Song 1:5     Dark am I, yet lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, dark like the tents of Kedar, like the tent curtains of Solomon.

 

The Song of Solomon is poetry and so it is full of allegory. It is mainly the dialogues of a young man and woman and this bit is the wonderings early on of the young woman. (If you want to see this set as a stage production, CLICK HERE). She speaks to the ‘choir', the ‘daughters of Jerusalem', the other women who know her and she describes herself. Look at her twofold description of herself.

 

First of all she describes herself as dark. In the next verse she explains why she is dark: “Do not stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the sun.” She is dark because of established suntan from being out in the open. This is the negative side of her. She reveals that she is no royal princess whose skin would be white, protected from the harsh sun of Israel. No, she is a worker who has no doubt spent her life working under the sun in the vineyards.

Do we realise that we are ‘dark' because of ‘sin'. The bad side of me, the old life, means that I am not nice to look at. When that side of my old life is allowed to prevail, I am not nice to be with – and neither are you!  There always has to be a balance when we consider ourselves and we need to be honest about this side of us.

 

But then she adds, “yet lovely.” We might be embarrassed to describe ourselves as ‘lovely' but in God's sight, because of what Jesus has done for us on the Cross, that is how we are. Yes, let's face this wonderful truth, because she is not afraid to. This is the reality. She IS beautiful which is why she captures Solomon's heart. In God's sight that is what we are like – because He's said so, because of what He's done for us and in us!

There is always this balance to us: on one side I am dark, because of where I have come from, the life that has scorched me, but on the other I am a child of God, a new creation, made in the likeness of Christ. Hallelujah!