Christ in Song of Songs 3:6–11: Looking Forward to the Return of the King

Come out, young women of Zion,
and gaze at King Solomon,
wearing the crown his mother placed on him
the day of his wedding—
the day of his heart’s rejoicing.

(Song of Songs 3:11, HCSB)

Let us be glad, rejoice, and give Him glory,
because the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and His wife has prepared herself.

(Revelation 19:7, HCSB)

Song of Songs 3:6-11 is about a Shepherd-King coming for his beautiful virgin bride. He comes with his armies and he is wearing a crown fit for the occasion. It is a magnificent scene to be sure, but it pales in comparison to the wedding processional it anticipates, a wedding processional described in Revelation 19 when King Jesus, the Shepherd King greater than David or Solomon, returns from Heaven to get his Bride, his wife (Rev 19:7). He will not come up from the wilderness with the memories of the fall and the deliverance of the Exodus occupying our minds. No, He will descend from heaven riding a white horse. On His head will not be a simple crown, but many diadems because He is the “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” (Rev 19:12, 16). The armies of heaven will accompany this Bridegroom (Rev 19:14) and He will shepherd the nations “with an iron scepter” (Rev 19:15).

Song of Songs 3:6-11 stirs our hearts for another wedding day that will consummate all of human history! There we will celebrate the marriage of the Lamb that was slain to His bride whom He purchased with His own blood (Rev 5:9-10). On that day, as Jonathan Edwards so eloquently wrote,

The church shall be brought to the full enjoyment of her bridegroom, having all tears wiped away from her eyes; and there shall be no distance or absence. She shall then be brought to the entertainments of an eternal wedding feast, and to dwell forever with her bridegroom; yea, to dwell eternally in his embraces. Then Christ will give her his loves; and she shall drink her fill, yea, she shall swim in the ocean of his love.[1]

[1] Jonathan Edwards, “The Church’s Marriage to Her Sons, and to Her God,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 2 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth; 1979, 1834 rprt.), p.22.