The big picture
Song Of Solomon 3 moves from a private night search to public royal display. The woman seeks the one her soul loves, first on her bed and then through the city, repeating the failure to find him until the pattern suddenly breaks. She passes the watchmen, finds the beloved, holds him, and brings him toward her mother's house. The recurring charge about love closes that intimate episode. The scale then changes sharply. A perfumed procession rises from the wilderness around Solomon's guarded conveyance, with sixty armed men prepared because of danger in the night. Silver, gold, purple, Lebanon wood, and a wedding crown intensify the public splendour. Yet the book does not provide a complete stage direction connecting every private and royal scene. It lets the contrast stand: one embrace fiercely held, then a marriage procession protected by swords.
Central truth
The woman's repeated search moves from absence to reunion, and her determined holding of the beloved is followed by another charge not to disturb love prematurely. The wedding procession displays Solomon's prepared carriage, armed protection, costly fragrance, and maternal crowning as the daughters of Zion are invited to behold his gladness.
The study notes have a page of their own
The movement by movement analysis, the words to trace, the verse by verse notes and where readers differ are written for someone studying alone. They are on the Deep Personal Reflections page for this chapter. This page is the lesson.
A chapter-specific teaching brief
These anchors come from this chapter itself. They help a teacher use the Level 1 overview, the Level 2 study, and the Scripture text as one lesson.
Open with the chapter’s first image
Song of Solomon 3:1: “By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.”
Slow down at the turning point
Song of Solomon 3:6: “Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant?”
Keep this word trail visible
loveth, soul, daughters, sought, city, Jerusalem
What to explain, in order
Teach the passage in this order. Each step names the verses it rests on, so every point can be shown in the text before it is applied.
Song of Solomon 3:1–5
Song of Solomon 3:1
Absence after belonging
Set this beside the last verses of chapter 2, where she said "My beloved is mine, and I am his". Now he is missing. Explain that by night can be read as night after night; the Hebrew is plural. Teach this first so the group understands that the Song does not present love as constant bliss. Belonging and absence both belong to it. Then point out the phrase "him whom my soul loveth", and tell the group to count how many times it appears in four verses. Its repetition is the thread the whole passage hangs on.
Song of Solomon 3:2
She rises and goes
The woman does not wait in bed for the absence to end. She says she will rise and go through the city, its streets and its broad squares. Explain that a young woman alone in a city at night was exposed and unusual, which shows the strength of her longing. Teach here that she is the one acting. Then deal with the question every group asks: is this a dream? Say honestly that night and bed suggest something dreamlike and that the text does not tell us. Either way the longing is real, and the lesson does not depend on deciding.
Song of Solomon 3:3
A question with no answer
Read the verse and stop. The watchmen find her, she asks whether they have seen the one she loves, and the poem prints no reply. Teach the group to notice silence in a text and to leave it silent. Explain watchmen as the city guards who patrolled the walls and streets by night. Warn the class not to bring in 5:7, where a later night search ends with watchmen striking her; that belongs to its own passage. Here the encounter is brief and neutral, and the very next words are that she passed them by.
Song of Solomon 3:4
Found, held and brought home
Read 3:4 so the turn is heard: found him not, found him not, then found him. Ask the group to hear the relief in the verb. Then the verbs of holding follow: she held him and would not let him go. She brings him into her mother's house and the chamber of the one who conceived her. Explain the contrast: strangers and streets give way to family and home. Some readers hear here the approval of her household; Genesis 24:67 has Isaac bring Rebekah into his mother's tent. Do not claim the verse describes a ceremony; it describes coming home.
Song of Solomon 3:5
The refrain closes the scene
The charge of 2:7 returns word for word. Point out where it stands: right after reunion, at a moment of joy and holding. Teach this last because it frames how the passage should be heard. Intense love is good, and it still needs restraint and right timing. Explain roes and hinds again as gazelles and does, gentle creatures easily startled. Tell the group that the refrain also works as a section marker in the book, closing the movement that began at 2:8, so the procession in 3:6 begins something new.
Song of Solomon 3:6–11
Song of Solomon 3:6
Who is this coming up?
Start with the question, because the passage starts there. Watchers see something approaching out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, and they smell myrrh, frankincense and every powder a merchant could sell. Explain that the Hebrew pronoun is feminine, so some readers think the bride is being carried, while others refer it to the conveyance itself. Teach this first to set the scene: a public event on a desert road, seen from a distance. Readers in Jewish tradition have also heard in the pillars of smoke an echo of the pillar of cloud in the wilderness journey of Exodus 13:21.
