• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

174

May your breasts be like the clusters of grapes on the vine, the fragrance of

your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine.

Grapes swell and become increasingly round and full when ripe, like a woman’s breasts when sexually aroused. Then he refers to the sweet smell of her breath. Her kisses are his favorite flavor. Like wine, her lovemaking is strong, smooth, savory, and satisfying.

May the wine go straight to my beloved, flowing gently over lips and teeth.

Now speaking, the wife celebrates her lovemaking ability to satisfy her husband. They share a glass of wine along with their bodies.

I belong to my beloved, and his desire is for me.

The wife delights in belonging to her husband alone, and celebrates that all his sexual passion is solely for her. In this, we see that a wife’s freedom is the result of the husband’s fidelity. While the point is debated, it seems that this statement is made before the multiple wives and concubines ruined the love and oneness they had together. This goes to show that even a great beginning can have a bad ending if you do not tend to your relationship with God and your spouse.

Come, my beloved, let us go to the countryside, let us spend the

night in the villages.

After being sexually intimate, the couple lies together unclothed to snuggle and talk. This kind of ongoing connection and intimacy following sex is incredibly important for a married couple. While chatting, the wife tells her husband that she wants to get some time away for a romantic vacation in the countryside. She does so in a way that is inviting rather than nagging.

175

Let us go early to the vineyards to see if the vines have budded, if

their blossoms have opened, and if the pomegranates are in

bloom—there I will give you my love.

She reminds him that spring is upon them and that there is much beauty to enjoy in the country. Creatively and aggressively, she also promises to make love to her husband in the warm outdoors as she continues to grow in her sexual freedom and confidence.

The mandrakes send out their fragrance, and at our door is every

delicacy, both new and old, that I have stored up for you, my

beloved.

Mandrakes were considered an aphrodisiac in the ancient world. The wife here announces to her husband as they lie unclothed in bed that on their getaway to the country, she intends to have sex with him in old ways that they enjoy, and also in new ways that they have not yet tried.

This nice God-fearing woman who married as a virgin speaks first in the series of love songs that comprise the Song of Songs. She also speaks last, and she speaks most. She initiates sex frequently, she talks about sex frankly, and she enjoys sex freely.

Consider for a moment how radically free she is. Not only is the account of her talking to, stripping for, and being with her husband three thousand years old, but it is written in a conservative Eastern cultural context for devout Jews. Many wives wonder if they would be tramps to act in such a way. If it is with their husbands, then they are simply being wives to God’s glory and their joy. The issue is not what is done, but with whom it is done. The Bible reveals that even stripping, though not required, can be redeemed within marriage. And we see from the husband’s words that being verbally generous, encouraging, and thankful creates a zone of safety in which a spouse can safely risk being a visually generous servant lover.

176

Lastly, how about you? In reading this chapter, what one or more things has God showed you that you need to change in yourself? What things has God showed you to prayerfully and lovingly encourage in your spouse?

* * *

a Mark 10:45.

b Mark 9:35.

c Mark 10:43.

d Prov. 6:16–17; 8:13.

e Prov. 16:5.

f Prov. 16:18.

a James 4:6; 1 Peter. 5:5.

a 2 Cor. 10:5.

177

10

CAN WE _____?

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful.

All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought

under the power of any.