John Pople - Class 3: Lillies, Myrrh, and Doves

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

1. 0:00

   This is day three of the 2019 Palm Springs Bible School. Our second period teacher is Brother John Popel. His general subject is the King who fell. Today's topic is lilies, myrrh, and doves. It's Wednesday. It's a wonderful Wednesday. I'm not just saying that to try and rebut Duncan, but it is a wonderful day today.

2. 0:23

   I got up and straight away saw the clouds had gone. It's a blue sky and sunshine. I know it seems a little cheap to be celebrating just the weather. We've got much more important things to celebrate, but I still do enjoy a nice sunny day. Being brought up under eternal cloudy skies, it's going to happen.

3. 0:41

   Still haven't got over the joy of seeing sunshine and a blue sky. We have a wonderful set of scriptural studies to explore, both in Brother Shane's talk and myself. Also, England are playing cricket today, so it's a very good day, and they've made a monstrous 418 for six. Means nothing to any of you, does it? Duncan gets it. All right.

4. 1:05

   And that's unusual for them to do so well, so it's nice to... But just in case I'm too discombobulated by unusual things, I gain the heartwarming consistency that in the eternal battle between technology and Brother Shane, consistent results are forthcoming. Anyway, let's stop the nonsense. Let's get started. We're back in the song. Today, we're going to look at the symbols, and we're going to just jump straight in.

5. 1:36

   Symbols are difficult because obviously there's some sense of ambiguity. The sceptic will sit and think, ah, well, you'll just pick interpretations that fit what you want to say, and it'll all run smoothly for you. And certainly there are expositives where you suspect that that's pretty much what's happened. But I am really interested, and I'm sure you are too, I'm really interested in what did God actually want to say?

6. 2:00

   What did God actually mean by selecting the symbols that he did to inspire Solomon to write the song that he wrote? And so what we're going to try and do, as we've done before on the storyline, is let the Bible interpret itself as much as possible. Any meaning that I attribute to a symbol, I will show you the evidence on the screen, and you will judge for yourself whether that is fair or whether I've tried to spin something to my own advantage.

7. 2:29

   I don't want to for myself. I actually want to know what God says. There's some factual stuff that we can't dispute, which is good, gives us a solid rock to build on. And the factual stuff is going to be what the main symbols are. The main symbols will be the ones that are used most frequently.

8. 2:49

   That we can't dispute. That we can all agree on. Which ones show up the most frequently? Let's jump in, and there you go. The most common symbol in the entirety of the song is a lily or lilies. In fact, more than half of any mention in the Bible of a lily is in the Song of Songs.

9. 3:10

   And remember that the Song of Songs is a tiny, tiny proportion of the Bible, less than 1%. In fact, and I have 140 times there springs up. What does that number mean? This is, again, a little bit more for the nerds, I suppose. But if you open your Bible randomly and choose a verse, you've got a certain percentage probability of hitting a lily.

10. 3:33

    Okay? It's pretty low. The point is, if you're in the Song, that probability is now 140 times greater. Okay? So that gives you an idea, whatever the numbers are. So in a way, in a frequency sense, you can say there's 140 times more lilies in the Song than in the Bible outside of the Song.

11. 3:52

    Okay? Does that make sense? For myrrh, myrrh is the second most common symbol. And that's about 100 times more common inside the Song than in the Bible outside of the Song. About 40% of all mentions of myrrh in the Bible are in this tiny book, the Song. Third is doves. About 15% of all the mentions of doves in the Bible are in the Song of Solomon.

12. 4:18

    And that means they're about 40 times more frequent in that part of the Scripture than any other. And finally, gardens and vineyards, which we'll see are synonymous, 12% gardens and 6% of vineyards show up in the Song of Songs. Taken together, that makes them about 20 times more common to appear in the Song.

13. 4:39

    Beyond that, all the other symbols, they kind of fall away into the noise. Okay? They don't statistically stand out as significant to be in the Song. So we don't have a huge number of symbols to work with as the major symbols of the Song. We just have these four. And that's great because it gives us a nice finite data set to work with.

14. 5:00

    And what we want is to find the biblical meaning of these symbols. So what we're going to do is go outside of the Song into the rest of the Bible, see how these symbols are used, see if we can find a common understanding of what they mean, and if we can, why then we can go back into the Song and use those interpretations to see what the Song is now saying.

15. 5:23

    Because it'll now say new things and we'll learn new things. So that's kind of fun. That's what we're going to do this morning. That is the bit that I wanted to show up at the beginning. Get your animation sequences in order. That's what happens when you do it late at night.