Song of Solomon 3:7-8
Sixty swords against the night
Now the object comes into view: Solomon's bed, which in the King James means a carried couch, surrounded by sixty valiant men. Explain threescore as sixty. They are expert in war, each with his sword at his thigh, because of fear in the night. Teach the purpose stated in the verse: protection. Point out, as an observation, that the night held fear earlier in the chapter when the woman searched alone; here the night is guarded. The guards are part of the honour shown, not a sign of conflict, and they tell the group how precious the company is.
Song of Solomon 3:9-10
A conveyance made with love
Explain chariot here as a palanquin, a covered couch carried on poles. Solomon made it of the wood of Lebanon, the same cedar country that supplied the temple. List the materials with the group: silver pillars, a base of gold, a covering of purple. Then stop at the last phrase, paved with love, for the daughters of Jerusalem. Readers take it as an interior lovingly inlaid, perhaps the gift or work of the women of the city. Teach that the poem joins costly craft and love in one line, so splendour is never left to stand alone.
Song of Solomon 3:11
Crown and gladness
This is the high point. The daughters of Zion are told to go out and see King Solomon wearing the crown his mother gave him in the day of his espousals. Explain espousals as the wedding, and the crown as a wedding garland or crown, not the crown of rule. Then read the last line twice: the day of the gladness of his heart. Teach the group that the passage ends on joy. A wedding here is a public, guarded, fragrant, costly celebration, and at its centre is a happy bridegroom. This is the only explicit wedding scene in the book.
Song of Solomon 3:6-11
How the procession has been read
Close by naming the readings. Many read a royal wedding, perhaps idealised, celebrating marriage itself. Christian readers have heard in it the bridegroom Christ and the marriage of the Lamb in Revelation 19:7. Jewish readers have heard the journey of Israel with God through the wilderness. Present these side by side and let the group see what each draws from the text. Then add a historical caution: Solomon's later life in 1 Kings 11 went badly wrong. The passage celebrates this day; it does not commend everything Solomon later did.
Where learners get stuck
The misreadings this passage tends to produce, and how to answer each from the text.
Song of Solomon 3:1–5
"It was only a dream, so it does not really mean anything."
The text begins "By night on my bed", which makes a dreamlike reading possible, but it never says she dreamed. Either way, the longing in 3:1-4 is real, and dreams in Scripture often carry real meaning. Do not let the question become an escape from the passage. Keep the group on what is written: absence, search, a question, finding, home, and the charge of 3:5.
"The watchmen must have disapproved of her being out at night."
The verse says only that they found her and that she asked them a question (3:3). It records no reply, no rebuke and no harm. In the very next verse she passes them and finds him. Adding disapproval or danger here borrows from 5:7, a different night with a different outcome. Teach the group to read what the text reports and to leave the silence alone.
"If you seek hard enough you will always find the one you love."
Chapter 3 reports one search that ends in finding. In 5:6 another search ends with "I sought him, but I could not find him". The Song does not promise every seeker a reunion. Readers who hear the soul seeking God in this passage often add Jeremiah 29:13, which is God's promise about seeking him. Keep that promise distinct from guarantees about human relationships, which the passage does not give.
"Holding on and not letting go shows that real love is possessive."
Her holding in 3:4 is the joy of finding after loss, and it ends in bringing him to a place of family and belonging, not into captivity. The next verse is the charge not to stir up love before its time (3:5). The passage sets glad holding next to deliberate restraint. Nothing here approves of controlling another person or refusing them freedom.
Song of Solomon 3:6–11
"A wedding has to be expensive and impressive to be blessed."
Song of Solomon 3:6-11 describes one king's wedding; it does not command anything. The book itself says that love cannot be bought: "Many waters cannot quench love" and wealth offered for love "would utterly be contemned" (8:7). Jesus blessed an ordinary village wedding at Cana in John 2. Teach that the centre of this scene is gladness of heart, which no budget produces.
"This shows Solomon was a model husband."
The Song presents a wedding day at its best. 1 Kings 11:3 records that Solomon later had seven hundred wives and that they turned his heart away from God. Some readers think the beloved of the Song is a poetic king rather than the historical Solomon at all. Either way, teach the passage as a celebration of what marriage is meant to be, not as a portrait of everything Solomon became.
