Song of Solomon 4:4 - The Makeup Of A Beautiful Neck

This is the Truth Network. Hidden treasures of the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. For those who follow this, I apologize that we did not get this episode out yesterday, as usually I try to release one every day. But honestly, yesterday I didn't have the wow factor that I usually have before I give you an episode. And to say that God gave me a wow factor on this particular verse would be an understatement. It's like, I don't know if I've ever been as wowed as I was this morning.

And so I think you're going to be so grateful that I held off for a day until I had the wow and I think I've got it. So to jump right in, we're in the fourth chapter of the Song of Solomon, which is the beloved chapter in so many ways. We are getting to see in these first verses how Jesus, how the beloved describes his bride and the seven attributes that we have been going through, which Matthew Henry pointed out, and I believe wholeheartedly he's right, that they line up perfectly with the seven spirits of God as they would be the reflection of Jesus and that his anointing that he had. And so we get to see that we've talked about the wisdom of the eyes and we get to talk about the understanding of the orderedness of the hair. And then we had to talk about the sheep coming up that chew the food, the counsel of the teeth that chew up our word of God and help us to get our white teeth.

How cool is that? And then we talked about the lips of scarlet that speak beautifully, comely words to everyone. And of course those scarlet lips being the promise that we talked about and that being the might as it comes out of your mouth. That's what's strong. And then we talked about the two halves of a pomegranate being the knowledge fruit, which would be the fifth anointing that we receive is knowledge.

And how cool is that? That that would even be the fruit of knowledge, as many describe the pomegranate. And so today I knew it was going to be big when I finally grasped what it was about is the fear of the Lord, the sixth anointing that Jesus received was the fear of the Lord. And I think once you fully grasp all this here, you will agree that this one lines up so amazingly with that it almost takes my breath.

So I'll go ahead and read it in English and then begin to walk you through it. You know, some ways I think, wow, I could probably do 10 episodes on this one verse now that God has opened it up to be what it's actually saying. So here we go in English in the King James Version. Thy neck is like the Tower of David, builded for an armory, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men.

So this breaks down in a lot of really amazing ways. Number one, I think it's helpful to understand that the Tower of David, as the Jews teach and Rashi taught, was where the Sanhedrin would meet. And so that 70 that might represent the head of the church of Jerusalem at the time that, you know, Solomon was king. And so that head was there in the tower. And so the neck is obviously holding that up. And it's builded for an armory. And then he goes on to describe that armory, the armaments that are in this neck. And so therein comes some words that are really hard to understand. And clearly the way that they were originally, in the King James Version anyway, translated is confusing when you think, well, I think when you see what they mean. Because there are several places where we get a picture of this, both in Jeremiah and in Ezekiel, they talk about these hanging shields. Or as Rashi would point out, and I think he's got it right, that these are hanging, what's actually hanging there, what is translated as shields. Are quivers. Golden quivers as it may be. And I think you'll see that when you look in Jeremiah 31 when they're described in Ezekiel, I forget the exact chapter, but it's in there. Where it's described these same shields that make, or in this case, quivers that make this neck beautiful.

So why would that be important? Well, quivers, as you know, hold arrows. And very interestingly, the 127th Psalm was a psalm for Solomon. It was a psalm of degrees for Solomon. And when you read the 127th Psalm, when you look to the last three verses, it talks about the blessing of children and that children are like quivers in the arrow.

Well, when you think about when Jesus looks at his bride, he is looking for children, right? He's all about having these quivers full. Well, if there are a thousand quivers with all the arrows of all these mighty men, you can picture what's there. And of course, Rashi would know when he described this word that is translated shields here in the King James Version.

And when you look at the word, you can see where it would be quivers. And that idea of these disciples going forth, right? Because when you think about the Great Commission, what Jesus told us was to go ye therefore make disciples of all the nations and baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So the idea of those are children, right? As you get a chance to share God with people, share your discipleship, how God has walked with you, then we have spiritual children. And those spiritual children are arrows in these quivers. Well, if you think about this tower that has to be protected, right? You could see that one of the things in ancient times is there would be quivers of thousands of arrows there because there would, in this case, we need a thousand shields because there's a thousand mighty men. Well, these mighty men all have shields, which the shield is the shield of faith. And that word that's translated buckler there, when you look at it, might well be translated shield.

