147: John Pople - The Siren from Lebanon

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   Welcome to Good Christadelphian Talks. I'm Levi. And I'm Chris. And I'm Brian. Thank you for joining us this week. On this podcast, we select one talk a week to help us get the Bible in our daily news feed. We post a new episode at the start of each week, with a short intro beforehand to kind of set the stage for the talk you're about to listen to.

2. 0:33

   And now, let's talk more about this week's talk. Hello and welcome. For this week, we have a special guest with me. My wife, Kristen, is here with me to do the intro for this one, as we are going to be listening to class two from Brother John Popel's class from Palm Springs 2019.

3. 1:05

   This weekend is actually our 10th anniversary. And on our drive up, we were driving up the coast in California. We had a long drive to get up to where we were going to stay for our anniversary and get away. We were listening to a bunch of different classes. And this was one of them that we had recommended for us to listen to.

4. 1:20

   So we loaded it up on my phone and we were listening to it on the whole drive up. So we thought it would be fun to listen to this one on Song of Solomon thinking it's our anniversary and it's a nice book all about love and how nice that would be. And we always love classes by Brother John Popel.

5. 1:39

   It was definitely not what we expected it to be. But it was an amazing series. And personally, I will never look at the book of Song of Solomon the same again. Brother John pulled out amazing lessons and really used all of scripture to really prove a lot of the points. So it was a huge blessing to listen to it.

6. 2:00

   Yeah, I definitely think a lot of people will walk into listening to a series on the Song of Solomon thinking one thing. And when you get to the end of this series, you will walk out with a completely different perspective on the book. As always, Brother John's style is fun to listen to.

7. 2:17

   He cracks jokes with the audience throughout this entire series, which makes it fun to listen to. I would highly recommend this entire series. And we're going to get it posted on the Good Christophine Talks extended series for you to be able to listen to. We picked class two just because it was the one that sort of stood on its own the best out of the five classes that were in this series.

8. 2:39

   But highly recommend all of them. He really lays the groundwork for a lot of the ideas that he presents in class two in the following classes. And then class five in particular really hammers it home with a lot of the lessons that you can take from this sort of new perspective on the Song of Solomon.

9. 2:55

   So highly recommend those. Also, this is kind of an intro of intros. Also wanted to let everybody know and introduce Brother James de Liberto, who will be doing the podcast for the next month of July. Introing some talks and giving Levi, myself and Brian a break for the month. So thank you, James, for being willing to do that, for being a guest host.

10. 3:19

    We're super excited to have you and to be able to hear what talks you have planned for the next four weeks. As always, this one was a recommendation. I remember we got a couple of recommendations for it shortly after Brother John gave the class at the Palm Springs Bible School back in 2019.

11. 3:35

    Please continue to send in those recommendations. They're really important to us. We always appreciate those. So with that, we're going to turn it over to Brother John Popel for his second class from his series, The King Who Fell, The Mystery of the Song of Solomon, from the Palm Springs Bible School in 2019.

12. 3:53

    Good morning again. Whoa, that's a bit loud. Good morning. Yeah, okay. Just wipe the blood from your ears and we'll make a start. So this is our second session. What did we achieve yesterday? We didn't build a lot of positive exposition. All we achieved was really clearing the ground. I see the Bible and the Song of Songs as part of that Bible as a plot of land on which we can build solid exposition.

13. 4:23

    And perhaps there were some structures in the way that we moved aside. Lovely to adopt the idea that the song relates to Christ and his bride. What a beautiful picture that is. But it's not what the song is about. And I think we demonstrated that quite clearly. We saw that violence in the streets of Jerusalem precludes the possibility that that song can be in the Kingdom Age.

14. 4:44

    The sexual consummation of the couple precludes the possibility of it being before the Kingdom Age. And the fact that he never mentions God, that he needs mortal bodyguards, and that he's owned, sealed by the woman, not the owner, preclude it being Jesus Christ at any time before, during, or even after the Kingdom.

15. 5:06

    So a lot more information than that. But that's just a brief synopsis of where we got to yesterday. So now we have some clear ground on which to build a hypothesis. And I'll give you a start up front. It's bad form to actually think of an idea and then go through the Bible trying to fit it.

16. 5:23

    That's not what I did. But by the end of doing the study, I ended up with the hypothesis that this is a book that talks about the danger of love without God. Love that otherwise has no flaw whatsoever, but has no God. And what ends up happening to Solomon, therefore, who was formerly a disciple of God, is he is led away by his beautiful wife and by his beautiful wives down the path of other gods.

17. 5:51

    And that's why you're looking at this image, by the way. That's why this image is seen as the pictures of a thousand words, the thousand word summary, if you will, of what I'm saying. You have a beautiful woman who identifies herself as dark-skinned, leading a man away down a pathway of false gods.

18. 6:08

    I don't mean this to be an attack on Buddhism. It just lent itself as a very handy image by which to prescribe that. So that's where we are. Now, let's look at the song. Let's see what we see. If the couple are not Jesus and his multitudinous ecclesia, who then are they? We already know he wears the word Solomon, but who are they?

19. 6:28

    Now, if you look at most of the professors and the secular expositors, they too deny that Solomon is a character in the song, despite his being mentioned seven times. For example, one professor from Berkeley might say, King Solomon is a central figure in the lover's fantasies, not a character in the poem. And similarly, another one would say, the two lovers are every man and every woman, the idea of a generic representation, and they have nothing to do with Solomon.

