Song of Solomon 8:14

8:13,14 These verses close the conference between Christ and his church. He first addresses her as dwelling in the gardens, the assemblies and ordinances of his saints. He exhorts her to be constant and frequent in prayers, supplications, and praises, in which he delights. She replies, craving his speedy return to take her to be wholly with Him. The heavens, those high mountains of sweet spices, must contain Christ, till the times come, when every eye shall see him, in all the glory of the better world. True believers as they are looking for, so they are hastening to the coming of that day of the Lord. Let every Christian endeavour to perform the duties of his station, that men may see his good works, and glorify his heavenly Father. Continuing earnest in prayer for what we want, our thanksgivings will abound, and our joy will be full; our souls will be enriched, and our labours prospered. We shall be enabled to look forward to death and judgment without fear. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

(14) Make haste, my beloved. — Song of Solomon 8:14 recalls the answer made at last to the sighs. It repeats the metaphor of Song of Solomon 2:17 , where we see that the Authorised Version, make haste, is more correct than the margin. Thus the poem ends with two short verses that compress into them all that has been over and over again related under different figures: the wooing and the wedding of two happy souls.

The poem having opened with the song of a chorus in praise of the king Sol 1:2-4, concludes with a versicle recited by the bride, repeating the last words of her former strain Sol 2:17, with one significant change. She no longer thinks of the possibility of separation. The "Mountains of Bether" (division) of Sol 2:17, are now "Mountains of Besamim" (spices). His haunts and hers are henceforth the same (compare Sol 4:6).

Seeing we must part for a time, make haste, O my beloved Bridegroom, and speedily finish the work which thou hast to do in the world, that so thou mayst take me to thyself, that I may live in thine everlasting embraces. The words of this verse are borrowed from Song of Solomon 2:17 . where they are explained.

14. (See on [685]So 2:17). As she began with longing for His first coming (So 1:2), so she ends with praying for His second coming (Ps 130:6; Php 3:20, 21; Re 22:20). Moody Stuart makes the roe upon spices to be the musk deer. As there are four gardens, so four mountains, which form not mere images, as Gilead, Carmel, &c., but part of the structure of the Song: (1) Bether, or division (So 2:17), God's justice dividing us from God. (2) Those "of leopards" (So 4:8), sin, the world, and Satan. (3) That "of myrrh and aloes" (So 4:6, 14), the sepulchre of Calvary. (4) Those "of spices," here answering to "the hill of frankincense" (So 4:6), where His soul was for the three days of His death, and heaven, where He is a High Priest now, offering incense for us on the fragrant mountain of His own finished work (Heb 4:14, 7:25; Re 8:3, 4); thus He surmounts the other three mountains, God's justice, our sin, death. The mountain of spices is as much greater than our sins, as heaven is higher than earth (Ps 103:11). The abrupt, unsatisfied close with the yearning prayer for His visible coming shows that the marriage is future, and that to wait eagerly for it is our true attitude (1Co 1:7; 1Th 1:10; Tit 2:13; 2Pe 3:12).

14. She sings this verse in answer to this demand. Make haste ] This should be flee . Oettli thinks this implies that as the bridegroom thought her voice lovely, and asked her to exhibit it to his friends, so she also desired him to shew his elastic gait. But probably the object of the verse is to end the poem with a repetition of the bride’s answer in Song of Solomon 2:17 , when he formerly asked her to let him hear her voice. When he calls upon her to let his companions hear her voice, she sings the request she had formerly made to him in similar circumstances.

Verse 14. - Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices. This is a snatch of the old love songs which the bride used to sing when love was fresh and young. She sings it now at the request of her bridegroom himself, and in the delighted ears of her companions. She goes forth from among, them leaning on her beloved, to rejoice in the beautiful scenery and rural pleasures with him whose presence heightens every joy, the life of her life, the soul of her soul, "all her salvation, all her desire." The bridegroom and the bride are seen disappearing together over the flowery hills; and the music of the Song of Songs dies away in the sweet fragrance of that closing scene; the vision of love has, gazelle-like, leapt from point to point, and vanishes away at last among the mountains of spices. It is well to notice that what were before "mountains of Berber," that is, of "separation," are now "mountains of Besamin" - balsam mountains. There is no more word of separation. Henceforth the only note is one of peaceful enjoyment. " My beloved is mine, and I am his." Our home and haunt is the same. The concluding words, we cannot doubt, are intended to open a perfect future to the eye.

Yet the poet, with consummate art, connects that future with the past and the present by the voice of the bride heard singing the love song with which she first expressed her love, now lifted up into anticipation of the everlasting hills of fragrant and joyful life. Song of Solomon 8:14

14 Flee, my beloved, And be thou like a gazelle, Or a young one of the harts, Upon spicy mountains. Hitzig supposes that with these words of refusal she bids him away from her, without, however, as "my beloved" shows, meaning them in a bad sense. They would thus, as Renan says, be bantering coquetry. If it is Solomon who makes the request, and thus also he who is addressed here, not the imaginary shepherd violently introduced into this closing scene in spite of the words "(the thousand) is thine, Solomon" (Sol 8:12), then Shulamith's ignoring of his request is scornful, for it would be as unseemly if she sang of her own accord to please her friends, as it would be wilful if she kept silent when requested by her royal husband. So far the Spanish author, Soto Major, is right (1599): jussa et rogata id non debuit nec potuit recusare.

Thus with "flee" she begins a song which she sings, as at Sol 2:15 she commences one, in response to a similar request, with "catch us." Hoelem. finds in her present happiness, which fills her more than ever, the thought here expressed that her beloved, if he again went from her for a moment, would yet very speedily return to his longing, waiting bride. (Note: Similarly Godet: The earth during the present time belongs to the earthly power; only at the end shall the bridegroom fetch the bride, and appear as the heavenly Solomon to thrust out the false and fleshly, and to celebrate the heavenly marriage festival.) But apart from the circumstance that Shulamith is no longer a bride, but is married, and that the wedding festival is long past, there is not a syllable of that thought in the text; the words must at least have been אלי בּרח, if ברח signified generally to hasten hither, and not to hasten forth. Thus, at least as little as סב, Sol 2:17, without אלי, signifies "turn thyself hither," can this בּרח mean "flee hither." The words of the song thus invite Solomon to disport himself, i.e., give way to frolicsome and aimless mirth on these spicy mountains. As sov lecha is enlarged to sov demeh-lecha, Sol 2:17, for the sake of the added figures (vid., under Sol 2:9), so here berahh-lecha (Genesis 27:43) is enlarged to berahh udemeh (udǎmeh) lecha.