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The Song of Solomon – Part 8

The Fragrance of the Name, and the Dragging of the Virgins

[Study Aired September 19, 2026]

Introduction

She has asked. That much was settled in the closing line of the last study (My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?), and Scripture does not leave a plea like hers hanging in silence for long. Notice what His answer is not. First, it is not a sentence. It is a scent — fragrance arriving in the room before the words that explain it, the way a physician’s hand often reaches the wound before his diagnosis reaches the tongue.

Two verses will occupy the whole of this study, and they must be heard once, whole and unbroken, before either is permitted to be taken apart.

Son 1:3-4 Because of the savour of thy good ointments, thy name is as ointment poured forth; therefore do the virgins love thee. Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee.

Underneath both verses runs a single, uncomfortable question that this study will not let you set down for long: not merely whether you love Christ, but whether what is presently being formed in you is fit to become, in the fullest and most terrifying sense of the word, His own anointed extension — Christ’s Christ. 

Oba 1:21  And saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD’s.

Gal 2:20  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.

Saviors — plural — ascending a spiritual mountain that is becoming their own, to execute a judgment that Is, Was, and Will Be their own, in a kingdom that remains, even after their ascent, entirely the LORD’s. This is not self-worship. It is the furthest possible thing from self-exaltation: a life so thoroughly emptied of its own claims that Christ Himself becomes the one living inside the vacancy. That is the standard this study will keep returning you to, quietly and without relief, as these two verses are opened.

1. The Savor of the Ointment, and the Name Poured Forth

Long before any daughter of Eve learned to fear her husband’s silence, a different silence was broken by a different scent, rising from an altar built by a man who had just watched the whole earth drown.

Gen 8:20-21  And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD… And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.

Notice the order: the curse remains — the ground still gives up its bread only in sweat, the wife’s garden still bears its thorns — and yet the fragrance rising from that altar is enough to secure, from the very beginning, the eventual good end of both resurrections. Judgment is not cancelled by the scent. Judgment is answered by it.

Savour — H7381 reyach – ray’-akh
1. scent, fragrance, aroma, odour
2. odour of soothing (a technical term for sacrifice to God)
From H7306, to breathe, blow, smell, perceive odour.

The root beneath reyach is the same root that supplies Scripture’s ordinary word for breath and spirit—the very organ through which discernment itself operates. A savour, in this vocabulary, is never merely detected. It is breathed in, taken into the same faculty by which a soul comes to perceive truth at all. What God smells at Noah’s altar is not incense. It is the shape of an argument His own justice will accept.

1Co 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. 

Exo 27:20 And thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring thee pure oil olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always. 

Zec 4:6 Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. 

Ointment — H8081 shemen
1. fat, oil, fatness
2. oil, olive oil, as staple, medicament, unguent, or for anointing
3. (metaphorically) fat, fruitfulness, abundance
Strong’s: from an unused root meaning to shine; i.e., (by analogy) to be, or causatively, to make oily or gross.

To shine by becoming oily — the lexicon’s own etymology already carries the doctrine before a single sermon is preached on it. Oil does not merely anoint; it makes the anointed surface catch and throw back light it did not generate on its own. This is the whole of the Bride’s coming glory in a single unused root: she shines because she has been made, deliberately, oily with a substance not her own.

Olive oil, throughout this system’s established doctrine, represents the holy spirit — the very power and nature of Christ, and of His Father. The anointing oil of the tabernacle was compounded, sealed, and reserved for one purpose alone. 

Exo 30:31-32 This shall be an holy anointing oil unto me throughout your generations. Upon man’s flesh shall it not be poured, neither shall ye make any other like it, after the composition of it: it is holy, and it shall be holy unto you.

Upon man’s flesh — upon those still outside the camp, still Babylonian in condition, however loudly they sing His name on a Sunday — it was never to be poured. This is not exclusivity for its own sake. It is the same principle that governs every locked chamber in this Song: what is holy cannot be handed indiscriminately to dogs without ceasing, in that instant, to be holy.

Psa 119:160  The sum of thy word is truth: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.

Not some of it. The sum — the whole, undivided total. This is what Christ’s name, His doctrine, His reputation, is compared to here: not a fragrance dabbed sparingly, but an ointment poured forth without rationing, until the whole room is filled with it.

2Co 2:15-16 For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life.

The same fragrance, breathed by two different congregations, yields opposite verdicts — not because the ointment changes, but because the nose that receives it has either been trained by chastising grace or corrupted by flesh. This is worth sitting inside for a moment rather than rushing past.

