"Thy temples are like a piece of pomegranate behind thy veil" (4:3).
brought into union with the Well-Beloved. Her strength is in the Lord and in the power of His might, and this strength will be manifested only as she abides upon the mount with God, separated unto His will, and for His pleasure.
3. Her teeth are compared to a flock newly shorn "Thy teeth are like a flock of ewes…newly shorn,…come up from the washing, whereof every one hath twins" (4:2). An old writer suggests that the "teeth" signify the mind or intellectual powers, because the intellect receives and, so to speak, masticates what is given it, as teeth chew the natural food. The peculiar comparison of the teeth to newly washed and shorn sheep shows us that the Bride-groom means more than a mere description of natural beauty, although primarily the point is the lovely whiteness of the sheep after shearing. The priests who entered within the veil for ministry were not to enter with woolen garments upon them, for wool suggests the animal or earthly life, and "pure linen" the righteousness of the saints. "The righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe" (Romans 3:22). The ewes shorn of their wool, which made them delusive in size and weight, most aptly describes the renewed mind, shorn, as it were, of the wisdom of this world, which fails to "gain by its wisdom the knowledge of God" (1 Corinthians 1:21), and "comes to nought" (lit. "passing away into nothingness," 1 Corinthians 2:6). Taking the "teeth" to signify the "mind" or the mental powers, may we not gather what is so clearly taught us in the New Testament by St. Paul, that the mind has been "renewed in knowledge" – has come us, so to speak, from the "washing" of the waters of death – in identification with Christ, under the quickening power of the Spirit, to produce double fruit in the new life?"=
4. Her lips are like scarlet, the speech is comely "Thy lips are like…scarlet…thy speech is comely" (4:3). The Well-Beloved "creates the fruit" of her lips (Isaiah 57:19), now cleansed in the scarlet of the precious blood of Christ, purified by the live coal from off the altar of Calvary. Her speech is comely, "such as is good for the building up of the need" (Ephesians 4:29) of the souls around her, and she knows instinctively that in His presence "foolish talking" and "jesting" are not befitting a soul in union with Him. "Be filled with the indwelling of the Spirit when you speak one to another" (Ephesians 5:18-19).
5. Her temples are like a piece of a pomegranate "Thy temples are like a piece of pomegranate behind thy veil" (4:3).
= See end of Chapter…