multiple times in the middle of the book, but if you read how it's being done, it's almost as though she could be comparing her beloved to the greatest of men, and all of their strength, and all of their wealth, and all of the things that are commendable about him. So that's why it doesn't necessarily have to be Solomon, even though even in that second one I think it could be. So there's the two outlines. I kind of got into the weeds a little bit, but I could go a lot more. But for the sake of time, we're not going to do that. But I have, for the rest of this class, decided to follow the latter marriage outline, the later marriage outline for the remainder of this lesson, even though, as I've said, there's really good reasons and good arguments for the earlier marriage interpretation. However you interpret the song, the themes and the overall meaning of the book do not change. So the song is split into four basic sections. Number one, courtship and yearning, and that's from chapter 1, verse 2 through 2.17. Then the Shulamites dream from 3.1 through 6.3. and then continued courtship and yearning in 6-4 through 8-4, and then finally the lovers join in marriage in chapter 8, verse 5 through 8-14. So let's work through each of these sections. So first, their courtship slash yearning, okay? There's this period of courtship before they're married, and you can just tell the passion and just how much they long for each other. And really the theme of this whole first section is one of patience, of patience, and you can see that in chapter two, verse seven. It says this, this is a really important verse in the book. "'I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, "'by the gazelles or the does of the field, "'that you not stir up or awake in love until it pleases.'" So the context of these verses is that the young woman and the young man, they're not married, and the young woman expresses her desire to remain chaste until the right time. And she calls the other women Okay, the chorus that shows up and we'll kind of sing some lyrics back to the woman at various times in the psalm, calls them, okay, to the same resolve. She is essentially saying don't rush into what you think love is and what loving acts are until the time is right. Then, in marriage, intimacy will be a beautiful honoring to God, and it will be healthy for the relationship. Prior to that, it's really only going to reap disaster. These words are again repeated in chapter 3, verse 5. And really, so this idea of do not stir or awaken love until it pleases, it comes up again and again throughout the song. And it becomes almost a common refrain for much of the book. Even in 8-4, which is, if you look at the outline, the very last verse before the marriage happens, it's quoted again. So right up to the very end, singlehood, patience is extolled and urged upon us all, okay, until marriage. So though the Shulamite is firm in her resolve, it does not mean that she is not full of longing for her beloved. Okay? That makes sense. A lot of us, you know, most of us have been married and have walked through a period of dating and engagement. And you can maybe, if you can reach back that far for some of you, might can remember some of those things, right? So it doesn't mean that she's not full of longing for her beloved and he for her as well. In fact, romantic longing for her beloved and his longing for her is really present in every portion of the song. And this is very evident in the second part of the song, which extends from 3.1 through 6.3, where the Shulamite appears to enter into a dream. Now, it's a dream which is full of this longing as she anticipates the marriage and its consummation. Someone turn to chapter 3 verses 1 through 3 and read it for me. Okay? So as you read that, you know, he makes reference to her being asleep and waking up and the beloved's not there and she's, this picture of her entering the city trying to find him and finds the watchman and talks to him and all this stuff. And it's really this picture of these next few chapters of anxiety, trying to find her beloved when he's nowhere to be found. And in her anxiety, she searches for him. She does find him in chapter three, I'm sorry, Yep. She does eventually find him in chapter 3, verse 6, and then describes him in the most idealized of terms. So someone, Grant, why don't you go ahead and read chapter 3, verses 6 and 7, and you'll see where he shows up. Good. So you see if you look in the heading there put there by the editors of this Bible, say Solomon's wedding day. Well, what I'm presenting to you is that this is actually not the wedding day, but she's still in this dream where she loses him, she's out in the city looking for him, and then she sees him in all this grandeur, anticipating the wedding. So it's interesting to read it that way, and I do think there's a few different reasons why I think that's a legitimate way of looking at it. But she does see her beloved dressed for their wedding in verse 11, and in chapter 4, he speaks lovingly and affirmingly to her. In chapter five, the scene again shifts. And in five two, instead of intimacy, the Shulamite appears to have lost her beloved again. So someone turn to chapter five and read verse six. Okay, so this intense moment in their relationship, again, we're still in the dream on this reading, and then someone reads verse six. Good. So again, you have all this marriage, you know, we're still in the