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A Mystery Hidden from the Ages and Generations: How Not to Be Bitter Against One’s Wife and How not to Make a Husband Bitter – Part 2

[Study Posted July 22, 2023]

“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them” – Col 3:18-19. 

In the first study, we saw a pattern of the heavenly for choosing a wife,  typified by Jacob and Rachel. Issac’s cardinal rule was for Jacob to find a wife within his family, spiritually, the Body of Christ. Being unequally yoked “is, was and will be” utterly out of the equation!

Upon seeing Rachel come with her father’s sheep, Jacob’s very first act was to roll the stone from the mouth of the well to water his future wife’s children, the Bride of Christ’s flock of ten sons, most significantly, and likewise, the yet-to-be-conceived Joseph and Benjamin. Scripture doesn’t say at this point the no doubt minimal interactions between Jacob and Rachel. Yet, every male instantly recognises a girl’s “altogether” (Son 4:7) beauty upon their eyes meeting. Rachel’s glorious femininity must have caught Jacob’s breath since his first response upon kissing her was to lift up his voice and weep. 

Pro 18:22 Whoso findeth a [virtuous] wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD. 

The spiritually maturing female joints of the Bride will not feel picked upon by the Lord’s word focusing on her many physical failings to reflect their momentous spiritual connections since her composition is equally men. Only Christ finds a virtuous wife; all men in Babylon (as do women) unwittingly find a spiritually non-virtuous spouse typified by the cringy term, a “harlot” (Isa 1:21).

Spiritual connection is the stanchion that underpins a marriage

A potential husband offers spiritual connection to the girl of his single-eyed focus. If his spirit sparkles her fascination, her connecting response is her Shulamite-like elegant feminine arousals in him that will guarantee him weeping for joy. It is the pattern of the heavenly which Christ spiritually evokes in His Bride. His spirit and its understanding passionately arouse her eager submission and desire to artistically inflame him for his kisses which are better than the wine of the Old Covenant. It is the pattern for a husband’s and wife’s indelible connection and resulting bliss ~ reversing “a life more bitter than death” (Ecc 7:26).

Exo 25:40 And see that you make them [the Temple that we are!] after their pattern, which was shown you in the mountain.

2Ti 1:13 Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

A Queen Vashti-like seeker of self-glorification by not submitting, soundly positions her as an Esau-like “first”, and the stunning Rachel and Esther (two of several similar representations) represent the Bride of Christ, the “last” becoming the spiritual “first”. Queen Vashti’s ‘underpinning stanchion’ for her marriage was her rulership over her husband, a guarantee for its collapse ~ and it did!

Mal 2:10 Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers? 
Mal 2:11 Judah [those dragged to the Lord] hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god. 
Mal 2:12 The LORD will cut off the man that doeth this [cut off the man not wholeheartedly seeking the Lord that first is depicted as wholehearted sexual intimacies], the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the LORD of hosts.
Mal 2:13 And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand.

That weeping and moaning is like Leah decrying that Jacob doesn’t love her. He had a semblance of a relationship with her, yet she is described as his ‘hated wife’ since she didn’t have the connecting spiritual pattern of the heavenly for him. Leah, as does Babylon, thought sexual intimacies were the primary source of a lasting marriage. Though bedroom intimacies significantly help, they do not denote deep personal and spiritual connection that soundly amplifies the ‘natural’.

Gen 29:31 And when Jehovah saw that Leah was hated, even He opened her womb. But Rachel was barren. 
Gen 29:32 And Leah conceived and bore a son. And she called his name Reuben, for she said, Surely Jehovah has looked upon my afflictions. Now therefore my husband will love me. [… but he didn’t!]

The foundational and underpinning fact to understanding anything in scripture, including the above verses, is the stark understanding that ‘first comes the natural’ pointing to its spiritual reality. (All of 1 Corinthian 15 – 1Co 15:46).

Even though we know that the flesh profits nothing, the Song of Solomon is central to discovering that literal (colloquially speaking) ‘holy grail’, the keys to the ultimate dream marriage are first physical and culminating distinctly spiritual; the epitome of all spiritual sensuality reflected in eternal life.

