Expositor's Bible: The Song of Solomon Part 8

[122] i. 16.

Here the supposed utterance of Jerusalem is broken for the poet to insert a description of the suppliant making her piteous appeal.[123]

He shews us Zion spreading out her hands, that is to say, in the well-known att.i.tude of prayer. She is comfortless, oppressed by her neighbours in accordance with the will of her G.o.d, and treated as an unclean thing; she who had despised the idolatrous Gentiles in her pride of superior sanct.i.ty has now become foul and despicable in their eyes!

[123] i. 17.

The semi-dramatic form of the elegy is seen in the reappearance of Jerusalem as speaker without any formula of introduction. After the poet's brief interjection describing the suppliant, the personified city continues her plaintive appeal, but with a considerable enlargement of its scope. She makes the most distinct acknowledgment of the two vital elements of the case--G.o.d's righteousness and her own rebellion.[124] These carry us beneath the visible scenes of trouble so graphically ill.u.s.trated earlier, and fix our attention on deep-seated principles. It cannot be supposed that the faith and penitence unreservedly confessed in the elegy were truly experienced by all the fugitive citizens of Jerusalem, though they were found in the devout "remnant" among whom the author of the poem must be reckoned. But the reasonable interpretation of these utterances is that which accepts them as the inspired expressions of the thoughts and feelings which Jerusalem ought to possess, as ideal expressions, suitable to those who rightly appreciate the whole situation. This fact gives them a wide applicability. The ideal approaches the universal. Although it cannot be said that all trouble is the direct punishment of sin, and although it is manifestly insincere to make confession of guilt one does not inwardly admit, to be firmly settled in the conviction that G.o.d is right in what he does even when it all looks most wrong, that if there is a fault it must be on man's side, is to have reached the centre of truth. This is very different from the admission that G.o.d has the right of an absolute sovereign to do whatever He chooses, like mad Caligula when intoxicated with his own divinity; it even implies a denial of that supposed right, for it a.s.serts that He acts in accordance with something other than His will, viz., righteousness.

[124] i. 18.

Enlarging the area of her appeal, no longer content to s.n.a.t.c.h at the casual pity of individual travellers on the road, Jerusalem now calls upon all the "peoples"--i.e., all neighbouring tribes--to hear the tale of her woes.[125] This is too huge a tragedy to be confined to private spectators; it is of national proportions, and it claims the attention of whole nations. It is curious to observe that foreigners, whom the strict Jews sternly exclude from their privileges, are nevertheless besought to compa.s.sionate their distresses. These uncirc.u.mcised heathen are not now thrust contemptuously aside; they are even appealed to as sympathisers. Perhaps this is meant to indicate the vastness of the misery of Jerusalem by the suggestion that even aliens should be affected by it; when the waves spread far in all directions there must have been a most terrible storm at the centre of disturbance. Still it is possible to find in this widening outlook of the poet a sign of the softening and enlarging effects of trouble. The very need of much sympathy breaks down the barriers of proud exclusiveness, and prepares one to look for gracious qualities among people who have been previously treated with churlish indifference or positive animosity. Floods and earthquakes tame savage beasts. On the battlefield wounded men gratefully accept relief from their mortal enemies. Conduct of this sort may be self-regarding, perhaps weak and cowardly; still it is an outcome of the natural brotherhood of all mankind, any confession of which, however reluctant, is a welcome thing.

[125] i. 18.

The appeal to the nations contains three particulars. It deplores the captivity of the virgins and young men; the treachery of allies--"lovers" who have been called upon for a.s.sistance, but in vain; and the awful fact that men of such consequence as the elders and priests, the very aristocracy of Jerusalem, had died of starvation after an ineffectual search for food--a lurid picture of the horrors of the siege.[126] The details repeat themselves with but very slight variations. It is natural for a great sufferer to revolve his bitter morsel continuously. The action is a sign of its bitterness. The monotony of the dirge is a sure indication of the depth of the trouble that occasions it. The theme is only too interesting to the mourner, however wearisome it may become to the listener.

