Song of Songs 4:11-15
Him
The fragrance of your garments
is like the fragrance of Lebanon.
12 You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride;
you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain.
13 Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates
with choice fruits,
with henna and nard,
14 nard and saffron,
calamus and cinnamon,
with every kind of incense tree,
with myrrh and aloes
and all the finest spices.
15 You are[j] a garden fountain,
a well of flowing water
streaming down from Lebanon.
You are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain….
A well of flowing water, streaming down from Lebanon….
Do you think of sex as a way to be refreshed – and a way to refresh your husband.
A spring is such an awesome picture of God’s intention for marriage and for sex. I will never forget the hike my husband and I took with our daughter in the high dessert of Morocco. Along the river were rocky outcroppings that water literally poured out of from the dessert above. The fresh cold water traveled through tunnels in the rocks as it made it’s way to the river. It was an amazing sight.
Over and over in the bible, sex is represented as a Spring so let’s translate what a spring means in sex…
Ever Changing – springs and running water are mesmerizing, they never get boring. We could just sit and watch them for hours. Marriage is not supposed to get boring, we are supposed to spend a lifetime getting to know each other and amazed at what we discover.
Healing – People travel to soak in mineral springs for healing of all kinds of health issues. Sex is supposed to be healing. Scientists continually document all the health advantages of a healthy sex life, but do you believe it? Can sex heal you emotionally when you feel separated from your spouse?
Refreshment – spring water provides refreshment and life to every thing it touches. It waters the plants and provides life to those that partake. It can be surrounded by a rocky dessert, but beyond the spring is lush growth. Sex should refresh you, it was never God’s design that sex would drain you. In the midst of dealing with realities of living in this world, our marriage bed ought to be one of the places that we experience life and refreshment.
This Week –
1. Have sex when you need healing – when you are worn out, or sore, have a headache or just feeling bloated.
2. Refresh your spouse – in the chaos of your life, grab some minutes to connect to simply refresh each other. Let it be your little secret.
3. Discover something new about your spouse during sex this week.
I’ve just discovered this series, and I’m eager to immerse myself in it from the top, but I’m pausing here as I was just considering Songs 4.13-14 based on an exegesis on another blog. That blogger used these verses to explore issues surrounding discomfort women could—and do—feel about their own natural fragrance, with many feeling embarrassed-to-mortified over it.
The NLT translates 13-14 thus:
Your thighs shelter a paradise of pomegranates
with rare spices—
henna with nard,
nard and saffron,
fragrant calamus and cinnamon,
with all the trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes,
and every other lovely spice.
I know I find the fragrance of my wife’s vulva powerfully intoxicating. Her scent is unique, a gift from God; He blessed her with it and meant it for only me to enjoy and indulge in. A gift from Him to her and from her to me—and thereby from God to me. How could I not see a gift from God, cradled by my wife in one of her most tender and vulnerable spots, as anything but something that should be cherished? I love being able to fill my lungs with her perfume.
I hope there are husbands out there who feel as I do—which means that hopefully wives out there can relax…and deem feminine odor care products unnecessary. Because believe us when we say—as it does earlier in this chapter in v7— “You are altogether beautiful, my darling, beautiful in every way.”