16. 5:40

    Lilies. Here are the mentions of lilies, therefore. And you can see in the Song of Songs, eight mentions, big spike there. And there are 66 books in the Bible, as you know, and it just falls away. They're only mentioned in half a dozen books. And what's really interesting is that they're all mentions, they're really all about Solomon.

17. 5:56

    Yeah, there are mentions in one Kings, but that's about Solomon. Yes, Jesus mentions lilies once in Matthew and Luke. That's about Solomon, as is the mention in 2 Chronicles. So nearly every single mention of a lily in the Bible is something to do with Solomon. It is uniquely his symbol, in a way.

18. 6:14

    Lilies. Okay, see, I'm going to get you to do some of this, because that will make it more objectively fair that we agree together. Someone give me a famous verse about lilies. If I say lilies in the Bible, what verse do you think of? Yeah, absolutely. Someone say it out. Behold the lilies of the field.

19. 6:35

    Keep going. Can I work? Yep. Perfect. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don't work. And yet I say to you, says Jesus, that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. So Jesus was minded to speak of Solomon when referencing lilies. And we know he was totally in harmony, in resonance with God the Father.

20. 6:57

    So it seems to be a very valid association. Now the verse means, don't sweat the small stuff, right? That's what Jesus is saying. But within that verse, the lily represents something which is beautiful. Because Jesus is saying, look, the lilies don't work. And yet they're more beautiful even than Solomon in all his glory, which was the most glorious time of Israel's kingdom.

21. 7:20

    So a lily here represents something which is physically beautiful, according to how Jesus uses it. And that is consistent, in fact, with the scientific world. And God's world and the scientific world are never in conflict. The scientific function of a flower is to attract by visual appearance. And the idea is it will pull in birds or insects or whatever is required with some reward and some visual attraction.

22. 7:45

    And thereby the animal will unwittingly play an important part in the reproduction of the actual varietal plant. And the plant will survive and continue. So lily, beauty. That's nice and easy. Myrrh. And this is going to get more difficult. Myrrh is still relatively straightforward. There's the uses in the whole Bible. You can see the information for yourself.

23. 8:09

    And myrrh is clearly that huge spike saying it belongs in the Song of Songs more than anywhere else. There are mentions in various other books of the Bible. A total of 17 uses in all. Myrrh. What Bible verse springs to mind if I say myrrh?

24. 8:30

    Right. The wise men who came to Jesus at the time of his birth. Who came to Jesus' mother, I suppose. So we're kind of agreeing together. This is good. The wise men bowed down and worshipped Jesus. They opened their treasures and they presented him with gifts. They gave him gold. They gave him incense.

25. 8:46

    And they gave him myrrh. And I'm quite happy with the common understanding of why they gave him those three symbolic gifts. Gold, why? To be a king. Incense, why? To be a priest. Myrrh, why? Death. Because he was going to be a corpse. And there's a physical reality to this. Because when the time came that he was dead, his body was prepared with myrrh and aloes.

26. 9:16

    Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea brought myrrh and aloes, 75 pounds of it. And they prepared Jesus' body therewith. Okay? So myrrh represents what? Death. And I think that's fair. That's something. That's not... I'm grateful for the occasions where I can stand on the platform and not say something entirely new. And sort of, you know, throw away everything you've ever believed.

27. 9:39

    That's good. Myrrh represents death. There's a nice little mention actually in Psalm 45, which really is the wedding song of Jesus. You get a little dash of myrrh there. Your robes are fragrant with myrrh and aloes. It's the same thing. It's the outer garment. Jesus says in John 10, I am authorised to lay my life down.

28. 9:58

    I'm authorised to take it up again. Like the outer garment, you choose... I'm authorised to cloak myself with death. I'm authorised to take off that cloak and become alive. And I see that very clearly in that beautiful Psalm 45, which really is about the wedding or the bridegroom's song. Just a little bit more on myrrh because Solomon wrote about it.

29. 10:20

    Solomon wrote about it in Proverbs chapter 7. He wrote about the seductress and her bed was of myrrh and aloes. Okay? So he said, the woman is herself speaking, I have covered my bed with coloured linens from Egypt. I've perfumed it with myrrh and aloes and cinnamon. Her house, says Solomon, is a highway to the grave leading down to the chambers of death.

30. 10:44

    So this really solidifies what we've already said in myrrh representing death. That makes it very good. The other woman of Proverbs, of course, was wisdom, lady wisdom. Lady wisdom has nothing to do with myrrh. She makes bed coverings of fine linen and purple. And fine linen, the Bible tells us, is the righteous deeds of the saints.

