flame

CHAPTER FOUR

Offer Sexual Refreshment

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“Madison and I rented a cabin in the mountains for our tenth anniversary. We sipped hot cider and then made love on a bearskin rug in front of the fire. Afterward, as we lay in each other’s arms, watching the flames dance across the room, I realized I’d never felt closer to my wife. It was like the rest of the world had disappeared and nothing mattered but the two of us. I wish we could get away more often, but juggling two jobs, kids, and church commitments makes it almost impossible.”

Many couples feel they have to get away from home in order to lose themselves in sexual love with their mates. But as Solomon and Tirzah demonstrate, our intimate encounters can, with a little creativity and imagination, be a place where we temporarily leave the world behind and bask in the refreshing waters of sexual love —even if we never venture beyond the bedroom door.

UNDERSTANDING THE SONG

Solomon to Tirzah: “To me, my darling, you are like my mare among the chariots of Pharaoh.” (1:9)

Solomon assures his bride that to him she is as beautiful as his horses. Perhaps you are thinking, And she didn’t slug him? Believe us, this comparison was music to Tirzah’s ears. At that time in the Ancient Near East, horses were not beasts of burden; they were the cherished companions of kings. Solomon loved horses and particularly Egyptian horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horsemen (1 Kings 10:26). His mare must have been the most outstanding of all his horses, so here basically he’s telling Tirzah that she’s one in a million.

For the first time in the Song, Solomon uses the second Hebrew word for love, rayah, which is translated here as “my darling.” It means “beloved, darling, companion, i.e., one who is the object of love and affection.”[1] While the word can have sexual connotations, as dod does, rayah seems to emphasize more the idea of friend and companion. By calling Tirzah this, Solomon not only indicates his desire to make love with her but also affirms that she is his intimate partner.

Solomon to Tirzah: “Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, your neck with strings of beads. We will make for you ornaments of gold with beads of silver.” (verses 10-11)

Once again Solomon pours on the praise and tells his beloved that her jewelry is lovely. He assures Tirzah that he plans to have even more costly and luxurious ornaments handcrafted for her.

Tirzah: “While the king was at his table, my perfume gave forth its fragrance.” (verse 12)

The table referred to here is likely a round table where meals were eaten in a reclining fashion.[2] The perfume is probably nard, a very expensive fragrance with which Tirzah has anointed herself. She sees the fragrance wafting from her to the king as an expression of her love reaching out to him while they are reclining at dinner.

Tirzah: “My beloved is to me a pouch of myrrh which lies all night between my breasts.” (verse 13)

Tirzah refers to an Ancient Near East custom in which a woman would wear a small sack of myrrh, another delicate perfume, around her neck at night, causing a lovely scent to linger there all the next day. Tirzah likens Solomon to the sachet of myrrh: He brings out whatever beauty and charm she has. His love brings out the fragrance of her beauty all day long. The connotations here are clearly erotic, so perhaps she pictures him laying his head between her breasts like the sack of myrrh.

This is the first of thirty-one times in the Song that Tirzah refers to Solomon as her beloved (dod).

Tirzah: “My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of Engedi.” (verse 14)

Tirzah wears myrrh around her neck; Solomon is scented with henna. Note that Tirzah specifies that the henna scent came from the vineyards of Engedi.[3] Engedi is one of the most beautiful places in all of Israel. Situated in a vast wilderness of lifeless rock, Engedi is a lush, verdant oasis formed by a hidden spring that pours forth from a limestone rock at the top of a cliff. Cool water tumbles down an overhang into a wadi canyon, forming a tropical paradise filled with soaring birds and exotic plants. Hidden and private, Engedi is a romantic place where the sweet scent of henna blossoms fills the air. In this verse Tirzah is telling her beloved that he is an oasis, her own personal Engedi. Engedi was a stronghold of safety in early Israel, but the Song of Solomon expands the image of safety to include a hideaway where lovers can discover sexual refreshment.

APPLYING THE SONG FOR COUPLES

We’d like you to imagine walking through a vast wasteland, mile upon mile of nothing but barren rock. As you search the horizon for signs of life, nothing green refreshes your eyes. You see no cool water to soothe your parched throat. Like the earth, your lips are cracked and dry. Your throat cries out for a cool drink and your body for relief from the blazing sun.

After several more hours of wandering, you see something in the distance. You don’t know what it is, only that it calls to you. Exhausted, you stumble toward it. Suddenly you are standing at the edge of a cliff. At your feet is a limestone rock from which pours a hidden spring. Water tumbles down the overhang into a canyon below, creating a lush oasis. Your senses thrill over the verdant trees and exotic flowers, the cool refreshing mists of the waterfall, and birds soaring over the pool below. This is the oasis of Engedi.

