Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires” – Song of Songs 2:7
Every reader recognizes the significance of repeated phrases. The repetition serves both an artistic and linguistic purpose. This famous phrase from the Song of Songs appears three times in the biblical text (2:7, 3:5, 8:4). It is the most repeated phrase in the book. So what is so important about waiting to “arouse” or “awaken” love?
As Rich and I (Marty) explained in Part I, starting marriage right includes enjoying the gifts God packages in purity. But, we need to know what those are in order to celebrate them and express our gratitude for them (Colossians 3:17). If we didn’t wait, then it’s important to know the gifts we’re missing so we can talk with God about each of them – and because of His amazing grace – enjoy them one day. Celebrating purity involves considering what sexual self-control protects us from and for.
Part II: What Sexual Purity Protects Us FOR
The context of the phrase “do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires” is, in each of these three passages, passionate sex. After experiencing the thrills of emotional, physical and social closeness with the one her “heart loves,” the young bride pleads with her friends (the “daughters of Jerusalem”). She implores them to wait for love. Like most who have hiked a particularly stunning nature trail, we want to help those following to experience the best the journey holds – the best of the sights and other sensations along the way. Her desire is no different. She has experienced three times now what purity protects us for.
Her admonition, “do not arouse or awaken love” is a poignant one. In ancient, near-eastern poetry she pleads with them to, in essence, avoid drawing blood to the sexual organs until mature love desires. She wants her friends to experience what she has just enjoyed! She knows that the only way to do that, completely, is to follow God’s wisdom. Waiting to “arouse and awaken love” protects us for the very best that arousal has to offer.
Most of us understand the dangers of impotent character – the sorrow that shows up when we lack sexual self-control. That’s what Marty and I (Rich) wrote about in Part I of this article. That’s the story of couples like Amanda and Jason. They eventually experienced the restoration that God’s spirit provides, but first, they endured the hard realities that come when any of us follow our own “contemporized” understandings of sexual activity (Proverbs 3:5,6). Daric and Alisa’s experience was markedly different.
We can’t convince you (the reader) of the realities in another couple’s experiences, but we can tell you that there are visible, quantifiable differences in the experiential intimacies of couples who waited for sex – couples who purposefully did not “arouse or awaken love,” who worked hard to avoid “drawing blood to the sexual organs” until after marriage.
Daric grew up in a home where his parents encouraged his older brothers to “enjoy” themselves, but not to “get anyone pregnant.” They adhered to the culture’s “wisdom” in “test-driving a car before you buy.” Daric had come to know Christ as his Savior in middle school, and in reading the New Testament, had decided to wait until he was married. Although his brothers often tempted him with internet sites and stories of their sexual exploits, Daric told Alisa when they first met that he was saving himself for marriage. Alisa had received a purity ring from her parents when she turned thirteen, so she was “deeply moved” by Daric’s revelation and felt “inspired” by his character – especially his “commitment” and “self-control.” She, too, was waiting.
It’s difficult to describe how different it is to counsel engaged couples who’ve waited. The comparison to those who have not is often stark. There is:
- a happier conversational environment,
- stronger trust and respect,
- more mature and engaging emotional closeness,
- healthier conflict-resolution aptitudes,
- more developed communication skills,
- a more playful conception of intimacy.
As a professor of Communication, I consistently find support for this in academic studies. In the Journal of Marriage and the Family, the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology and research performed by Christian, Jewish and Moslem scholars, higher levels of “marital satisfaction” are enjoyed by those who follow their religion’s moral tenets (who, in this case, wait for sex). At our couples retreats my wife and I (Marty) often relate these findings to the Song of Songs. There the six benefits listed above are illustrated in the relationship between the husband and wife. For the brevity of this article we’ll focus on the last item in the list – the playful conception of intimacy.
Playful Intimacies
One of the surprises couples experience when they first read the Song of Songs is the focus on playfulness: the physical friskiness in “Come away, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or like a young stag on the spice-laden mountains” (8.14), the romantic, risqué nature of “Come, my beloved, let us go to the countryside, let us spend the night in the villages. Let us go early to the vineyards to see if the vines have budded, if their blossoms have opened, and if the pomegranates are in bloom—there I will give you my love” (7:11, 12), the playful visual intrigue in “Listen! My beloved! Look! Here he comes, leaping across the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look! There he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattice” (2:8-10). The poetry in each of these passages pictures a playful conception of intimacy that is deeply shared by this husband and wife.
Stephen Covey wrote,
The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person.” His insight supports the teaching of the research literature, the Song of Songs, and the findings of two pastors who help couples learn to celebrate purity.
This is an element of intimacy God wants couples to experience. It is the delight of pleasures denied – the joy of a love that is lively, unfettered by guilt. This is one of the soul-connecting benefits purity protects us for.