Most marriages are agonisingly aware of unresolved issues that disconnect the couple from being one flesh and one mind in everything. If spouses are one mind in almost everything, the bedroom intimacies take care of themselves. (Eph 4:1-6). Yet, enough people stumble into exceptionally good sexual relationships that encourage the masses to ‘gold feverishly’ search for the holy grail answers to living in eternal bliss with their spouse.

Following the honeymoon phases of the first couple of years of marriage, most wives, with buoyant busyness “whose heart[s’ unwitting inheritance] is snares and nets” and “her hands as bands” (Ecc 7:26) with deceitful kisses masterfully mollify any escalation of sexual tensions. 

A wife’s drip-fed sexual intimacies silently anger a husband, especially as he reads, “Be not bitter against them” as he struggles to spiritually forebear her in the unity of peace, knowing from experience that enthusiastic engagement for change is unlikely to occur. In smouldering anger, he quietly yields to his wife’s manipulations, after which non-related disagreements blow up, and she can’t understand his brooding grouchiness. He feels trapped and betrayed (“defrauded”). 

Ecc 7:25 I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness: 
Ecc 7:26 And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her [and the Bride of Christ is escaping from her].

1Co 7:5 Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency [Intrinsic need for sexual fulfilment, and particularly for the man representing Christ’s spiritual need for his Wife’s utter devotion to him].
1Co 7:6 But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment. [Why?]

The Lord made within the vast majority of men, as did the Father in Christ, an intense desire to fulfill his longing for companionship epitomised through sexual (spiritual) contentment, much to the woman’s age-lasting exasperation by the unwitting meaning of her “curse”. Of course, remember that the woman represents a church filled with men equally cursed to be weary of their Lord’s longing to be fulfilled. 

That form of the “natural coming before the spiritual” directly parallels Christ’s longing to have his Shulamite-like wife’s equal spiritual passion for him.

King David considered his appetite for one woman similar to what his son, Solomon, later desperately desired; one wife whose heart isn’t snares and nets and her hands as bands. Ironically, at the Lord’s hand, Solomon’s birth resulted from his father’s despair that the seeming origin of his unrighteous and righteous lust emanated from his loins, just as a woman’s unrighteous and righteous lust stems from her breasts and heart, which escalates desire in her and her husband.

The Shulamite, and Oholibah, like all women, knows that her passion arises from a thousand other erotically sensory locations on her body, nowhere near her breasts or the home of coup de grâce’ seizures. 

Eze 23:21 And thou didst look back to the lewdness of thy youth, in the handling of thy teats by the Egyptians, for the breasts of thy youth.

The woman’s entire body, the Bride of Christ, is a spiritually erotic sensory organ akin to a stringed or keyboard instrument. When our Lord skillfully caresses some notes and plucks others from the treble to the bass, it culminates around the center of the instrument, her breasts. Our Lord brushes the lobe and fine hairs of our ear with his breath of apples (Son 7:8), whispered truths. His fiery eyes look into ours and melt our pruriently pounding hearts beneath our breasts ~ the endless spiritual eroticism is left up to the individual’s imagined vivid spiritual arousals. 

A woman’s breasts and heart are the epicenters where all sensual and spiritual roads lead, ensuing the lovesick waves emanating seismically from her orchard (H6508).

Son 4:12 A garden [H1588 – 1. garden, enclosure; enclosed garden 1. (fig. of a bride) From 1598 – 1. to defend, cover, surround] inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring [H1530 – 1. heap, spring, wave, billow] shut up, a fountain sealed. 
Son 4:13 Thy plants [H7973 – 1. weapon, missile, sprout] are an orchard [H6508 – 1. park, preserve, enclosed garden, forest] of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard, 
Son 4:14 Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices: 
Son 4:15 A fountain [H4599 – 1. spring. From H5869 – eye] of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon [From H3835 – 1. to be white a. (Hiphil) 

to make white, become white, purify]

Why, then, does a wife a few short years after marriage drip-feed her Lord spiritual excitations when unjust Oholah and Oholibah have more whit to keep a man than the free woman? Our Lord made her that way; with the enormous beauty of her Husband’s strength, her job is to ‘reverse the curse’ (a lyrical chime worth resonating).

Luk 16:8 And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.