20. 6:57

    Or again, King Solomon is not one of the characters of the song. So they all make these confident assertions, but allow surprisingly little evidence for why they conclude that. Now, I have no trouble dismissing their opinions, and I'll tell you, because that's how I'm made. But also, for this reason, you may remember this slide from yesterday, I default to their expertise in Hebrew absolutely and without challenge, as long as they are operating in the arena of translation.

21. 7:27

    When they're trying to tell me what English words belong to these indecipherable squiggles, I submit to them absolutely and without caveat. However, once you have an English text, then you have the job of exposition, from taking text to actual spiritual meaning. I feel confident to operate here. I feel confident to own this as my kitchen, so to speak.

22. 7:51

    And when these interlopers clamber in through the kitchen window, I have no difficulty in shooing them away with a rolling pin. Okay? So that's, when we're here, I'm in charge, I say to them. But when we're here, I will listen to them absolutely. It's difficult in any event to translate the Song of Solomon or to understand it.

23. 8:12

    And for two separate reasons. Firstly, it's Hebrew. And secondly, it's poetry. And those are two separate problems. Hebrew is extremely succinct. There's only four words there. And those four words become nine English words. That's normal. That's not a representative sample size. But if you look at the whole Torah, it's about 80,000 words.

24. 8:34

    The English translations, and there are many of them, are all on average about 150,000 to 160,000 words. There's a two-to-one ratio between Hebrew to English. The less words you use, the more ambiguity there may be. Right? Text messages are easier to misunderstand than a full email. You know, you get that text message from your wife saying, get loaf bread.

25. 8:59

    Okay. If they have eggs, get 12. Okay. And you go home with 12 loaves of bread, and she's mad. And you think, there's no logic. But the Song of Songs is also poetry, and that's a problem. And here's why that's a problem for understanding. I am a professional scientist, and my summary of science would be, the job of a scientist is to take the most complex things in the entire universe and explain them as simply as possible.

26. 9:29

    And the job of a poet is the exact opposite. Right? And you have this lovely, lovely, illusory, allegory language, and you read it, and by verse 17, you're like, oh, he's talking about a flower. Who knew? Right? And so that's a problem. So if you've got Hebrew, that's a problem. If you've got poetry, that's a problem.

27. 9:46

    If you've got Hebrew poetry, never let it be said that our father doesn't have a sense of humor. Here's some Hebrew poetry. Understand this. And you think, oh, great. Next thing you'll be telling me is written backwards.

28. 10:01

    Here's why, or here's a typical form of someone asserting that King Solomon is not the man called King Solomon in the poem. And I'm going to show you how weak these arguments are. Unfortunately, these arguments do show up in our own community, but in order to make things safe, I have chosen the identical arguments as presented by an Anglican minister who's trying to convince his flock that King Solomon is not in the song.

29. 10:25

    You end up with a verse. Look, it is Solomon's carriage, to which the expositor asserts, the two lovers are every man and every woman, and they have nothing to do with Solomon. Well, that doesn't follow immediately for me, but okay. The king. Again, part of the royal fiction. Why? A banquet hall where a king might dine.

30. 10:49

    Solomon. Perhaps in the girl's imagination. These are seriously advanced arguments. I understand why you're laughing. I laugh too, but it's extraordinary. Now, here's a good one. Look at King Solomon wearing the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding. Okay, get out of that one. Watch this. We have distanced ourselves from the idea that a strong narrative thread can be found in the song.

31. 11:16

    This enables us to avoid the difficult questions posed by the passage. The purpose of the expositor, apparently, is to avoid what the text is saying. Because by avoiding the text, what the text says, his idea stays intact. That is not good exposition. Don't do that. Okay? Let's instead respect the text, even if it costs us our favorite idea, and just listen to what God is saying to us.

32. 11:45

    Sixty queens there may be, and eighty concubines. Many have tried to reconcile these numbers with Solomon's harem, but we do not need to be concerned with such matters. The reference is non-specific. This is apparently a non-specific sixty and a non-specific eighty. Who knew? And a prince's daughter, the like of which a king might marry.

33. 12:08

    We are under no obligation to take it literally. Well, you're under no obligation to read the book in the first place if you don't want to. I mean, if it troubles you, leave it alone. I mean, if God really were referencing Solomon, as I suggest he is, what are the language we expect to see?

34. 12:22

    This is the language you'd expect to see. This is the language we have. So, to phrase it as another brother has put it, there are seven references to Solomon explicitly in the song. I've listed them there. Look, it is Solomon's carriage escorted by sixty warriors, the noblest of Israel. Apart from the title, writes Brother Whittaker, Solomon's Song of Songs, six times the king in the story is called Solomon, so it seems absurd to attempt to change his identity.

35. 12:49

    Bluntly put, and I agree with him. Thereafter we had sort of different ideas, but that much at least, I say absolutely. And that was published, what, more than fifty years ago. Can you believe that?

36. 13:01

    So, but there's more reason than that. Just in case any doubt remains. There is more reason than that to see Solomon as the male character of the song. If Solomon is the male character, then some of what the character says has special and deep meaning. But if it's not Solomon, it's kind of pointless to see why the king would say such a thing.

