Song of Solomon 4:6 Jesus' Bitter Sweet Mountains

This is the Truth Network. Hidden treasures of the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. Oh, if we could master the verse today, I perhaps would be a key to the entire book, as clearly this is the va-verse or the continuation verse, which continues so many different things in the Song of Solomon in the fourth chapter. And so with the idea of the vav being, you know, number one delight in so many different ways, but also, you know, I will keep thy law continually for ever and ever is in the vav section of the 119 Psalms. So that idea of the vav is a continuation and we can't help but note that this verse before I give it to you is a continuation of what happened in chapter two and a continuation of what happened in chapter three and to be continued because it also lines up very much with the second to the last or even the last, excuse me, I think the last verse in the whole book. And so it's like it is to be continued. There's no doubt about that when it comes to this verse and unlocking it. Wow, I think there is so much here. It's just so much here. So we'll just get into it.

So here it is in English until the day break and the shadows flee away. I will get me to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. And you might remember, I hope you do, that, you know, in the second chapter we talked about that he leaped, you know, on the mountains and he skipped on the hill. So we see that mountains and hill exactly the same words. He used those again. And when we come to the end of the second chapter, you might remember Solomon uses these exact same words as the bridegroom is calling out to her beloved until the day breaks and the shadows flee, you know, turn and be like a young or like a heart, like a row or a young heart, a mile upon the mountains of Bethur.

Well, that mountains, note that she used a plural word for mountains, not one mountain, but two mountains. And so here he says, you know, in this particular verse, which is again, the sixth verse in the fourth chapter, he says, until the day breaks and the shadows flee, I will get thee to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. And wow. I mean, I have dug and dug and dug to try to see all that this is trying to tell us here. It's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

He has described his bride beautifully. And now he turns and talks about again, the sun. And you might even remember that's a continuation from the very first chapter where she said, I'm black, but comely and talking about how the sun had made her black, you know, because the sun, right. And that idea of the sun is, you know, a big deal for Solomon, obviously, until the day breaks and Rashi points out that then this is spectacular that this has to do with us being exposed to the sun and the sun meaning heat, meaning sin.

And so, you know, it's, it's a bitter thing. So we need based on our sin, Jesus to go essentially to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. So what are these mountains? Well, it's clear, clear, clear. Couldn't be more clear. Both Rashi and Matthew Henry point out that the word that is translated everywhere myrrh here is actually the exact same word that is in Chronicles that describes Mount Moriah. And it's, it's referenced actually with exactly the same Hebrew cipher. In other words that with the word Mount is made the same way and the word Moriah is made the same way, but yet here it's translated Mount of myrrh. And it gives you the idea that myrrh is the root word of the word Moriah.

And the idea that Mount Moriah was the temple is obviously extremely significant here. But they also the idea that myrrh means bitterness is also very much the idea here and the idea of the bitter, bitter offerings that, that, you know, death is a very bitter situation. Yet here we have this complete contrast as we have throughout the Song of Solomon with frankincense. So we have the bitter and then we have the sweet smell of frankincense, which you might recall from an earlier episode, we talk about these two because right back in the third chapter, you might remember as the beloved was coming out of the wilderness, she was perfumed with what?

Frankincense and myrrh. So once again, we see how this vav is just a continuation of something that he's teaching us throughout this. And we were perfumed with frankincense and myrrh again with the bitter and the sweet. In other words, the bitter testing that obviously went on in the wilderness and the sweet of victory that comes as a result of that. And here, you know, clearly we have this idea of, you know, the mountain of myrrh, which clearly has everything to do with Mount Moriah. And, and also, you know, you can't help but think when you think of the mountains in Jerusalem, that Zachariah 14, four talks about the Jesus is going to stand on the Mount of olives, right? And it's going to separate into a valley. And when you think about this, it actually says in Zachariah that it's going to cleave. Well, when you think about what she said to him in the second chapters, was she, was she said, be on the mountain of cleaving the mountain. We talked about this of this, of the covenant, which also has to do with the cleaving that, that, that happened with the sacrifices for Abraham. So again, it leaves you with all sorts of different things that you could be thinking about and deciding, you know, about where these land for you. Okay. I'm just throwing it all out there.

