Closing Out Phase One of SOS

Song of Songs 3:5 Sustain me with raisin cakes, Refresh me with apples, Because I am lovesick.
vs 6 Let his left hand be under my head and his right hand embrace me.
vs 7 I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, By the gazelles or by the hinds of the field, That you will not arouse or awaken my love, Until she pleases.

These three verses together close out the first distinct phase of SOS. Part of verse 5 & verse 7 are repeated elsewhere to close out the third stage. All of verse 6 is repeated elsewhere and All of verse 8 is repeated to close out other phases.

I don't have much to say over verse 5.

Verse 6 is the one others have tried to sexualize, but looking up the words in the original Hebrew, embrace really only means embrace. It is a cry out for intimacy. And other than that I don't have much to say over it except for it's importance in SOS in helping to make distinctions between the phases.


Verse 7, however, is pretty loaded. I mentioned the gazelles already and will go over their significance in a later post when I get started on phase two.

The last part of the verse has been preached on by many as a warning against waking up the sexual side of a person before they are able to do anything about it in marriage. And I believe that is a completely legitimate message from preachers and parents alike to young people at any time.


However, I'm seeing more than just that in the verse. Since it appears in SOS a total of three times, and since the beloved has two dreams between these urgings of not being awakened before her time, AND lastly in chapter eight, the lover, himself, awakens her, then there may be more to the verse than what initially meets the eye.

SOS 8:5b … Beneath the apple tree I awakened you; There your mother was in labor with you, There she was in labor and gave you birth.

Was it not time to wake up in chapter one or two? Apparently not. Apparently the time for being fully awake is in chapter 8 When the Lover does it Himself. So what is going on in chapter one and even in chapter two, later when the Lover begins telling the Beloved to arise and come along?
Well, let’s think about it.
First of all, my Bible has a footnote saying that the last three words may actually be "until it pleases" rather than "until she pleases". This may not mean a thing. But it makes me wonder.
There seems to be no rush in waking up either the Beloved or love in general. What could this mean? At the very least the Lover is expressing, one way or another, that he is in no hurry. He feels no need to pressure. He is satisfied to go at her pace rather than his own. He’s satisfied for the Beloved or their love, in general, to flow naturally. He feels no need to force, coerce, or otherwise manipulate her into anything until she is good and ready to wake up to that area of love on her own, when SHE pleases.

Also, allegorically, it goes along with the idea of God being patient with us as we grow in love and learn to understand it. When we first give our hearts to the Lord, we love Him with all we have, which isn’t much. But HE receives it and loves us back. As we grow in understanding of His love for us we are able to love Him more and more.

Romans 13:11 And do this knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep: for now (our) salvation is nearer to us that when we first believed.
Ephesians 5:14 For this reason it [He] says. "Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you."

When we come to the Lord, we come as babes. Babies know very little. Though they are aware, their awareness is limited. They can only take in so much, but they are learning all the time. Just as we grow physically and emotionally, so also we grow spiritually. We go through changes when we leave babyhood and enter childhood, when we leave childhood through the road of adolescence and enter adulthood. These kinds of changes also occur spiritually. We awaken to new levels, new phases all throughout our spiritual development. And these phases should not be rushed.