What is the meaning of Song of Solomon 4:15? You are a garden spring • The groom celebrates his bride as a cultivated, enclosed “garden” that brings life. Earlier he called her “a garden locked” (Songs 4:12), highlighting purity and exclusivity; here he adds “spring,” stressing that she is not only protected but also life-giving. • Gardens in Scripture evoke Eden, where rivers watered the ground (Genesis 2:10). Solomon pictures his bride as a new Eden—fruitful, refreshing, and under God’s blessing. • Practically, the verse affirms the God-given delight of marital intimacy (Proverbs 5:15-18). Spiritually, the church is likewise a garden cultivated by Christ, expected to bear fragrant fruit (John 15:1-5). A well of fresh water • A well speaks of depth and constancy. Fresh, or “living,” water is ready to rise on its own, never stagnant. Jeremiah contrasts cisterns that leak with “the fountain of living water” God provides (Jeremiah 2:13). • The bride’s love is reliable, renewing, and pure. In marriage, husband and wife become each other’s God-given well—daily sources of strength and joy (Ecclesiastes 9:9). • Ultimately, Jesus promises “a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). As a redeemed people, believers are meant to refresh others with that same living water (Isaiah 58:11). Flowing down from Lebanon • Lebanon’s snow-capped heights fed cool streams that ran south into Israel. By likening her impact to waters “flowing down from Lebanon,” Solomon stresses: – Purity: mountain runoff is clear and unpolluted (Jeremiah 18:14). – Abundance: the flow is continuous, not a trickle. – Reach: what begins in the heights descends to irrigate the plains—love that blesses more than its immediate circle (Psalm 133:3). • In typology, Christ pours grace from heaven’s heights into His church, and the church spills that grace into the world (Ephesians 5:25-27; Revelation 22:1). summary Song 4:15 paints a three-fold portrait of the bride—protected like a garden, constant like a well, and overflowing like mountain streams. Literally, it honors the purity and life-giving power of covenant love in marriage. Spiritually, it points to the believer and the church, cultivated by the Lord and filled with living water to refresh a thirsty world. |
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