Song of Solomon 7:12 - Mary, Mary, How Does Your Garden Grow?

This is the Truth Network. Hidden Treasures of the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. Oh, the richness of the lamed verse. We get to study today the 12th verse in the seventh chapter of the Song of Solomon, and it is so rich.

I can't even really have to. Maybe another one of my favorites now that I have studied it a little bit today. So I'll just go ahead and read it in English and dig in. So the beloved, the bride of Christ, of course, now is speaking and telling her beloved in response to all the wonderful things he said about her, especially the part where he grabbed hold of the thorns for her. She now says, let us get up early to the vineyards. Let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear and the pomegranates bud forth.

There will I give thee my loves. How spectacular when you think about if you go back to the very beginning of the Song of Solomon, you might remember where she said that, you know, my mother's children were angry with me. My own vineyard I have not kept. Well, this has to do with her vineyard again. So interestingly, the word vine is very much connected to our souls. And of course, the lamed itself is our hearts.

And so, you know, it's kind of beautiful. In fact, it's really beautiful when you look at these words in Hebrew, the word vine and that it would flourish all have to do with—and I'll just read what my notes were this morning that I did. It read, a vine is the great presence of faith, that seeing is believing. Does my heart feel God is going to come through? And to flourish is the presence of our spirits.

In other words, there's a great presence that's there when the vine is in place. And in our vine, if it is, you know, believing in our heart of hearts, it's like the 119th Psalm, verse 75, you might recall, says—it's the yud section of the 119th Psalm where it says that I know, Lord, that Thy judgments are right, and in faithfulness Thou has afflicted me. In other words, when you look at this verse in your own soul—because, you know, back before we haven't intended our souls at the beginning of the chapter, now after all this communion and all that Jesus has done for us at this point in time, if our vine is flourishing and if all that is going on, then we are going to understand that all the horrible things that are going on in our life are the things that are disturbing us, the things that are difficult, you know. When I think about my own situation, do I really believe in my heart of hearts? You know, here in my vineyard, do I believe that Jesus—God is doing all this for my own good, that He's essentially the husband of this particular vine and the branches that we're talking about? And am I being pruned in an effort to bring forth more fruit? And does my heart really feel that, or do I feel like God has given me the short end of the stick, so to speak?

Maybe the short end of the branch. Well, you know, as I thought about that this morning, you know, one of the most difficult things I really have, and I don't understand why my son is not really speaking to me right now—I don't know, I can text him, he doesn't answer, I can call, he won't come to the phone even if I call him at work or whatever. And so, you know, it's really, really hard. I dearly, dearly, dearly love my son, and it is very, very difficult for me. So you can certainly pray for me in this, but I really search my heart and soul this morning to think, do I really believe that God is doing this for our good, for His benefit, my benefit? In other words, I don't understand what's going on, I really do not, but I just know in my hearts of hearts that I know that God's judgment is right, and in faithfulness He's afflicted us, right? And there's other things, where my wife and her mother's relationship is very difficult at times, and she lives with us, and I have to put that also in the category of God is doing something in that relationship for both my wife and my mother-in-law, and I know that His judgments are right, and in faithfulness He is afflicted us.

You know, when things go wrong with your finances, something goes through that, you know, the car all of a sudden has a struggle or whatever, you know, do I believe in my heart of hearts the moment that that strikes that God is at work, that God is doing something? And is my soul, you know, in that kind of shape, is the vine flourishing, and are the pomegranates budding? And so we talked about the vine and flourishing, and then the pomegranates have to do with the headship of the Word of God, right?

And the bud forth means that they're going to make things right. So, you know, I don't know in your life, and I love the idea of pomegranates being connected to the Word of God, and clearly in Rashi's commentary on this verse, he makes tremendous mention of that, that the study of Torah is the vine flourishing, and specifically the pomegranates budding, right? Because each one of those seeds in the pomegranates is essentially, you know, the seed of faith. And is that, like, you know, the Word of God itself is just filled with seeds.

I mean, it's just, you know, that's the whole beautiful thing about it. And so, you know, I can't help but consider, like, is the Word of God really flourishing in my life? You know, am I really getting things out of it?

Am I really growing in it? And again, I know I'm singing to the choir right here, that you're listening to this podcast, because the Word of God is important to you. And obviously, if you're sitting, studying this at such depth with me, that clearly this is, you know, bringing light into your life, it's bringing understanding into your life, it's bringing, you know, love, joy, peace, patience, all those things, the fruit of the Spirit, as the Holy Spirit illuminates these passages for us, you know, our pomegranates are blossoming because we're able to share, right, this fruit.

When you have fruit, you know, then obviously you're able to share fruit, and which is when she says she's going to give him her love. The neat thing about her love, this time, she says her love in the way that she refers to him as her beloved throughout the whole Song of Solomon, but when she says, I'm going to give you my love, what she says is, I'm going to give you the Dalet Vav Dalet, right, which is David's name, which is this idea of complete and continual serving of the one that you love. And when you think about the last verse in the Dalet section, I dearly love it, my, you know, I will run in the path of thy commandments when thou is in largest my hearts. In other words, I am so in love with you, God, I can just run with what you've told me to do, because I know that this is about your love, I know this is about fruit, and I know this is going to be beautiful and rich and all these things. And so to give him our love truly is to run in the path of his commandments.

And I love that she uses that Dalet Vav Dalet, the idea of David's name itself, is what she's going to give to Christ. And, you know, oh, that I could completely get there. And, you know, that's why I say this is all within our own hearts. In other words, in order for us to run and bear fruit and all these things, you know, our souls and our hearts are the vine that we have to tend before we go tending other people's vineyards.

Before we go planting seeds and all this stuff, we got to have good soil, we got to have a healthy vine, we got to have pomegranates that are budding. I love this verse. And I love the way that it just speaks to getting up early and doing these things, right?

I don't know. If you're like me, you know, I was up early this morning studying this. It's exactly what you do when it comes to your own soul. You get up early, you study the Word of God, and you spend time right on that vine with your soul being present, that great presence with God in this communion of out in the villages and out in the fields that we're experiencing here at the end of the seventh chapter. Thanks for listening.