31. 11:03

    So her bed is actually coated with the righteous deeds of the saints. And the seductress's bed is coated with, well, it's a highway to the chambers of death. Myrrh represents death. Okay? That's all nice and easy. This is Solomon's own writing. So the fact that we're comparing the Song of Solomon with his other writings provides a consistency in which we can take confidence.

32. 11:27

    Myrrh represents death. What does that tell you about the song? The song of death. Now remember, traditionally, you say it's all about the kingdom. Because the kingdom is all about death. Yeah. No. It's not a kingdom vision. How can it be a kingdom vision? If this is the death chart, my goodness me, that's the last book in the Bible that could ever be about the kingdom.

33. 11:54

    Symbols of life tend to be light and wine. And you'll see those proliferate when the kingdom is discussed in symbolic sense. But not myrrh. This is the death spike. And the death spikes in the song. It's not a kingdom vision. Doves. This is going to get a little harder.

34. 12:16

    There's the distribution of doves. The Song of Songs is not the first of the 66 books of the Bible. It's second in terms of the frequency of the use of doves. Theoretically, we could turn to Leviticus and start exploring things. But in actual fact, and I think you'd trust this, in Leviticus, the doves that are mentioned aren't symbols.

35. 12:32

    They're real birds because it's usually in a list of animals required to be sacrificed. Okay. But there's the distribution of the usage of doves. 46 in all. Dove. Someone tell me the Hebrew word or transliterate it for me. Jonah. Yeah. Jonah. So, straight away, we're saying, hang on a minute. There's actually a book of the Bible called Dove.

36. 12:55

    That is true. The prophet Dove. That's interesting. Okay. We'll need to bear that in mind. But if you really thought of a verse, the first verse that might spring to your mind, if you're familiar with the Bible, as the people in this room are, with a dove, what would you think of?

37. 13:14

    Right. So, we have different opinions. This is excellent. I'm very happy. Officially. The olive branch dove. Right. So, we had Noah from the front row, which is the olive branch dove. And what was the other one you said, Marco? The dove above Jesus. The dove above Jesus. At what point? When he was above Jesus.

38. 13:31

    Yeah. So, there's a few good answers and that's good because we'll have all of those. At that moment, heaven was opened and John the Baptist saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on Jesus. So, in this case, the dove represents or is represented by the Holy Spirit of God.

39. 13:51

    Now, that is going to mean that the dove has to be the most positive symbol in the universe. Full stop. Full stop. No caveats. No caveats. Except, now look what the Bible throws at us. Ephraim is like a dove. Easily deceived and senseless. Well, that's annoying.

40. 14:13

    Because, and often real research in science or in the Bible can be because on the one hand, the dove represents the most positive thing in the universe, the Holy Spirit of God. On the other hand, the Bible, the same inspired Bible is trying to tell us, yeah, it also represents something easily deceived and senseless.

41. 14:29

    Now, if we throw up our hands and give up and say we can't translate doves, I don't mind. That's fine. We don't need everything. But it's possible. Let's plow on positively and see if we can find some resolution. We can't just say, well, yeah, the Holy Spirit of God is pretty easily deceived and senseless.

42. 14:43

    That's not going to work. But is there some way that a dove with the same meaning could represent both states? It's going to be hard work. But let's see what we can do. So, the scriptural precedents are a problem because there's very good ones and there's very bad ones. And we're not going to cherry pick here.

43. 15:00

    So, we'll have to forget about Hosea. Sweep it under the carpet and we'll be okay. We're going to actually look at all of the verses of the Bible. We'll do this honestly. Let's start by looking at the positive ones and then we'll look at the negative ones. So, the positive ones, that's the same verse as before.

44. 15:15

    That's the baptism. And, of course, we've already said we know that there is a man called Dove. They took Dove and they threw him overboard and the raging sea grew calm. And the man called Dove then came out of the waters and obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. So, we've got that.

45. 15:34

    And what was the other verse you had that came out quite commonly? No, that's right. When the Dove returned to Noah in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf. Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. Those are the three big ones. Same thing is happening in all three cases.

46. 15:56

    What's the thing? It's got to be something to do with water, hasn't it? There's a lot of water going on. But it's not just a separation. I agree with that, Chris. But there's a process going on.

47. 16:10

    Hmm. Jeff agrees. He wants to question you also. What is the process going on? Death comes first. What comes after the death? Resurrection. Resurrection. I'm good. I'm surprised. Okay. So, something we do a lot of it with water.

48. 16:34

    Baptism. Is that fair? I mean, this is... Here's a clue. There's a baptism. What do you think the flood was? There was a baptism, right? There was a baptism of the whole earth. Because the earth was filled with sin and God said, yuck. Grabbed hold of it, dunked it underwater, shook it around a little bit, added some, you know, powder to clean it off and pulled it back out.

