Song of Solomon 1

Song of Solomon 1:5

SOLOMON’S BLACK BEAUTYSon_1:5.FOR forty-seven consecutive years I have been bringing to the assembled auditors texts, chapters and Books of the Bible; but up to this moment I have never spoken on “The Song of Solomon”, nor even discussed a single text from its eight chapters.This has been due to two circumstances: first, the wealth of the Word is such that no man need ever want for an appropriate, or an adequate text; and, second, the general theme of Solomon’s Song is of such a delicate nature that we have preferred to expend our time upon other Scriptures.However, in the long course of that series of studies, by which we are presenting to our auditors the entire Bible, we now reach this Book; and there is no sufficient reason why it should longer be passed over in silence.We agree absolutely with those interpreters of the Book who see in it an ardent expression of marital love as ordained of God in creation; and also the expression of the same as a type of the Heavenly relationship between Christ, the Bridegroom, and the Church, His Bride. We are not unmindful of Paul’s employment of this figure. Writing to the Church at Corinth, he said: I am jealous over you with Godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one Husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:2). It will also be remembered that John, in his Patmos vision, describes the Heavenly City after this manner, “I John saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21:2).Certainly the most beautiful and sacred of all earthly relations is that of husband and wife when the devotion is mutual and the love is sanctified.Keeping that in mind saves one from putting upon the Song of Solomon any false or fleshly interpretation, and enables him to see in it the type or symbol of the Divine, and, consequently, sacred affection.The most common, and perhaps the most correct interpretation of this Scripture sees in the first chapter a statement of a woman, dusky, if not black, in color, who had been selected by Solomon as one of his numerous wives or concubines, who reluctantly yielded to her king’s power to select whom he would, but who, in her heart, was devotedly loyal to a shepherd lover; and it is of him that she speaks in ardent affection.THE BLACK WIFEThis woman is sensible of her non-acceptable color. Hence her speech: “I am black, but comely”. That this blackness was more than a sunburn is evidenced from the language: “as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon”.Through the ages the Kedar tents were covered with black goat skins.

David, in one of those dark days when his distress was great, cried unto the Lord and said: “Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar” (Psalms 120:5)! So they have always been accepted as a type of the darkness of man’s estate in sin.It is not impossible therefore, that among the multitude of beauties selected by Solomon for his harem, there was one woman of the black race; in fact, the text would seem to clearly indicate that fact.

But, doubtless more nearly the East Indian than the negro type.Her speech, however, is more than an expression of conscious separation on account of color,It also involves an explanation of the race characteristics. Men are constantly discussing the origin of races. There are evolutionists who believe that the five more distinct races of the earth evidence the Darwin theory, and that men do not come from a common ancestry, but from different animal stocks.Such a suggestion is contrary to all the scientific data upon the subject. There is no indication that one branch of the monkey family evoluted into Japanese or Chinese—the yellow race; that another Simian branched into the black race, a third into the red race, a fourth into the white race, and so on. White monkeys are rare!The text has a far saner and more scientific suggestion, namely, “I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me”. The black peoples of the earth were found originally around the equator and doubtless were made black by the exposure to the sun, at its highest, through the centuries and millenniums.Dr.

Ysaburo Noguchi, a Japanese biologist, reported some months ago on a trip which he took into Brazil for the purpose of studying racial characteristics. He declared that he could almost build an infant to order through the use of ultra-violet rays and stimulation or diminution of glandular activity.

