CHAPTER TWO
Give Permission for Passion
“Our sex life has no passion. He gives me a quick kiss on the lips, one minute of foreplay, and then straight in for the touchdown. We’ve been married eight years. Is this all I have to look forward to?”
We are about to walk into a holy place, a place of passion where kisses are “better than wine.” God beckons us to enter into His Word and into the privacy of a couple who will help us light the flame of passion in our own marriages by showing us how to become servant lovers. We are about to discover romance at its best.
UNDERSTANDING THE SONG
The opening verse of the Song of Solomon skips preliminary introductions and catapults us straight into a steamy bedroom scene.
Tirzah: “May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine.” (1:2)
Tirzah hungers for her lover’s kisses. No formal peck on the cheek will do. Longing to feel his deep kiss inside her own, she reaches out to him with abandon. In Hebrew, the words for “kiss” and “kissing” are onomatopoetic. Like our English word buzz, they sound like what they mean. This verse could literally be translated “O, that he’d give me some of his smacking kisses that take my breath away.”[1] It’s been said that a kiss can be a comma, a question mark, or an exclamation point.[2] Obviously, Tirzah thought Solomon’s kiss felt like an exclamation point.
She says that Solomon’s love is like wine, a rich and sensuous liquid. The Song uses three different Hebrew words for love: rayah, which refers to companionship; ahabah, which refers to sacrificial, loyal commitment; and dod, which usually refers to sexual love or lovemaking.[3] The reference to love in this verse is dod. While Tirzah’s lips drink deeply of Solomon’s kiss, her body cries out for further intimacies. In the Hebrew culture, joyful banquets of celebration were often referred to as wine. In mentioning wine, Tirzah is saying that Solomon’s extravagant love gives her more joy and pleasure than the most lavish celebration.
Tirzah: “Your oils have a pleasing fragrance, your name is like purified oil; therefore the maidens love you.” (verse 3)
In Solomon’s time, people prepared for a festive occasion by bathing and then rubbing their bodies with oil. The Hebrews had adopted the Egyptian practice of applying fragrance not only on themselves during a feast but also on their guests (see Psalm 133:2). Hosts placed small cones of perfumed ointment on the foreheads of their guests, whose body heat gradually melted the ointment, which then trickled down their faces onto their clothing, producing a pleasant aroma.[4]
In the previous verse, Tirzah reflects on Solomon’s kisses. Here she meditates on the erotic scent of the perfumed oils he had smoothed over his body. She also tells him that his name is like purified oil. In other words, he is a man of character and his honorable reputation goes before him like a fragrance. Tirzah values her beloved so highly that the very sound or thought of his name creates a longing in her heart for him. Solomon captivates her heart, her thoughts, and her lips. Everyone sees her beloved’s worth, yet he chose her. How blessed she is!
Tirzah: “Draw me after you and let us run together! The king has brought me into his chambers.” (verse 4)
Dwelling on Solomon’s kisses, his caresses, and the coming fulfillment of her sexual longing, Tirzah becomes even more aggressive in her invitation. She begs her beloved to seize her and race with her to the seclusion of their private bedchamber. Believe us, this is no sedate stroll to the bedroom. In contemporary English, she is saying something like, “Hurry up, honey! I can’t wait any longer. I need you. I want you. Now!”
The Chorus: “We will rejoice in you and be glad; we will extol your love more than wine. Rightly do they love you.” (verse 4)
As the couple put on their Nikes and sprint to the bedroom, the imaginary chorus bursts into open song, rejoicing with Tirzah. In essence, the chorus provides a blessing on the relationship.[5] They agree with the young bride that the love she and Solomon share is truly as intoxicating as the best wine.
APPLYING THE SONG FOR COUPLES
Tirzah and Solomon were drunk with love. They had sipped from each other’s lips and were inebriated with the wine of passion. Perhaps Solomon was thinking of this moment when he wrote, “Let your love and your sexual embrace with your wife intoxicate you continually with delight. Always enjoy the ecstasy of her love” (Proverbs 5:19, our paraphrase).
As we see here and in many passages throughout this Song, God gives permission for passion. His Word says, “Relax. Let go. Give in to your erotic feelings. Allow yourself to become intoxicated by your mate’s sexual touches.” Stop for a moment and consider what happens when people become intoxicated. Alcohol impacts the way they think, see, hear, walk, and talk; it overtakes them. What does it mean when the Bible says that we are to intoxicate our mate with the “wine of lovemaking”? It means that our beloved is to be overtaken by the pleasure of our sexual love.