dream, so she sees him coming, okay, there's even what appears to be her anticipating, you know, them being together after the marriage, intimately, and then here all of a sudden, he's lost again. So if you just think about if this is being presented as a dream, you can kind of see the dread that can come in and the anticipation and just all the emotions that can come in as she's articulating this thing. So again, he's lost, and when the chorus asks her to compare him to other men so that they can help her find him. She gives him a very complimentary, she gives a very complimentary description of him, and that's in chapter 5, verses 6, verses 10 through 16. Okay. And I outlined if you wanted to turn on the, this is page three of your handout, where it has the courtship, the Shulamite dreams, just kind of some of the structure of this particular section. So this brings us to the third major part of the psalm, wherein chapter six, verse four, through eight, four, they are together again. and heaping praise upon one another. And then in 8.4, the section closes again with this refrain. Do not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. So all throughout the book, you have this refrain. Do not stir up, do not awaken love, do not stir up, do not awaken love. And then again it shows up here in chapter 8 verse 4, where it really closes the section. Do not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. The Shulamite continuing to plead with the young to be wise and to exercise restraint. So this brings us to the final section, the marriage and its consummation. The reason why many interpreters see the consummation of their relationship in chapter eight, verse five, is because for the first time in the book, okay, love is awakened. So every time, do not awaken, do not awaken, do not awaken, do not awaken, and then bam, chapter eight, verse five, we see that love is awakened. So recall the refrain, here's the change. So here's the verse. Who is this coming up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved? Beneath the apple tree I awakened you. There your mother was in labor with you. There she was in labor and gave birth to you. So leaning on her beloved is a common Israelite idiom signifying marriage. You could just as easily say that Heather leans upon Jacob, meaning that they're married. That's a common way to describe marriage within the Israelite culture. But more importantly, I think for that point, you see that love is at last awakened. And then really the rest of chapter eight is a celebration of their love and their togetherness. Questions or comments so far? All right. So let's review a little bit what the song teaches. I mentioned earlier that the book is meant to be understood as an inversion, in part, into the fall into sin, right? Remember back to Genesis 3.16, when Adam and Eve fell into sin, there was a number of consequences that followed. One of them now is that their marriage relationship would be strained. No longer would it be harmonious and agreeable. Instead, the woman would desire control, to control the man, and the man would abuse his authority and dominate her. With the introduction to sin, to have and to hold really has turned into something more as to use and to dominate. Selfishness on both sides will raise its head and steer both of them in different directions. But it doesn't have to be so, right? And that's, I think, what the Song of Solomon teaches us. In that sense, intimacy in marriage is perhaps one of the purest visions that we have of heaven, when all things will be restored to their Edenic glory, even as it points back, but also points forward. In chapter 7, verse 10 of Song of Solomon, there's this great verse, I am my beloved's and his desire is for me. Okay, that's the kind of self-giving love that we find in Genesis chapter two, not the self-serving relationship that comes after the fall in Genesis three. It represents marriage as it ought to be. The woman is not seeking to control, and in turn, being exploited by the man. Instead, the man is fulfilling his creation role to loving leadership and desiring his wife. Marriage is a good thing, and the book presents it that way. Marriage is a good thing. Romantic love is a good thing. It has to be kept, and it has to be garden, guarded, and it has to be cultivated as though it were a beautiful garden. Okay? Think about, if you have, if any of you garden or farm or whatever else, how much work does it keep, take to keep that thing fruitful? A lot of work. Like a lot. Weeds, heat, drought, every possible thing is going to threaten the health of what you've done. And I think that's a very helpful image to think about our own marriages. So wives love your husbands, and husbands love your wives. So what does the Song of Solomon reveal? So that's what it teaches. What does it reveal? So beyond the immediate context of marriage, there's something else going on. We've already talked about it a little bit. Stephen Dempster has written a book, a great book called Dominion and Dynasty, and he said this. So shorn of its literary context, the song could almost be read almost pornographically, okay? But the context of the canon both restricts the meaning to the context of marriage and expands it to include the relationship between Yahweh and Israel. So this is a book about the delights of courtship and marriage. Pure and simple, that's true. It's a book about the delights of courtship and