49. 16:55

    He said, there we go. Let's start again. That was baptism. I don't feel super strongly, but I tend to believe, therefore, that the flood was global for that reason. Because it was the baptism of the earth. If it was only a little bit of water sprinkled in one place, then the earth was christened.

50. 17:09

    Which, as the precedental baptism, is rather a poor example. It could be, but you know. So there's a dove at the baptism of the entire natural creation. The entire planet earth was baptized and a dove showed up. What's another way to see Jesus? He is the entire spiritual creation. First fruits thereof. So there's actually a dove at the baptism of the entire spiritual creation.

51. 17:35

    Now, I think that's why the Holy Spirit showed up as a dove. Because it doesn't usually show up as a dove. It shows up seven other times in Scripture and always is the same thing. What? Fire. So the Holy Spirit departed from its usual presentation as fire and became a dove because it's trying to make the point, there's a baptism going on.

52. 17:51

    Baptism of the whole earth. Baptism of the whole earth. Natural. Spiritual. Well, Jonah went to the Gentiles, I'll grant you that, but he, of course, is from the tribe of Zebulun. The individual was baptized. Not only that, do you notice? He's the only guy to ever have a real baptism. You didn't. I didn't.

53. 18:19

    Because if you think, people are looking puzzled, I get that. Right? Because you have a sinner becoming, quotes, a saint, if you will. Right? But when you went into the waters of baptism, I put it to you, you had already decided you wanted to follow God. You'd already made the conversion here and here, and then you went through the symbol and you went underwater and came out again.

54. 18:41

    Great. Same for everyone, except Jonah. When Jonah went into the waters, he had every intention of disobeying God. God said, go northeast over here. How about I go southwest over there and get out of this? Right? He went into the waters as a genuine, committed, intentional sinner. His conversion was underwater. Read about it in chapter 2, that fabulous prayer.

55. 19:05

    And then he comes out of the waters as an intentional saint. He'll still sin again, of course, as we all do. So this is the only real baptism that ever happened. And his name, God said, you need to be called dove. The only man to experience a real baptism was called dove, the same animal that showed up at the baptism of the whole earth, both natural and spiritual.

56. 19:33

    I think we're onto something here. This is good. So what then, shall we say, a dove represents? Baptism. A new start. We're going great. Of course, we've got this thing in the back of our heads saying Ephraim is about to, Hosea is about to derail us. Okay, we're happy so far. Crash. Ephraim is like a dove, easily deceived and senseless.

57. 19:57

    Calling to Egypt, calling to Assyria. What's that about? Historically, that is when they refused to trust in God and they went to Egypt for their defense. And then Egypt was defeated in war and they turned to Assyria for defense. And God said, what are you doing? Why are you so stupid? Why do you keep turning to these human nations to defend you when I am your defender?

58. 20:16

    Not only that, but if we look at the prophet Dove, he is the only major prophet in the entire scriptures who we see intentionally disobeying God. The word of the Lord came to Dove, some of Amittai, but Dove ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish, the only one who disobeyed. So what are we seeing here that Dove represents?

59. 20:39

    And I don't think we actually have to depart from what we've already said. It's a new start. Not every new start is a righteous start. Not every new start is a wise start. Ephraim is like a dove. They were my people, but then they said, well, we want to be Egypt's people. Egypt will be our new alliance.

60. 21:00

    Oh, they fell. They fell in battle. Oh, Assyria will be our new alliance. They keep making new alliances, but in each case, they're foolish. And Jonah, he's given a direction, go northeastern Nineveh. No, no, no, I'm out of here. I'm going to take a new path. So it's still a new path. It's still a new start, but it shows us new starts can just as easily be wicked as they can be righteous.

61. 21:23

    It's still a new start. So I'm going to say the Dove, you've seen the evidence, decide for yourself, represents a new start. Either a positive way, in a praiseworthy, righteous decision, like baptism, where you turn from death to life, or equally, a foolish, naive decision, as was mentioned in Hosea, where you reject God, where you were on the right path to start with, and you said, oh, it's going to take a new path over here, and you start moving away from God.

62. 21:54

    You'll see why this becomes relevant in the life of Solomon, don't you? Because in the song, of course, the bride's new start was that she was called from Lebanon to Israel, and a new life potential, if only Solomon had stood up and been the man of God he was supposed to be. By contrast, Solomon himself had a new start, didn't he?

