Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness,
leaning upon her beloved?

Song of Solomon 8:5

In the Song of Songs, Solomon uses the language of love. He celebrates the excellency of the intimacy between husband and wife. This is a song that has pictures and metaphors. This text holds what is perhaps the most wonderful description of all. The bride struggling along ascending out of the wilderness leaning upon her beloved.

Ultimately the Song of Songs shows us Christ in his relationship with us. Therefore our absolute dependency upon the Lord comes into focus.

THE PLACE

The bride leans on her beloved in the wilderness. This is representative of the Christian living in the world. Jesus said “In the world ye shall have tribulation” (John 16:33).

THE PERSON

The leaning of the bride upon her beloved betrays a certain weariness. The wilderness is an exhausting place. Lack of food and water coupled with the extreme heat and little shelter saps the energy from the traveller. Such weariness is deeply affecting, impacting body, mind and soul. There are occasions in our Christian experience when we feel there is no strength to carry on. Such times are lessons in leaning. When we feel we are strong we are deceiving ourselves. We should be grateful for the experience of weakness – that’s the reality. This reveals to us how much we need the Lord.

THE POSITION

“This solid faith, which doth empty the believer of himself ….is to make the soul rest on Christ alone…for all true faith lays the burden of all difficulties and duties upon him, and so it is compared to leaning”

James Durham

The bride’s position is a leaning posture. She is resting so completely upon her beloved; he becomes her strength compensating for her weakness. Therefore the wilderness is transformed into a place of peace and happiness. She discovers love and support in the harshest of environments.

So it is for us. In our wilderness experience the desert blossoms as the rose when we learn to lean upon Christ. Hudson Taylor wrote a little volume on the Song of Solomon entitled “Union and Communion”. It is a blessing to be united to Christ by virtue of our election, conversion, justification, adoption and sanctification. This union gives us hope that one day we will be with Christ. But in this world union must lead to communion. The experience of casting every care onto Him is essential. He sustains us by taking every fear and responsibility. This is where true success success lies – not in our doing but in His strength alone.

The beloved was with his bride in the wilderness. He identified with her toils. He exposed himself to her trials.

So it is with us. Christ came into the wilderness of this world. There is no pain and no sorrow that He has not experienced.

Therefore we rest on one who has the immensity and omnipotence of divine power while He remains human. He remains the same man. He wept at Lazarus’ tomb. He consoled the two who walked the road to Emmaus.

In every pain that rends the heart,
The man of sorrows had a part;
He sympathises with our grief,
And to the sufferer sends relief.

Let us observe the bride leaning. A strong arm is around her supporting, perhaps half carrying, consoling and strengthening her in the wilderness.

Christ’s arms are our strength.

Through her leaning the bride looking. Near to his heart she gazes into his eyes. The wilderness now is nothing. He is everything.

Let us look away from our suffering and into the eyes of our blessed Saviour.

Now let us notice that she is listening. As the bride is leaning she is tuned to his sweet whispers. With his support her mind is calm and every word he speaks is easily discerned.

In being close to Christ we are in a position to hear His voice.

The bride is learning. She discovers that there is a purpose in this wilderness after all. It is the plan of the one who knows more than she.

The Lord fulfils a purpose in every path that we take through life.

Ultimately this is a picture of loving. Amid the hardships of the wilderness his love flowed to her and she grew to love him more. She was not alone and abandoned. He had given himself to her all of the hardship she was experiencing.

When we discover His presence, we grow more intimate in His love. In doing so, Christ becomes more precious than He ever was before.

Therefore, through the bride’s wilderness experience she is transformed; from struggle to security, from fear to faith and from suffering to love. No longer does the wilderness define her – it is her relationship with her husband which is all important.

We must never be defined by the world and our problems within it. Our identity is in Christ; Christ alone!

Charles Wesley wrote a poem entitled “Come O Thou Traveller Unknown”. It completely captures the love that Christ has for us in our struggles. Isaac Watts is often called “The Father of English Hymnody”. He had a particularly high view of this composition. He remarked that “that single poem is worth all the verses that I have ever written”.

Spanning fourteen verses, the entire work is worthy of our attention. The context relates to Jacob struggling with the angel at Peniel. There are a few highlights though, which illuminate this particular study from the Song of Songs:

 7. My strength is gone, my nature dies,
 I sink beneath thy weighty hand,
 Faint to revive, and fall to rise;
 I fall, and yet by faith I stand;
 I stand, and will not let thee go,
 Till I thy name, thy nature know.

 9. ’Tis love! ’tis love! thou diedst for me!
 I hear thy whisper in my heart.
 The morning breaks, the shadows flee:
 Pure, universal love thou art;
 To me, to all thy passions move;

 11. I know thee, Savior, who thou art:
 Jesus, the feeble sinner’s friend;
 Nor wilt thou with the night depart,
 But stay and love me to the end;
 Thy mercies never shall remove,
 Thy nature and thy name is love.

 12. The Sun of Righteousness on me
 Hath rose, with healing in his wings;
 Withered my nature’s strength; from thee
 My soul its life and comfort brings;
 My help is all laid up above;
 Thy nature and thy name is love.

 13. Contented now, upon my thigh
 I halt, till life’s short journey end;
 All helplesness, all weakness I,
 On thee alone for strength depend,
 Nor have I power from thee to move;
 Thy nature and thy name is love.

 14. Lame as I am, I take the prey,
 Hell, Earth, and sin with ease o’ercome;
 I leap for joy, pursue my way,
 And as a bounding hart fly home,
 Through all eternity to prove
 Thy nature and thy name is love.

THE PATH

The bride is moving. She is coming up out of the wilderness as she leans upon her beloved. Her path is drawing her out of the wilderness. But she she can only make that path with the support of her beloved.

Christ leads us through the wilderness of this world; He not only leads us through but He leads us out! We not only rest upon Him, being carried by Him – we are also crucially being guided by Him. There is a better future.

Throughout the Scriptures this better future is promised. David’s pillow was wet with tears but joy would come in the morning. In the Apocalypse John saw God take out the divine handkerchief as He wiped the tear from every eye. Whatever your struggles – always remember that a better day is coming.

This is picture of grace. Matthew Henry adequately summarised the lessons from the text:

“Gospel grace lies as plain as anywhere in this mystical song… Particular believers are amiable, nay, admirable, and divine grace is to be admired in them, when by the power of that grace they are brought up from the wilderness, leaning with a holy confidence and complacency upon Jesus Christ their beloved. This bespeaks the beauty of a soul, and the wonders of divine grace”

Matthew Henry