[126] i. 18, 19.

In drawing to a close the appeal goes further, and, rising altogether above man, seeks the attention of G.o.d.[127] It is not enough that every pa.s.sing traveller is arrested, nor even that the notice of all the neighbouring nations is sought; this trouble is too great for human shoulders to bear. It will absorb the largest ma.s.s of sympathy, and yet thirst for more. Twice before in the first part of the elegy the language of the poet speaking in his own person was interrupted by an outcry of Jerusalem to G.o.d.[128] Now the elegy closes with a fuller appeal to Heaven. This is an utterance of faith where faith is tried to the uttermost. It is distinctly recognised that the calamities bewailed have been sent by G.o.d; and yet the stricken city turns to G.o.d for consolation. And the appeal is not at all in the form of a cry to a tormentor for mercy; it seeks friendly sympathy and avenging actions. Nothing could more clearly prove the consciousness that G.o.d is not doing any wrong to His people. Not only is there no complaint against the justice of His acts; in spite of them all He is still regarded as the greatest Friend and Helper of the victims of His wrath.

[127] i. 20-2.

[128] i. 9, 11.

This apparently paradoxical position issues in what might otherwise be a contradiction of thought. The ruin of Jerusalem is attributed to the righteous judgment of G.o.d, against which no shadow of complaint is raised; and yet G.o.d is asked to pour vengeance on the heads of the human agents of His wrath! These people have been acting from their own evil, or at all events their own inimical motives. Therefore it is not held that they deserve punishment for their conduct any the less on account of the fact that they have been the unconscious instruments of Providence. The vengeance here sought for cannot be brought into line with Christian principles; but the poet had never heard the Sermon on the Mount. It would not have occurred to him that the spirit of revenge was not right, any more than it occurred to the writers of maledictory Psalms.

There is one more point in this final appeal to G.o.d which should be noticed, because it is very characteristic of the elegy throughout.

Zion bewails her friendless condition, declaring, "there is none to comfort me."[129] This is the fifth reference to the absence of a comforter.[130] The idea may be merely introduced in order to accentuate the description of utter desolation. And yet when we compare the several allusions to it the conclusion seems to be forced upon us that the poet has a more specific intention. In some cases, at least, he seems to have one particular comforter in mind, as, for example, when he says, "The comforter that should refresh my soul is far from me."[131] Our thoughts instinctively turn to the Paraclete of St. John's Gospel. It would not be reasonable to suppose that the elegist had attained to any definite conception of the Holy Spirit such as that of the ripe Christian revelation. But we have his own words to witness that G.o.d is to him the supreme Comforter, is the Lord and Giver of life who refreshes his soul. It would seem, then, that the poet's thought is like that of the author of the twenty-second Psalm, which was echoed in our Lord's cry of despair on the cross.[132] When G.o.d our Comforter hides the light of His countenance the night is most dark. Yet the darkness is not always perceived, or its cause recognised. Then to miss the consolations of G.o.d consciously, with pain, is the first step towards recovering them.

[129] i. 21.

[130] See i. 2, 9, 16, 17, 21.

[131] i. 16.

[132] Mark xv. 34.

CHAPTER VII

_G.o.d AS AN ENEMY_

ii. 1-9

The elegist, as we have seen, attributes the troubles of the Jews to the will and action of G.o.d. In the second poem he even ventures further, and with daring logic presses this idea to its ultimate issues. If G.o.d is tormenting His people in fierce anger it must be because He is their enemy--so the sad-hearted patriot reasons. The course of Providence does not shape itself to him as a merciful chastis.e.m.e.nt, as a veiled blessing; its motive seems to be distinctly unfriendly. He drives his dreadful conclusion home with great amplitude of details. In order to appreciate the force of it let us look at the ill.u.s.trative pa.s.sage in two ways--first, in view of the calamities inflicted on Jerusalem, all of which are here ascribed to G.o.d, and then with regard to those thoughts and purposes of their Divine Author which appear to be revealed in them.