He said an infant’s growth may be retarded or increased and its stature, breadth of shoulder and other physical characteristics could be fixed. He even went so far as to affirm that “by electrical nutrition and glandular control, he could change an Indian into a Negro, or a Japanese into a Caucasian.”All such statements will be taken with extreme caution; but, if his claims could be proven true, they would only further emphasize the fact that all men are made of one blood; and that external influences and internal manipulation, such as possibly nature herself has employed, produces the racial differences to be found on the face of the earth.The circumstance that there is no sterility resulting from racial distinctions proves that man is one, and leaves it far easier to believe that a tropical sun would tend to create and fix color than to hold that different monkeys developed into different races of men.Still further, this woman does not favor interracial marriage. She esteemed the fact that the king, to secure whose heart was regarded an unspeakable honor, would show such affection for her as to give her the kiss of the mouth, and reveal toward her an ardor or love that was symbolized by the strength of wine, and had about it the aroma of precious ointment; yet she affirmed her unflagging affection for the far away shepherd, to whom she had given her love, and with whom she evidently preferred to spend her life.There was more in this decision than love itself; there was love based upon wisdom, for doubtless her shepherd lover was of the same race with herself. Whether she knew it or not, her decision to go to her own, if possible, was a decision of wisdom.Upon that many of the scientists of the present time lay special emphasis. William Archer, speaking of race mixture, says, “I do not believe that this is a true ideal of progress.” J. W.

Gregory tells us that the objection to intermarriage between the white and black is strongly developed in the Teutonic race, British, Dutch, and Scandinavian.” He also says, “The aversion to marriage with people of a different race is not limited to the whites. Mixed intercourse is regarded with even more intense repulsion by some of the higher classes of Indians, who regard every half caste as an insult to their national pride, and who feel intermarriage or intercourse between Indian women and European men as the most galling product of the British occupation of India.

The general dislike of miscegenation is expressed by the contempt in the term ‘mongrel’ and by the widespread belief that hybrids are inferior to both parents. Although holding to the improvement of the race by interbreeding, biologists admit that where two widely distinct races are in contact, the inferior qualities are not bred out, but may be emphasized in the progeny.”Beyond all question there is a national pride and selfishness that has little occasion—the feeling of an American that he is the world’s best man, of the Englishman that his like has not been found elsewhere on the face of the earth, and of the German that he is the special favorite of God. But these egoisms of nations are another thing from the distinction in races.Stoddard, in his “Racial Realities in Europe,” says, “In Southern Portugal the population is distinctly tinged with negro blood. The result is that the populations both of the southern country side and of the port towns show many negroid types. The effect of this African infusion upon the Portuguese stock has undoubtedly been a depressing one.”Robert Speer, the world traveler-supervisor of Presbyterian missions, in his volume, “Of One Blood,” tells us that in later Rome there was an almost universal intermixture of blood, and quotes Professor Tenney Frank as saying that perhaps ninety per cent of the free plebians in the streets of Rome in the time of Juvenal and Tacitus had oriental blood in their veins, and he has compiled equally remarkable statistics for various towns in Italy, Gaul, and Spain. He concludes, “It is evident, that the whole empire was a melting pot and that the oriental was always and everywhere a large part of the ore.”And then Speer adds, “Some lay the fall of Rome to this amalgamation.” Professor Conklin, of Princeton, says, “The present tendency to the breaking down of isolation and the commingling of races is a reversal of the processes by which those races were established.”It is a fact, as Conklin declares, that the present conditions of life are exactly such as to finally break down all these walls of partition and bring about a commingling of all existing human types, but it may also be true, as Conklin contends, that the race itself is degenerating just as rapidly as this hybridization is taking place.Only a few weeks ago there walked into my study one Saturday afternoon a Chinaman of about fifty-five summers and an American girl of twenty-four.

The Chinaman announced to me that they had come to get married. I looked them over and announced to him that they had come to the wrong place.

In my heart I was extremely glad for the difference in age, for it provided me a better justification of my refusal to unite them in marital bonds; but as a matter of fact, the difference in race was also effective with me, for I have yet to learn of a union of people of utterly distinct race who found in the marriage bond the fulfilment of their dreams and hopes for happiness.But we pass on toTHE BLACK LIFEAs we have already said, this whole Book of the Song of Solomon is filled with symbolic truths. This girl’s statement, “I am black, but comely”, contains some instructive and precious suggestions.Color can, and does signify character. Job, as he sat miserable in his sufferings and covered with boils that doubtless broke and scabbed, said, “My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat”. It was to him at that time both a literal and typical truth. He knew himself to be afflicted, and he feared that he had lost the Divine favor so that the sight of his person seemed black, and the day itself deepened into night. Jeremiah, writing of Israel’s estate, seems to have lost all hope as he looked upon their graven images and was made familiar with their strange vanities, and he cried in despair, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved”, and then he adds, “For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black, astonishment hath taken hold on me” (Jeremiah 8:20-21).