When Christ’s word is poured out plainly in your hearing — not softened, not negotiated — does it register in you as savor of life, or does some part of you, however quietly, still recoil as though it were the smell of your own fleshy death approaching? The honest answer will not be spoken aloud here. You need only know it before you turn this page.

Aaron’s own anointing pictures where this fragrance is meant to travel once poured—not evaporating at the crown of the head, but descending deliberately until the whole body is covered.

Psa 133:2-3 It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments: As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore. 

This is why, while still clothed in the flesh He would soon lay down, Christ Himself declined a title not yet fully His to claim.

Mat 19:17 Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

He was not disowning His own goodness. He was refusing to receive, ahead of schedule, the fullness of a name that His own resurrection had not yet secured. The oil had not yet finished descending to the garment’s skirts. Her own name, if she is honest, is still descending the same way — further along the beard than the crown, perhaps, but not yet at the hem.

1. Drawn, and Dragged, and Run: The Fate of Ten Virgins

Everything gentle in the previous section now meets its counterweight. The Bride does not glide toward this fragrance. She is hauled toward it, against a gravity she did not choose and cannot, on her own strength, overcome.

Draw — H4900 mashak
1. to draw, drag, seize, prolong
a. (Qal) to draw out, drag along, lead off, draw down
b. used of drawing a bow, drawing out a sound, prolonging patience, and dragging a condemned man to execution.

This is the same root that describes the slow, groaning draw of a bowstring under tension, and elsewhere the dragging of a body toward judgment. It is not the word Scripture would have chosen if a gentle beckoning were intended. We are not lifted from a well by a windlass. We are dragged, most often against the whole weight of an inherited self-will, until the heart, still resisting, finally, and often painfully, agrees with the hand pulling it.

This dragging does not discriminate at first. All ten virgins of the parable answer the same summons.

Mat 25:1-4 Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish… but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.

The five foolish are not unbelievers by profession. They are, or akin to, Orthodox Christianity in its fullest, most sincere expression — dragged toward the same Bridegroom’s name, singing of Him with real charismatic delight every Sunday of their lives, and unknowingly worshiping another Jesus entirely—the inverse of the Shulamite who says, “Son 5:2 I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled…”. She is asleep, but the key factor is her heart being awake, actively anticipating His arrival, which counts infinitely more than her sisters, whose entire mind, body, and spirit lack the urgency of desire.

2Co 11:3-4  …as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ… if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached… ye might well bear with him.

Rom 11:8  (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. 

Their failure is not a failure of enthusiasm. It is a failure of unity—the very failure this study has already traced in Solomon’s own house. He kept a thousand wives, and the number itself is doctrine before it is arithmetic: ten, in the grammar this system has already established, signifies the whole of a thing. His thousand wives signify the entire company of Old Israel and Babylonian Christianity together, signified virgins every one of them on their wedding night, and harlots within the year — not because they withheld their bodies, which they freely gave, but because not one of them thought to bring oil enough to keep a lamp burning once the bridegroom’s presence itself was no longer novel.

Ask what is actually being rationed in your own vessel this week: is it oil — the costly, deliberate reserve of Christ’s own word, gathered before the lamp is needed — or is it merely the confidence that your own natural warmth, your own charm, your own competent performance of devotion, will be enough to carry the flame when the Bridegroom finally arrives. Every foolish virgin believed the second thing until the door was already shut.

The number attached to the wise is not incidental either. Five, within this study’s established grammar, signifies grace received through faith—the very grace that teaches by chastisement rather than by flattery, burning every hindrance to ash before it calls the vessel clean.

Exo 26:1; Eze 42:16-20…the tabernacle with ten curtains… he measured it by the four sides… five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed round about.

Every measurement of the Temple runs in multiples of five, because the Temple itself, Scripture insists elsewhere without metaphor, is you and me.

Rev 11:1 And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.

III. The Chambers, and the Race That Only One Company Finishes

All ten virgins run. Only one company is brought inside.

The word ‘chambers’ describes the innermost sanctuary of a royal household—not the courtyard where petitioners wait, not even the hall where guests are received, but the private rooms reserved for those who belong to the family by right. To be brought there is to be granted a fellowship no outer court permits: deeper understanding of a word too costly to be shared with a crowd.

The wise virgins can run with such reckless joy only because the cost of the road was never charged to their own account.

Isa 53:11-12 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities… because he hath poured out his soul unto death.