First, then, we have the earthly side of the process. The daughter of Zion is covered with a cloud.[133] The metaphor would be more striking in the brilliant East than it is to us in our habitually sombre climate. There it would suggest unwonted gloom--the loss of the customary light of heaven, rare distress, and excessive melancholy.

It is a general, comprehensive image intended to overshadow all that follows. Terrible disasters cover the aspect of all things from zenith to horizon. The physical darkness that accompanied the horrors of Golgotha is here antic.i.p.ated, not indeed by any actual prophecy, but in idea.

[133] ii. 1.

But there is more than gloom. A mere cloud may lift, and discover everything unaltered by the pa.s.sing shadow. The distress that has fallen on Jerusalem is not thus superficial and transient. She herself has suffered a fatal fall. The beauty of Israel has been cast down from heaven to earth. The language is now varied; instead of "the daughter of Zion" we have "the beauty of Israel."[134] The use of the larger t.i.tle, "Israel," is not a little significant. It shews that the elegist is alive to the idea of the fundamental unity of his race, a unity which could not be destroyed by centuries of inter-tribal warfare. Although in the ungracious region of politics Israel stood aloft from Judah, the two peoples were frequently treated as one by poets and prophets when religious ideas were in mind. Here apparently the vastness of the calamities of Jerusalem has obliterated the memory of jealous distinctions. Similarly we may see the great English race--British and American--forgetting national divisions in pursuit of its higher religious aims, as in Christian missions; and we may be sure that this blood-unity would be felt most keenly under the shadow of a great trouble on either side of the Atlantic. By the time of the destruction of Jerusalem the northern tribes had been scattered, but the use of the distinctive name of these people is a sign that the ancient oneness of all who traced back their pedigree to the patriarch Jacob was still recognised. It is some compensation for the endurance of trouble to find it thus breaking down the middle wall of part.i.tion between estranged brethren.

[134] ii. 1.

It has been suggested with probability that by the expression "the beauty of Israel" the elegist intended to indicate the temple. This magnificent pile of buildings, crowning one of the hills of Jerusalem, and shining with gold in "barbaric splendour," was the central object of beauty among all the people who revered the worship it enshrined.

Its situation would naturally suggest the language here employed.

Jerusalem rises among the hills of Judah, some two thousand feet above the sea-level; and when viewed from the wilderness in the south she looks indeed like a city built in the heavens. But the physical exaltation of Jerusalem and her temple was surpa.s.sed by exaltation in privilege, and prosperity, and pride. Capernaum, the vain city of the lake that would raise herself to heaven, is warned by Jesus that she shall be cast down to Hades.[135] Now not only Jerusalem, but the glory of the race of Israel, symbolised by the central shrine of the national religion, is thus humiliated.

[135] Matt. xi. 23.

Still keeping in mind the temple, the poet tells us that G.o.d has forgotten His footstool. He seems to be thinking of the Mercy-Seat over the ark, the spot at which G.o.d was thought to shew Himself propitious to Israel on the great Day of Atonement, and which was looked upon as the very centre of the Divine presence. In the destruction of the temple the holiest places were outraged, and the ark itself carried off or broken up, and never more heard of. How different was this from the story of the loss of the ark in the days of Eli, when the Philistines were constrained to send it home of their own accord! Now no miracle intervenes to punish the heathen for their sacrilege. Yes, surely G.o.d must have forgotten His footstool! So it seems to the sorrowful Jew, perplexed at the impunity with which this crime has been committed.

But the mischief is not confined to the central shrine. It has extended to remote country regions and simple rustic folk. The shepherd's hut has shared the fate of the temple of the Lord. All the habitations of Jacob--a phrase which in the original points to country cottages--have been swallowed up.[136] The holiest is not spared on account of its sanct.i.ty, neither is the lowliest on account of its obscurity. The calamity extends to all districts, to all things, to all cla.s.ses.

[136] ii. 2.

