What does it mean that the Shulammite had dark skin (Song of Solomon 1:6)?

The bride desires to be drawn by Him and knows that if He draws all will run after Him. Then the King appears and brings her into His chambers, typifying full communion of love. Joy and rejoicing are the results. Verses 5-6 are the bride's confession. She confesseth she is black, which does not denote at all, as some have taken it, that she was an Ethiopian. It means sunburnt, as she declares, "Look not upon me because I am black, because the sun has looked upon me." She passed through the scorching heat of affliction and sorrow, yet she is comely (Ezek. 16:10); through His mercy and kindness not forsaken. The daughters of Jerusalem the bride addresses are those of the nation, who do not yet share her knowledge of the Beloved, the Messiah. Israel had been called to be "the keeper of the vineyards," that is, the keeper of nations and to be a blessing to them; but she had failed; not even her own vineyard did she keep. It is her confession to Him whom she now knows and longs for.

"Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun has looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me; they make me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept. Tell me, O thou whom my soul loves, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turns aside by the flocks of thy companions? If thou knowest not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents" (chap. 1:6-8).

It is the bride-to-be speaking here as in the previous verses. She is speaking of herself as burnt black by the hot rays of the sun as she was forced to hard labor in the vineyards of her oppressors. She was forced to serve their interests and had no time left to look after her own things. Her own mother's children, that is, her own brothers, were her oppressors—those from whom one would naturally expect affection and kindness. Thus she learned the sad fact that the world is swayed by its selfish interests so much so that even natural affections are brushed aside in the pursuit of their selfish ends.

The blackness of which she speaks is external. It is a darkness of complexion - she is sunburnt; the warning word of the prophet has come to pass "There shall be burning instead of beauty." (Isa. 3: 24) And because of this, she feels keenly the curious gaze of the daughters of Jerusalem. "Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me." The time was when the daughter of Zion was beautiful and glorious, a praise in the earth. "Thy renown," says the prophet, "went forth among the heathen for thy beauty; for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God." (Ezek. 16) But because of her ingratitude and unfaithfulness, she had been reduced to the sad condition of a poor sunburnt slave. The prophet Jeremiah also in his "Lamentations" over the downfall of Jerusalem, describes in the most touching manner, not only what she once was, but what, through affliction and sorrow, she had become. "Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire. Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets; their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick." Well might he exclaim, in the bitterness of his soul, "How is the gold become dim! How is the most fine gold changed!" If such, oh my soul, be the awfully evil, bitter, and sorrowful fruits of sin in this world, where "mercy rejoiceth against judgment," what must they be in the world of woe, where hope perisheth and where despair seizes upon the guilty soul? Canst thou look back to the cross and see thy sins, all thy sins judged there, and put away for ever! God and faith alone know the power of that cross - and glory in its eternal efficacy. Then, judge all evil in thy heart and ways fully now, knowing that Christ was judged for it there. That which was imputed to Christ shall never be imputed to thee. "Blessed is the man unto whom the lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit there is no guile." (Ps. 32)

The blackness of which she speaks is external. It is a darkness of complexion — she is sunburnt; the warning word of the prophet has come to pass "There shall be burning instead of beauty." (Isa. 3:24) And because of this, she feels keenly the curious gaze of the daughters of Jerusalem. "Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun has looked upon me." The time was when the daughter of Zion was beautiful and glorious, a praise in the earth. "Thy renown," says the prophet, "went forth among the heathen for thy beauty; for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God." (Ezek. 16) But because of her ingratitude and unfaithfulness, she had been reduced to the sad condition of a poor sunburnt slave. The prophet Jeremiah also in his "Lamentations" over the downfall of Jerusalem, describes in the most touching manner, not only what she once was, but what, through affliction and sorrow, she had become. "Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire. Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets; their skin cleaves to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick." Well might he exclaim, in the bitterness of his soul, "How is the gold become dim! How is the most fine gold changed!" If such, oh my soul, be the awfully evil, bitter, and sorrowful fruits of sin in this world, where "mercy rejoices against judgment," what must they be in the world of woe, where hope perishes and where despair seizes upon the guilty soul? Canst thou look back to the cross and see thy sins, all thy sins judged there, and put away for ever! God and faith alone know the power of that cross — and glory in its eternal efficacy. Then, judge all evil in thy heart and ways fully now, knowing that Christ was judged for it there. That which was imputed to Christ shall never be imputed to thee. "Blessed is the man unto whom the lord imputes not iniquity and in whose spirit there is no guile." (Ps. 32)

Cant. 1:2. BRIDE AND VIRGINS. They value the love of the bridegroom more than wine. The bride owns that she is dark, but she is comely: the rays of affliction have scorched her like the sun: cf. Isa. 3:24. She has been keeping the vineyards of the nations, not her own.