God wants your sexual relationship to be an oasis for the two of you. He desires that the two of you find relief from routine and a refuge from stress by splashing around in springs of sexual refreshment. But if you are to discover the refreshment that sexual love can bring, it may require that you make a change in attitude (how you view your intimate times together) as well as changes in your environment (the place where you make love).

First, let’s look at your attitude. How do you view your sexual relationship? In order for it to be your own personal Engedi, you need to view your intimacy as a place of rest, a place of refuge, and a place of renewal. Let’s look at the role each of these plays in your relationship.

Offer Intimacy as a Place of Rest

Just the thought of an oasis makes our shoulders relax and our souls sigh. We conjure up images of comfort, peace, and relaxation. We picture a tranquil island of beauty in a barren wasteland. When financial pressure, a rebellious kid, the loss of a job, or the death of a loved one thrusts us into an emotional desert and leaves us drained and exhausted, intimate moments together can become a tropical paradise that offers much-needed rest.

Remember Bathsheba? Her only son had died. Distraught, overcome with sorrow, she had red eyes from crying and lack of sleep. Grief had created within her a cavernous hole that could not be filled. Her husband pulled her into his arms, stroked her hair, and whispered tenderly, “I am here for you.” She sobbed against his strong chest. Slowly, their bodies came together. “David comforted Bathsheba his wife, and went in to her and lay with her” (2 Samuel 12:24, NKJV).

Is your mate going through a difficult time? How can you offer comfort? What can you do to offer rest? For most men, sexual release is one of the greatest ways to receive rest. If you want proof of this, just observe how quickly a man falls asleep after making love! For a woman, however, the greatest release sometimes comes not through orgasm but through her husband holding her in his arms and simply letting her cry. Remember, the purpose of Engedi is to give rest, and how this rest looks will vary depending on the needs of your mate. The key is knowing what your mate needs and offering it at the right time. Peter tells of a time when he did just that:

Several months ago, Lorraine was emotionally and physically exhausted after a weekend of speaking. I knew she needed a getaway to Engedi, so I decided to create an environment that would help her relax. I told her to rest and then went to work creating an oasis for her. I arranged twenty-five scented candles around the Jacuzzi tub, counter, and window sills in our master bathroom and put some soft, relaxing music on the CD player. I filled the tub with bubble bath and placed a china plate filled with various cheeses and shrimp and a glass of spiced cider on the ledge. I closed the door and taped on it a one-word sign: Engedi.

Taking Lorraine by the hand, I ushered her to the door and said, “This is a special place, unlike any you have ever been before. This is Engedi. Once you enter here, you are not permitted to think about the world you left behind.” I invited her to remove her clothes as a symbolic gesture of leaving her present world, and then I opened the door. The scent of vanilla candles and cinnamon cider beckoned. As she slipped into the tub and allowed the bubbles to engulf her, I saw her visibly relax. I shut the door and prayed that the Lord would use the warmth, smells, food, and music to bring rest to my wife, who poured herself out to so many. He answered that prayer, because after an hour of rest in the tub, she had energy for me!

In a moment we’ll talk more about how environment can contribute to creating a place of rest, but for now we want you to focus on your attitude of wanting to give rest to your mate. While other people might provide occasional opportunities for rest, there are certain things only you can do because they occur within the context of your intimacy. Thoughtfully consider:

In our hectic, fast-paced world of constant stimulation, we need rest. Servant lovers sense when their mates need rest and consider how they might give them that rest. They also see their sexual relationship as a place of refuge.

Offer Intimacy as a Place of Refuge

First Samuel 24:1 speaks of Engedi as David’s stronghold, a safe place where he and his men hid from their enemy Saul. Sometimes we feel as if everything and everyone is against us. We want to run away and hide, but we can’t. Still, there is a place where we can run to, a safe place where we can temporarily escape from the assaults of life. We can find refuge in our own personal Engedi.

God intended that a husband and wife’s intimate relationship be a safe place where they can be naked and unashamed (see Genesis 2:25). We are more vulnerable in the sexual relationship than in any other because this is the one place where we bare all. That is why we must make every effort to communicate through touch and words that the place of intimate loving is a place of safety, a place where trust prevails. We will talk more in chapter 7 about how you can make your marriage a safe place, but here we want to go deeper in what it means that your intimacy can be a place of refuge for each other.

WHAT DOES A SAFE PLACE LOOK LIKE?