37. 13:23

    Let me show you. And in fact, we'll see how this allows the Bible, we'll be using the Bible to unlock the song. Let me show you how that works. Here are three quotes. For example, I liken you, my darling, to a mare among Pharaoh's chariot horses. Ignore the slight cultural mismatch here. You know, sort of, hey honey, you look like a horse.

38. 13:41

    Apparently that's a winning line. I haven't tried it myself, but then I'm single and he had a thousand women, so who knows? We'll give it a roll. Henna, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon with every kind of incense tree with myrrh and aloes and all the finest spices. Why is that interesting? It's interesting because some of these spices, cinnamon, for example, do not belong in Israel.

39. 14:06

    That is a non-native spice to Israel. So it shouldn't be there. Why is it there? How is it there? And how does this king, whoever he is, know how every type of thing, spice is? I mean, I've seen scenes like this in Southeast Asia particularly. I look at it, I'm like, I have no idea what any of those are.

40. 14:23

    This guy knows. Sixty queens there may be and eighty concubines and virgins beyond number, but my dove, he says, my perfect one is unique. And what I want to show you is that these verses have special meaning if Solomon said them, and otherwise it's bizarre that they were said at all. Let's start at the bottom here.

41. 14:41

    Sixty queens there may be and eighty concubines and virgins beyond number, but my dove, my perfect one is unique. So he's saying to her, and again, ignore the cultural mismatch, you are my favourite wife. Now, Valentine's Day has just passed, has it not? And I wonder how many of you lucky ladies in this room got a note from your husband saying, you are my favourite wife.

42. 15:07

    And you're like, yeah, I'm sure you did, Duncan, I have every confidence. I think it went to the right person. And Gillian would have replied, gee, thanks. This is not a very meaningful compliment unless you actually have a large harem of wives. And Solomon, this is a well-known fact, of course, Solomon held fast to his wives in love.

43. 15:33

    He had 700 wives of royal birth, 300 concubines, and his wives led him astray. And you might say, well, I want to know more about that because that's possible today to be led astray by someone you're in love with. Yeah, right, that's right, yes. Well, he can lead himself astray quite competently, I'm sure.

44. 15:53

    Solomon fell deeply in love with multiple queens and concubines. The rest of Israel's citizens and the rest of Israel's kings largely did not. So this has meaning, has relevance if it's spoken by Solomon. And this is the least important of the three. Yet, it is not a signature fact associated with other kings.

45. 16:12

    So notice how the Bible is helping us understand the Bible. You know you're on the right track when you're letting the Bible interpret itself. Nor is Jesus wedded to multiple churches, is he? See, again, if you want to go with this, you know, because the bride, the single bride is supposed to be the multitudinous ecclesia, and Jesus is saying, you know, you're my favourite wife, the true church.

46. 16:34

    I'm also married to Catholicism, I'm married to Islam, and I'm married to Buddha, and I'm married to Hare Krishna, but you're my favourite. Is that right? Is that what you see? I don't sit with that myself. The true church would not be his favourite of many wives. His true church, which itself is multitudinous in terms of humans, is his one and only bride.

47. 16:58

    So this can't be Jesus. We knew that already. Henna, nard, and saffron, calamus, and cinnamon. Who knows what calamus looks like? Honestly now, who would recognise calamus? Wow, it's just me, and I'm lying. I have no idea what it looks like. Okay. There's spikenard. Spikenard, which interestingly has sedative properties. You can lull someone to sleep with it, which is an interesting spiritual meaning here, but don't have time for that unfortunately.

48. 17:28

    So, what we need is an expert botanist to recognise all these. Who's an expert botanist? Solomon spoke about plant life from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the walls. I don't need that verse. That is a useless verse to me. Oh, except until today when it helped me unlock the Song of Songs.

49. 17:48

    That's handy. We're letting the Bible interpret itself and we didn't need that verse really for anything else. And anyway, cinnamon shouldn't be there. Calamus also shouldn't be there. It's not native to Israel. So how did it get in? Sorry? Sorry. Is there any evidence of that? Could have been the wives? Queen of Sheba.

50. 18:14

    Never again were so many spices brought into Israel as those the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon. Oh, look. So if we let the Bible interpret itself, it tells us why there are foreign spices in Israel at the time of King Solomon, not necessarily any other time. So this is very handy.

51. 18:33

    It's telling us things we need to know in a mysterious book. Solomon possessed non-native spices via the Queen of Sheba and was expert enough to recognize them. The majority of Israel's other citizens could not and did not. And finally, that interesting verse, I liken you, my darling, to a mare among Pharaoh's chariot horses.

52. 18:56

    Who knows about Egyptian horses? How do you know that? Solomon's horses were imported from Egypt. Well done, Max. And from Kuei, wherever that is, they imported a chariot from Egypt for 600 shekels of silver and an horse for 150. This is the man who knows about Pharaoh's chariot horses. No one else does.

53. 19:17

    Who tells us that? The Bible. The reliable source. I'm not digging through history for any of this stuff. History is all sorts of shades of unreliable. Some is true, some is false. Who knows? I was written by the winner, right? But the Bible, that's reliable. Solomon knew about Pharaoh's chariots and horses. The majority of Israel's citizens did not.