If the shepherd's cot is contrasted with the temple and the ark because of its simplicity, the fortress may be contrasted with this defenceless hut because of its strength. Yet even the strongholds have been thrown down. More than this, the action of the Jews' army has been paralysed by the G.o.d who had been its strength and support in the glorious olden time. It is as though the right hand of the warrior had been seized from behind and drawn back at the moment when it was raised to strike a blow for deliverance. The consequence is that the flower of the army, "all that were pleasant to the eye,"[137] are slain. Israel herself is swallowed up, while her palaces and fortresses are demolished.

[137] ii. 4.

The climax of this mystery of Divine destruction is reached when G.o.d destroys His own temple. The elegist returns to the dreadful subject as though fascinated by the terror of it. G.o.d has violently taken away His tabernacle.[138] The old historic name of the sanctuary of Israel recurs at this crisis of ruin; and it is particularly appropriate to the image which follows, an image which possibly it suggested. If we are to understand the metaphor of the sixth verse as it is rendered in the English Authorised and Revised Versions, we have to suppose a reference to some such booth of boughs as people were accustomed to put up for their shelter during the vintage, and which would be removed as soon as it had served its temporary purpose. The solid temple buildings had been swept away as easily as though they were just such flimsy structures, as though they had been "of a garden."

But we can read the text more literally, and still find good sense in it. According to the strict translation of the original, G.o.d is said to have violently taken away His tabernacle "as a garden." At the siege of a city the fruit gardens that encircle it are the first victims of the destroyer's axe. Lying out beyond the walls they are entirely unprotected, while the impediments they offer to the movements of troops and instruments of war induce the commander to order their early demolition. Thus t.i.tus had the trees cleared from the Mount of Olives, so that one of the first incidents in the Roman siege of Jerusalem must have been the destruction of the Garden of Gethsemane. Now the poet compares the ease with which the great, ma.s.sive temple--itself a powerful fortress, and enclosed within the city walls--was demolished, with the simple process of scouring the outlying gardens. So the place of a.s.sembly disappears, and with it the a.s.sembly itself, so that even the sacred Sabbath is pa.s.sed over and forgotten. Then the two heads of the nation--the king, its civil ruler, and the priest, its ecclesiastical chief--are both despised in the indignation of G.o.d's anger.

[138] ii. 6.

The central object of the sacred shrine is the altar, where earth seems to meet heaven in the high mystery of sacrifice. Here men seek to propitiate G.o.d; here too G.o.d would be expected to shew Himself gracious to men. Yet G.o.d has even cast off His altar, abhorring His very sanctuary.[139] Where mercy is most confidently antic.i.p.ated, there of all places nothing but wrath and rejection are to be found.

What prospect could be more hopeless?

[139] ii. 7.

The deeper thought that G.o.d rejects His sanctuary because His people have first rejected Him is not brought forward just now. Yet this solution of the mystery is prepared by a contemplation of the utter failure of the old ritual of atonement. Evidently that is not always effective, for here it has broken down entirely; then can it ever be inherently efficacious? It cannot be enough to trust to a sanctuary and ceremonies which G.o.d Himself destroys. But further, out of this scene which was so perplexing to the pious Jew, there flashes to us the clear truth that nothing is so abominable in the sight of G.o.d as an attempt to worship Him on the part of people who are living at enmity with Him. We can also perceive that if G.o.d shatters our sanctuary, perhaps He does so in order to prevent us from making a fetich of it. Then the loss of shrine and altar and ceremony may be the saving of the superst.i.tious worshipper who is thereby taught to turn to some more stable source of confidence.

This, however, is not the line of reflections followed by the elegist in the present instance. His mind is possessed with one dark, awful, crushing thought. All this is G.o.d's work. And why has G.o.d done it? The answer to that question is the idea that here dominates the mind of the poet. It is because _G.o.d has become an enemy_! There is no attempt to mitigate the force of this daring idea. It is stated in the strongest possible terms, and repeated again and again at every turn--Israel's cloud is the effect of G.o.d's anger; it has come in the day of His anger; G.o.d is acting with fierce anger, with a flaming fire of wrath. This must mean that G.o.d is decidedly inimical. He is behaving as an adversary; He bends His bow; He manifests violence. It is not merely that G.o.d permits the adversaries of Israel to commit their ravages with impunity; G.o.d commits those ravages; He is Himself the enemy. He shews indignation, He despises, He abhors. And this is all deliberate. The destruction is carried out with the same care and exact.i.tude that characterise the erection of a building. It is as though it were done with a measuring line. G.o.d surveys to destroy.