It is easy to see his meaning, “I am staggered by what I see, the world around me seems black, and sin has brought it about!”Mrs. Jameson says, “We find colors used in a symbolical or mystic sense * * .

White, represented by the diamond of silver, was the emblem of light, religious purity, innocence, virginity, faith, joy, and life. Our Saviour wears white after His resurrection.In the judge it indicated integrity; in the sick man, humility; in the woman, chastity.Red, the ruby, signified fire, Divine love; the Holy Spirit, heat, or the creative power and royalty. White and red roses express love and innocence or love and wisdom. In a bad sense, red signifies blood, war, hatred and punishment.Blue, or the sapphire, expressed Heaven, the firmament, truth, fidelity. Yellow, or gold, was the symbol of the sun, of the goodness of God. Black expresses the earth, darkness, mourning, wickedness, death, and was appropriate to the Prince of darkness.”How true it is to the feelings of life, and how many a man, how many a woman, has been compelled to say, “I am black”, as he or she reflected upon conduct, or even upon fixed character itself.

It always means that one is self-condemned, that one sees how sin has conquered in him.Color also can express conscious sorrow. It did in the instance of Jeremiah for he says, “For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black”!

He seems to have voiced that fact in this very instance for the Shulamite woman hastens to say “My mother’s children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept”. This is an indication that because of her color they had driven her out, they had put her away, they had made her an outcast, so to speak; they had not even permitted her to take care of her own vineyard, but to do the slave’s part of taking care of theirs, first.It is altogether probable that this might have been one of those instances where, through mixed marriage, a child had taken on the color of a remote ancestor, and while the members of the house were of the same family, there was by inheritance, a black sheep of the flock. There is a statement that runs curiously, “There is one black sheep in every flock,” and it is supposed to apply to the sinful one in an ordinary and medium-sized family; but like its illustration, it is only partially true. And yet history compels us to face the fact that it is often true. Some one who has turned his back upon God; some one who, like the prodigal, has taken his portion of the goods and wasted it in riotous living; some one who has descended to swinish associates and to starvation wages—such are “black” as we employ terms.But, blessed be God, we may add this further remark, and base it upon the text:Color is changeable; it is not forever fixed. Isaiah, the great Prophet, gives us this conception when he voiced the Word of the Lord, “Come, now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool”.There are known chemicals that can change color completely, that can take out stains, that can remove spots; but there is no chemical that has such power as the Blood of Christ.

It can cleanse from all sin; it can change black to white. That is why Daniel himself could say: “Many shall be purified, and made white”.But this text has a further suggestion—THE BASIS OF BEAUTYThere is a natural beauty about the unregenerate.

