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The literal reference is simple and obvious. The bride represents her husband as going down to the garden where the fruits grew among the flowers — where what was good for food was associated with what was fair to the eyes and pleasant to all the senses. The plain of Sharon, the lower slopes of Lebanon, the shores of Galilee, and even the bare craggy terraces of the hill country of Judaea are illumined with gorgeous gleams of white, and scarlet, and golden lilies, whose glory is the most peculiar of all the common aspects of the country. The bulbous roots of many of them, containing a reserve of nourishment for unfavourable times, and guarding as in a secure citadel the principle of life, specially adapt these lilies for growing in the most unpromising looking places. And not only are they enabled themselves to extract nourishment from the driest soil and atmosphere, but they also create around them, by the shadow of their leaves and blossoms, and by the moisture which they attract, conditions suitable for the growth of other plants less richly endowed; take species under their protection whose forms are tougher and whose constitution is hardier, but which have no reserved stores like them for times and spots of scarcity. Nowhere is the herbage so luxuriant as under the shadow of these beautiful and graceful flowers. Such spots are therefore the favourite feeding-places of flocks and herds. They seek them out as the traveller in the desert seeks out the oasis; and they are as sure to find sweet and tender grass where the lilies are growing, as the traveller is to find a well where the palm-grove flourishes. The idea the text conveys is that as the roedeer or the gazelle feeds on the grass which grows among the lilies on the mountains, so is the bridegroom satisfied with the sterling useful qualities that are betokened by the beauties of mind and heart of the bride. Her fair exterior, her beautiful face indicate the possession of solid and substantial endowments beneath. In the shadow of the lily-like charms of her person, he finds not only what pleases his eye, but also what satisfies his mind and heart. The believer says of Jesus, "I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine: He feedeth among the lilies," — eats of the fruits that grow among the flowers of the garden of my heart. I am filled with His fulness, and He sees in me of the travail of His soul and is satisfied. But separating the passage from its literal and symbolical reference in the text, it is susceptible of a wide signification. The Creator may be said to feed among the lilies, in the enjoyment which He receives from the beauties of creation. We can see no end in the existence of all this inaccessible beauty except to gratify the love of beauty in the heart of God Himself. And to this Divine feeling, He who was the express image of the Father's person gave frequent expression on earth. The whole life of Jesus was a feeding among the lilies, which illuminated His thoughts of God and His lessons for man. They helped to develop the nature which grew in wisdom as in stature by the aid of the same influences which develop ours. His soul fed upon those visions of the beauty of holiness, and those high impulses and deep emotions which the beauty of nature produced. He saw the spiritual in them behind the physical; and their perishing beauty was to Him but the veil which concealed the holy of holies of a nobler and more enduring beauty, a shadow glassed in the unstable element of time, of the steadfast light of God in heaven. The Jews of old fed among the lilies, for their land was pre-eminently the Flowery Land. Dr. Tristram calls it "the garden of Eden run wild." Every traveller is struck with the immense profusion, variety, and brilliancy of the flowers. And as with the Land, so with the Book. The Bible is the book of flowers: its language is the language of flowers: it is full of the highest poetry and truest philosophy of these fair creations. The sweetest and most satisfying promises of God come to us in the midst of the most beautiful poetry; the plainest and simplest precepts are set forth in glowing images; the highest revelations reach us in lessons of the lowly lilies that grow beside our door. The whole of human life is a feeding among lilies. All our food and clothing and fuel come to us through beautiful forms and colours. In this respect how different are the manufactories of nature from those of man! In human works beauty is often eliminated and only what is useful is preserved; but in nature the useful and the beautiful always keep pace with one another. In the most carefully weeded field the eye, wearied with the monotony of the green stalks and the shimmering of the freckled glumes in the sunshine, is refreshed here and there with the blaze of scarlet poppy, and the azure gleam of the corn-bluebottle, and the mimic sunshine of the yellow corn-marigold. The wild mint perfumes its roots, and the white corn-spurry and scarlet pimpernel lend to it all the tender grace of their hue and shape. The corn itself feeds among the lilies; it draws its nourishment from soil and atmosphere in the company of a bright sisterhood of flowers which crown its sober usefulness with a garland of beauty. And is not this feature common to all of nature that is associated with man? The green grass of the meadows and pastures is never allowed to grow in dull uniformity: nature spreads her golden buttercups and snow-white daisies and purple prunellas over it, so that the beasts of the field feed among the lilies. How beautiful are the white and crimson blossoms of the clover, and the slender scented spikes of the vernal grass, which feed the bee with honey and load the air with a delicious fragrance, ere they yield their succulent herbage to the browsing cattle, or fill the barns of the farmer with their tedded hay! God has ordained that in everything man should feed among the lilies; that the useful should be produced by or among the beautiful. The arms of our orchard trees are clasped with bracelets of emerald moss, and their trunks are adorned with brooches of golden lichens; and thus bedecked, they, Hebe-like, offer to us, year after year, the fruit they have produced, — the rich harvest of their life. And these mosses and lichens are to our fruit trees what the poppies and marigolds are to our corn, — the lilies among which we gather our food. This association of beauty with man's food is designed for a wise and gracious purpose. As flowers on a dinner-table east the shadow of their own loveliness upon all the viands around them, and change what is the mere gratification of a physical appetite into the fulfilment of a heaven-born longing, so the lilies among which we feed redeem that feeding from its grossness and link the man that feeds upon bread with the angels that feed upon every word of God. They show that eating is not an end, but a means to a higher, nobler end, and connect the means by which our lower nature is supported with the means by which our higher, spiritual nature is trained and educated. And what a purifying and refining influence have these lilies upon us! Their purity shames our impurity, their grace our ungraciousness, their meekness our pride, their lavish fragrance our thanklessness. How greatly, too, is our feeling of confidence in God increased as we feed among the lilies! If He has provided these superfluous things for us, it is a pledge and a guarantee that He will provide the things that are necessary. As the blossom on the individual plant is a prophecy that fruit will be produced, so the appearance of the lilies among the corn is an assurance that bread will be given to us, and we shall not want any good thing. If God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day shines in the glow of the sun, and to-morrow shrivels in the flame of the oven, how much more will He clothe the creatures whom He has made in His own image! But more than all, the lilies among which we feed speak to us of our immortality. The corn is the meat that perisheth; but the beauty of the lilies and the lessons of Divine wisdom which they teach is the meat that endureth unto everlasting life. By the food of garden and field our decaying bodies are sustained; by the lilies our never-dying souls are nourished. While feeding among the lilies there is thus provision made for our twofold nature: we have in every feast a reminder that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that cometh out of the mouth of God, and that is expressed on earth in every bright hue and beautiful form around us. Rightly viewed the corn exists for the sake of the lilies. They stand among the corn like the priests of old among the people, clothed in priestly garments of glory and beauty. They are the ministers of God serving at His altar, appealing to the higher faculties of man, and bearing their witness to the Divine love that formed them; and thus, though they themselves die in succession, like the sons of Aaron, their priesthood abideth for ever. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof fadeth; but the Word of the Lord, that speaks in and through them, endureth for ever. The lilies fade and pass away; but the truth which they teach and the character which they help to form are enduring as the soul itself, and shall be wrought into its very texture, and bloom in its beauty in the paradise above.

(H. Macmillan, D. D.)

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KJV: I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies.

WEB: I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. He browses among the lilies,