"The bed in verse 7 means the passage is describing something improper."
In 3:7 the bed is a carried couch, and 3:9 calls the same object a chariot, made of cedar, silver, gold and purple. It is surrounded by sixty armed men and travels in public view on a desert road. The scene is a procession, and the daughters of Zion are invited to watch it. Nothing here is private or improper; it is the public honour of a wedding.
"His mother crowning him means this is his coronation as king."
Verse 11 itself names the day: "in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart". That is a wedding. Solomon's accession is told in 1 Kings 1, where he is anointed by Zadok and Nathan. The crown here is a wedding crown, and the mother's part shows a family honouring her son. The text does not name her, and teachers should not add details.
Learning objectives
- Trace the search from bed to city streets.
- Identify the repeated description of the beloved.
- Describe the watchmen's limited stated role.
- Locate the change from not finding to finding.
- Explain the significance of the mother's house within this movement.
- Distinguish a possible dream from an explicit event sequence.
- Identify the procession's sensory details.
- Convert threescore attendants into sixty.
- Explain the stated reason for armed protection.
- Describe the carriage's materials without inventing its engineering.
- Identify the mother and wedding day in verse 11.
- Distinguish royal splendour from a command about wedding expense.
Teacher preparation
- Read 2:16–3:5; compare mutual belonging with the renewed experience of absence.
- Mark every occurrence of 'him whom my soul loveth'; let repetition carry the emotional emphasis.
- Prepare a simple movement chart: bed, streets, watchmen, finding, mother's house; leave unreported details blank.
- Compare 3:1 with 5:2 before discussing dreams; do not label a dream here as certain.
- Avoid reenacting pursuit or holding someone; do not invite disclosures about abandonment, missing people, or romantic experience.
- Read 3:1–11; note the shift from the woman's night search to a publicly observed procession.
- Explain 'threescore' as sixty and 'espousals' in 3:11 as the wedding occasion.
- Read 'bed' in 3:7 alongside the carriage language in 3:9–10; explain the processional setting without claiming a reconstruction.
- List fragrance, guards, materials, crown, and gladness; keep the bride's unreported identity and position unfilled.
- Plan a discussion of celebration that does not compare participants' weddings, budgets, marital status, or family relationships.
Evidence and interpretation checks
Explicit
Point to Song of Solomon 3:1–4: she seeks, rises, questions the watchmen, finds the beloved, and brings him to her mother's house. Point to Song of Solomon 3:7–11: Solomon is named, sixty armed men surround the conveyance, and his mother crowns him on his wedding day.
Scripture-supported
Read Song of Solomon 3:5 with 2:7: the same charge follows an intense passage about affection, preserving restraint alongside desire. Read Song of Solomon 3:9–11 with 8:7: costly celebration can be described without making wealth capable of buying love.
Strong inference
Infer from Song of Solomon 3:1–4 that the repeated failures make the finding emotionally significant; do not fill the silence with an invented quarrel. Infer from Song of Solomon 3:6–11 that the procession presents the occasion as publicly significant; fragrance, attendants, materials, and an invitation to behold converge.
Possible or traditional reading
Present a dream or dreamlike search as a possible reading of Song of Solomon 3:1–4 because it begins by night on her bed. Present a bridal conveyance or an idealized royal wedding scene as interpretive descriptions of Song of Solomon 3:6–11; qualify details not explicitly assigned.
Limit
State that Song of Solomon 3:3–4 reports no answer from the watchmen, no wedding ceremony, and no explanation of why the beloved was absent. State that Song of Solomon 3:6–11 does not name the bride, date the wedding, prescribe its cost, or require every couple to imitate royal ceremony.
Discussion with answer guidance
1. How does 'I sought him, but I found him not' shape the first two verses?
What a good answer contains
The line is said twice, at the end of 3:1 and again at the end of 3:2: "I sought him, but I found him not". The repetition is the point. It lets the reader feel the ache of a search that keeps failing, first in her bed by night and then through the city. A good answer hears rising frustration and longing. A weak answer treats the repeated words as filler, or hurries to the finding in 3:4 before the absence has been felt.
Show teacher guidance
Notice the repeated failure in 3:1–2; let the second search intensify the first rather than treating repetition as wasted words.
2. What changes when she says 'I will rise now'?
What a good answer contains
She moves from lying still to acting: "I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth" (3:2). Broad ways are the open squares. A strong answer sees her initiative and the risk of going out at night. It also notes that the text does not say whether this is a dream. A weak answer either settles the dream question or overlooks that the woman is the one acting.
