Chapter Eleven: Stamp Out Selfishness

[1] This assumption can’t be proven. However, we and many commentators believe that this is the probable intent of the poet.

[2] Tremper Longman III, Song of Songs, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 162.

[3] The Hebrew word dapaq is used elsewhere for driving a herd of cattle or for demanding knocking (see Judges 19:22). See R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, and B. K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, electronic ed. (Chicago: Moody, 1999), 194.

[4] Longman, 166.

[5] 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), v. 103.

[6] Zockler, v. 103.

[7] Duane A. Garrett, Proverbs, Eccelsiastes, Song of Songs, The New American Commentary, vol. 14 (Nashville: Broadman, Holman, 2001), s.v. “Song 5:5.”

[8] G. Lloyd Carr, The Song of Solomon: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1984), 136.

[9] Longman, 169.

[10] Adapted from Joseph C. Dillow, Solomon on Sex (Nashville: Nelson, 1977), 108–109.

[11] This story was related to us by a professional counselor, who said it happened to a woman she knew. We have heard similar stories on three separate occasions. The message is: Satan’s followers are praying that Christian marriages will fail; are we praying that Christian marriages will succeed?

[12] Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage: What If God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 226.

[13] Thomas, 195.

[14] Thomas, 195.