63. 22:13

    Because he was raised by the greatest Sunday school teacher ever. He had David as his father. And then he said, nah, forget this God stuff. I'm going to indulge myself in hedonism instead. He made a new start, but it was a foolish one. Either way, it's a new start. That's my contention. Finally, vineyards or gardens.

64. 22:37

    What might these represent? Oh, here's the mentions of them first. So the gardens, the Song of Songs is the second most popular. Here's a distribution, there's a lot in Genesis. Vineyards, however, real positive, are in the Happy Book of Isaiah, quoted a lot in Matthew. The Song of Songs is only the seventh most common book to employ the symbol of a vineyard.

65. 22:58

    And together, they're about 20 times more populous than outside of the song, as we saw. A vineyard, I assert, is where wine grows. I have expertise here. I know this. So what's wine? What does wine represent?

66. 23:15

    Life, ultimately. But what did Jesus say wine represented? Blood. Jesus himself says so in words you hear probably recited every single Sunday. But I'm not disagreeing with what Bill said and others, because it's just by stages. Wine represents blood. What does blood represent? Life. And that's hammered home in many verses we could look up.

67. 23:39

    We don't need to in the Old Testament. Therefore, if wine represents blood and blood represents life, wine represents, as some of you have already shouted out correctly, represents life. Fine. So what's a vineyard? Well, a vineyard is where wine grows. So a vineyard is where life grows. Do you realize I haven't done any tricks here?

68. 23:59

    This is all Bible supported. Wine, blood, blood to life. So wine is life. So a vineyard is where wine grows. It's where life grows. Where does life grow? In a vineyard. Yes. And back to the top. And round and round. I'm thinking about those who actually passed high school biology.

69. 24:19

    Like a uterus. Well, that's right. Inside a woman. Is that fair? A bride. A fertile woman. And so we can see why it makes very good sense for a vineyard, where the symbol of life will grow, to be represented by the place where that will grow. Inside a fertile woman. Not inside a female child.

70. 24:41

    Not inside necessarily a grandmother. But inside the fertile woman. Inside the bride. And God, of course, uses that metaphor himself. We can read about it in Isaiah. He refers to his own bride with the vineyard metaphor. And that beautiful song in Isaiah 5. We don't have time to turn to it. But I think you know that.

71. 24:58

    So, there we have our answers. And I hope we've been able to agree together and make them Bible-based, that we can have some confidence that those are what the Bible intends when it uses these metaphors. Lily represents what? Beauty. Oh.

72. 25:19

    Shame. Try and remember. No call for that. Try and remember the audio of the slides. They're lilies, murd, doves, and you know what else. Okay. Lilies represents beauty. Okay. So, think now. What I want you to think is, I'm reading the Song of Songs. We haven't been to the Song recently. If lily is the most common metaphor symbol in the Song, then the Song is primarily about beauty.

73. 25:44

    Makes sense? Sure. We've read it many times. It is at least beautiful. If it's incomprehensible, it's still beautiful. You can tell that, right? But, now, as we add every dimension, we're going to learn more and more what the structure of the Song is. It's about beauty. Great. Sounds good. Murd represents what? Ah, so the Song has just taken an interesting new turn.

74. 26:10

    It's about beauty, sure. But, it's about a deadly beauty. Right? That's why symbols numbers one and two in this order are going to be that way. It's about beauty. It's about death. Doves represents what? Taking a new path, a new start, a new beginning. So, it's something to do with a new path and a deadly beauty, or a beauty which leads to death.

75. 26:38

    And, what else is it about? The fertile woman. Right? So, I think we can still say we haven't used heavy interpretation yet. We've pretty much dug out from the Bible itself, allowing the Bible to interpret itself. These are the four parameters that makes up the backbone of the Song of Solomon. Beauty, death, new path, fertile woman.

76. 27:02

    Who can put those four into a sentence? What's the song about? Sentences are hard. Okay. Fair enough. I'll go. If you trust in your own beauty, you will die. The only way away from that is from the path, a new life. Through the birth of a child. That's good. I got a shorter one.

77. 27:33

    Solomon's deadly new path chasing beautiful women. Isn't that fair? With the minimum amount of added verbiage, those are the four things. Deadly, myrrh, new path, doves, beautiful, lilies, fertile women, vineyards. There they are. And, that's actually the proposal we found by looking at the storyline. Right? By looking at the plot line, we saw, ah, this appears to be about Solomon's deadly new path chasing beautiful women.

78. 28:05

    And then, factually, we can see lilies, myrrh, doves, and vineyards are the most common symbols, which, if it's true, they represent beauty, death, new path, and fertile women, justifies this absolutely. Now, a scientist is going to be extremely excited about this, and I'll show you why. This won't mean necessarily a lot to you.