Show teacher guidance
Trace the movement into streets and broad ways in 3:2; distinguish her voiced initiative from information about whether she is dreaming.
3. What do the watchmen actually do or say in verse 3?
What a good answer contains
Very little. "The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?" (3:3). They find her, and she asks her question. No reply is printed. A good answer reports exactly that and lets the silence stand. A weak answer borrows the violence of 5:7, where watchmen strike her, or invents a conversation, a rebuke or directions that the verse does not contain.
Show teacher guidance
They find her, and she asks a question; no reply is printed. Do not borrow their later violence from 5:7.
4. How does the wording announce that the search has changed?
What a good answer contains
The same sentence turns: "It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth" (3:4). After two reports of "I found him not", the verb finally comes out the other way. Then the actions pile up: "I held him, and would not let him go". A strong answer notices that the phrase "him whom my soul loveth" has carried all four verses, so the finding answers the whole search. A weak answer misses the reversal.
Show teacher guidance
Locate 'I found him' in 3:4 against the earlier failures; then note holding and bringing him home.
5. Why does the mother's house matter to the passage's movement?
What a good answer contains
Because the search ends in the most secure and familiar place: "until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me" (3:4). After dark streets and strangers comes home, family and belonging. Elsewhere Scripture speaks of a mother's house as a daughter's place, as in Ruth 1:8. A good answer contrasts streets and house. A weak answer claims the verse proves a particular wedding custom or tells us what happened inside.
Show teacher guidance
Contrast wandering streets with a named intimate household in 3:4; avoid claiming the verse proves a specific marriage custom or ceremony.
6. Why does the familiar charge return after the reunion?
What a good answer contains
Because finding love does not cancel the need for patience. "I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please" (3:5) repeats 2:7 word for word. The refrain closes a section, as it did before. A good answer sees restraint placed beside joy, not against it. A weak answer reads the charge as a rule that one person may possess or command the other.
Show teacher guidance
Use 3:5 to place the intensity within restraint; keep the KJV wording while distinguishing interpretation from a rule demanding physical possession.
7. Which details make the approaching procession noticeable before Solomon is named?
What a good answer contains
Something is seen and smelled before anyone is named: "Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant?" (3:6). Columns of dust or incense rise from the desert road, and costly fragrances fill the air. A good answer gathers the sight, the scents and the question, and lets the suspense build. A weak answer adds a battle, a miracle, or a temple ritual the verse does not describe.
Show teacher guidance
Use 3:6's smoke-like appearance and fragrances; do not add a battle, miracle, or particular incense ritual.
8. How many armed attendants appear, and why are their swords mentioned?
What a good answer contains
Sixty: "threescore valiant men are about it, of the valiant of Israel" (3:7). Their swords show that the procession is guarded, and 3:8 gives the reason: "every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night". Roads through the wilderness were dangerous after dark. A strong answer sees protection and honour. A weak answer imagines a military campaign, when the swords are there to keep the precious company safe.
Show teacher guidance
Answer sixty from 3:7; use 3:8's skill in war and fear in the night, not an invented military campaign.
9. What materials make the prepared carriage distinctive?
What a good answer contains
"King Solomon made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon" (3:9), which is a carried couch or palanquin rather than a war chariot. Its pillars are silver, its base gold, its covering purple, and "the midst thereof being paved with love, for the daughters of Jerusalem" (3:10). Purple was the costliest dye in the ancient world. A good answer lists the materials and keeps the striking phrase about love. A weak answer turns the verse into a technical drawing.
Show teacher guidance
List Lebanon's wood, silver, gold, and purple from 3:9–10; keep the striking phrase about love without pretending it is an engineering specification.
10. Who supplies the crown, and which day does verse 11 identify?
What a good answer contains
His mother does, on his wedding day: "behold king Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals" (3:11). Espousals means the wedding. A good answer distinguishes this wedding crown from a royal coronation; 1 Kings 1:39 records Solomon being anointed king by Zadok the priest, a different occasion. A weak answer turns 3:11 into an account of his accession or names his mother as if the verse did.
Show teacher guidance
Name his mother and the day of his espousals; distinguish a wedding crown here from an unreported political accession ceremony.
