My beloved
Song of Solomon 1:14
1:14 My beloved. The bride calls Solomon “my beloved” thirty-two times in the book. Just so, the Lord Jesus should be the one deeply loved by all His redeemed ones (I John 4:19). She is speaking in Song of Solomon 1:12-14, delighting in their union, perhaps their wedding night; then Solomon replies with words of love in Song of Solomon 1:15-17. These verses, like the entire book, are (among other things) a divine testimonial to God’s approval on the physical—as well as the emotional and spiritual—aspects of marital love. God created Adam and Eve for each other, and Christ endorsed the lifelong union of husband and wife (Genesis 2:18,21-24; Matthew 19:3-6). “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled” (Hebrews 13:4), “but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” In view of the ubiquitous warnings against all types of fornication and extra-marital sex throughout Scripture, there can be no question that Solomon and his bride were united in wedlock before they were united sexually in “our house” (Song of Solomon 1:17). Regrettably, Solomon soon was not content with this first love, evidently consummated very soon after he became king. For political reasons, he also “took Pharaoh’s daughter, and brought her into the city of David” (I Kings 3:1), and then eventually “loved many strange women” (I Kings 11:1), who turned his heart away not only from his first young bride but from the Lord Himself.