Song of Songs Advent Devotion for Couples – Advent 4 Monday ~ Bread for Beggars

This Advent devotional is intended to be a tool to draw you and your family further into God’s Word during this special season. Song of Songs is especially fitting for married or engaged couples to read together. The readings for each week have been divided into “parts” and labeled for husband and wife to read to each other.

The Song of Songs is not only a poem that Solomon is singing to his bride, known as “the Shulammite,” but it is at the same time a letter Christ is speaking to his bride, the Church. Christ is calling her home to him, a central theme of Advent, as we await the day Christ will return to take us home to heaven.

As you read these parts, think of these characters:

Husband (Groom) – Solomon – Christ

Wife (Bride) – Solomon’s beloved, the Shulammite – Christ’s beloved, the Church

Both – “Others”: family members or women in Jerusalem – members of the Church (or, sometimes, those outside the church)

Opening Prayer

All four Advent candles are lit.

The husband may say, or the couple may say together:

In the name of the Father and of † the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Heavenly Father, who has created man and woman and provided them with the estate of marriage, provide us in our relationship the kind of love that reflects your love for us. For you gave your Son to purchase us by his blood, and you will send him again to bring us to the heavenly wedding feast on the Last Day. Strengthen us by your Word as we expect his Advent. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Together you may confess the Apostles’ Creed and pray the Lord’s Prayer.

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Song of Songs 6:11-8:14

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Wife: I went down to the nut orchard to look at the blossoms of the valley, to see whether the vines had budded, whether the pomegranates were in bloom. Before I was aware, my desire set me among the chariots of my kinsman, a prince.
Both: Return, return, O Shulammite, return, return, that we may look upon you.
Husband: Why should you look upon the Shulammite, as upon a dance before two armies?
Praise
Husband: How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O noble daughter! Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand. Your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine. Your belly is a heap of wheat, encircled with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim. Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon, which looks toward Damascus. Your head crowns you like Carmel, and your flowing locks are like purple; a king is held captive in the tresses. How beautiful and pleasant you are, O loved one, with all your delights! Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its fruit. Oh may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine.
Wife: It goes down smoothly for my beloved, gliding over lips and teeth.
Invitation
Wife: I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me. Come, my beloved, let us go out into the fields and lodge in the villages; let us go out early to the vineyards and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. The mandrakes give forth fragrance, and beside our doors are all choice fruits, new as well as old, which I have laid up for you, O my beloved.
Longing
Wife: Oh that you were like a brother to me who nursed at my mother’s breasts! If I found you outside, I would kiss you, and none would despise me. I would lead you and bring you into the house of my mother – she who used to teach me. I would give you spiced wine to drink, the juice of my pomegranate. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me! I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.
Love’s Meaning and Application
Wife: Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? Under the apple tree I awakened you. There your mother was in labor with you; there she who bore you was in labor.

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.
Both: We have a little sister, and she has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister on the day when she is spoken for? If she is a wall, we will build on her a battlement of silver, but if she is a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar.
Wife: I was a wall, and my breasts were like towers; then I was in his eyes as one who finds peace. Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he let out the vineyard to keepers; each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver. My vineyard, my very own, is before me; you, O Solomon, may have the thousand, and the keepers of the fruit two hundred.
Final Desire
Husband: O you who dwell in the gardens, with companions listening for your voice; let me hear it.
Wife: Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices.

Hymn

Hymn verses this week: “The Bridegroom Soon Will Call Us,” v. 5, 7

(Listen to the melody here)

5. In yonder home shall never
Be silent music’s voice;
With hearts and lips forever
We shall in God rejoice.
The angels shall adore Him,
All saints shall sing His praise
And bring with joy before Him
Their sweetest heav’nly lays.

7. Thus God shall from all evil
Forever make us free,
From sin and from the devil,
From all adversity,
From sickness, pain, and sadness,
From troubles, cares, and fears,
And grant us heav’nly gladness
And wipe away our tears.

Author: Johann Walter; Translator: Matthias Loy