This refuge is not built overnight. Usually it is built over time as we grow in acceptance and trust of one another. When trust is broken or harsh words are spoken, sexual intimacy can no longer feel like a refuge. Instead of being a place we run to, it becomes a place we run from. Rather than helping us feel safe and protected, our sexual relationship becomes just one more place in which we must protect ourselves. When this happens, we shut down emotionally or sexually to prevent more pain from being inflicted upon us.

WHAT DOES AN UNSAFE PLACE LOOK LIKE?

If you felt convicted after reading this list —Yes, I have been critical, judgmental, and conditional in my acceptance of my spouse, and these attitudes have not created a safe place in our intimate relationship —we suggest you begin to rebuild trust. How?

Creating a place of safety can be one of the most loving things we ever do as a husband or wife. Such a place can promote healing. Sometimes the healing is physical, as rest recharges our body. Other times the healing is emotional, such as releasing the poison of pain in a place where we won’t be judged. Still other times the healing is sexual, as was the case with Ellen.

My father sexually abused me when I was between the ages of three and twelve. When I married, I found the whole idea of sex revolting. Certain touches, certain images transported me back to the horror of my childhood. But Rob has been so patient with me. When he knows that I’m having a flashback while we are making love, he’ll gently say, “Honey, I love you. Let me just hold you.” Or he’ll whisper over and over, “I am your husband who loves you. You can trust me. I will never hurt you.”

Rob acted as a servant lover to Ellen, placing her needs above his own. Servant lovers recognize their mate’s need for refuge and do everything in their power to make their spouse feel safe in the sexual relationship. They also understand that intimate loving can be a place of renewal.

Offer Intimacy as a Place of Renewal

What creates an oasis? Water. It bubbles up from the ground, bringing forth life. Where there is water, trees shoot up. Grass grows. Flowers spring forth. Animals come to drink. If you are traveling through a desert and your throat is parched, you can come to the oasis, drink from the water, and be renewed. Just as cool water brings renewal to a thirsty traveler, intimate loving brings renewal to the couple who has been beaten down and bruised by life.

In Proverbs 5:17-19, we see the description of how a wife’s sexual love renews her husband through life-giving water:

Your spring water is for you and you only. . . . Bless your fresh-flowing fountain! Enjoy the wife you married as a young man! Lovely as an angel, beautiful as a rose —don’t ever quit taking delight in her body. Never take her love for granted! (MSG)

What does it look like to renew our mate with our sexual love? We’ll let Kevin tell you:

I’d been out of work for a year and felt like I could not go on. Do you know how hard it is not to be able to provide for your family? To put yourself out there day after day, only to hear the same words: “Sorry, we can’t use you.” One day I walked into our house after being rejected yet again. Tori greeted me, and when she saw the look on my face, she didn’t ask for the humiliating details. Instead, she said in a bossy voice, “Well, mister, I have a job for you. And the benefits are great. I want you to make love to me now.” So I did —right there on the living room floor. Afterward, as I lay in Tori’s arms, relaxed and refreshed, I knew I could go on. Tori’s love renewed my strength and filled me with resolve. I’d go to the ends of the earth for this woman.

Engedi is a place where physical needs are satisfied, but it is also a place where emotional and spiritual needs are met. Do you see how your attitude affects your sexual relationship? Maybe you are thinking, I’d like to create a place of rest, refuge, and renewal for my mate, but where do I begin? As we’ve already said, the starting point is your attitude, but your environment also plays a role.

Create a Bedroom Sanctuary

For most couples, Engedi is lived out in the bedroom. Is your bedroom a place of beauty and rest, or is it the dumping ground for unfolded laundry? Is your bedroom a place you run to because it is peaceful, or is it a place you run from because it is the hangout of kids and pets? Can your bedroom be described as a place of renewal, or is it more like a depressing den of dirt and disorder?

How your bedroom looks communicates something about how much you value your sexual relationship. Often decorating is an assumed duty for the wife, but in the next chapter we will see that Solomon brought timber from afar to create a special bedroom for his bride. We recommend that husbands contribute in some way to the bedroom decor —although we give permission for their wives to draw the line when it comes to life-size framed race cars! You can use paint, wallpaper, furniture, lighting, and other creative touches to create an ambience that makes your bedroom conducive to lovemaking. Here are some examples:

Peter: “Purple passion” —that’s the look Lorraine wanted for our bedroom. So I assembled my handyman tools for the job —paintbrush for applying purple paint, drill to hang pictures and window coverings, and hammer and saw for making shelves for music speakers. As I hung a tapestry over our bed, Lorraine added the finishing touches —silk greenery, recycled throw pillows covered with new fabric, and her wedding veil wrapped around the bedpost so that each morning as I awoke I’d be reminded that she is the bride of my youth. I looked at the total effect. Yes, it was conducive for loving —a great investment, as far as I was concerned.