Of course, Aholibah took her breasts’ representative power over men too far; she abused their righteous use to the extent that they were “bruised” (Eze 23:21) to the extent that they were figuratively plucked off her chest ~ such was the fervid attention of her endless suitors. 

Eze 23:34 Thou shalt even drink it and suck it out, and thou shalt break the sherds thereof, and pluck off thine own breasts: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.

Oholibah represents “the children of this world [who] are in their generation wiser” than the budding Bride of Christ in biological marriages. A righteous husband and Christ would be delighted with a fraction of Aholibah’s torrid affections.

Pro 17:1 Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife. 

Psa 37:16 A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked. 

Interestingly, when a man expresses heartfelt emotional surprise, he clasps his head or runs his hands down his face, whereas a woman clasps her neck or breasts. Men tend to have a greater single-minded (head/mental) focus, and women have an emphasis on heartfelt emotions, each beautifully complementing the other. 

Psa 38:7 For my loins [H3688 stupid; foolish] are filled with a loathsome disease [parched burning; to disgrace]: and there is no soundness [to be complete; be at an end] in my flesh. 

We could likewise state, “For my breasts (H7736  1. (Qal) to ruin, destroy, spoil, devastate) are filled with a loathsome disease (parched burning; to disgrace): and there is no soundness (to be complete; be at an end) in my flesh.” Of course, Aholah and Aholibah in Ezekiel 23:4, and hopefully not in us, will gravely vouch for that analogy with “bruised teats” and tears of humiliation in the Resurrection to Judgment. 

David, a man after God’s heart (Acts 13:22), and like all men subconsciously, precedes the spiritual in their burning to have one wife companion, not an interchangeable selection similar to one thousand of Solomon, his son’s ethnic beauties. David’s bitter irony is that his heart became snares and nets and his hands as bands with his lust for a woman (Bathsheba) whom he unwittingly thought would satisfy his Solomon-like quest for truth that a righteous sexual covenant would in the future portray. What wonderful truths came from David and Solomon’s unrighteous aches for “one woman” who would glorify them rather than herself; of course, Christ didn’t find her, so He made her for Himself since, and as Solomon knew, none existed.

Ecc 7:27 Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account [there wasn’t one in his one thousand wives who could fit the bill]:
Ecc 7:28 Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found [being Christ, whom fleshy husbands are to represent]; but a woman among all those have I not found.
Ecc 7:29 Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man [Jesus] upright; but they [mankind] have sought out many inventions [devices; scheming].

So, what does a woman whose heart is snares, nets, and her hands as bands represent? Of course, she is Solomon’s thousand wives of Babylonian Christianity. She strikes unrighteous fear into her many suitors’ hearts labouring to attain eternal life in a delusionary ‘one’ resurrection. They are bound to a false Christ with an iron grip, enslaved to paying tithes and offerings, and only the Lord’s Elect escape her. Our Lord designed it all to work precisely like those above expressions to reflect Israel’s unequivocal enthusiastic marital agreement to follow Him entirely with her heart; for Him to feed her with kisses better than wine. How does that equate to a biological marriage? As with most marriages and Christ’s experience, it doesn’t take long for the curse from Eden to kick in, and the kisses turn to vinegar.

With the growing infrequency of sexual intimacies, a husband sharply feels a resentment “more bitter than death” for the thinly veiled Martha-like legitimacy for busyness (and where credit is due, often sincerely) dedicated to late nights to bed, endless housework, looking after children’s needs that only a mother can perform, and authentic tiredness. He’s bewildered and feels that he has been utterly ambushed and defrauded by his wife’s feigned heart that, in their courtship, seemed a mirror of Rachel and secretly hoped a little ‘righteous’ Aholibah; he distinctly now senses a vice-like capture and ensnared heart (Ecc 7:26) and a bitterness more than death.

Because those phenomenally bona fide female burdens don’t disappear, their legalised power is her trump card with no recourse for a husband. Any thoughts of her body not being her own are dismissed since that concept butts head to head with her commanding rulership. He, not wanting to look and feel even more like a sexual degenerate by broaching those subjects, submits to his wife’s rulership in quiet anger. And so, the grinding ‘bitterness’ loop is rarely resolved. 

