A Couple Walk Through a Garden and VineyardBibleWorld
4:12Song of Solomon 4:12
A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
The verse belongs to one of the one thousand and five songs or poems written by Solomon. It is formed as a dialogue between various parties and is filled with vivid, warm, Oriental imagery. It poetically pictures Christ's wonderful love for His church and her responsive love to Him, though her faithfulness and constancy are often lacking, and it is to be read alone with God with that thought in mind. As an Oriental love poem it presents the love of Christ for His church, and Solomon's experiences may also serve as types of Christ and the church.
It portrays the church as a barred garden, a shut-up spring, and a sealed fountain that at times is closed and bears no outward fruit or influence, in contrast to the following picture of an open garden, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon. It pictures the believer's heart as a garden enclosed like an Oriental garden protected by a hedge or wall, kept apart from a world lying in wickedness and set apart for God, and so teaches separation from the world. Together with the following verses, it shows the fully yielded heart as a garden of spices made fragrant and fruitful by the living water of Christ's Spirit, wholly transformed through spiritual baptism rather than remaining a moral desert.
Its sealed fountain illustrates how Christ taught, refusing to satisfy prying curiosity or give knowledge that could not be used in practical life, and directing people instead to the life-giving knowledge that leads to God as the fountain of eternal life.
The verse belongs to one of the one thousand and five songs or poems written by Solomon. It is formed as a dialogue between various parties and is filled with vivid, warm, Oriental imagery. It poetically pictures Christ's wonderful love for His church and her responsive love to Him, though her faithfulness and constancy are often lacking, and it is to be read alone with God with that thought in mind. As an Oriental love poem it presents the love of Christ for His church, and Solomon's experiences may also serve as types of Christ and the church.
It portrays the church as a barred garden, a shut-up spring, and a sealed fountain that at times is closed and bears no outward fruit or influence, in contrast to the following picture of an open garden, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon. It pictures the believer's heart as a garden enclosed like an Oriental garden protected by a hedge or wall, kept apart from a world lying in wickedness and set apart for God, and so teaches separation from the world. Together with the following verses, it shows the fully yielded heart as a garden of spices made fragrant and fruitful by the living water of Christ's Spirit, wholly transformed through spiritual baptism rather than remaining a moral desert.
Its sealed fountain illustrates how Christ taught, refusing to satisfy prying curiosity or give knowledge that could not be used in practical life, and directing people instead to the life-giving knowledge that leads to God as the fountain of eternal life.