It is as if God reaches down through the pages of Scripture and says to a wife, “Enjoy your husband, give pleasure to him, receive pleasure from him. Delight yourself in the erotic feelings of your sexual love.” And to the husband, God urges, “Enjoy your wife, give pleasure to her, receive pleasure from her. Delight yourself in the erotic feelings of your sexual love.”
How is passion ignited? For Solomon and Tirzah, it began with a kiss.
Build Anticipation Through Kissing
Many couples tell us that after being married several years, they relegate kissing to the bottom of their list of intimate touch. They simply bypass the lips. These couples are forgetting how a slow, probing kiss can make your heart pound and your knees weak.
A medical doctor explains: “There is a physical reason our lips cry out to be kissed. The lips have a proportionately larger number of nerve endings than other parts of the body.”[6]
Consider these additional observations about the importance of kissing:
Marriage counselor: “Kissing is an indicator of the quality of a sexual relationship. When kissing is passionate, it is likely the couple has a satisfying sexual relationship.”
Author: “Kissing is the most intimate and personal sharing of ourselves because we are touching another with a part of our body that we use to communicate and nurture ourselves.”
And this zinger from a woman in “the oldest profession in the world”: “I tell my clients I’ll have sex with them but I won’t kiss them. Kissing is too intimate.”[7]
The ancient Chinese felt that kissing belonged only in the intimate, erotic world of the Jade Chamber (a reference to sexual relations) and that kissing in public was tantamount to having sex in public.[8] While this is an extreme view, it suggests that kissing is a key to igniting intimacy. We agree!
When was the last time the two of you shared a long, lingering kiss? If it has been a while, plan to rediscover tonight the joys of kissing. Start with the lips, but don’t stop there. Consider other parts of your beloved’s body that beg for the brush of a kiss. Press your lips against firm muscles and into soft curves. Touch, taste, and linger in hidden areas available to only you. Allow anticipation to build. As you do, you will discover how easy it is to turn everyday, ordinary kisses into “better than wine” kisses.
Make It Your Goal to Become a Servant Lover
You’ve witnessed Solomon and Tirzah’s burning kisses. Let us warn you that this is only the beginning. Future scenes are even more steamy. When the four of us first understood all the nuances of the Song of Solomon, we were stunned that God’s Word would be so specific about sex. But we are grateful that our Creator cared so much about sexual oneness in marriage that He included an instruction manual to help us. God wants married couples to have a love so hot, so passionate, so intense that nothing will be able to extinguish it, and He knows the key for such love is becoming servant lovers to each other. But rather than ordering us —“Be a servant lover!” —He shows us how through the lives of Solomon and Tirzah.
Growing up, we heard the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It seems natural to serve in the kitchen, at the workplace, at church, and in our neighborhood. But we don’t often make the effort to be a servant in the bedroom. However, that is the heart of a servant lover!
Philippians 2:3-4 says, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (NIV). This passage describes the heart of the servant lover:
- Servant lovers sacrifice sexually for their mates.
- Servant lovers place their mate’s sexual needs above their own.
- Servant lovers give sexually with selfless abandon.
As you continue to read, you will see how a servant lover demonstrates these actions. While being a servant lover involves certain actions, it is first an attitude of the heart. Are you willing to grow as a lover to your mate? Are you willing to allow the Spirit of God to transform you so you can be the lover God wants you to be? If so, will you pray?
God, I want to give myself permission for passion. Please teach me as I read. Where I am ignorant, give me wisdom. Where I am reluctant, make me willing. With each page I turn, help me to become the servant lover You desire for me to be.
SERVANT LOVERS: Give themselves permission to extend and receive passion.
SELFISH LOVERS: Remain stuck in their old ways of thinking and acting.
“I am black but lovely,
O daughters of Jerusalem,
Like the tents of Kedar,
Like the curtains of Solomon.
Do not stare at me because I am swarthy,
For the sun has burned me.
My mother’s sons were angry with me;
They made me caretaker of the vineyards,
But I have not taken care of my own vineyard.
Tell me, O you whom my soul loves,
Where do you pasture your flock,
Where do you make it lie down at noon?
For why should I be like one who veils herself
Beside the flocks of your companions?”
SOLOMON REPLIES:
“If you yourself do not know,
Most beautiful among women,
Go forth on the trail of the flock
And pasture your young goats
By the tents of the shepherds.”
SONG OF SOLOMON 1:5-8