Luk 10:38 And as they [Christ and the Apostles] went, it happened that He entered into a certain village. And a certain woman named Martha received Him into her house.
Luk 10:39 And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. 
Luk 10:40 But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she came to Him and said, Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me. 
Luk 10:41 And Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. 
Luk 10:42 But one thing is needful, and Mary [The Shulamite, the Bride] has chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

Mary’s beauty is amplified by her intense interest in Jesus’s message. Her passion is directly spiritual foreplay, typified by sexual seduction; both ravished parties don’t want to stop its escalation. Mary was given by God to grasp the Shulamite-like desire to be spiritually aroused by her Lord’s symbolic kisses. She was unconsciously building her house by the extended, deeply spiritual excitement. In the Body of Christ, nothing is more exhilarating. Lord willing, we utterly refuse another Jesus in adulterous doctrine “until He pleases” (Son 8:4) the fullness of his spirit in marriage.

When an electric connection between a young man and a woman is mutual, its magnetism is excruciatingly irresistible. It is the most stupendous sensory delight echoing Shulamite flirtations! Deliberately, the Shulamite (in the Song of Solomon) agonisingly draws out that thrilling spark in her poetic dream with her Lord. She and Mary spiritually experienced such with Christ; nothing would stop Mary’s intense interest in her Lord’s spiritual arousals. 

Any extended flood of non-sexual sensual arousals, as is Christ’s spiritual ravishings, are mostly unconsciously yet directly connected sexually in the flesh. Many people are oblivious to that mysterious biological phenomenon.

It takes immense Shulamite-like discipline to cunningly delay intimate stimulation that delightfully agonises anticipation in a husband (Son 8:4) ~ the Shulamite is a master builder of her house! 

Pro 14:1 Every wise woman builds her house, but a foolish one tears it down with her own hands. 

2Ti 1:6 Therefore I remind you to inflame anew the gift of God [holy spirit], which is in you by the putting on of my hands.

In the 1970s, as the late ribald male Australian comedian, John Barry Humphries, going by the pseudonym of Dame Edna , quipped in affected female tones, the hurtful biased truth spoken by most wives (at least internally) regarding husbands, “… all you men can think about is sex, sex, sex!” Of course, everyone in unison laughed at the distortion of reality that covertly reinforced women’s gleeful bias with furtive looks at their husbands, while men, with awkward grins, stoically looking straight ahead, felt mocked and beaten ~ all to both parties’ enduring ruin.

The comedian spoke powerful elements of truth for those with the foresight to spiritually understand the Shulamite’s masterful plan. She, being us, and from past experience, saw that her years of endless study and exhaustion were devoted to finding how to be a Leah. Our husband, Christ, as did Jacob, will likely (‘if it were possible’)  become bitter against us when we represent Leah.

Rachel and the Shulamite revelled in anticipatory, elegantly calculated foreplay that caused Jacob (symbolic of men sexually) and Christ to be single-eyed and focused on thinking, spirit, spirit, spirit! Time flies with such a sparkling-eyed and breezy girl who trusts in her Lord’s strength (Gen 29:20); no man can resist her! Christ couldn’t.

In the same era as the aforementioned bawdy Australian bard, some illuminary ‘professional’ resonated with billions of wives that men think of sex every seven seconds. Of course, that absurdity only strengthened women’s entrenched bias towards men’s seemingly endless libertine mindset. Men with that now equally entrenched inconceivable equation were tarred for decades as dissolute sweaty ghouls lecherously labouring insensitively ~ the notion did have great credence. So, regarding spouses’ hoped connectivity, as the adage says, “Never the twain shall meet”, and they universally don’t.

For the Body of Christ, it is immutable that two women, represented by Hagar and Sarah, the Lord’s rejected wife and His elected wife, dominate the scriptures. Old Israel is represented by Hagar, who is against her husband, the Lord of the Old Covenant. Submissive Sarah is the mother of us all spiritually [as Eve is physically – Gen 3:20], the heavenly Jerusalem above (Gen 17, Gal 4:21–31)

The vital element of understanding that wives are “against” their husbands is the foundational theme that drives husbands to be bitter against their wives:

The New English Translation has the more accurate account of Gen 3:16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your labor pains; with pain you will give birth to children. You will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you.”