And I don't know that I can come down yet. When we get to the end of the book, we're going to study this all thought one more time because it comes at the very end. And I don't think we're going to completely understand it until we get to the end of the book. But we do know at this point in time that after describing his beloved, in other words, he couldn't seem to be more in love with the features of his bride. So because of that, he is now going to go to the very place of bitterness, which certainly I think myself is Mount Calvary, um, in order to have the sweet victory of the resurrection, which could be the Sepulchre or the Mount of Olives, where he had the sweet prayers.

I'm not sure on all that, but I think that he, the Mount Mer is, is certainly the place of sacrifice in the altar that's at Mount Mariah. So it's, it's, it's all very interesting, but the point of it is, I really, really think that where we think about this is we, if we're going to meet with Jesus, we need to be at the place of right repentance, that when you think about it, repentance itself in Matthew, Henry points this out is bittersweet. In other words, we've got this horrible sin, but it's so sweet that he forgave us. But it's also a point of, you know, if we are going to choose life, we have to choose death.

It's just the way it works, right? That, you know, he who seeks to lose his life will save it. Well, that works in so many different things in your life, right? If we lose what we want, which is sleep in the morning and we get up, we make a bit of a sacrifice and we spend time in his word, it's absolutely spectacular, right? Well, you know, the story I was going to use to illustrate this, this morning, you know, you, my wife, you know, gives up her life, gives up her life so much to help her mother. You know, that's a sacrifice. That's a great example.

But back in June, the one I really wanted to use was where I gave up something. In other words, the doctor, I went to the doctor and he said, Robbie, your A1c is 7.0, which my A1c had never been than a high. Yes, I'm diabetic if you did not know that. And this really, really concerned me. And I really, you know, prayed a lot like, God, what are we going to do here? Because, you know, I don't want to end up, you know, I've seen what happens to diabetics as far as losing their side and toes and eventually their kidneys and going through dialysis. And I, you know, we got to get this straight.

We got to get it right. Well, one of my struggles is my weight, like so many and what I eat, like so many. And I, so I think the Lord put it on me to, you know, bear down, to give up some life in order to get the sweet victory over my disease that I'm struggling with.

Right. And so I went on what would appear to be the direction of both diet and exercise. In other words, I'd already been exercising every morning, but I increased that significantly and began to walk a whole bunch more and ride my bike a whole bunch more. And at the same time, take out, take on fasting a whole lot more than I had been fasting as well as eating. Like I absolutely quit drinking beer. I absolutely quit eating bread.

You know, I gave up some things I really like and this was bitter for me. Okay. Like when I mow the lawn, I can't tell you how bad I want a beer. Okay. For those of you that offends, I'm sorry. I, you know, one beer, I'm good. But anyway, that is what I do. You know, it's just me.

I just want you to know I'm not hiding anything here. That's but I gave that up. You know, I was, I was, I was taking the bitter because of the sweet idea of, because I thought if I could lose it, I weighed 245 pounds at the time. I thought if I could lose 30 pounds that, you know, that would make a significant difference in my A1C. And quite honestly, as I was checking my blood sugar, I couldn't seem to get it down under 160, no matter what in the world I was doing for the first month.

Well, that started again in the 6th of June. And after I don't know how much of the bitter that I've enjoyed of not eating the things that I may have wanted and the exercise, which was also giving up that I can, I'm happy, happy, happy to report. I have the sweet feeling of knowing that I did lose my 30 pounds in two months that I now weigh 215, which almost blows my mind that I got there. And it's really a sweet thing to think, you know, God has allowed me that kind of healing.

And of course, I wish I could tell you that my blood sugar is completely under control, although I bet you right now, if they checked my A1C, it would be under 6, because most of the time it rests around 110 or 120. But every once while it still flares up telling me that I've got some ways to go before I could eat all that I want or drink all that I want. So, you know, that's coming. But I just thought it was a perfect example of how sometimes we have to embrace the bitter in order to get the sweet. And that's the idea of myrrh, which has also to do with the name Mary. And there's so much here. It's just spectacular. But I think as we go through our day to day, maybe we can think about, gee, Jesus, where would you have me take on the mountain of myrrh so that I could enjoy the hill of frankincense? Thanks for listening.