The King's Call from Dangerous Heights Text: Song of Solomon 4:8
Introduction: A Call to Come Away
The Song of Solomon is, first and foremost, a celebration of married, covenantal, erotic love. It is earthy, it is passionate, and it is entirely unashamed, because God is the one who invented all of it. He invented sex, He invented marriage, and He invented the poetry that sings about it. To blush at this book is to blush at God's handiwork. But like every marriage, and particularly this marriage which God has placed in the canon of Scripture, it is a living picture, a type, of the love between Christ and His church. As Paul tells us in Ephesians, every Christian marriage is an icon of that ultimate reality. Therefore, this one, being celebrated in Holy Writ, is doubly so.
So we must read this book on two levels, without letting either level cancel the other out. We must not spiritualize away the raw, physical reality of this love between a man and a woman. And we must not be so leaden-footed as to miss the glorious typological meaning that points us to our Redeemer and His Bride. The two meanings are not at war; they are in harmony. A robust, biblical understanding of marriage makes the gospel clearer, and a robust understanding of the gospel makes marriage richer.
In this particular verse, we hear the voice of the husband, the king, calling to his bride. He is calling her to come away with him, to leave the high and dangerous places, and to find her safety and her identity entirely in him. This is a call to forsake all others. It is a call to leave behind the world's glories, which are always mingled with peril, and to descend into the valley of fellowship with the one who loves her. This is the call of Christ to His church. He does not call us to remain on the high places of our own accomplishments, our own pride, or our own worldly security. He calls us to come down, to come away, to be with Him.
The Text
Come with me from Lebanon, my bride,
May you come with me from Lebanon.
Journey down from the top of Amana,
From the top of Senir and Hermon,
From the dens of lions,
From the mountains of leopards.
(Song of Solomon 4:8 LSB)
The Call to a New Location (v. 8a)
The husband begins with a repeated, urgent invitation.
"Come with me from Lebanon, my bride, May you come with me from Lebanon." (Song of Solomon 4:8a)
He calls her "my bride." This is a term of covenantal possession and affection. She belongs to him, and he to her. All that follows is rooted in this covenant relationship. His call for her to come away is not the call of a stranger, but of a husband who has the right to claim her and the responsibility to protect her.
He calls her to come "from Lebanon." Lebanon in Scripture is a place of dual symbolism. On the one hand, it is a place of majestic beauty, famous for its towering cedars, a symbol of earthly glory, strength, and wealth. The temple itself was built with the cedars of Lebanon. So, in one sense, he is calling her away from the very best the world has to offer. He is saying, "Even the highest glories of this world are not where I want you to find your home. Your home is with me."
But Lebanon was also on the northern border of Israel, a wild and untamed place. It was a frontier, a place of potential danger. The mountains mentioned are in this region, and as we will see, they are inhabited by predators. So the call from Lebanon is a call from a place of worldly glory that is simultaneously a place of profound spiritual danger. This is the nature of the world. Its most beautiful and alluring peaks are often the places most infested with lions and leopards. The call of Christ is for His bride to disentangle herself from the world, not just from its obvious ugliness, but from its treacherous beauty as well.
The Call to Descend (v. 8b)
The call to come away is specified as a call to come down.
"Journey down from the top of Amana, From the top of Senir and Hermon," (Song of Solomon 4:8b LSB)
Amana, Senir, and Hermon are all peaks in the Anti-Lebanon mountain range. These are high places. In the Old Testament, "high places" are notoriously associated with idolatry. They were the locations of pagan altars where false gods were worshipped. While these specific mountains are not exclusively condemned, the imagery is potent. The "top" of these mountains represents the pinnacle of human achievement and pride. It is the place where man feels closest to heaven on his own terms. It is the location of the tower of Babel, a human attempt to ascend to God.
The bridegroom calls his bride to "journey down." The Christian life is not a climb up the ladder of self-righteousness or worldly acclaim. It is a descent into humility. It is the path of Christ Himself, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant (Philippians 2:6-7). He descended to us, and He calls us to descend with Him.
To come down from the top of Amana is to abandon our trust in our own faithfulness (the name Amana is related to the Hebrew for "faithful"). To come down from Senir and Hermon, majestic and snow-capped peaks, is to forsake our reliance on our own strength and glory. The bride cannot be with her husband on the top of these mountains. She must come down to meet him. Fellowship with Christ is found in the valley of humility, not on the peaks of pride.
The Call from Danger (v. 8c)
Finally, the reason for the urgent call to descend is made explicit. These beautiful high places are not safe.
"From the dens of lions, From the mountains of leopards." (Song of Solomon 4:8c LSB)
The world's glorious high places are, in fact, the hunting grounds of predators. The dens of lions and the mountains of leopards are where these beasts live and from where they attack. The Bible uses these animals as symbols of powerful, ferocious, and cunning enemies. The devil himself is described as a "roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8). Leopards are known for their stealth and sudden, deadly attacks (Jeremiah 5:6).
This is a spiritual reality. The high places of worldly power, wealth, and prestige are crawling with spiritual dangers. Pride, ambition, greed, and idolatry are the lions and leopards that haunt those peaks. The husband sees the danger his bride is in, perhaps a danger she does not fully appreciate herself. Her attraction to the beauty of Lebanon and the majesty of Hermon has blinded her to the predators that dwell there.
His call is therefore a rescue. "Come with me" is not just an invitation to fellowship, but a command to flee to safety. Her only true security is not in her position on the mountain, but in her proximity to her husband. He is calling her out of the domain of the predators and into the safety of his arms. This is what Christ does for the church. He calls us out of the world, which is ruled by the prince of the power of the air, and brings us into His kingdom, a kingdom of safety and peace.
Conclusion: The Safety of His Presence
This verse is a beautiful and compact picture of the gospel call. Christ, our heavenly husband, finds His bride entangled with the world. She is captivated by its glories (Lebanon) and is dwelling in the high places of her own pride and self-sufficiency (Amana, Hermon). She does not realize that these places are infested with mortal enemies (lions and leopards) who seek her destruction.
So He calls her. He calls her by name, "my bride," reminding her of her true identity in him. He calls her to come away, to journey down, to leave the treacherous heights. The call is not to a lesser life, but to life itself. The alternative to coming down from the mountains of the leopards is to be consumed by them.
Where is He calling her to? He simply says, "Come with me." The destination is not a place, but a person. He is her safety. He is her home. He is her glory, a glory that far surpasses the cedars of Lebanon. The Christian life is a continual response to this call. Every day, we are tempted by the beauty and the heights of the world. And every day, our husband calls to us, "Come with me from Lebanon. Journey down from the top of your pride. Flee the dens of lions. Your life is with me." Our safety and our joy are found not in climbing, but in descending into ever-deeper fellowship with Him.