Witless men and particularly husbands, innately deeply feel their God-given role of headship without understanding. Gelded, they withdraw from their equally cretinous wives (any controlling woman) demotion and in semi-confused stony-faced loathing for the humiliation. The Concordant Literal Version succinctly expresses his wife’s dishonour:

Deu 23:1 No one emasculated by the crushing of his testicles or having his penis cut off shall come into the assembly of Yahweh. (CLV)

Confused and angry with his emasculation, he unrighteously rules over his wife, and she responds with tears and a stubborn heart.

Gen 3:16 Unto the woman [our rebellious nature] he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to [the word “to” is properly translated in Hebrew: ‘el’ – against. Hebrew: ‘el’ – against by implications of the intent of the verse] thy husband [Christ within us], and he [Christ] shall rule over thee. Gen 4:7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

YES! Here, Cain can be viewed as the Harlot church and Abel the Bride of Christ. Adam desired Eve even after she sinned since he realised he was just as liable as she was. So, too, do men desire women today, and Cain, the harlot church, is men’s desire, and SHE will and does rule over him! 

Gen 4:8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against [Hebrew: ‘el’ the same word for “to”] Abel, his brother, and slew him. 

All men, led by Adam, abdicated their headship due largely to their sexual desire for the woman, which she quickly learned to use as a trump card of control. To many women’s secret lust and outward disdain, it is natural for the heterosexual woman to yearn for the mostly unattainable chiselled specimen of manhood to dominate her. Yet, she semi-consciously holds the discordant duplexity of wanting him to bow down and worship her, as seen by Queen Vashti’s conceit and humiliating retreat (Est 1:9 – 22).

Est 1:19 If the king is so inclined, let a royal edict go forth from him, and let it be written in the laws of Persia and Media that cannot be repealed, that Vashti may not come into the presence of King Ahasuerus [akh-ash-vay-rosh], and let the king convey her royalty to another who is more deserving than she [Esther].  
Est 1:20 When the king’s rescript, that he must execute, is announced in all his kingdom, vast as it is, then all wives shall render esteem to their spouses from the greatest unto the smallest.

The Shulamite utterly reversed that strange dichotomy Solomon couldn’t understand from his experiences that all women have hearts of snares and nets and her hands like bands (Ecc 7:24-29). She unabashedly promoted elegant arousal with exquisite ravishings in herself and Him since she saw the pearl of great price in crystal clarity and sold all her self-will and rulership over Him to buy that field containing buried treasure (Mat 13:44-46). She struck gold in finding that nirvana to immutably crush her innate tardy arousals! No wonder Christ is a jealous God for his Bride when she unreservedly focuses her feminine spiritual ravishings on Him for their future mutually eternal loop of paradise.

1Co 11:8 For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. 
1Co 11:9 Nor was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man.

The Sun (husband) is not of the Moon, but the Moon (wife) revolves around the Sun indirectly in its revolutions around our revolving earth.

Nor was the Sun created for the Moon, but the Moon for the Sun, meaning that the Church was made for Christ, not Christ for the Church.

This means mankind was made for Christ, not Christ for mankind. Yet, unilaterally, the sisterhood of women (bar the Bride of Christ) led by the ship’s figurehead, Queen Vashti, innately know that 99.99% of men will submit to pretty much anything she says if the undertone of sexual denial glares silently! His weak protests don’t make a whit of difference since he is lumped in with his peers who loudly affirm the label of his degeneracy ~ he’s snookered, and she rules!

While the act seems relatively innocent, I always feel degraded that a young man ‘charmingly’ goes down on bended knee to ask his teary overjoyed girl to be his wife. That act powerfully represents her coming rulership over and emasculation of her husband, to which both are naive.

Spiritually, Christ never bowed to his fiancée; she enthusiastically bows both knees before him, and He irresistibly responds by devoting His colossal love to her; ironically, the very thing she craved! 

God made Adam symbolically upright even though the sin was initially attributed to Eve. Adam was complicit with Eve’s sin by submitting to her rulership, classically by him symbolically bending his knee to Eve! Solomon’s conclusion that all women “… have sought out many inventions” equally indicts Adam and all men in the sin of worshiping women, represented as spiritual harlotry with Babylon.