54. 19:36

    Therefore, if we let the Bible interpret itself, the man who knew about Egyptian horses, the man who had imported spices and knew how to recognize them, the man who had 60 queens and 80 concubines and virgins without number was, according to 1 Kings 10, 4, 10, 11, the man Solomon. These comments are only meaningful and to some extent only possible if they are uttered by the one with the relevant experience and that is King Solomon and it's not anybody else.

55. 20:06

    So if we listen to the Bible, it explains itself. Clearly, and unambiguously. Solomon is the male character of the song and I won't be offering any further proof. I mean, there's some extra stuff in the book but I won't be offering any further proof today. I think that's just nailed down. So we will be taking the guy called Solomon as Solomon.

56. 20:25

    It's a funny thing when you have to spend a day and a half to get there but, you know, such is the state of Christianity and to some extent our community that that is constantly disputed and I think it doesn't need to be disputed. The bride, I assert, is from Lebanon. Why would I say such a thing?

57. 20:45

    Come with me from Lebanon, my bride. Come with me from Lebanon. I'm a simple man at heart. And furthermore, the fragrance of your garments is like that of Lebanon. You're a garden fountain, a well of flowing water streaming down from Lebanon. Your nose is like the Tower of Lebanon looking toward Damascus. Allow me to go out on a limb and say the bride is from Lebanon.

58. 21:12

    Or, Sidonian if you like because the capital city of Lebanon today is Beirut. Hold on, Jeff. But at that time was Sidon. So if you see Sidonians cropping up in the Bible, that's Lebanese. So now it's Beirut and Sidon is still there in Lebanon. It's the third biggest city. Biggest is Beirut. Second biggest is, I think, Haifa.

59. 21:35

    And the third is Sidon. It was then the capital. So she's a Sidonian or Lebanese. What else isn't she? True. She's dark-skinned. She says she's dark-skinned. She can't be the bride of Christ, can she? She's Lebanese. Right? Lebanon has been at war with Israel for literally thousands of years. Beirut and Jerusalem are lobbing bombs at each other and always have been, both literally and metaphorically, time immemorial.

60. 22:04

    Why do I bother to point this out? I bother to point this out because we claim we understand the Bible and can exposit it to others. So you might get a call. There's an excellent website, preaching website. This is your Bible. Is that what it's called? This is your Bible. And I know Brother David, Brother Duncan, Sister Jan, I think, and others fielding questions from that site.

61. 22:26

    Well, what if someone rings you up and said, oh, I'm really interested. I understand that, you know, the Song of Solomon is between Jesus and the church as the female. That's great. But obviously, she's Lebanese and so that's really interesting. So is it true Jesus sides with Hamas? Jesus supports Beirut, not Jerusalem.

62. 22:45

    Is that right? Is that what you teach? You'll be like, no, no, no, of course we don't teach that. You'll be like, well, the bride is Lebanese. And you might say, well, no, no, no, not really. Well, you can't say that, can you? That's going to fall. So how can you have your Lebanese bride marrying your Messiah and yet have your Messiah on the side of Jerusalem, not on the side of Hamas in Beirut?

63. 23:03

    You've got a problem. Right? These and the beliefs of the Song of Song are not matters of salvation in my opinion. I doubt they are in anyone's opinion. That's fine. But they are matters of credibility. I'm very interested in frontline preaching. I have the privilege to be able to do it a lot.

64. 23:19

    There's Brother Shane and a number of you here. So we have to have credibility and if we're going to have credibility, we have to know what we're talking about. This bride is Lebanese. Cannot be the bride of Christ. The bride of Christ can, of course, be multinational, right? Because people from other folds, from many nations, will be brought into the bride of Christ, including the United States and Canada and New Zealand and the United Kingdom and France and Germany and possibly Australia and many, many nations.

65. 23:48

    So multinational, sure. Or she can be uninational, singular, as long as it's Israel, as long as it's Jewish, right? What she cannot be is of one nationality which isn't Israel. Particularly not Israel's enemy. That's not a good choice. Okay? So there's consequences of the fact that she's Lebanese both then as they would be now.

66. 24:09

    She's foreign. She's not a daughter of Jerusalem. And the point being that not that she's, that there's some sort of racism justified, but the point is she'll have a different God. Who do the Lebanese, who would the Lebanese back then have worshipped? The Sidonians. Baal. Baal. Actually, Ashtoreth. Not Baal. Baal was the resident one, right, from the Canaanites.

67. 24:31

    Ashtoreth and she, ironically, was a goddess. Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, the goddess of the Lebanese. So she's presented in the song as a counterpoint to the daughters of Jerusalem who are the citizens of Jerusalem, both male and female, hence that male grammar. And so she's the wrong wife, is a simple way to put it.

68. 24:52

    She's the wrong wife. And Solomon says, yes, I want the wrong wife because she's pretty. That's where we are. So there's a tension because of her different religion, her different God. And it gets mentioned. She brings it up herself. If only you were, to me, like a brother, if only we were the same nationality, then if I find you outside, I would kiss you and no one would despise me.

69. 25:13

    But as it is, there's all this tension and hostility because I'm Lebanese and you're Jewish. She comments on that. Modern commentators will also argue that the couple are not married because of their separate domiciles. In other words, you know, grooms do not live apart from brides. And they go, yeah. Well, grooms generally don't live apart from brides.

