A Series on Song of Songs - #6

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Speaker Notes

Song of Songs 5:2-16 A Dream Come True
She

2 I slept but my heart was awake.
    Listen! My beloved is knocking:
“Open to me, my sister, my darling,
    my dove, my flawless one.
My head is drenched with dew,
    my hair with the dampness of the night.”
3 I have taken off my robe—
    must I put it on again?
I have washed my feet—
    must I soil them again?
4 My beloved thrust his hand through the latch-opening;
    my heart began to pound for him.
5 I arose to open for my beloved,
    and my hands dripped with myrrh,
my fingers with flowing myrrh,
    on the handles of the bolt.
6 I opened for my beloved,
    but my beloved had left; he was gone.
    My heart sank at his departure.
I looked for him but did not find him.
    I called him but he did not answer.
7 The watchmen found me
    as they made their rounds in the city.
They beat me, they bruised me;
    they took away my cloak,
    those watchmen of the walls!
8 Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you—
    if you find my beloved,
what will you tell him?
    Tell him I am faint with love.

Friends

9 How is your beloved better than others,
    most beautiful of women?
How is your beloved better than others,
    that you so charge us?

She

10 My beloved is radiant and ruddy,
    outstanding among ten thousand.
11 His head is purest gold;
    his hair is wavy
    and black as a raven.
12 His eyes are like doves
    by the water streams,
washed in milk,
    mounted like jewels.
13 His cheeks are like beds of spice
    yielding perfume.
His lips are like lilies
    dripping with myrrh.
14 His arms are rods of gold
    set with topaz.
His body is like polished ivory
    decorated with lapis lazuli.
15 His legs are pillars of marble
    set on bases of pure gold.
His appearance is like Lebanon,
    choice as its cedars.
16 His mouth is sweetness itself;
    he is altogether lovely.
This is my beloved, this is my friend,
    daughters of Jerusalem.

“The Dark Night of the Soul” by St. John of the Cross (1578/79)

One dark night,
fired with love’s urgent longings
— ah, the sheer grace! —
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.

In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
— ah, the sheer grace! —
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.

On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.

This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
— him I knew so well —
there in a place where no one appeared.

O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.

David is a Theologian and Ethicist.