The soul is much instructed by the different purposes of the Spirit of God in Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon. Placed together in the progress of the oracles of God, they may naturally be looked at together. One penman also, under the divine Author, was employed in both; they will, however, be found to convey to our souls very different, though consistent, lessons.
In Ecclesiastes the soul is presented as having full capacity to try everything "under the sun." Solomon had been reared as such a one. What could any man do which he could not do? What within range of human attainments was beyond him? He could say, and it was not a vain boast, "What can the man do that cometh after the king?" Eccles. 2:1212And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly: for what can the man do that cometh after the king? even that which hath been already done. (Ecclesiastes 2:12). And the only answer was, "Even that which bath been already done."
No one had, or could have, at his command more extended resources than Solomon, because God had so exalted and appointed him. He commanded wealth, and honors, and pleasures, and learning. He could wield the instruments and traffic in the markets of all human, natural, earthly, and carnal attainments and treasures without stint and difficulty. He tried them to the full; he tried them in all their variety, as he eloquently tells us in his Ecclesiastes. He found, however, that they would not do. They left his heart a parched ground and wilderness still. Instead of raising music there, it was all and only "vexation of spirit" that was felt, and "vanity" that was uttered over it all. He that drank those waters thirsted still.
In the Song of Solomon the soul is affected altogether differently. It is in a different attitude and with a different experience. It has but one object, but that one is enough. It is satisfied, and never for a moment thinks of looking for a second object. It has "the beloved" and cares for nothing else.
The soul here, it is true, has its griefs as well as in Ecclesiastes. But it is a grief of an entirely different character. Here it sighs over its want of capacity to enjoy its object fully; there, as we saw, it sighed over the insufficiency of its object. "Draw me, we will run after thee," is the ardent language of the heart here. It seeks for nothing but Jesus, but laments that it is not nearer to Him, more intimate with Him, more fully and altogether with Him. "I sleep; but my heart waketh" tells us in like measure that want of power in wakefulness is felt, but no want of an object, as indeed the sequel of that fervent breathing discloses; for when that drowsy soul is questioned about its object, it recounts His beauties from head to foot, and thinks not for a moment of searching for another (chap. 5:9, 16).
Such is the experience in the Song of Solomon, and such the character of the grief of the heart. It is conscious want of capacity to do justice to the object presented, to answer its worth worthily; it is a grief that deeply honors and, I may say, hallows it. We want a little more of this in ourselves. We want to find in Jesus a full and satisfying object, a corrective for the wanderings of the heart which, till it fixes rightly on Him, will in the spirit of Ecclesiastes go about and still say, "Who will show us any good?"
The building of palaces, the planting of vineyards, the getting of singing men and singing women and musical instruments of all sorts, the multiplying of the children of men, all the trammels of the heart should end at the discovery of Jesus. Thus will the grief of the soul change. Then, as in the Canticles, it will be sorrow over our want of capacity in ourselves to enjoy what we have reached, though with the blessed assurance that there is no defect or insufficiency in our portion itself.