Under the figure of a bride the remnant of Israel says, I am 'black,' describing herself as having become dark or swarthy by the rays of the sun; the scorching effect of affliction, Cant. 1:5-6: 'burning instead of beauty.' Isa. 3:24. The kingdom of the Medes and Persians is described as a chariot with 'black' horses, Zech. 6:2, 6; and in the Revelation, in the third seal a rider on a 'black' horse betokens scarcity. Rev. 6:5. It is symbolical of what is dismal and threatening.

There is much more variety in the exercises of her heart; there are even failures and sorrows arising from her faults. There is also an evident progress in her assurance. The song commences with the bride's declaration that her heart needs this testimony. She acknowledges that she is black, because of the scorching rays of the sun of affliction. She seeks shelter in the presence of her Beloved, who makes His flock to rest at noon. She would belong to Him only. She fears now to wander among the shepherds of Israel. But if the Spirit of the Lord reminds her of those former testimonies of the law and the prophets, her heart is not silent, and the heart of the Beloved overflows in the testimony of her value in His eyes. The suitability of all this to the remnant in the last days is evident. The rest of the chapter contains testimonies of affection, which present the idea that is the thesis of the book.

So, then, she was "black, but comely"; but I do not doubt that the blackness refers to another thing, and that is not merely the blackness of failure — of shortcoming — of sin, but the blackness of suffering. And the Lord will feel it too. The Lord will say in that day, 'Jerusalem has suffered double at the hand of the Lord for her sins. She has suffered too much. I will not allow her to suffer any more. She has suffered twice as much as she ought to have suffered.' The Lord will espouse the cause of poor guilty Jerusalem in that day, and will not permit that she shall suffer further. So, then, she owns that whether it was her own fault, or whether it was the cruel persecution that she had endured in the just chastening of her faults, such was her condition — black, but, by grace, she was comely. "I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar" — which, I suppose, are the figure of the one, and the curtains of Solomon, with all their beauty, of the other. "Look not upon me, because I am black — because the sun has looked upon me." There is what evidently confirms the idea that there was the scorching of affliction, as it seems to me, in this trial. "My mother's children were angry with me. They made me keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept." Jerusalem had high thoughts. The Jews did take the place of being a guide to the blind, and a teacher of the ignorant. They ought to have been His witnesses: they were not. They ought to have looked after all the world for God. They ought to have been His great witness to every nation, tribe, and tongue; but, alas! the truth was that so far from accomplishing their relation to all the world, and being a blessing to every nation under the sun according to the word to Abraham that all the families of the earth should be blest, they did not keep their own vineyard. They did not preserve their own blessings. They did not fill up what the Lord required even as to their own ways before Him; still less were they a light to all the world.

Having seen the King in His beauty and herself in her blackness, she has no desire to attract attention to herself. If she speaks of herself, it is not to draw attention to herself. "Look not upon me," she says, "because I am black." The heat of this world's trials, persecution from those that were nearest to her, slavery in the vineyards of others and neglect of her own things had, all left their mark upon her. And in like manner, having discovered our blackness in the light of Christ's perfection, we realize that we are no pattern for others. As we think of our many failures under fiery trials, how often we have broken down in the presence of the opposition of men of the world, how much we have slaved in the world's vineyards, and how much we have neglected our own things, are we not constrained to say with the bride, "Look not upon me?" And yet how often our words and ways betray the vanity of our hearts which practically says, "Look upon me." The effort to attract to ourselves tells how little we have been in the chambers of the King.

It opens with the confession frank and full of what she is by nature, "I am black," but also coupled with the full assurance of faith of what she is by grace, "comely." Black as the tents of Kedar by nature, comely as the curtains of Solomon by grace. The tents of Kedar, made of coarse black goat's hair and seen in all their dingy blackness under the bright rays of the desert sun, is a fit picture of what we are by nature—full of sin; while the beautiful curtains, made for the temple of fine twined linen, blue and purple and gold interwoven, is the symbol first of all of what Christ is in the perfection and beauty of His Person, but also of the believer as God sees him in Christ, clothed upon with all the beauty and perfection of His Person and work.