70. 25:36

    Is there any exception? Does the Bible tell us about an exception? Solomon. Remember that? Solomon brought Pharaoh's daughter up from the city of David i.e. out of the city of David to a separate palace he'd built for her because he said, my wife, and the reasoning is fascinating at the time, my wife must not live in the palace of David, king of Israel because the places of the ark of the Lord has entered are holy.

71. 26:03

    Wow. How that changed, eh? But that's how it started. So he did build separate palaces and once you've got a thousand wives you kind of need to, I suppose. Certain amount of cat fighting on the stairs and all that sort of thing. So you will need separate places. Here is therefore Solomon's legacy and in a way a description that the song will expand upon and teach us more things.

72. 26:26

    King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women. Besides Pharaoh's daughter, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, Lebanese, and Hittites. They were from the nations about which the Lord had said, you mustn't intermarry with them because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods. Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. 700 wives, 300 concubines, his wives led him astray.

73. 26:49

    His wives turned his heart after other gods. His heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God as the heart of David his father had been. He followed, guess who gets listed first? He followed Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Lebanese. I wonder why he'd mention that one first. And Molech, the detestable god of the Ammonites.

74. 27:09

    So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord. He did not follow the Lord completely as his father, David his father had done. Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Lebanese, suggests he had a favourite bride, perhaps, who was Lebanese. Where might we read about that? We're reading about it. We're reading about how this happened.

75. 27:27

    And notice the reason he had so many wives? Because he kept falling in love with every pretty thing that walked by. It has been said that Solomon had so many wives because he was a super smart politician and he forged alliances with the surrounding countries to keep peace. You ever heard that? Please don't repeat that.

76. 27:46

    That is so wrong. Right? You know, I mean, it's wrong on so many different levels. Let's start with the arithmetic. How many surrounding countries? 700. Yeah. Good. Yeah. How many surrounding countries? What, 10? 15? Even with local baronies? 20? Plus 980 spare wives? Good. Good. Just in case. So the arithmetic doesn't work.

77. 28:10

    You know what else? The politics doesn't work either. You say, oh, I'll just be nice to every single fractured group and they'll all love me. No, because someone's going to say, yes, marry my daughter, don't you dare marry his. Right? That's how Iran and Iraq would be. You side with me or them.

78. 28:26

    You marry one of each, I'll still start war with you. Right? That's how it works, isn't it? Otherwise, it'd be great. Wouldn't it be like, okay, I'll just break bread with the amended, the unamended, the COGAF, and everyone will love me. Yes. Hmm, doesn't work that way. And it doesn't work that way for Solomon.

79. 28:42

    So it doesn't work on a political level, doesn't work on an arithmetic level, and the Bible contradicts it. Why was there peace in the time of Solomon?

80. 28:53

    Well done. Excellent. What I heard there was, because God made it so. And God made it so, because he loved David. And God said, I loved your father. I will give you peace, because I loved your father. So let's not take praise away from the father, where it belongs, for bringing peace, and try and give it to Solomon, on the basis of political acumen, that he never had.

81. 29:18

    He just fell in love, every ten minutes. And had the power to do something about it, in an acquisitory sense. Let's press on. We're in a world without God, in the song, right? I've expanded the idea, the idea, the fact is, there is no mention of God in the song. So they're living in a world, that doesn't recognize, or doesn't mention God.

82. 29:39

    Now, if you don't have God, you might expect, there wouldn't be any oaths sworn. Because you usually swear an oath, don't you, in the name of your God. We're advised not to do that now, and rightly so. But, you would swear an oath, if you were going to, in the name of God.

83. 29:52

    Oaths are still sworn, in the song, but, of course, not in the name of God. If they don't recognize a God, well then, you know, because she doesn't know Israel's God, and he's trying desperately, to forget about him, so that he can do whatever he wants. We all do that. Okay? So, how are the oaths sworn?

84. 30:09

    Did you notice? I adjure you, she says, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles, or does of the field. You ever sworn in the name of a gazelle? Not sure how effective it is, but there you go. Why a gazelle, of all things? And perhaps there's only one available answer. She says, my beloved is like a gazelle.

85. 30:31

    Look, there he stands. And he says, well your breasts are like twin fawns, of a gazelle. So what are they swearing by? They're swearing by themselves. And why would you swear by yourself? You swear by yourselves, because you can swear by no greater. And when you have no God, you are the greatest.

86. 30:52

    God himself says, I swear by myself, because I can swear by no greater. And so do they. So if they see themselves as gazelles, they're going to swear by the gazelles, because that's what they are. Why gazelle, I don't really know. But the fact that they're swearing by themselves, shows me, yes, they recognize no God.

87. 31:13

    Chronology. When was this written? The Hebraic experts actually disagree, so we can't submit to them very easily. Some go all the way back to 10 BC, to Solomon's time. Others come as much as 700 years forward. So you've got anything with a 700 year range to choose from, by the Hebraic experts. I have no expertise whatsoever in dating literature, but I will notice three things that are kind of spiritual reasons why I put this book in Solomon's reign.

88. 31:43

    Not written about him, therefore, but written by him. If it's written after Solomon's death, then the lessons it teaches will not save him, cannot save him, because he's dead. After Solomon, there's no chance for his redemption. If this was written before the Ecclesiastes, as I insist it is, then Solomon would still have been alive.

