8 Look! Listen! There's my lover! Do you see him coming? Vaulting the mountains, leaping the hills. 9 My lover is like a gazelle, graceful; like a young stag, virile. Look at him there, on tiptoe at the gate, all ears, all eyes - ready! 10 My lover has arrived and he's speaking to me! Get up, my dear friend, fair and beautiful lover - come to me! 11 Look around you: Winter is over; the winter rains are over, gone! 12 Spring flowers are in blossom all over. The whole world's a choir - and singing! Spring warblers are filling the forest with sweet arpeggios. 13 Lilacs are exuberantly purple and perfumed, and cherry trees fragrant with blossoms. Oh, get up, dear friend, my fair and beautiful lover - come to me!
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Commentary on Song of Solomon 2:8-13
(Read Song of Solomon 2:8-13)
The church pleases herself with thoughts of further communion with Christ. None besides can speak to the heart. She sees him come. This may be applied to the prospect the Old Testament saints had of Christ's coming in the flesh. He comes as pleased with his own undertaking. He comes speedily. Even when Christ seems to forsake, it is but for a moment; he will soon return with everlasting loving-kindness. The saints of old saw him, appearing through the sacrifices and ceremonial institutions. We see him through a glass darkly, as he manifests himself through the lattices. Christ invites the new convert to arise from sloth and despondency, and to leave sin and worldly vanities, for union and communion with him. The winter may mean years passed in ignorance and sin, unfruitful and miserable, or storms and tempests that accompanied his conviction of guilt and danger. Even the unripe fruits of holiness are pleasant unto Him whose grace has produced them. All these encouraging tokens and evidences of Divine favour, are motives to the soul to follow Christ more fully. Arise then, and come away from the world and the flesh, come into fellowship with Christ. This blessed change is owing wholly to the approaches and influences of the Sun of righteousness.