4:1–8 The Song’s refrain is to wait for marriage (Song 2:7; 3:5; 8:4). The bride has accomplished this waiting herself (8:10); she has saved herself for her beloved. Chapter 4 is an opened window into their honeymoon suite. It begins from the groom’s perspective, as he eyes his bride. The sense from the text is that she has on very little clothing. She stands before him unclothed but unashamed (cf. Gen. 2:25). We read about only a “veil” (Song 4:1, 3), a “necklace” (v. 9), and her long dark hair (v. 1).

He has seen nothing like her. To him, the seven body parts he describes are the Seven Wonders of the World. He begins with a twofold “Behold” and “You are beautiful!” (Song 4:1) and ends with an exaggerated overlooking of her imperfections (cf. 1:5; 2:1): “You are altogether beautiful, my love” (put differently, “There is no flaw in you”; 4:7). She is altogether beautiful if we do not press the metaphors into a literal mold. The key to understanding the seemingly odd and grotesque imagery is to understand the language as sensory and emotive. We are not so much to see what he sees but to feel what he feels. We are to smell, taste, and touch his pleasure and happiness. For to him her body, made in the image of God and for his completion as a man, is the most awesome creature in creation. It is the best of God’s creation (a flock of goats leaping or halves of a pomegranate) combined with the best of what man has done with God’s creation (a scarlet thread or the tower of David). It is the pinnacle of perfection (good, good, good, good, good, good, very good!).

To him her “eyes” are pure and luminous. Her “hair” is awe inspiring in its thick, flowing waves of silken black. Her “teeth” are white, straight, complete, and matching. Her “lips” are red and shapely, full of life and ready for love. Her “cheeks” are full of color and health. Her “neck,” which is layered with jeweled necklaces, is long, strong, thin, dignified, and elegant (“like the tower of David”; 4:4). Finally, and climactically, her “breasts”—like “two fawns” (v. 5; cf. “a lovely deer, a graceful doe,” Prov. 5:19)—are tender, recently matured, symmetrical, round, sprightly, playful, and seen only by him. He will soon get to her “garden” (Song 4:12), but here in verse 5 he stops at her breasts. He stops to stare and sing. He sings of enjoying this sweet “mountain” and scented “hill” all night long (v. 6).

In 4:8 his viewing turns to wooing. The groom asks his “bride” to “come with me” from the mountain ranges of Lebanon, Amana, Senir, and Hermon. From these distant, highly inaccessible, and potentially dangerous places (they serve as lairs for lions and leopards), he offers her refuge. He invites her to feel the gentle touch of his “left hand” and the erotic embrace of his “right hand” (2:6).

4:9–15 This passage escalates his effort. He woos again with words. This time, however, the language is utterly intimate. He starts with her eyes (4:9) but ends with her most private part: “her garden fountain” (v. 15). While he is attempting to be with her again, here he describes something he has already experienced. He knows that her “love” (or “lovemaking”21) is better “than wine” (v. 10), that “honey and milk are under your tongue” (v. 11), and that her body smells exotic (“The fragrance of your oils [are better than] any spice”; v. 10). He wants to experience afresh everything, from the “glance of [her] eyes” (v. 9), to the “nectar” on her “lips” (v. 11; cf. Prov. 5:3), to the “choicest fruits” (Song 4:13), the “choice spices” (v. 14), and the “living water” (v. 15) of her whole body. He wants to regain the pleasures of paradise. He wants this garden that is now closed (a “garden locked”/“spring locked”/“fountain sealed”; v. 12) opened to him again.

4:16–5:1 In the Song of Solomon, sex is at the center, literally and structurally. As Tom Gledhill points out, there are “111 lines from 1:2 to 4:15 and 111 lines from 5:2 to 8:14.”22 So 4:16–5:1 is “the heart of the Song . . . the central pivot around which the rest of the Song revolves.”23

“Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden,” says the bride in 4:16a, evoking and reversing her earlier call not to “awaken” (Song 2:7; 3:5). Then we notice the change in 4:16b: “Let my beloved come to his garden.” Here she is not merely “a garden” (4:12, 15); through lovemaking she is now “his garden.” In 4:16 she says of her most private part, it is “my garden” (4:16), and in 5:1 he says of this usually inaccessible (“locked,” “sealed”; 4:12) and watery place (“a spring,” “a fountain,” and “a well of living [and “flowing”] water”; 4:12, 15) that it is “my garden” too. She has fully and unreservedly given herself to him. This is pure passion, which is why the “others” (which perhaps includes even God!)24 celebrate the holiness of this covenant consummation.

In this section (Song 4:1–5:1), many words are repeated—"Lebanon,” “spices,” “garden,” “bride.” The most repeated word, however, is “my” (twenty times),25 Song of Solomon 5:1 having the highest concentration in all of the OT (nine times!): “I came to my garden, my sister, my bride, I gathered my myrrh with my spice, I ate my honeycomb with my honey, I drank my wine with my milk.” This virtuously veiled verse contains all the key concepts of the biblical teaching about sex. He came into his wife—who is his “bride,” “sister” (a word of deep family union and intimacy), and “garden” (a place of luxurious pleasure)—and has enjoyed it. And now her body is not only his wonderland but the Promised Land,26 a land flowing with milk and honey: “I ate . . . my honey, I drank . . . my milk” (cf. Ex. 3:8). He eats her up and drinks her in (cf. Prov. 30:20).

Obviously the lyrics in this section of the Song—which end with “Be drunk with love”—are not prudish. But neither are they immodest or crude. They provide a beautiful balance not found in the sexual anarchy and idiocy of our popular love ballads or the crass love poetry of the ancient Near East. The Song blends adult content, adolescent appropriateness, and divine glorification into one tune.