Solomon worshiped many women (1Ki 11:1-2… “love” is worship) and intimately knew their convoluted back-stabbing machinations as they jostled among themselves for distinction. He trusted in his God-given wisdom for understanding, and looked and looked and looked upon the “black” (clouded; hidden from understanding) Shulamite to understand that this stunning beauty broke all his God-given rules of wisdom since she was a startling outlier who was given to not have “a heart that snares, and nets and hands like bands.” Before his time, Solomon knew that God was true and every man a liar, and now, this Shulamite preposterously seemed equal with God! Solomon couldn’t accept that the mortal female Shulamite wasn’t the perfect deception. Solomon trusted implicitly in his God-given wisdom, particularly in Eccleiastes 7:24-29 (… hands like bands etc.); hence, he needed to stringently question a missed aspect of his wisdom for the irksomely overlooked pretence that the Shulamite just had to manifest. His exasperation caused him not to give up looking for her patent treachery, so he says…

Son 6:13 Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee [to stare down her presumed hidden lie; she must flinch from his intense introspection, seemed to be his intention]. What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies. 

Solomon seems to conclude that she is utterly different from all other women. She is of his other 1,000 ethnic beauties, yet, she is different, and a (small) army bearing her likeness will undoubtedly come from her loins (Luke 12:32) to rule over all of her sisters of his court.

Gen 17:7 And I will establish my covenant between me and thee [Abraham] and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. [Exo 31:16; Deu 4:23; Deu 9:9]

The first “army” was Israel in the wilderness, represented by Solomon’s 1,000 wives, of which Solomon (unwittingly) represented as Jehovah. He concluded that the Shulamite must represent a new army, a second representation since she was outstandingly different from any woman he had ever known!

Son 1:5 I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. 
Son 1:6 Look not upon me, because I am black [effectively saying that no matter how much you look upon me, you will not (in this life) discover my spiritual representation] because the sun hath looked upon me: [Christ’s spirit was to look upon her with God’s brightness that blinded in blackness all understanding of her representation] my mother’s children [The mother of harlots from Sinai] were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept. 

The next verse can be seen from Solomon’s and the Shulamite’s perspectives.

Son 1:7 [Solomon’s internal questioning] Tell me, You [Shulamite] whom my soul loves, where do you feed [your flocks, your teeth], where do you lie down at noon? [Solomon appears peeved that this Shulamite girl has more wisdom than he! Spiritually, she did and made him lie down at noon and rest from the blackness in his heavens which her brightness caused that he’d never fathom!] saying For why should I be as one who is veiled beside the flocks of Your companions? [He’s saying, “With and by my infinite God-given wisdom, I’m pretty aggrieved by your flock’s unwillingness to share your hidden (spiritual) truth with my flock; you blacken my God-given wisdom!”]

Solomon is deeply troubled by his profound musings to understand the Shulamite and speaks in a soliloquy of the third person (as if she is speaking). He is annoyed that if he can’t fathom her, he will never get the answer from his 1,000 women whose hearts are like snares and nets and hands like bands. He’s asking, “Why should the Shulamite have wisdom and understanding that seems to supersede my immeasurable wisdom?” (She fed her ‘teeth’ on his (Christ’s wisdom) represented as her flock (teeth) better than his flocks (teeth). His disturbed mind seeks understanding by reversing his internal questioning; “…why should I [miss Shulamite] be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions? (his teeth are her private, internal companions who will not divulge her secret, much to his immense irritation).

The same scriptures can be seen in reverse from the Shulamite’s submissive beauty. The dual meaning is based on her humility for having her flocks rest with his flocks at noon. She asks why she should be an Elect above 1,000 ethnic debutantes. Such is the humble nature of the most male-arousing woman in the history of creation! Her humility for her God-given and unspeakable beauty further amplifies her spiritual femininity. Christ made her immensely spiritually arousing for Himself as first seen naturally of men’s more prurient awakenings and much to the natural woman’s curse-driven disdain. (1Co 11:8-9 … For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man…). We could symbolically say Christ thinks of spirit incontinently (a play on men thinking “sex, sex, sex”; page 18) every seven seconds since he is spirit (1Co 7:5).

