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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Song of Solomon 1:6 - 1:6
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Look not upon me, with wonder and disdain, because of my blackness, as it follows.
Because the sun hath looked upon me: my blackness is not essential, and inseparable, but chiefly caused by the scorching beams of the sun, i.e. of sore persecutions and tribulations, which by God’s permission have befallen me, which are represented by the sun, Mat_13:6,21.
My mother’s children; false brethren, who pretend that the church is their mother, with their actions demonstrate that God, the Husband of the church, is not their Father; hypocritical professors, who are, and ever were, the keenest enemies to the true church and people of God, Isa_66:5 Gal_4:29; false teachers, and their followers, who, by their corrupt doctrines, and divisions, and contentions which they raise, bring great mischief to the church. See 2Co_11:26 Gal_2:4.
Were angry with me; or, fought against me, as the ancients render it, and so marred my beauty.
They made me keeper of the vineyards, i.e. of their vineyards, for to these she opposeth her own, in the next clause. Having prevailed against me, they used me like a slave, putting me upon the most dishonourable and troublesome services, such as the keeping of the vineyards was esteemed, 2Ki_25:12 Isa_61:5 Mat_20:1-7.
Mine own vineyard have I not kept; they gave me such a full and constant employment in their drudging work about their vineyards, that they left me no time to mind my own; they hindered me from doing my own duty, and from minding my own concerns; and therefore it is no wonder if in this posture and condition I be uncomely, and scorched by the sun. But because churches or societies of professors of religion, whether good or bad, are oft called vineyards, as Deu_32:32 Psa_80:8 Isa_5:1,2,7, this and the foregoing clause may be thus understood, that they endeavored to seduce and corrupt the church with false doctrines, and superstitious or idolatrous worship, and to oblige her to countenance and maintain them, and thereby disturbed and hindered her from her proper work, which was the propagation and advancement of the true doctrine and worship in particular assemblies and persons belonging, or to be brought in, to her.