Song of Songs Verse 7 - The First - Where Can I Find You Jesus

Hidden Treasures of the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. All right, jumping into verse seven today, we get to dig around in one of the, from my standpoint, one of the most spectacular verses in all the scripture. It sets up the next verse, which is just the miracle verse of this section, in my opinion, but not unlike the Aleph section of the 119 Psalm. The seventh verse has to do with, if you might remember the seventh verse in the Aleph section, I will praise thee with uprightness of heart when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments. Well, I think that you'll see that the result of what the beloved is asking here will be the same thing.

But it's beautiful the way she says it, spectacular. So getting on to the seventh verse, in the King James Version in English, it reads, Tell me, O thou who my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon, for why should I be as one turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions? So here we see this idea of being needy out loud. And again, being needy out loud to Jesus, which you can't go wrong if you're being needy and you're being out loud to Jesus. So as we talked about yesterday, we're going from the idea of the vine metaphor, moving right to the sheep metaphor, as we see in so many different scriptures. Certainly we see in the Psalm 80 that it's the same thing that happens.

And of course, if you read the Gospel of John, you find these metaphors constantly. And how wonderful. So I Googled how does the shepherd make a sheep lay down in a green pasture.

And by the way, in the my show notes, I put a link to the video that I watch. It's only three minutes of this shepherd showing you the two ways that you can make sheep lie down. You know, here, obviously we have a connection to his father's 23rd Psalm, this idea of the sheep laying down, just like he did at the beginning of the 23rd Psalm and also obviously feeding in the green pastures. And so as sheep, you know, that is something that, that shepherds understand. And oh my goodness, the shepherd metaphor is everywhere from Abel on through to Jesus.

You'll see it time and again. But anyway, in this video, you'll note that the shepherd shows the first ways. He just kind of tackles this leader sheep, because actually if I guess if since sheep are flocking animals, if you can get the leader to lay down, how perhaps you can get the others to lay down, but he showed how he could actually catch this sheep and kind of pull it over backwards to get it to lay down. But you'll notice that almost immediately he gets up because that's one way to make a sheep lay down.

It really is fun to watch him do it. And then he goes to what he thinks really happened. He said, the other way is to make sure you feed him really good and you put them in a nice shady place, that kind of thing to make sure that they, when they, he said, they'll only lay down when they feel completely safe because sheep, as you may know, are real skittish. And so this idea of making them lay down is that you have to be really, really well cared for if you're a sheep before you're going to lay down. And once you lay down, and one of the neat things if you watch, if you watch the video is the sheep, when they're laying down like that, they're chewing their cud. And so after we fed on God's word and just think how spectacular for those of you who are listening, I'm like singing to the choir, I know, but when God gives you a scripture, then you just continue to chew on it until you can get every bit of nourishment from it.

And such is the case with this scripture for me today, because I continued to chew on it all morning and then God showed me something else really cool, I'll get to in a minute. And so you go from the idea of feeding and laying down, not unlike the 23rd Psalm, and then she makes a further plea, which is interesting because I've often heard it's the second question that makes all the progress when you're talking to God. So she doesn't just say it one way, she says it a second way.

She pleads because she doesn't want to be one. And the King James Version says that turn at the side of the flocks of thy companions. But when you look at that in Hebrew, it's clearly that will be covered.

So I guess the idea that they were thinking of turn at the side was to get in a tent on the I don't know, but the idea is to be covered. And the idea is one of the mysteries of this verse, as you read the different translations of it is what is this veil? And why do women get veiled before they get married? And there's lots of stuff I read this morning along those lines is what is up with this veil? And why would she say that she wanted to be veiled by the flocks of his companions? Well, the point of it is, I mean, the simple point is simple, that she wants to be with Jesus, she doesn't want to be with a cheap imitation. She wants to be with the one who really is the shepherd, which is a great thing to do. But I think there's some understanding and what is the what is the idea behind the veil?

So I was chewing, chewing, chewing on this. And I looked at Oh, there's much study on Rebecca's veil, because you might remember that she's the first bride that they talk about that gets veiled. And then there's much study on Moses's veil. But then the other the word that is used here for a veil is clearly used when somebody is a leper and they use it to cover their lip to say that they're unclean. And so I just it really had me confused as to I wonder why Solomon used this idea of this kind of veil to say that he was behind the flocks. Well, that veil when you think about it, it covers an affliction.

It sure did with Moses, right? He didn't put the veil over his face because he didn't want people see it shine. He put it over his face so they wouldn't see it wasn't shining like it was shining. In other words, the veil is covering an affliction as far as you know, being leprous would be.

And so it's interesting that we have a tendency right to cover our afflictions. The whole idea I was naked so I hid is that they are being covered, right? And Moses covered his face and interestingly, to some extent, brides cover their face because they don't want people to see their imperfection or whatever the situation may be.

I don't know. But what I do know is, is that yes, we are seeking cover all our lives. And so we put on masks of all sort of different kind.

Like even in COVID days, you might notice people put on mass and afraid so they hide. And then, oh my goodness, that is not what the shepherd has in mind. He doesn't have it in mind that your covering should be false. He wants your covering even though we're leprous to be his blood.

So that's a major thing. So the interesting thing about the word veil used here, the first letter is an ion, which is this idea of seeing something. And then the second letter is a tet, which usually means goodness. But the other thing is I was actually reciting 119 Psalms this morning after the study. I remembered that twice during the tet section, he refers to, it was good that I was afflicted or before I was afflicted. Both are mentioned, the affliction is mentioned and all things work together for good is quite a connection to the letter tet. And so as we're afflicted, right? If we are afflicted, which everybody is, no one's without sin. If we go for cover there with the good shepherd, we're headed in the right direction, right? We're being needy out loud and she is being needy out loud and she is being needy out loud for the right cover. Not something to hide our imperfections, but so that Jesus himself will see it and heal it.

It's an amazing thing. So to apply this verse right in my own life, I couldn't help but think this is a great question. Like it's a great, great question to ask Jesus, you know, where are you?

You know, where do you want me to go to be with your sheep, to be with my fellow sheep? And so I thought, well, you know, I'll just ask that question this morning. So I spent some time in prayer to actually apply this verse this morning. And it was really, really helpful as I laid in his arms and ask him, Lord, just tell me, you know, I'm in present time in sort of a quandary because you may know I teach special needs every Sunday and we've got another teacher there. So now I only teach every other weekend. I mean every other Sunday, right? And then there's another church that has asked me to possibly consider being their assistant pastor to come and speak on Sundays. And I've been praying that and seeking God and that's still in the process. And I really wanted to get more today since I thought, well, you know, God, where are you pastoring your flock?

Where are you making them lay down at noon? And so that I can go there and make sure. And he spent some time with me pointing out different individuals in both of those sheepfolds that required some nurturing. And so I have a sense this is the direction he wants me to go. And it was really a beautiful thing. So I would recommend, highly recommend today. Why not ask him, you know, Lord, where are you pastoring your flock? Because I don't want to be like a veiled woman. I so love this verse because it sets up the next verse, which is really one of my most favorite, favorite, favorite in all this book and certainly in all the Bible. And so we get a chance to do that next time. Thanks for listening.