From our recent study of the Song of Solomon, it is patently clear that the Shulamite representing the Lord’s Bride ,utterly turns on its head the Queen Vashti’s dictum printed in invisible ink on her forehead, that all men will worship her; and they do!

Rev 17:5 And on her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. 

Hos 14:9 Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the LORD are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall therein.

As we know spiritually, all men (and women) in the world lust after one or more of the tens of thousands of religious sects, of which Gentile Christianity is the most dissolute; they all represent Mystery Babylon the Great.

Agonisingly, at this point, everyone reading and understanding this study knows the key to a successful marriage is in the simplicity of the Shulamite’s first statement in the Song of Solomon.

Son 1:2 Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth; for Your love is better than wine. 

Not a soul in the history of mankind fully understands the physical, which points to the spirit of that verse’s intent! As ostentatious as it sounds, only the Bride of Christ has been given that key.

The Song of Solomon is the Shulamite in the third person, spoken by Solomon in poetic verse, unashamedly (in righteous lust), and spiritually expresses her determination to have her Lord arouse her for her highly anticipated reciprocal arousal of Him!

However, the Lord is not backward in coming forward to highlight His spiritual meaning of the physical. If a scripture seems to sully the purity of the marriage bed, it is the following verses speaking of old Israel’s prurient ways:

Jer 2:23 How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim? see thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done: thou art a swift dromedary traversing her ways; 
Jer 2:24 A wild ass used to the wilderness, that snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure; in her occasion who can turn her away? all they that seek her will not weary themselves; in her month they shall find her. 

The spiritual Shulamite is equally as swift in traversing the Lord’s word in her arousals as she snuffs up the righteous spirit (wind) in her God-given immeasurable pleasure for the occasion He has given her. The Bride of Christ was found by Him (by design) in her blood in the field, and after growing up as the most beautiful woman to ever exist, He again, by design, “found”, married and impregnated her with His spirit. Even though she doesn’t officially marry Christ until He comes at the resurrection to life, she symbolically is already His wife in downpayment.

Just as Israel was married to Christ, the God of the Old (marriage) Covenant, His New Covenant Bride is now effectively married to her Lord by her agreement to the word, his marital covenant.

Jer 3:14 Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:

2Co 11:1 I would that you were bearing with me a little in foolishness; but indeed bear with me. 
2Co 11:2 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy. For I have espoused [betrothed] you to one Man, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

2Co 1:21 But He confirming us and anointing us with you in Christ is God. 
2Co 1:22 And He has sealed us and having given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.

2Co 4:18  While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. 

Rom 4:17 (As it is written, I have made thee [Abraham] a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.

Males, particularly teenage and young men relatively new to sensual arousal, learn to subdue their frequent inopportune awakenings whose origin seems to have a mind of its own. Though secretly intrigued, the beautiful women have bright-eyed tender empathy for their male counterpart’s disquiet since they also have more concealed heartfelt involuntary expressions at inconvenient moments. Mutual understanding and respect for those awakenings are endearingly cute and covertly build reciprocal trust.

The Shulamite intentionally uses her ‘gifts’ most elegantly for her and her husband’s direct arousal (as expertly taught by her mother and elder woman’s sensual wisdom ~ and how I wish it was so today!). She implicitly knows that her arousal will rise exponentially by her Lord’s spiritually engulfing arousal, which physically overwhelms them, symbolising eternal spiritual joy ~ the pinnacle of sensual exhilaration in marriage.

Son 8:1 O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! when I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised. 
Son 8:2 I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother’s house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate H7416 – c. as pomegranate shaped ornaments in the temple. H2426 – 1. To be exalted, be lifted up. H7699 = breasts; and derivative H7736 – 1. (Qal) to ruin, destroy, spoil, devastate.

Exo 38:17 And the sockets for the pillars were of brass; the hooks of the pillars and their fillets of silver; and the overlaying of their chapiters [H7218 = 1. head, top, summit, upper part, chief, total, sum, height, front, beginning of silver] and all the pillars of the court were filleted with silver. 

1Ki 7:18 And he made the pillars, and two rows round about upon the one network, to cover the chapiters that were upon the top, with pomegranates: and so did he for the other chapiter [Two chapiters depicting our Lord’s rejected wife and Elected wife].

