Chapter Ten: Give Your Body as a Gift

[1] Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage: What If God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000), 226.

[2] J. Westenholz, “Love Lyrics from the Ancient Near East,” in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, vol. 4, ed. J. Sasson (New York: Scribner’s, 1995), 2474.

[3] L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, M. Richardson, and J. J. Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, electronic ed. (New York: Brill, 1999), s.v. “dod.”

[4] Tremper Longman III, Song of Songs, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 155.

[5] R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, and B. K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, electronic ed. (Chicago: Moody, 1999), 168.

[6] G. W. Bromiley, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 2:400.

[7] Bromiley, 156.

[8] Otto Zockler, “The Song of Songs,” in Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical, ed. John Peter Lange, trans. Philip Schaff (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1960), 5:90.

[9] Tom Gledhill, The Message of the Song of Songs (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1994), 166.

[10] Longman, 58. It is certainly possible that the metaphors refer to oral sex.

[11] Certain commentators’ notes attribute these words to the choir. We agree with Charles Caldwell Ryrie’s view that God is speaking these words to the couple; Ryrie’s Study Bible (Chicago: Moody, 1995).

[12] This concept is mentioned in Linda and Lorraine’s book for single women called Gift-Wrapped by God: Secret Answers to the Question “Why Wait?” (Colorado Springs, CO: WaterBrook, 2002), but we’ve expanded it further here and developed the concept of giving authority of your body to your mate.

[13] Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker, Every Man’s Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time (Colorado Springs, CO: WaterBrook, 2000), 125, 133.