Song of Solomon 1:7
Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions? Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?
The verse is a pastoral, poetic figure in warm Eastern figurative language, picturing a bride seeking her bridegroom where he feeds his flock and lets it rest in the heat of noon. In its spiritual meaning as a parable of Christ and His church, the flock is Christ's people, the church, and the beloved Shepherd is Jesus Christ of Calvary, chief among ten thousand and altogether lovely, beautiful in His presence. The bride's earthly love for her bridegroom represents Christ's wonderful love for the church and the believer's close bond with Him, including the church's responding love, which is often wanting in faithfulness and constancy.
The seeking expresses the true child of God and loving soul's longing to find the Saviour with His flock, for His presence and consolation and for the place of rest, which is refreshment, peace, joy, spiritual rest, and the fullness of redemption. That asking is a prayer to be shown where to find Him, to meet Him where He works, to come nearer, to gaze on the riches of His grace and the brightness of heavenly glory, to hear His voice clearly above earth's noise, and to stay close to Him in tender fellowship, lying near His heart. It is a prayer to be led from tasting only the ripples of redemption with salvation's cup unfilled into the full unwasting fountain where His people rest refreshed by heaven.
No other flock or companion satisfies this longing, for Christ's sheep will not follow a hireling or stranger, whose voice they do not know. The flock has been scattered during a long period of darkness, but Jesus has begun gathering it again, and while believers remain separated in many places they still seek where He shepherds and gives rest, and the faithful will soon know where He rests His flock.