Beautiful and ornate pomegranates decorated the Temple’s pillars’ tops or “chapiters” and featured on the Priest’s robes and many other places to catch the eyes in open-mouthed wonder.

The Woman, the Temple of God, and her breasts are a thing of glory for His delight. Notice above that pomegranates directly depict breasts that portray her body erect like a palm tree with breasts at the top of her ‘chapiter’. Her stately erectness depicts her elegant righteous walk and single-eyed focus on her Lord, compassionately mindful of the world’s leering eyes yet not turning to validate their lust. 

Son 7:7 This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes. 
Son 7:8 I said, I will go up to the palm tree [H8558 = 1. palm tree, date palm – Origin: from an unused root meaning to be erect], I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples; 

Indeed, the negative unrighteous and adulterous joy of a woman’s breasts (H7736 – 1. (Qal) to ruin, destroy, spoil, devastate) a man; when delighted righteously induce more spiritual truth… even if at the beginning of our journey it is the milk of the word.

The most potent education of Song of Solomon 8:1–2 is for the Bride of Christ! Every person in the Body of Christ has suffered from indolent spiritual female arousal, which is why the Shulamite’s God-inspired incredible wisdom is for her and not her husband! Every man and woman knows how easily males are sexually aroused. Teenage and young women (all women representing both the rejected and elected Church) are intrigued by that phenomenon, and in marriage, they soon get over it and treat it with contempt ~ so, too, did Israel for her Lord. We all need our Lord’s kisses which are better than (the old) wine, to arouse us to further spiritual stimulation. Everyone is intimately familiar with sexual stimulation that corresponds to inflaming the spirit of God. Its classic parallel is when studying God’s word, and you are on an exciting thread of truth, its escalating spiritual arousal incites extended research that continues to amplify excitement until gold is found.

The Shulamite is not despised since she hasn’t the machinations of a whore seeking a suitor. She is ‘spoken for’ by her fiancé’s commitment to marriage. The spiced wine is directly juxtaposed with her breasts, a “contrivance” (Ecc 7:29) in her dreaming she shrewdly knows will arousingly intoxicate her Lord to be righteously incontinent and “lifted up” (H7416) with desire. Conversely, in Solomon’s court of 1,000 wives, they all used their feminine wiles, most notably employing their breasts, vying “to be exalted” (see H7736 above) “to ruin” their husband’s escape from their ensnaring heart and hands like bands (Ecc 7:26-29). His incontinence makes him miss the mark of better judgment and is “taken by her” (verse 26).

The Shulamites and the Lord’s wine, His word, are one in reciprocal arousals. Depending upon her ethnicity’s skin tone, her pomegranate’s rose-coloured or darker-hued alertness highlights her virginity, which compared to the Great Whore’s in their exaltation, is bruised by her many lovers. Like all men’s haughty elevation, they are eventually brought low and destroyed in humiliation for their whoredoms.

Eze 23:1 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying, 
Eze 23:2 Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother: 
Eze 23:3 And they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity. 
Eze 23:4 And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were mine, and they bare sons and daughters [the world, particularly Babylon]. Thus were their names; Samaria [in the north] is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah [in the south of Israel].

Jer 3:20 Surely as a wife treacherously departs from her husband [somewhat equal to Vashti’s scheming unplanned separation from her husband and her devastating exile], so you have dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, says Jehovah.

Israel, the Lord’s first wife, is represented by Aholah and Aholibah, the totality of Israel, both north and south.

It is given only for the Bride of Christ to see the colorfully graphic imagery the Shulamite expresses through astonished Solomon, who can’t believe such a woman exists; yet, there she is, right in front of him. Whether the Shulamite actually did exist, was Abishag or a poetic soliloquy of his dreaming for such a woman, scripture doesn’t say. Nonetheless, the Lord deemed the Song of Solomon a foreplay grand finalé of His courtship ‘song’, the entire Bible.

What can we now take away physically from the spiritual applications to outstandingly improve our marriages physically and distinctly spiritually?

In growing anticipatory spiritual arousals, we delight in waiting for the next study.

Psa 62:5 My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him. 

Son 2:17 Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.