nues:--

Thy cheeks are comely with plaits of hair,
Thy neck with strings of jewels.
We will make thee plaits of gold
With studs of silver.

The bride is not only beautiful and useful to her LORD, she is also
adorned, and it is His delight to add to her adornments. Nor are His
gifts perishable flowers, or trinkets destitute of intrinsic value: the
finest of the gold, the purest of the silver, and the most precious and
lasting of the jewels are the gifts of the Royal Bridegroom to His
spouse; and these, plaited amongst her own hair, increase His pleasure
who has bestowed them.

* * * * *

In verses 12-14 the bride responds:--

While the King sat at His table
My spikenard sent forth its fragrance.

It is in His presence and through His grace that whatever of fragrance
or beauty may be found in us comes forth. Of Him as its source, through
Him as its instrument, and to Him as its end, is all that is gracious
and divine. But _HE HIMSELF_ is better far than all that His grace works
in us.

My Beloved is unto me as a bundle of myrrh,
That lieth betwixt my breasts.
My Beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna-flowers
In the vineyards of En-gedi.

Well is it when our eyes are filled with His beauty and our hearts are
occupied with Him. In the measure in which this is true of us we shall
recognize the correlative truth that His great heart is occupied with
us. Note the response of the Bridegroom:--

Behold, thou art fair, My love; behold, thou art fair;
Thine eyes are as dove's.

How can the Bridegroom truthfully use such words of one who recognizes
herself as

Black as the tents of Kedar?

And still more strong are the Bridegroom's words in chap. iv. 7:--

Thou art all fair, My love;
And there is no spot in thee.

We shall find the solution of this difficulty in 2 Cor. iii. Moses in
contemplation of the Divine glory became so transformed that the
Israelites were not able to look on the glory of his countenance. "We
all, with unveiled face [beholding and] reflecting as a mirror the glory
of the LORD, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory
[_i.e._ the brightness caught from His glory transforms us to glory],
even as from the _Lord_ the SPIRIT." Every mirror has two surfaces; the
one is dull and unreflecting, and is