Dawn’s promising skies

Petals on a pool, drifting.

Imagine these in one pair of eyes,

And this is my beloved.

Strange spice from the south

Honey through the comb, sifting.

Imagine these in one eager mouth,

And this is my beloved.

These are the first two stanzas of the song, “And This Is My Beloved“, from the Broadway hit musical play of 1953, “Kismet”. It was written by Robert Wright and George Forrest and became so popular that it was sung by most of the then current ballad singers, including: Sammy Davis Jr., Eddy Fisher, Robert Goulet, Howard Keel, Mario Lanza, et al.

What many people of the day did not realize, including yours truly, at the time, was that the basis of this song comes from the Bible. The words, “My Beloved” appear no less than 19 times in the book, “Song of Solomon”. Some call the book, “Song of Songs” or “Canticle of Canticles”. This book of the Bible was written, of course, by King Solomon, King David’s son by Bathsheba.

This Holy Spirit inspired book of the Bible is an allegory of God’s love for His bride, the church, and contains the most beautifully constructed lyrical expressions of love every written. The story of the Song of Solomon is a series of extremely passionate statements of love; first expressed by the Shulamite woman to Solomon and then by Solomon himself to his bride the Shulamite woman. In my opinion, these expressions of love exceed all other styles of rhyme and meter in any literature ever written by man.

Here are a few examples of the Song of Solomon from the King James version of the Bible, which is itself very poetic: Chap. 1, verse 2 - “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine”. Ch. 2, v. 8 - “The voice of my beloved! Behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills”. Ch. 2, v. 9 - “My Beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice”. Ch. 2 v. 16 - “My Beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies”. Ch.4 v. 1 - “Behold, thou art fair, my love, behold, thou art fair, thou hast doves’ eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead”. Ch.5 v. 2 - “I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, open unto me . . .”. Ch. 5 v. 10 - “My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand. vs. 11, His head is as the most fine gold; his locks are bushy and black as a raven: vs. 12, His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set:, vs. 16, His mouth is most sweet: yea he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem”. Ch. 6, v. 3 - “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies” Ch.7, v. 10 - “I am my beloved’s and his desire is toward me”.

You would do well to read the Song of Solomon because this is just a sampling of the book which has just 8 chapters. The main purpose of this beautiful book is to use the passion of Godly physical and natural sensuality between the man, Solomon, and his bride to show the intensity of supernatural feelings of God for His bride, the church. If we could just grasp the spirit of this strong desire (the word, lust, is defined as strong desire) that God has for us, we would surely generate a correspondingly strong desire for God as well. Let it be so!

Glory to God!

Hal Mitchell

Halmitch@cox.net