Php 2:6-8 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant… he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

He emptied Himself of reputation so that her name, in turn, could become ointment poured forth rather than ointment hoarded. This is the pattern Obadiah’s saviors and Paul’s crucified self both point toward: glory received only ever as the far side of an emptying, never as the reward of a performance.

Heb 12:1-2  …let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.

The Wine That Was Kept Until Now

Wine already named in the prior study returns here with its full range restored. It can signify, positively, the exhilaration of the spirit and the joy of rightly received understanding; or, negatively, the counterfeit intoxication Paul warns against directly.

Eph 5:18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.

The progression across this opening chapter is deliberate and ought to be tracked as a single unfolding motion: wine, first — the initial exhilaration of a love better than any earthly intoxicant; then ointment — the settled fragrance of a name now trusted; then chambers — the inward room where fragrance and exhilaration both mature into fellowship. Desire is not abandoned as she progresses. It is escorted, deeper, into a room desire alone could never have entered on its own.

This is also why the New Covenant she now drinks under cannot be poured into her old wineskin.

Luk 5:37-39 And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles… No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.

Every soul still insisting that the old is better — the old order, the old covering, the old, familiar management of the curse — is accurately describing its own present palate, not the actual quality of the wine on offer. At Cana, the pattern is inverted precisely where Scripture’s governing law of reversal requires it.

Jn 2:9-10 Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.

The old wine, first in time, is destined for the Resurrection to Judgment. The new wine, last in time, is destined to be first — the only wine served at the one wedding that matters, kept deliberately until now.

1. Therefore Do the Virgins Love Thee

The world has its own doctrine of virginity, and it is stated with the same confident condescension every fly-blown ointment produces.

Ecc 10:1 Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.

Its argument runs, roughly: restraint enhances nothing; experience alone qualifies a person for love; and the ancient counsel to wait was never more than fear wearing the mask of virtue. It is worth answering this argument honestly rather than dismissing it, because the honest answer is more interesting, and more devastating to the argument, than mere refusal would be.

The mind treats desire as a motivational state before it ever becomes a physical one — attention, memory, and anticipation gradually assigning one particular person an extraordinary and specific significance the brain’s own reward pathways did not attach to anyone else. What deliberate restraint preserves is not some manufactured biological bonus. It preserves novelty, exclusivity, and imaginative space — the very conditions under which that significance can concentrate on a single face rather than being gradually spent across many.

An unopened letter can occupy a mind more completely than the letter already read. An unopened door commands more imagination than the room already familiar. This is not sentiment. It is simply how attention behaves when it has not yet been permitted to exhaust its object.

So picture her, then, at seventeen or twenty, standing at the threshold where girlhood has fallen behind, and a woman’s judgment has unmistakably arrived. She has known desire—to imagine otherwise is not purity but a lie about her humanity. She has simply refused to spend it indiscriminately. That refusal did something to time itself: every year deferred did not starve her longing. It banked the fire beneath the ash, so that when he finally stands before her — a particular man, with a particular laugh, particular weaknesses, particular kindnesses — he does not have to compete against a crowded gallery of former significances. He simply walks into a room that has been deliberately kept empty for him.

Consider what has quietly filled your own room in the years before Christ’s own arrival there — not merely which sins, but which lesser significances were allowed to occupy the space reserved, from before the foundation of the world, for Him alone. Are you, even now, still clearing that room, or have you stopped noticing what remains in it?

None of this makes her righteous by her own restraint. Correct that confusion before you let it stand.

Rom 4:5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

Eph 1:13-14…ye were sealed with that holy spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

Her waiting was never the currency that purchased her. It was simply the shape faith took in her, once purchased — a down payment already reckoned to her before she ever kept a single vigil. She did not preserve an experience for its own reward. In Babylon, before she knew her own name, she was already being given, by a mercy she could not yet name, the strength to make one right choice inside an experience of evil neither of them had chosen — and by the time this Song opens, she has already walked through that fire once. She is not approaching her testing. She has already made herself ready inside it.

Psa 37:4-5 Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.

This, finally, is what the virgins love: not a doctrine of denial, but a Bridegroom whose own emptying of Himself taught her that desire held in trust, rather than spent in haste, was never deprivation. It was rehearsal — for a chamber, an ointment, and a wine that could not have been rightly received by a heart still crowded with lesser claims. What Obadiah calls saviors ascending, what Paul calls Christ living where self once lived, both begin here, in a woman who learned to wait before she ever learned to run.

End of Part 8

Next Part 9: Son 1:5-7