79. 28:23

    But that is not just a proof. It is an independent proof. We haven't looked at the storyline at all today. Today, we just looked at the symbols, and we haven't looked at the symbols before today. So, before today, we just looked at the characters and the plot line, and reasoned that it was about Solomon's deadly new path chasing beautiful women.

80. 28:44

    And now, we've looked at nothing but four potentially unrelated symbols, and have learned the same message is justified independently from the symbols. That is a corroborating argument. So, that is actually a beautiful discovery. Very exciting to me, certainly, when I saw that. And that, I think, gives great strength to our interpretation of the song so far.

81. 29:10

    And the verses that we've used in the Bible to justify this are those. Those are the verses that flashed before you as we went through. And so, what that tells us is the song is actually very well anchored in the Bible. It's not common for Christadelphians to say the song shouldn't be in the Bible, but it is common for many other expositors and many other Christians to say the song doesn't really belong in the Bible.

82. 29:34

    It doesn't have any links or connections with any other part of the Bible, except Jesus mentioning a lily once. That's it. Not true. Not true. The song can be very well established in the Bible, and that's as far as we've got. We'll see more connections yet. So, we could give good argument to those who claim the song shouldn't be in the Bible with these symbolic matches.

83. 29:56

    Test time. This is the good time. Okay, fine. So, we found what we feel the symbols mean, but now we have to go back and read the song with the symbols in and see, does this actually create a contradictory nonsense? If we actually replace the word lily with the word beauty or the word myrrh with the word death, would it make sense?

84. 30:19

    And if it's right, i.e. if this is from God, not from me, if it's right, then the correct interpretation of the symbol should tell us something new, should give us new spiritual insights. And it does. Watch. This is really beautiful. First of all, let's run straight to the center. We said this was the most important verse.

85. 30:40

    Remember the wedding picture? This is the bridal couple in the wedding picture. This is the center of the song. I have come into my garden. Ah, garden. We've got that. Gardens and vineyards. My sister, my bride, I have gathered my myrrh with my spice. And I take spice in the normal way to represent the sense of pleasure.

86. 30:58

    So, garden, we've done that one. And myrrh, we've done that one. So, what's Solomon announcing, whether he knows it or not? I have joined with you, because this is another mention of, this is synonymous with this and this. That's good. It's common. I have joined with you, my sister, my bride. I have gathered my death with my pleasure.

87. 31:22

    I've made this choice and it's going to kill me. I don't think he knows what he's writing when he wrote it. Okay? But that's what he wrote. And if we've translated the symbols correctly, that's what it means. That's fantastic. Fantastic. There's the summary line. There's the summary title. God's own title for the Song of Songs is therefore that.

88. 31:44

    And that's pretty amazing. Let's vineyards then. Where do we see vineyards in the song? Vineyards and gardens. Let's look at them. And we're going to try and say it's a fertile woman every time. Does it make sense? Or is it a nonsense? And do we learn something new? Well, the first thing we need to know about vineyards, God looks after his.

89. 32:03

    And if it's his wife, his bride, we'd expect that. Sing about a fruitful vineyard. I, the Lord, watch over it. I water it continually. I guard it day and night so that no one harms it. Okay? That makes sense. The wife of noble character behaves the same way God does. No surprise there.

90. 32:24

    She considers a field and buys it. Out of her earnings, she plants a vineyard. She sets about her work vigorously. Her arms are strong for her tasks. So it's actually representing the vineyard is therefore herself. She prepares herself as a noble and godly creature. And what does the bride say about the vineyard?

91. 32:44

    Do you remember? My mother's sons were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have neglected. I am not developed in the way that the wife of noble character is developed. The bride has not been developed as a disciple of God. I don't think she knows what she's saying, but that's the announcement.

92. 33:07

    That's how that would read. And that's not entirely her fault. How would she know? How would she know about Israel's God except the one who knew Israel's God should tell her? But he didn't. And so she was left as an undeveloped vineyard. It's actually, by means of this vehicle of the garden or the vineyard, it's a very elegant way that some of the more factual developments of their sexual relationship can be explained without using crass vulgarities.

93. 33:35

    For example, you are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride. What does that mean? Well, now that means that's a state of chastity. That's a rather nice way to express it. It's an attractive way to express it. She then goes on to say, well, let my beloved come into his garden and taste its choice fruits.

94. 33:55

    By maintaining the symbology, it's still an attractive poem, and yet it's clearly an invitation to intimacy. The very next verse, he announces, as we've seen in the center couplet, I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride, in responding to her invitation. All this makes sense. And finally, they even explore the possibility of pregnancy via the same vehicle.

