5:2-8 Churches and believers, by carelessness and security, provoke Christ to withdraw. We ought to notice our spiritual slumbers and distempers. Christ knocks to awaken us, knocks by his word and Spirit, knocks by afflictions and by our consciences; thus, Re 3:20. When we are unmindful of Christ, still he thinks of us. Christ's love to us should engage ours to him, even in the most self-denying instances; and we only can be gainers by it. Careless souls put slights on Jesus Christ. Another could not be sent to open the door. Christ calls to us, but we have no mind, or pretend we have no strength, or we have no time, and think we may be excused. Making excuses is making light of Christ. Those put contempt upon Christ, who cannot find in their hearts to bear a cold blast, or to leave a warm bed for him. See the powerful influences of Divine grace. He put in his hand to unbolt the door, as one weary of waiting. This betokens a work of the Spirit upon the soul. The believer's rising above self-indulgence, seeking by prayer for the consolations of Christ, and to remove every hinderance to communion with him; these actings of the soul are represented by the hands dropping sweet-smelling myrrh upon the handles of the locks. But the Beloved was gone! By absenting himself, Christ will teach his people to value his gracious visits more highly. Observe, the soul still calls Christ her Beloved. Every desertion is not despair. Lord, I believe, though I must say, Lord, help my unbelief. His words melted me, yet, wretch that I was, I made excuses. The smothering and stifling of convictions will be very bitter to think of, when God opens our eyes. The soul went in pursuit of him; not only prayed, but used means, sought him in the ways wherein he used to be found. The watchmen wounded me. Some refer it to those who misapply the word to awakened consciences. The charge to the daughters of Jerusalem, seems to mean the distressed believer's desire of the prayers of the feeblest Christian. Awakened souls are more sensible of Christ's withdrawings than of any other trouble.

Verse 8. - I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love. This appeal to the ladies suggests that the bride is speaking from her place in the royal palace; but it may be taken otherwise, as a poetical transference of time and place, from the place where the dream actually occurred, to Jerusalem. It is difficult, in a poem of such a kind, to explain every turn of language objectively. We cannot, however, be far wrong if we say the bride is rejoicing, in the presence of her attendant ladies, in the love of Solomon. He has just left her, and she takes the opportunity of relating the dream, that she may say how she cannot bear his absence and how she adores him. The ladies enter at once into the pleasant scheme of her fancy, and assume that they are with her in the country place, and ready to help her to find her shepherd lover, who has turned away from her when she did not at once respond to his call. The daughters of Jerusalem will, of course, symbolically represent those who, by their sympathy and by their similar relation to the object of our love, are ready to help us to rejoice - our fellow believers.

I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem,.... Young converts, as before observed; who, upon the hideous outcry the church made in the streets, came to her to know what was the matter, whom she addressed as after related; this shows the humility and condescension of the church, in desiring the assistance of weaker saints in her present case, and her earnestness and resolution to make use of all ways and means she could to find her beloved; and it becomes saints to be assisting to one another; and conversation with one another, even with weak believers, is often useful. And these the church "adjures", or "causes to swear" (p); charged them on oath, as they would answer it to God; which shows the strength of her love, her sincerity, and seriousness in her inquiry after him:

if ye find my beloved; who had but little knowledge of him, and communion with him, since at present he was yet to be found by them; and it was possible, notwithstanding, that they might find him before she did, as Christ showed himself to Mary Magdalene, before he did to the disciples. The charge she gave them is,

that ye tell him that I am sick of love; or, "what shall ye", or "should ye tell him?" (q) not her blows and wounds, the injuries and affronts she had received from the watchmen and keepers of the wall; nor many things, only this one thing, which was most on her heart, uppermost in her mind, and under which she must die, if not relieved, "tell him that I am sick of love"; and that for him, through his absence, and her eager longing after him, and the discoveries of his love to her; and which, though not incurable, nor a sickness unto death, for Christ suffers none to die through love to him, yet is a very painful one; and is to be known by a soul's panting after Christ, and its prodigious jealousy of his love, and by its carefulness, diligence, and industry, to enjoy the manifestations of it. Of this love sickness; see Gill on Sol 2:5.

(p) Sept. "adjuro", V. L. Pagninus, &c. (q) "quid narrabitis ei?" Pagninus, Michaelis; "quid indicabitis ei?" Montanus, Marckius.

8. She turns from the unsympathizing watchmen to humbler persons, not yet themselves knowing Him, but in the way towards it. Historically, His secret friends in the night of His withdrawal (Lu 23:27, 28). Inquirers may find ("if ye find") Jesus Christ before she who has grieved His Spirit finds Him again.

tell—in prayer (Jas 5:16).

sick of love—from an opposite cause (So 2:5) than through excess of delight at His presence; now excess of pain at His absence.

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