The first thing to be noticed in this unhesitating ascription to G.o.d of positive enmity is the striking evidence it contains of faith in the Divine power, presence, and activity. These were no more visible to the mere observer of events in the destruction of Jerusalem than in the shattering of the French empire at Sedan. In the one case as in the other all that the world could see was a crushing military defeat and its fatal consequences. The victorious army of the Babylonians filled the field as completely in the old time as that of the Germans in the modern event. Yet the poet simply ignores its existence. He pa.s.ses it with sublime indifference, his mind filled with the thought of the unseen Power behind. He has not a word for Nebuchadnezzar, because he is a.s.sured that this mighty monarch is nothing but a tool in the hands of the real Enemy of the Jews. A man of smaller faith would not have penetrated sufficiently beneath the surface to have conceived the idea of Divine enmity in connection with a series of occurrences so very mundane as the ravages of war. A heathenish faith would have acknowledged in this defeat of Israel a triumph of the might of Bel or Nebo over the power of Jehovah. But so convinced is the elegist of the absolute supremacy of his G.o.d that no such idea is suggested to him even as a temptation of unbelief. He knows that the action of the true G.o.d is supreme in everything that happens, whether the event be favourable or unfavourable to His people. Perhaps it is only owing to the dreary materialism of current thought that we should be less likely to discover an indication of the enmity of G.o.d in some huge national calamity.

Still, although this idea of the elegist is a fruit of his unshaken faith in the universal sway of G.o.d, it startles and shocks us, and we shrink from it almost as though it contained some blasphemous suggestion. Is it ever right to think of G.o.d as the enemy of any man?

It would not be fair to pa.s.s judgment on the author of the Lamentations on the ground of a cold consideration of this abstract question. We must remember the terrible situation in which he stood--his beloved city destroyed, the revered temple of his fathers a ma.s.s of charred ruins, his people scattered in exile and captivity, tortured, slaughtered; these were not circ.u.mstances to encourage a course of calm and measured reflection. We must not expect the sufferer to carry out an exact chemical a.n.a.lysis of his cup of woe before uttering an exclamation on its quality; and if it should be that the burning taste induces him to speak too strongly of its ingredients, we who only see him swallow it without being required to taste a drop ourselves should be slow to examine his language too nicely. He who has never entered Gethsemane is not in a position to understand how dark may be the views of all things seen beneath its sombre shade. If the Divine sufferer on the cross could speak as though His G.o.d had actually deserted Him, are we to condemn an Old Testament saint when he ascribes unspeakably great troubles to the enmity of G.o.d?

Is this, then, but the rhetoric of misery? If it be no more, while we seek to sympathise with the feelings of a very dramatic situation, we shall not be called upon to go further and discover in the language of the poet any positive teaching about G.o.d and His ways with man. But are we at liberty to stop short here? Is the elegist only expressing his own feelings? Have we a right to affirm that there can be no objective truth in the awful idea of the enmity of G.o.d?

In considering this question we must be careful to dismiss from our minds the unworthy a.s.sociations that only too commonly attach themselves to notions of enmity among men. Hatred cannot be ascribed to One whose deepest name is Love. No spite, malignity, or evil pa.s.sion of any kind can be found in the heart of the Holy G.o.d. When due weight is given to these negations very much that we usually see in the practice of enmity disappears. But this is not to say that the idea itself is denied, or the fact shown to be impossible.

In the first place, we have no warrant for a.s.serting that G.o.d will never act in direct and intentional opposition to any of His creatures. There is one obvious occasion when He certainly does this.