95. 34:17

    Let us go early to the vineyards to see if the vines have budded, to see if their blossoms have opened. It's beautiful, and yet it's all maintaining. So the interpretation we've taken for gardens and vineyards is sensible. It doesn't contradict the song. It adds to its beauty. This doesn't teach us any great new spiritual insight, though.

96. 34:39

    But this does. Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Haemon. It's not a real place. It doesn't exist anywhere. He leased the vineyard to keepers, etc. My own vineyard is before me, she says. You, O Solomon, may have a thousand. What an interesting piece of prophecy she's just uttered. How many partners has he got at the moment in the song?

97. 35:03

    140. But she says, well, at this rate, you might end up with a thousand. Ha ha. Yes. And Solomon goes on to gather a thousand spouses. An excess. Yes. Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Haemon. One of my favorite expressions now. A vineyard is a fertile woman. We've done that. Baal, of course, is not just a god.

98. 35:25

    He's a false god. And Haemon means plenty or excess. And Solomon ends up gathering, of course, an excess of partners. By the by, as you'd have mentioned, of course, it's long since dead, the idea is a picture of the kingdom. But also, therefore, notice, not only does the Song of Songs not mention Yahweh, it does mention Baal.

99. 35:48

    So, you know, total mentions of gods, Yahweh nil, Baal one. Is that about the kingdom? I don't think so. But we're done with that idea anyway. So, what does that mean? False god, excess, fertile woman. Solomon's false god was pursuing an excess of fertile women. Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Haemon. What a beautifully simple way to say exactly that.

100. 36:14

     You're not going to get confused by geography because it's not a real place. Solomon ultimately deified. He made it his life's pursuit, at this stage anyway, to simply get more and more and more women. It was his false god to create an excess for himself of women. Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Haemon.

101. 36:34

     A verse which can't, a clause which can't make any sense any other way. But fits absolutely perfectly as a revelation of a spiritual truth. A fact about him and a warning for us. That his sexual addiction or whatever it was, was a means of a false god which would destroy him. Beautiful. Let's move on to the doves.

102. 36:55

     Your eyes behind your veil are doves, Solomon says. His eyes are like doves by the water streams. So, there's a new start going on for each of them. Her new start was moving from Lebanon to Israel. His new start was abandoning Jerusalem to just focus entirely upon her. And the doves are always in the eyes.

103. 37:17

     You have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes. What triggered their new start was visual. Right? He hadn't got, I mean, did he really take years to get to know each of these girls? A couple of years for each of these thousand women? He would need to live, what, 3,000 years or so.

104. 37:39

     He would actually be still alive today. If he was responsible in his relationships. No. So, how then was he attracted to these women? That's all it took. You've stolen my heart. My entire life changes. Now it's all about you. Oh, there's another one. Right? It was like that. So, the doves were always in the eyes.

105. 37:59

     Their new starts in life were triggered by visual attractions. The doves were in the eyes, exactly as the song had always said. So, this is really working. This is really working for us. It's good. The lilies. A lily represents physical beauty, we've said. Okay, this one's going to be relatively straightforward, but we will get new spiritual insights.

106. 38:20

     Start with the simple ones. I'm a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. I'm beautiful, she says. I don't think, I don't see arrogance there at all. It's just, okay, that's a fact. Like a lily among thorns, he replies, I agree, is my darling among the maidens. She's beautiful. That's fine. Nothing new there.

107. 38:37

     Then we see this. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies. Your navel is a rounded goblet that never lacks blended wine. Your waist is a bound of wheat encircled by lilies. What we notice here is that the lilies are proliferating around the breasts and the navel of the woman, which are the most sexual parts of the body.

108. 39:01

     So, that's consistent with our theory, that if it's about physical beauty or physical attraction, that's where we would expect lilies to be proliferating metaphorically, and they are. So, no new spiritual insight, but that's a good thumbs up that we're on the right track. My lover is mine, she says, and I am his.

109. 39:22

     He browses amongst the lilies. Now, think about that. He browses amongst the lilies. And that's that sexual verb Hebrew ra'ah that we met in the first talk. Solomon indulged himself with a thousand women. That's some pretty heavy-duty lily browsing right there. Wouldn't you agree? I think it's fair enough. And again, there it is, encoded in the hidden language of the song.

110. 39:51

     How magical is that to see that just come, jump right out of us. And there's more. My lover has gone down to his garden. I am my lover, and my lover is mine. He browses among the lilies. We've seen that. But these lilies, these pretties, as Solomon would see them, I don't dismiss them in such a way, but Solomon essentially must have done, to think so little of them.