89. 32:02

    Furthermore, you might have little clues here and there. You are as beautiful as Terzar, my darling, as lovely as Jerusalem. Well, immediately after Solomon, thanks to Rehoboam and Jeroboam, these are warring capitals. Terzar was the capital of the northern kingdom, initially. You might think it was Samaria. It was Samaria for the longest time, but first it was Terzar for 80 years.

90. 32:24

    I think it was a little period where it was Hebron as well, and it ended up being Samaria. So these are warring capitals. So that would be a very jarring line. You are as beautiful as Beirut, my darling, as lovely as Jerusalem. You think, really? Why would you say that? That just doesn't work.

91. 32:39

    And it won't work after Solomon. But during Solomon's time, when he ruled over those combined areas, that would be fine. And after Solomon, he is the thousand-woman king, right? That's how we know him. But the only time he'd ever be known as the 140-woman king would be during that period of his reign when he's got 140 concerts and he's heading towards a thousand.

92. 33:04

    So to call him the 140-woman king, whether it's written by Solomon or someone else, after his death would be ludicrous. Why would you call him that? You'd call him the 1,000-woman king. So these are three clues, I suggest to you, that allow you to say, with some confidence, I reckon it's written within the time of Solomon, with which some of the experts will agree and some will disagree.

93. 33:25

    They're not combined there. So, but that tells us something interesting too, doesn't it? 60 queens there may be and 80 concubines. My dove, my perfect one, is unique. Well, hang on a minute. If he's only got 140 partners, what's going to happen in the future?

94. 33:43

    He's going to get 800 plus more. So this intense, passionate, amazing relationship we read about in the song, it doesn't last. It can't, can it? She isn't his obsession for life. 800-odd partners are still to come. Do not take many partners, says God. This relationship doesn't last. So it actually tells us the song is actually extremely poignant.

95. 34:09

    For her, at least, it will end in tragedy. For him, he'll just move on to the next bright young thing. But what about her? She hasn't been introduced to God. She's been made the most important female in the entire planet, briefly, and then, nothing. For all we know, she's lost. She's one of the innocent victims of Solomon's selfishness as he plowed through the world as many men of power are wont to do.

96. 34:37

    And it's worth noting, the book is written as a chiasm. That's a word that some of you will know. It is a word that maybe some of you don't know. Is anyone unfamiliar with the word chiasm? A few. Well, I'd like to say, you all know what a chiasm is. You might not know the word, but you all know what it is.

97. 34:55

    There it is. That's one right there. Quite seriously. Okay? That's a chiasm. You don't know it by that word? Fine. But it is. Because there's ten people in that photograph and you don't know any of them. And if I were to say to you, which two people are the most important people in that photograph, you know the answer.

98. 35:14

    Which is amazing because you don't know any of them. How do you know the answer? You know the answer because you know what a chiasm is, whether you've heard the word before or not. You know how it works. It's a very clever structural arrangement that emphasizes whatever is in the center by creating anti-symmetric elements on the side.

99. 35:35

    Okay? And no way was I going to say that because if I say, oh, you know, chiasm is a way to emphasize a central hypothesis by means of having anti-symmetric elements on either side, people like Shane would just get up and walk out. So, oh, enough. But you show this and you say, what's going on?

100. 35:52

     What's going on here? You've got a female and a female and a female and a female countered by not four females over here, which would be a palindrome, but countered by four things that are opposite to female. Males. There's a male and a male and a male and a male. And that helps focus your attention on whatever's between them.

101. 36:11

     Furthermore, you have a difference in dress, don't you? Dress code. So, the groomsmen here have all got this dark grey suit with this lovely cornflower blue tie, but the groom has a slightly different dress. His cut of suit seems to be much about the same, but the tie is both a different colour and a different style.

102. 36:32

     He has a white bow tie. And on the women's side, why the differences are even more important, the colours of the dresses are vastly different. The cut of the dresses, certainly the length, are also vastly different. She even has a headdress to go with with her outfit. Her dress is strikingly different from those who are flanking her and that's what helps her stand out in the middle as the most important thing.

103. 36:56

     And it's possible, obviously the maid of honour is chosen for her special friendship as is the best man, but the others seem possibly even to be arranged in order of height to create a third way to accelerate towards what's going on in the middle. All of these three elements are done for one purpose only so that you emphasise what's going on in the centre.

104. 37:19

     Okay? That much you knew the moment you saw the picture. Maybe you didn't know why you knew, but that's what it is. And in fact, if I were to say to you, ah, ten people in the picture, but actually one is the most important of all. You know who it is. And that's emphasised by the difference in difference of dress codes.

105. 37:39

     His difference from his groomsmen is very slight. Her difference from her bridesmaids is very stark, making her the more emphasised. And so everyone at the wedding knows that if you had to just get down to one person, it's her day. With the curious exception, the only one who doesn't know is the bride's mother.

106. 38:00

     But... That is a mystery too deep for me to expound. So I'll just leave it right there. Five years. Okay. So then you ask yourself, okay, fine. We can do this in literature. You can have these anti-symmetric elements building up from either side to emphasise what's in the middle. And that's how the song is written.

107. 38:23

     And right now that's a claim. Let's prove it. The first thing you want to know, therefore, and let's get there right away because no one has patience anymore. What's the bit in the middle? What is the bridal couple, if you will? This is the central couplet of the odd number of couplets that are in the Song of Songs.