11. What are the daughters of Zion invited to behold besides the crown?
What a good answer contains
His joy: the same verse ends "and in the day of the gladness of his heart" (3:11). The daughters of Zion are told to go out and look, and what they are to see is not only a crown but a glad man on his wedding day. A good answer lets gladness be the climax of the whole procession. A weak answer stops at the gold, the guards and the purple, as if luxury were the point.
Show teacher guidance
Include Solomon's gladness of heart in 3:11; do not let the inventory of luxury crowd joy out of the reading.
12. What would be added if the procession became a rule for wedding spending?
What a good answer contains
A command the passage never gives. Song of Solomon 3:6-11 describes one royal wedding; it sets no budget and no standard for anyone else. Later in the book the Song says plainly that "if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned" (8:7). A good answer separates describing a celebration from prescribing one. A weak answer either condemns the splendour or makes it a measure of a blessed marriage.
Show teacher guidance
Identify the absent command: 3:6–11 describes this display but sets no budget or minimum standard for other couples.
Responsible application
Heart and habits
Ask learners to distinguish an unnamed person's experience of absence from evidence that the absent person has rejected them.
Relationships and community
Have a group propose a respectful response to an imagined request for help without inventing motives or spreading private information.
Read silence responsibly
Invite two summaries of the watchmen encounter: one confined to 3:3 and one containing assumptions; identify what must be removed.
Joy beyond spectacle
Invite a short description of this procession that retains the gladness of 3:11 rather than ending with gold and guards.
Session plans
Two timings of the same lesson. The shorter keeps the reading, the central discussion and one response; the longer gives the confusions and the application their own time.
Song of Solomon 3:1–5
45 minutes
Count the phrase
Read 3:1-4 once and ask the group to count whom my soul loveth. Then ask question one about the repeated failure.
Rising and the dream question
Read 3:2. Ask question two and handle confusion one without settling whether it was a dream.
The silent watchmen
Read 3:3. Ask question three, then confusion two, insisting on what the verse reports.
Found and home
Read 3:4-5. Ask questions four, five and six, and take confusion four about holding and restraint.
Response and handout
Use the application on reading silence responsibly, read the key verse together, and close in prayer.
90 minutes
Lost in a crowd
Ask the group to remember, without detail, a time they searched for someone in a crowd. Name the feeling, then read 3:1.
Night after night
Read 2:16-3:1. Ask question one and compare belonging with absence. Count the phrase whom my soul loveth through 3:1-4.
Into the city
Read 3:2. Ask question two. Take confusion one and give the dream question a fair hearing without resolving it.
Watchmen who say nothing
Read 3:3, then 5:7. Ask question three and work confusion two by setting the two verses side by side.
Found and brought home
Read 3:4 and Genesis 24:67. Ask questions four and five, and take confusion four.
The refrain again
Read 3:5 beside 2:7. Ask question six, then take confusion three with Jeremiah 29:13 and 5:6 side by side.
Application
Run the two-summary activity on 3:3, then the help-request case. Share one thing each summary had to remove.
Handout and prayer
Read the key verse together, point to the take-home line, and pray for those who are waiting or searching.
Song of Solomon 3:6–11
45 minutes
Something approaching
Read 3:6 and ask the group what they see and smell. Ask question one.
Guards and the night
Read 3:7-8. Ask question two, and take confusion three about the meaning of bed.
Cedar, silver and love
Read 3:9-10. Ask question three and list the materials on the board, leaving paved with love at the bottom.
The glad bridegroom
Read 3:11. Ask questions four and five, then six with confusion one, reading 8:7.
Response and handout
Use the application on joy beyond spectacle, read the key verse together and pray for marriages in the church.
90 minutes
What makes a celebration
Ask the group what they remember most from a wedding they attended. Keep the answers general and look for joy, not cost.
Out of the wilderness
Read 3:6 and Exodus 13:21. Ask question one, and explain the feminine pronoun and the two ways readers take it.
Sixty valiant men
Read 3:7-8. Ask question two, and take confusion three. Connect the fear in the night with the night search of 3:1-3.
The palanquin
Read 3:9-10. Ask question three and explain Lebanon, purple and paved with love.
Crown and gladness
Read 3:11 and 1 Kings 1:38-40. Ask questions four and five, and work confusion four.
Readings and cautions
Present the readings, then read Revelation 19:7 and 1 Kings 11:3. Take confusion two.
Application
Ask question six with 8:7, then plan the imaginary community celebration that honours the couple without ranking anyone by expense.
Handout and prayer
Read the key verse together, point to the take-home line and give thanks for marriages and for joy.