And that has to do with faith. But the shield is more of a defensive weapon, of course, defending yourself. But really, in ancient times, it was more that you defended the man to your left as warriors, mothers would often send them out, come home with your shield or on it, meaning that to let go of your shield was a complete disgrace because that was the only thing you had to protect the people that were next to you. And so the faith are the shields. What's beyond amazing are these quivers that are full of these arrows, thousands of arrows, as these children coming out of the neck, right? Of that which holds up and supports and guards the head, the body. You know, the Sanhedrin is at work, the 70s.

So you picture, like, I don't know if you've had many people in your life that discipled you but like that were spiritual fathers. Well, you are a quiver, right, in their armory. And so here's this neck. Now, I have posted for everyone in the show notes a picture of the muscles of the neck. And anybody who has ever processed animals, like I have, would tell you that the neck muscles are extremely difficult to work with. And they're very, very strong muscles. And they're very, very thick muscles. In fact, the skin on the back of the neck is the thickest skin I think in the body you'll find anywhere in most animals. And so these muscles of the neck have a very interesting look to them.

So I posted a picture of the muscles of the neck. And if you can't tell me that doesn't look like a sheath, I don't know what to tell you because it's exactly what… Solomon, of course, was an expert in anatomy. And, of course, obviously, the Holy Spirit is to see that in so many ways, how can you imagine how beautiful it is for Jesus to look upon his bride, to see, you know, the wisdom and the understanding, the counsel, the might. But when it comes to the fear of the Lord, here comes, right, a thousand shields of faith that are held by mighty men who all have quivers full of these disciples that are being sent forth light that's going forth as arrows. And when you look at the spelling of the word arrow, which doesn't have to be in this verse, but if the idea of them being quivers tells you that it would be arrows, here we find the letter het followed by the elongated zaddy, which is this idea of righteousness. And it's like the righteousness of marriage going forth. Well, of course, that's arrows.

Of course, it is the righteousness of marriage going forth. And you see that how perfectly this all lines up. And you wonder, well, Robbie, where did you pull this one out of the hat? Well, Rashi, you know, that was one of my confusing things.

Rashi said immediately that this was not a shield, that there were shields for the shield, but the other part were arrows. And I would suppose the Jews would know. And again, when you look in some ancient times, they held these quivers all along the top of these towers, as you can imagine, to shower down thousands of arrows on anybody that might come to try to attack the tower. And the idea of these muscles that hold our heads upright along those are our children, so to speak. As we do things right and we share the Word of God in so many different ways, then it's amazing how we end up with these spiritual children.

And they're going forth. So when you think back into your life, right, and I've talked about Ted Burton, how he discipled me in that time. I was in that meeting with over 200 men, and they asked, how many people here were discipled by Ted Burton?

And almost two-thirds of the people in the crowd lifted their hand. All of those, right, were from this one mighty man who used his shield of faith to create all these arrows. I mean, how spectacular is that? But I think of even more, like, I'm so blessed, I'm just so excited every day I get to meet such amazing people, and one of the people I get to record with every week is Nikita Koloff, right, the Russian nightmare. And you should hear him go make disciples. You know, he does his man camps and all that. And he has all these wonderful disciples. And I also get to meet with Dr. Duane Carson, who does Date the Word. And he has an understanding of Scripture that's unbelievable. And just yesterday, as we were recording, he was sharing with me how he's just this waitress he was talking to, and they talked about the Bible for a long, long, long, long time.

And how any time with Dr. Carson, it almost seems like you break out under a revival. Why? Does he have all these spiritual children, which you'll hear story after story?

Why? Because he's been doing all those things we talked about in the previous verses, right? He has the wisdom of the dove eyes, and he's got, right, the hair of the flock of Gilead that's in order. And he has understanding, and he has the counsel of the white teeth because he's been munching on the word of God. And he's got the lips that speak might because of the word of the promise. And he's got, right, these pomegranate knowledge cheeks that are full of the seeds of the word of God ready to spread that all over the place. Of course, of course he's got these amazing shields, right? And he's got this quiver that's just full of arrows.

And when you picture Jesus looking at his bride like that, oh my goodness, how lucky are we? I pray that today at some point you'll think about the people that poured into you that you would be an arrow. And if you want some fun, go look at the podcast page by show notes, and there you'll see what the muscles look like in the neck. Or you can just Google muscles of the neck, you'll see it. And if you don't see that as a sheath, I don't know what to tell you. There you go. Thanks for listening.