111. 40:12

     These lilies caused him to turn his heart from God. He turned from God to their false gods. We know that from history. So these lilies, and these lilies that he loved to browse, were deadly. What does the song say? His lips are like lilies dripping with myrrh. So it told us all along that Solomon's taste for lily browsing was in fact deadly.

112. 40:43

     It's beautiful. It's all fitting together. Myrrh has come in alongside the lilies now. And it's all making sense. And needless to say, again, almost in passing, Jesus' lips don't drip with death. State the obvious, right? So we're done with that idea anyway. But it's beautiful to see how these symbols are giving us new dimensions and new insights.

113. 41:04

     There's even a little bit more here as we've segued into the myrrh, the final symbol. My lover is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts. So that's the location. That's where it starts. It started right between her breasts. What's between her breasts? The heart. It was the love. It was the attraction.

114. 41:24

     Seen on a cheaper level, you could say it was the cleavage, the visual attraction slash distraction. Cleavage, heart, I'm happy with both, both interpretations. That's where the location was for all the start of this death that came. Who is this coming up from the desert like a column of smoke perfumed with myrrh?

115. 41:44

     Column of smoke in the desert. What do you see? What biblical scene are you seeing? Israel in the exodus. And who's in the column of smoke? God. God. And who's Solomon's God becoming?

116. 41:58

     Whatever it is, it's deadly. Now here's what's fascinating. This is really good. This is where the Hebraists kick in. The smoke column in the wilderness is God. This God, therefore, is perfumed with death. The Hebraists insist that she is the column of smoke. And they say, we don't know why. It doesn't make any sense, but it's clear from the grammar that she is the column of smoke.

117. 42:19

     And I love the fact that they're honest enough to say there's no reason why this should be true. But there is reason why this should be true in our interpretation. She is becoming His God. And she is the perfume of death that He is following around. Until the day breaks, He says, and the shadows flee, I will go to the mountains of myrrh.

118. 42:39

     The mountain, excuse me, of myrrh. And to the hill of incense. I will go to the mountain of death. Solomon spends all night at the mountain of death. Christ Himself went to mountains frequently. He pulled away from the crowds, but not for the reasons of death. He went to commune with the Father.

119. 42:55

     Quite the opposite of what Solomon's doing. Let's just look at those three verses one more time. A sachet of myrrh. You know what a sachet is? Like a tiny little packet of sugar or whatnot. A column of smoke perfumed with myrrh. And a mountain of myrrh. So what's happening to the myrrh? It's growing.

120. 43:17

     And what does myrrh represent? Death is growing in the song. It's a little sachet between her breasts. And before you know it, it's a ruling force in his life. It's so big, it's something a man can't easily even climb. The symbol of death grows. Sachet to a column to a mountain. And that brings us to our closing scene.

121. 43:41

     Look at this. My lover thrust his hand through the latch opening. My heart began to pound for him. I arose to open for my lover. Think about what these verses now mean. My hands dripped with myrrh. My fingers with flowing myrrh on the handles of the lock. What picture does that give you?

122. 44:00

     Death is just flowing out from her hands. You think George Lucas invented this idea with his Emperor Palpatine. No, he stole that from the Song of Songs. He knew what was going on. She has a deadly touch. The bride's touch is deadly. She doesn't mean it to be so, I've no doubt. But for Solomon, these hands drip with myrrh, as she herself has said.

123. 44:24

     And this is the scene where he's arrived at her palace or at her bedroom and he's hammering on the door. And the door's locked, right? And he's hammering on the door to come in, in a state of ardour to be with the woman that he loves. She's initially ambivalent, but then she rises up and she goes to answer the door.

124. 44:40

     I opened for my lover, but my lover had left. Now, whatever interpretation you want from the Song of Songs, that's weird, right? Because there he is. I mean, men think about relatively few things, I put it to you. We're fairly simple creatures. There's an on switch and an off switch. One of the few things we generally manage to keep our attention on is wanting to be with the woman that you want to be with.

125. 45:06

     But somehow, he couldn't keep it together. But somehow, by the time she got to the door, he'd gone. So the question is, of course, where did he go and why? I mean, there he is hammering on the door for a sexual encounter with the woman that he loves. What must have happened? What sort of ancient version of a pizza van has gone by that he's...

126. 45:29

     Oh. Be right back, love. What has caused the derailment of this intended meeting? Where did he go and why? Do you want to know? Oh, sounds half-hearted. Do you want to know?

127. 45:47

     Good, because that means you'll turn up tomorrow when we'll figure it out. Hey, Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey