Song of Solomon 1:7

A blessed change has now taken place in what occupies the bride. The Bridegroom fills her eye and her heart. Self is dropped! What a mercy! It is neither black self, nor lovely self, now. Being taken up with self always ends unhappily. Endless perplexities and sorrows flow from the eye looking within, instead of looking away from self and up to Christ.

"Tell me, O you whom my soul loves." She does love the Messiah, and the Spirit of God puts this language into her lips, and she will take it up in that day... It is not her doing. It is her believing. It is not her assumption; it is His grace that gives her these most comforting words... She had wandered long among the nations. She had gone after idols... Now her heart was for Him alone.

She wants refreshment and nourishment directly from Himself. "Tell me… where you feed your flock?" She does not go to the shepherds of Israel, who cared more for the fleece than the flock. She goes to the chief Shepherd Himself. She had been brought to Him as King; now she appeals to Him as Shepherd. Like David of old, He is the Shepherd-King.

The heart desires to know the place where Christ finds what satisfies Him — where He feeds. Where does He find this, if not in the company of the saints today? On earth He said He had "food to eat that you do not know about."... Can I, can you, be content that He finds no refreshment in our company?

Noon is the time of day when the sun is highest. And for us it is the same. When the trial is bitterest, when the way is hedged in, when the desert is a trackless waste of sand with no shadow to shelter us — HE causes "His flock to lie down at noon." As we read also in chapter 2: "With great delight I sat in his shadow." And when do you want a shadow? When the sun is high in the sky.

I knew a Christian who was dying. One would have thought he could not stand any greater pressure and further weakening. But the fiercer the rays, the more beautiful was the rest he enjoyed. There is no possible combination of circumstances in which this rest may not be known.

A hungry sheep will not rest, but will run about trying to find something to meet its hunger. If we are not feeding in the green pastures of God's Word, our souls will not find rest... It is important to begin the morning by feeding on the Word of God, under the eye of the Good Shepherd. Then we have peace and rest in our souls through the trying moments of the day.

The thought that others suspect her of insincerity troubles her greatly. The word "veiled" seems to carry the idea of being suspected. Who the "companions" are, it may be hard to say. Perhaps they are under-shepherds, who could not understand or meet her case as the Princely Shepherd Himself could. He knew her heart... Some walk with the Lord outside all the rules laid down by men. Many who claim to be shepherds of God's sheep understand little of such a path.

It is the language of a quickened soul who at heart loves the Lord but is out of touch with Him... She had lost this personal nearness to the Good Shepherd Himself. Yet the soul cannot rest without it.