Jody: I have helped Linda redecorate our bedroom many times in the course of our forty years of marriage. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten wiser. I’m smarter than Peter: When Linda wanted grapevines filled with ivy and berries over the windows, plus a faux painted ceiling, I hired it done.

Go into your bedroom and take a long look. Remove what detracts from romance:

Add things that enhance romance:

Fragrance can also play a key role in lovemaking, as we saw in the case of Tirzah and Solomon.

Use Fragrance to Enhance Sexual Desire

If you strolled into Solomon and Tirzah’s bedroom, powerful scents would overwhelm you. First, you would smell the scented powders sprinkled on their sheets and beautiful linen and on the satin curtains covering the walls. You would also smell their individual scents, personal fragrant lotions designed to delight the other. It’s likely that the aroma of burning incense also would fill the bedchamber. (Sounds like overkill for the nasal passage, doesn’t it? That much fragrance would probably give you a headache or make your eyes and nose itch and your throat hurt.) But fragrance communicates. As one five-year-old boy said, “Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.”

Before you pooh-pooh the importance of scent, read what Dr. Alan R. Hirsch, the neurological director of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, has to say about how our sense of smell affects us: “The quickest way to induce a change in emotions or mood is through smell, because the sense of smell reacts more quickly on the brain than other senses.”[4] He reports that “the top odor for putting men in the mood for love was a combination of pumpkin pie and lavender, followed by black licorice and freshly baked doughnuts.”[5] (He didn’t specify whether men had to eat these!)

Different smells can trigger different responses. The smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls can stimulate physical hunger, and the fragrance of certain colognes can stimulate sexual hunger. One wife says that her husband always splashes on Boss! before they make love, and the hint of that scent automatically shifts her body into sexual gear. How can you use fragrance to increase sexual desire? Here are some ideas:

For the wife: Buy several scented candles and place them around your bedroom. Before you make love with your husband, go around the room and say a prayer as you light each one. At the first candle you might pray, “Lord, light a fire in my heart for my husband.” At the second say, “Lord, ignite a fire in my mind for this man I love.” At the third, “Please God, start a fire burning in my body.” Continue like this until all of the candles are lit. In doing this, not only do you create a dreamy bedroom environment, but you also release the scent of romance within yourself and in the room.

For the husband: Buy a bottle of lavender bath oil and some roses. Select a night this week to pamper your wife. Put some of the roses in a vase on your bedroom dresser. Then, take the petals from two of the roses and drop them on the floor, creating a path toward the bathtub. After dinner, tell her you will do the dishes and put the kids to bed. Instruct her to follow the rose petal path where she will discover a lavender-filled bath waiting to soothe her muscles and soften her skin. After the children are asleep, give her a massage with a scented lotion and discover for yourself how much sense it makes to use scents.

Your bedroom environment can soothe or excite, comfort or delight. Talk together about what would transform your bedroom into your personal Engedi.

God wants your love to be a source of refreshment. He wants you to view your sexual relationship as a place of rest, refuge, and renewal. When the pressure mounts, when the stress of daily living knots your muscles and makes you tense, run to Engedi. Splash around in the life-giving water of oneness. Laugh again. Live again. Revive one another in the streams of Engedi.

SERVANT LOVERS:   Seek to make sexual love a place of refreshment for their mate.

SELFISH LOVERS:   View their sexual relationship as a place for satisfying their own sexual desire.

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SOLOMON TO TIRZAH:

“How beautiful you are, my darling,

How beautiful you are!

Your eyes are like doves.”

TIRZAH TO SOLOMON:

“How handsome you are, my beloved,

And so pleasant!

Indeed, our couch is luxuriant!

The beams of our houses are cedars,

Our rafters, cypresses.

I am the rose of Sharon,

The lily of the valleys.”

SOLOMON TO TIRZAH:

“Like a lily among the thorns,

So is my darling among the maidens.”

TIRZAH TO SOLOMON:

“Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest,

So is my beloved among the young men.

In his shade I took great delight and sat down,

And his fruit was sweet to my taste.

TIRZAH TO SOLOMON (CONTINUED):

He has brought me to his banquet hall,

And his banner over me is love.

Sustain me with raisin cakes,

Refresh me with apples,

Because I am lovesick.

Let his left hand be under my head

And his right hand embrace me.”

TIRZAH TO THE CHORUS:

“I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,

By the gazelles or by the hinds of the field,

That you do not arouse or awaken my love

Until she pleases.”

SONG OF SOLOMON 1:15–2:7

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