Adapting the lesson
Song of Solomon 3:1–5
Children
Talk about being lost and found: looking for a parent in a busy shop and the relief of finding them. Read 3:4 and let the children hear the joy of finding. Explain that the Song is about a wife's love for her husband, and that missing someone you love is normal. Leave the bed and chamber aside, and tell them that God always knows where they are.
Youth
Teenagers know absence and the anxious explanations people invent for it. Use 3:3 to show how the text refuses to invent what the watchmen thought, and practise the same restraint about friends who go quiet. Then read 3:5 and say again that strong feelings are good and need patience. Keep everything general and offer a written response.
Adults
Lay out the readings: a bride seeking her beloved, Israel seeking God in exile in Jewish tradition, and the soul seeking Christ in many Christian writers. Let the group test each against 3:1-5. For married adults, discuss seasons of distance within a marriage and how 3:4 ends in home. Handle the dream question as an open literary question.
One to one
Read 3:1-5 aloud together. If the person is grieving or separated from someone they love, let the repeated line be heard as honest longing that Scripture gives words to. Do not promise them a reunion; the passage reports one search, not a guarantee. Ask what they are looking for and listen before applying anything.
Song of Solomon 3:6–11
Children
Turn the room into a procession: one child holds a paper crown, others act as guards walking beside an imaginary carried couch, and everyone smells a spice jar. Read 3:11 and ask what the crowd is invited to see. Talk about how happy a wedding day is, and remind them that Jesus went to a wedding at Cana and made it joyful.
Youth
Ask how weddings are shown online and what gets the most attention. Then read 3:6-11 and notice that the passage ends not with gold or guards but with gladness of heart. Use 8:7 to show that love cannot be bought. Be careful with young people from families where marriages have broken or money is tight, and keep comparisons out of the discussion.
Adults
Give time to the readings: a royal wedding, Christ and the church with Revelation 19:7, and Israel with God in the wilderness. Discuss honestly how Solomon's later life in 1 Kings 11 should and should not shape how the Song is read. If wedding costs are a burden in your community, let 3:11 and 8:7 speak to what matters most at a wedding.
One to one
Read 3:6-11 together and ask what the person notices first. If they are preparing to marry, talk about the joy of 3:11 and the protection of 3:7-8. If marriage has been painful for them, do not press the celebration; acknowledge the loss and let the conversation rest on what love is meant to be.
Song and video learning lab
A song or video may interpret, compress, or dramatize the text. Its value becomes clearer when its choices are compared with Scripture.
- Before the media: the exact passage and its central movement.
- During the media: the words, people, events, and emotions the artist emphasizes.
- After the media: what it clarifies, what it leaves out, and what belongs back in the biblical text.
Handout
One page for learners to take home. The print button prints this section alone.
Song of Solomon 3:1–5
The passage in brief
At night the woman looks for the one she loves and cannot find him. She rises, goes through the streets and squares of the city, and asks the watchmen whether they have seen him. Soon after passing them she finds him, holds him, and brings him into her mother's house. Then she charges the young women of Jerusalem again not to stir up love before its time.
A verse to keep
It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.
Song of Solomon 3:4 · King James Version
Questions to take home
How many times does the phrase him whom my soul loveth appear in 3:1-4, and what does that show?
What do the watchmen say in 3:3, and why does it matter that we do not add more?
Why do you think the charge in 3:5 comes right after the finding?
This week
When someone you love goes quiet this week, ask them kindly instead of inventing a reason for their silence.
Song of Solomon 3:6–11
The passage in brief
A procession comes up out of the wilderness, rising like columns of smoke and fragrant with myrrh and frankincense. It is King Solomon's carried couch, guarded by sixty armed men against the dangers of the night, made of cedar from Lebanon with silver, gold and purple, and lined with love. The daughters of Zion are invited to come out and see the king wearing the crown his mother gave him on his wedding day, the day of his heart's gladness.
A verse to keep
Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold king Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart.
Song of Solomon 3:11 · King James Version
Questions to take home
Why do you think sixty armed men surround the procession in 3:7-8?
What do the daughters of Zion go out to see in 3:11?
How does 8:7 help you think about the cost of a celebration?
This week
Pray this week for one married couple you know by name, and thank God for the joy of their wedding day.
Music and video connected to the passage
Related media appears when its Scripture reference overlaps this study. Music and video can illuminate a theme while the biblical text remains the foundation.