108. 38:41

     So this, if you like, can be taken automatically as a summary or the most important statement of the entire song. We're used to reading stories where the punchline, like a joke, comes at the end. But in a chiasm, the punchline's in the middle. I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride.

109. 39:00

     I have gathered my myrrh with my spice. That's the centre line. Okay? So that's the most important line in the Song by chiasm. And therefore, that's going to teach us more than any other verse. And it happens to describe, as we saw yesterday, it describes the actual point of their sexual consummation. That is the focal point, it seems, of this book.

110. 39:24

     Just to see what's scattered either side, what's interesting is what's on either side is not females on the one side and males on the other. It's not bridesmaids and groomsmen. It's actually things of Israel and things of Lebanon. Now that has a somewhat darker tone because they're not just now opposites, but these are the things that are positive in God's world and these are the things of God's enemies.

111. 39:45

     So the actual linear timeline goes from God's stuff to anti-God's stuff or God's anti-stuff, whichever you want. So we see, you know, there are mountains at the beginning, mountains of Bethar. What that means, we're not necessarily, we don't need to translate yet, but they're in Judah. But at the end, last verse, it's mountains of spices, of pleasures.

112. 40:09

     There's a Tower of David in the first half, but that becomes a Tower of Lebanon in the second half. There's a description of the girl in the first half and it's only half of her and the description goes from top to bottom or top to halfway down anyway. But in the second half, the description goes from bottom to top.

113. 40:27

     Why? Well, think about it in a minute. There's doves in her eyes in the first half, but there's doves in his eyes in the second half. What does that mean? It doesn't matter what it means. Either way, we can see it's a chiasm. And he calls her away from Lebanon in the first half, but she calls him away from Jerusalem at the end.

114. 40:50

     Okay? In fact, he leads her exclusively in the first half and she leads him exclusively in the second half. Okay? So we definitely have at least six different elements which are giving us that bridesmaid to groomsmen chiasm structure that allows us to say, and it's all because of this. This is where it pivoted.

115. 41:10

     This is where it all changed and why. Just to step through these quite briefly, I don't want to make a big deal of this. It clearly talks of a transfer of leadership. Again, it can't be the bride and Christ, can it? Because there's no transfer of leadership between those two. Initially, he leads, come with me, come with me, come with me, come with me.

116. 41:29

     These references. But finally, the lead transfers to her. Come into, she invites, which is the union they enjoy, and then come, come away at the end. Okay, so there's a transfer of leadership. Who leads and who follows flips over the halfway point. I'm going to go through this quite fast. Calls her away from Lebanon, calls him away from Jerusalem.

117. 41:52

     The mountains. Before, they're mountains in Judah and afterwards, they're mountains of spices. And I take the common interpretation that spices, the spice of life, is a metaphorical reference to pleasure. Judah on the one side, pleasures on the other. And mountains, we can demonstrate, are a symbol of a ruling authority. Here's the proof.

118. 42:15

     We just didn't have time for it. Sorry. But it's, it's what happens. I waffle too much. Sorry about that. Then you have these sequential poems which describe the woman. And in the first half, you have that sequence running down, and there's only half of her. And in the second half, you can't help but notice, well, now he's describing the whole woman.

119. 42:36

     So, first of all, your eye is immediately drawn to why is it, you know, why half and full? I think that's a very clever and elegant description of their consummation. Without saying anything crass, he's able to say in the first half, I know, I know her somewhat in a physical sense. But in, in the second half, he says, yes, I know her entirely.

120. 42:59

     Okay. It's just an elegant way of doing that. And so, it's an elegant revelation of their consummation which happens in the middle. But in the first half, the important bit is the description of eyes and hair and neck all the way down to the breasts clearly goes down from top going downwards. Whereas in the second half, the direction from feet to thighs to navel to belly to breast to neck, eyes, nose and teeth and whatever and finishes with a flourish of breasts and mouth possibly just to emphasize the sort of erotic motif is clearly the overall direction is from the ground upwards.

121. 43:36

     What does that symbolize? You tell me. Tell me. His descendancy and her ascendancy. Oh, that's more elegantly put than I would have done. His descent and her ascendancy. That's beautifully put. In other words, that he was looking down on her before and I don't mean that in a manipulative or abusive way but he was above her so he saw her from above.

122. 43:57

     On what point is, how can he be positioned such that her feet is the first thing he sees? He's bowing down. He's prostrate. You've got two options. I like that one, Marco, that he's bowing down to her or alternatively that if he's standing he's made a statue 60 cubits tall I'm borrowing from Daniel and he sees her feet at eye level and she is just a god before him.

123. 44:21

     Either of those is good. Either way she's in the ascendancy. So I think that's put very carefully. It's a clever depiction again of the transfer of power between them and we'll actually see a transfer because when two people of different cultures meet and marry and live together only one culture at best can survive.

124. 44:40

     You can't actually have both cultures continuing and that's what happens here. He wants to praise her. Your neck is like the Tower of David built with elegance. He wants to praise her and his beauty standard is of David King of Israel his dad. She wants to praise him. His appearance is like Lebanon choice as its cedars and for her the gold standard of beauty is a cedar of Lebanon and that's fair.

125. 45:03

     They're both trying to be complementary to each other but they have different innate standards. Him of Israel her of Lebanon and what happens in the end? He praises her one more time. Your nose is like the Tower of Lebanon. Well I thought it was the Tower of David. No. This is the gold standard of beauty now for both of them.

126. 45:26

     Israel has gone to Lebanon. So you see the dark flow of the storyline that's actually coming out. The moment I see things like this I fall more deeply in love with the book because the more I think I understand it and I see very clever cleverly hidden plot lines it's a beautiful thing to have revealed.

127. 45:46

     So in summary right there are mountains of Bethar the king calls her from Lebanon doves in her eyes we haven't exposited that never mind the king sees her from the top down the tower a symbol of power we'll see that on Friday is of David and then there's the centrepiece the sexual union of the king and the bride and thereafter a Tower of Lebanon and her breasts are later said to be towers we'll see that the king sees her from the feet upwards there's doves in his eyes not hers and the bride calls the king away from Jerusalem the mountains the ruling force is the dominant force is that of pleasure and you can see the couplets there just like the bridesmaids and the groomsmen right all emphasising what happened this happened and on this everything switched okay and so the king speaks of himself as entrapped your hair is like royal tapestry the king is held captive by its tresses you get a hint right from the beginning that she says while the king was at his table my perfume began then working its magic spreading its fragrance and that's why that's the spikenard you see which has these sedative qualities of putting people to sleep the king describes himself as captive as mesmerised and again I don't want to to attack this bride negatively I think she's an innocent party she doesn't know God so she can't actually be a spiritual force for good in his life and he's culpable because he won't introduce her but interestingly this is the language of Solomon it's the proverbs and the phrases he used about the prostitute

128. 47:23

     they came out a prostitute with crafty intent are the same phrases her feet never stay at home now in the street now in the squares all night long on my bed I looked for him I will get up now and go about the city through its streets and through its squares and the Hebrew phrases are the same to one match here's a second one I've covered my bed with coloured linens from where?

129. 47:45

     Egypt there's something about Egypt of her I liken you my darling to a mare among Pharaoh's chariot's horses not David's Egypt I've perfumed my bed with myrrh aloes and cinnamon where are myrrh and aloes used in the Bible? burial of Christ right our bed is verdant we have beds of spices perfumed with cinnamon myrrh and aloes come let's drink deeply of love till morning until the day breaks and the shadows flee he says I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of incense so there's at least four different matches the terrors in the night this is fascinating I'm probably going to finish oh we're right at the end that's good look it is Solomon's carriage escorted by 60 warriors we noticed this before saying Jesus doesn't need bodyguards well that's obvious now let's look at what it's really saying 60 bodyguards where have you heard the number 60 before it's an unusual number right sorry 60 wives no you're absolutely right 60 wives 60 bodyguards what does that tell you?

130. 48:54

     tells you where the danger is doesn't it? isn't the song being clever? he needs 60 bodyguards this guy he'll end up meeting a thousand there's a match there because that's the danger and how ironic then that these warriors are automatically powerless who are the only people they're supposed to let past into the presence of the king?

131. 49:15

     the ones that are going to kill him spiritually right? so they can keep every other harmless person away great the only people they can't keep away from him are the very ones that are going to damage him spiritually the terrors of the night were never outside of Solomon's own bed and the warriors were standing guard in vain so the life lessons what do we get from this?

132. 49:41

     love can be intense enough to replace God replace our perception of God if faith becomes weak even love which is pure and feels right can be fatal what an excellent lesson for the Bible to teach in today's 21st century love that is perfect and does feel right sometimes we go wrong brothers and sisters because we say oh well you know if they're not if they're not raised in Christodalphian everyone out in the world is evil and manipulative and trying to get all get an advantage off you and mistreat you no they're not they're really not and if we demonize them that way then when someone meets someone in the world says actually they're perfectly reasonable they're a decent person I've been misled by my church well then they're going to jump and be gone what better if the Bible had instructed you can find perfect love without God and it'll kill you how could love ever cost you my faith if I believe in truth won't truth beat error truth always beats error but truth isn't the weak link we may be asking the wrong question what do we value most I value truth most really every day every day the quest for truth is better than the lust for pleasure every day of your life really you're a very unusual person we're certainly raising young people in our community for whom that can't be true we're deceiving ourselves if we think we always value truth more than the celebration of pleasure that's the incredibly subtle yet powerful lesson that this book is teaching and we have done this book a huge disservice if we make it into

133. 51:27

     some pretty fluffy poem about a wedding that has nothing to do with the time of Solomon or nothing to do with our lives now it is a much bigger a much deeper and a much more important book than that and I love it very much we haven't looked at the symbols because they're going to carry a lot of the message let's do that tomorrow thank you thank you for listening to the Good Christadelphian Talks podcast we hope this talk helped you in your walk if you would like to hear more please subscribe for new episodes and leave a review in Apple Podcasts or whichever service you are using to help more people find the show when they search for it if you enjoyed this particular talk please share it with someone who you think might enjoy it as well for show notes on the talk you just listened to visit our show page at anchor.fm slash gct or check the show notes section of your podcast player please share your thoughts on the talk from this week on our Facebook or Instagram pages where we are at Good Christadelphian Talks on Twitter where we are at gct underscore podcast or leave a comment on our YouTube channel where these talks are posted as well if you know of a great talk we want to know about it too send a suggestion to our email at goodchristadelphiantalks at gmail.com or message us on any of our social media accounts thank you for listening God bless and talk to you next week and we will see you next week and we will see you next week Thank you.