marriage. But again, we already talked about this. What is marriage? The Old Testament prophets use marriage as an image of God's relationship with his covenant people, Israel. Like Ecclesiastes, the song was placed, this is important if you think about the order of how we were taught this class. Just like Ecclesiastes, the song was placed with the post-exilic literature in your Hebrew Bibles. It's placed towards the end of the Old Testament canon, where the people of God were anxious with a measure of divine absence. So think about, as you think about the Song of Solomon, think about the anxiety that she felt whenever she couldn't find her lover, and going about the streets asking, where is he, where is he, where is he? And then she loses him again, you know, this really kind of surreal way of looking at it. And you can kind of see how Israel, okay, at this part in their history, towards the end, you know, before Christ came, that this anxiety was something that they also felt. Okay, God hadn't spoken through a prophet for a long time. And you can see how there's a connection there. So it's placed towards the end of the Old Testament canon where the people of God were anxious by the measure of divine absence that they were experiencing. So presumably the editors put it there for a reason. So even in the judgment of exile, God was providing a graphic passionate and profound reminder of his love and faithfulness for his people. Isaiah 62, this is verse five, says this. This is on the back of your handout too. As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you. So think of the book of Hosea, where God, again, uses the imagery of marriage to call his people back to fidelity. Think of Ephesians 5, 32, where Paul says that marriage is a great mystery, which refers to Christ and his church. And finally, think of the consummation of all things, when we will join at last with our beloved at the great wedding feast of the Lamb in Revelation 19, verse 9. So that's the other side of the song. You have the practical, what does it teach about marriage? The other side of the song is what does it reveal about God and his people? Israel continued to anticipate a time when they would have God near them again. When they would be his people, under his rule, and in his place. And the song anticipates that union when we read the song canonically, that means in relationship to the whole of scripture. So this book is at the same time a commentary on what it looks like for a man and woman to be naked and not ashamed, okay, and also as a celebration of God's love for his people. Questions or comments? As we wrap things up. Yeah, his second coming? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that was something, I don't have an answer for it, but I was thinking like, are we, if you think about marriage, union with Christ, is that something that we have now? I mean, we have union with Christ now, of course, but in terms of him being our husband, or our, you know, and us being his bride, and yet the wedding feast seems to come later. So. I don't know. I think it's imagery to teach us something very profound and true, so probably shouldn't get too hung up on trying to work out the exact details, but I do think that's really good. So we're out of time, thank you for that, and I wanna just, if someone asks you, what is the book of Song of Solomon about? Okay, that's the very front of your handout. Hopefully you'd be able to give a little bit of an answer. And I'll conclude by saying it like this. What is the book about? It's a book that is a wonderful guide to relationship and sex within marriage. But it's also a beautiful description of God's love for us. the passion of which can only be described by the picture of passion in a marriage. This is the perfect marriage, and it's the love that God has for you. It's the love that Jesus Christ has for his church. So whether or not you're married, read this book with both of these things in mind. This is a real marriage, and a real marriage is a picture, I think it's in there twice, isn't it? Yep, a real marriage is a picture of God's love for us in Christ. He has, as it were, spread his garment over us, and he covers us with his praise. So when you read the Shulamite addressing her beloved and just heaping all this glorious praise upon him, and then him in response doing the same to her, okay, the church covers Jesus Christ in a similar kind of praise about his greatness, about his glory, And because of what Christ has done in the church to make her lovely, he in turn turns around and covers her with the same kind of praise. So I think that's what Song of Solomon's trying to reveal to us. So with that, let's pray and then we can be done today. Bye. Father, we are thankful for this book. I pray that just thinking through it and trying to fit it together and gives maybe hopefully a little tips on how to interpret it. I hope that everybody takes it home today and reads it and is encountered, yes, with many challenges of interpreting the book, but also Lord can trace the story and father, not only trace the story, but trace the glory that is contained within the book. So thank you for this time. Thank you for allowing us to study it. And I pray that we would repent of our neglecting of this book and have it be part of our Christian experience moving forward. Pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. Next week we'll be in the book of Lamentations.