Song of Solomon 5:7

The men who watch over the peace of Jerusalem correct her. What was she doing in the streets at night, when the Bridegroom had come to look for her at home? Now her own love brings her under rebuke. Showing that love so strongly put her in a place that proved she had slighted her Beloved... A watchman was right to discipline a woman wandering outside like that, whatever her reason.

The watchmen's job is to keep order in the city. So how do they come to find the bride wandering in the city at night, without the Bridegroom? This is against order, and they are right to rebuke her. They "wounded" her, but "faithful are the wounds of a friend." The keepers of the walls have to protect the city from enemy attack, and in doing their work they must challenge everyone who comes, to tell friends from foes. They have to find out whether she really is what she claims to be, and so they take her veil away.

This was the rebuke Israel needed — Jerusalem needed it. It made her feel that being taken up with herself and her circumstances, and having no fresh heart to go out and meet Him, was what she had to blame herself for... Now, you see, it is worse. The first time, they could give her no directions to find the One her soul loved. Now they beat her. What right did she have to be out at that time of night?

The very fact that she could not find Him showed these faithful watchmen what state she was in, and they did not spare her... It is good for the church when there are faithful men who watch over souls as those who must give an account (Heb. 13:17) — men who do not hold back from searching souls, even if they strike and wound them, in the power of the Word.

Well-meaning people stop her and misjudge what she is doing... The watchmen and the keepers of the walls stand for people who are responsible to care for souls. They can only go by what they see. They cannot look into our hearts, so sometimes they make mistakes. Finding the bride out at night, these people took her for a woman of the streets, and treated her as one... Her veil meant she was engaged to be married, yet here she was wandering the city alone at night.

But the very condition she has fallen into is the way of recovery, and both the watchmen and the keepers of the walls act with that in view. They are the servants of the Beloved. They have His mind, and He is the One who has guided them in their work. So the gracious effect of their ministry appears at once: her desire for her Beloved grows stronger.

But note carefully, my soul, that she says, "I am a lily of the valleys" — not of the cities... "He grazes among the lilies." It was in the city that she lost the joy of His presence, and there the watchmen insulted her and took her veil. These were her wandering, backsliding moments.