When a Godly Girl Is Having a Bad Day, What's Her Godly Husband to Do?

Security is an essential element in a happy, healthy, and growing marriage. This is certainly true for a woman, especially if one of her specific "love languages" is time. For her, the beautiful four-letter word love is often best spelled as "T-I-M-E." Extended periods of separation are painful. It hurts. It confuses. But it can also motivate a woman into action! This is what Shulammite does.

The woman returns her attention to her man. However, she shifts the imagery from that of a king to that of a shepherd. Her man is a shepherd-king, one who pictures and anticipates the messianic Shepherd-King, the Lord Jesus Christ. What an incredible man he is! From the city to the country. From the palace of a king to the shepherd's tent. She wants to know where her man is and she does not want to ask for directions or consult a GPS!

With something of a teasing request, Shulammite expresses her desire to be reunited with her man with three complementary questions: "Tell me, you, the one I love: Where do you pasture your sheep? Where do you let them rest at noon? Why should I be like one who veils herself beside the flocks of your companions?"

Solomon is gone. Why that is, we are not told, though the imagery implies he is about the normal duties of life. Here the picture is of a shepherd tending his sheep. She misses him. She wants to be with him. To speak so frankly exposes her heart, but it will also excite the heart of her lover. At noon the sheep would sleep. The other shepherds would be resting. There would be time just for them. No distractions. No interruptions. A mid-day rendezvous! What a great idea! What a creative lady we see. Their meeting would be outside in the wide open spaces, perhaps under a shade tree, perhaps in a temporary hut or shelter. Even as she sorrows over his absence, she strategizes about how to make their 19intimate time together new, exciting, and memorable. But you can't love them if you're not with them. They need to rendezvous and get together, and they need to do it now.

To wear a veil as she wandered among the other flocks and shepherds would be embarrassing. It could, in that day, give the impression that she was a prostitute (see Gen 38:14-15) or that she was possibly in mourning. A prostitute has many men, but if they are absent, she has no man she can call her own. There is no one to whom she can point and say, "That man is my man." Shulammite did not want there to be the slightest doubt that Solomon was hers and she was his. For there to be even a question concerning their fidelity and commitment to each other would be shameful. Shulammite knew there was a cost, a price to be paid, in committing herself for a lifetime to another person, and she was more than willing to make the sacrifice.

The man now speaks for the first time in the Song, and his words perfectly address both her concern of her appearance and his absence. First, he calls her beautiful, something he will do throughout the Song (1:8, 15-16; 2:10, 13; 4:1, 7; 5:9; 6:1, 4, 10; 7:1, 6). Second, he tells her where to find him. In essence he tells her to follow familiar paths or "tracks" that this shepherd-king is known to walk. Tremper Longman likens the scene to "a playful, sensual game of hide-and-seek" (Song, 101). I like that. His precise location is withheld, but a strategy for finding him is put before her. All of this draws our imagination to a romantic encounter far away from the public eye and the hustle and bustle of city life. This is the first time they steal a countryside getaway. It will not, however, be the last. Periodic times away and alone are a healthy tonic for marriage. This is a valuable lesson for all of us.

One of the ways to help your mate get over a bad day and to limit those bad days in the future is to work at communication. This is a theme we will see repeatedly in the Song of Songs because it is so important to a growing, healthy relationship. We need to be available. We need to talk. And this is crucial: we must cultivate the art of listening! Ours is more of a telling culture than a listening culture. We have to push back against its seduction. Below are ten suggestions to help keep open good 20lines of communication between a husband and wife. Walk through the list together, and then talk through what you each see individually as strengths and weaknesses. Work hard at listening to your spouse's perspective! It will be worth it.

The theme, promise, and hope of a shepherd-king are rich and run through both testaments. It begins when the Lord called the youngest boy of a man named Jesse, his son named David (1 Sam 16-17). David was a shepherd who would slay Goliath, become Israel's greatest king, and receive a promise from God that he would have a descendant of whom God said, "I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever" (2 Sam 7:13). Later David would pen the beautiful Psalm 23, which speaks of the Lord as our Shepherd. Then in Ezekiel 34:22-23 the Lord promised His people, "I will save My flock, and they will no longer be prey for you. I will judge between one sheep and another. I will appoint over them a single shepherd, My servant David, and he will shepherd them. He will tend them himself and will be their shepherd." Finally, the Old Testament unfolding of this portrait reached its end in Micah 5:2, 4, where we read of Messiah,

Promise becomes fulfillment in Jesus, the Son of David, whom the Bible calls "the good Shepherd" in John 10:11, "the great Shepherd" in Hebrews 13:20, and "the chief Shepherd" in 1 Peter 5:4. In Revelation 7:17 we discover this Shepherd is "the Lamb who is at the center of the throne" who guides His people to "springs of living waters."

This glorious future Shepherd-King is anticipated in the bridegroom-shepherd-king of the Song of Songs. He is the One who pastures well His sheep and gives them rest. His presence banishes all fears and insecurities, for He has promised those who love Him, "I will never leave you or forsake you" (Heb 13:5; cf. Deut 31:6). We may draw near to this Shepherd-King and find protection, provision, security, and shade. First Peter 2:21 teaches us to follow in the steps, the tracks (Song 1:8), of the one who is "the Shepherd and Guardian of [our] souls" (1 Pet 2:25). Here in Song of Songs we find a faithful and loving Shepherd, a 22Shepherd-King, whom the people can love, trust, draw near to, and follow. Here we find a shepherd-king who points us to Jesus.