If we accept this language as typical we must take it at its face value, “I am black, but comely”.Can it be true? Is a man in his unregeneracy wholly offensive to God? Or is there something in him that God sees and that God loves? We have long believed and held that the Bible clearly teaches that God beholds beauty in the unregenerate man. He has not forgotten that man was made originally in the Divine image, and He does not ignore the fact that though the fall degenerated and scarred and stained, much of that original beauty remained. The Psalmist is speaking of his physical frame when he says, “I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are Thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well”.We are told that Gothold, hearing a young woman praised for her beauty, asked, “What kind of beauty did you mean; merely that of the body or that also of the mind?” We ourselves see in men and women about us, manifold evidences of their Divine creation; and in spite of all that they have suffered through the fall, and in consequence of six thousand years of sin, there is enough of beauty left in many a natural man to justify God’s statement made after man was completed, namely, that He “saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good”.However, the original beauty is to be recovered by redemption. The black color will in no wise detract from the face of him in whom Christ is reflected, the hope of glory; for when we see Christ in a man, it little concerns us whether he is yellow, red, white, or black; there is beauty there!The “Watchman-Examiner” sometime since published a poem, author unknown, which read: “I slept. I dreamed. I seemed to climb a hard ascending trackAnd just behind me labored one whose face was black,I pitied him, but hour by hour he gained upon my path.He stood beside me, stood upright, and then I turned in wrath.‘Go back,’ I cried, ‘what right have you to stand beside me here?”“I paused, struck dumb with fear, for lo!The black man was not there—but Christ stood in his place!And oh! the pain, the pain, the pain that looked from that dear face.”Lawrence Dunbar, the great negro poet of the South, beautifully expresses the thought that Christ is no respecter of persons, but loves the white and the black alike, for Dunbar gives us his interpretation of the parable of the ninety and nine, and it reads after this manner:“THE LIL’ BRACK SHEEP“Po lil’ brack sheep dat strayed away, One los’ in de win’ an’ de rain.An’ de Shepherd He say, ‘O hirelin’, Go fin’ My sheep again.’An’ de hirelin’ say, ‘O shepherd Dat sheep am brack and bad.’But de Shepherd He smile, like dat lil’ brack sheep Wuz de onliest lamb He had.“An’ He say, ‘O hirelin’, hasten, For de win’ and de rain am col’,’An’ dat hirelin’ frown: ‘O Shepherd, At sheep am ol an’ gray!’But de Shepherd He smile, like dat lil’ brack sheep Wuz fair as de break ob day.“An’ He say, “O hirelin’ hasten. Lo! here is de ninety an’ nine,But dere, way off f’um the sheep fol’, Is dat lil’ brack sheep of Mine!’An’ de hirelh’ frown: ‘O Shepherd, De res of de sheep am here!’But de Shepherd He smile, like dat lil’ brack sheep He hol’ it de mostes’ dear.“An’ de Shepherd go out in de darkness Where de night wus col’ and bleak,An’ dat lil’ brack sheep, He fin’ it, An’ lay it against His cheek.An de hirelin’ frown, O Shepherd, Don’ bring dat sheep to me!’But de Shepherd He smile, an’ hol’ it close, An’ dat lil’ brack sheep wuz—me!”He is no respecter of persons; He loves all alike, and the love that seeks and saves the black sheep can also cleanse the blackest soul and make it white as wool; yea, white as snow.Thank God that this love is both sufficient and unfailing. You recall the story of George Matheson, the young man who was engaged to the girl of his choice and as the wedding day approached his eye sight troubling him, he consulted a Doctor who after a thorough examination, said, “I am sorry to tell you, Sir, but in a short time you will be totally blind.”He hurried to the home of his beloved and broke the sad news to her and she instantly broke the engagement, saying, “I cannot bind my life to a blind man.”It is difficult to blame her, for such a future would be filled with dark forebodings; but having been thus rejected by human love, he turned to the Lord, in his pitiful estate, and found a compensation in love Divine. And you will remember that Matheson then wrote that marvelous hymn: “O Love that wilt not let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee;I give Thee back the life I owe,That in Thine ocean depths its flow May richer, fuller be.“O Light that followest all my way, I yield my flickering torch to Thee;My heart restores its borrowed ray,That in Thy sunshine’s blaze its day May brighter, fairer be.“O Joy that seekest me thro’ pain, I cannot close my heart to Thee;I trace the rainbow thro’ the rain,And feel the promise is not vain That morn shall tearless be.“O Cross that liftest up my head, I dare not ask to fly from Thee;I lay in dust life’s glory dead,And from the ground there blossoms red Life that shall endless be.”Paul, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, tells us that “charity (love) never faileth”. But he must have meant love Divine, the love of God that forgives, saves, and, for all eternity, will diminish in naught! The love that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”.