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Return: Christ recalls his spouse, who as when Christ was gone she pursued after him, so now when Christ was coming or come to her, she was ready to wander and go astray from him, according to the common and corrupt disposition and custom of mankind; and therefore he seeks to stop or to reclaim her, and to oblige her to return to her first love, and to repent more thoroughly than she had yet done. Return: this word is here repeated four times, to signify both Christ’s passionate love to her, and earnest desire of her return, and her backwardness to it, which made so many calls necessary.
Shulamite: this title signifies either,
1. One born in or belonging to Jerusalem, called also Salem, Psa_76:2. Or,
2. The wife of Solomon, thus called after her husband’s name: see Isa_4:1. And as Christ is called by the name of Solomon, Son_3:7,9,11, so the church is fitly described by the title of Solomon’s wife.
That we may look upon thee; that I and my companions and friends may contemplate thy beauty.
What will ye see? but what do you my friends expect to discover in her? Christ proposeth the question, that he may give the following answer, and that they should take special notice of this as a very remarkable thing in her.
The company, whereby he intimates that this one and only spouse was made up of the whole multitude of believers, of two armies; either,
1. Opposite one against the other; and so this may note the conflict between the flesh and Spirit which is in all the faithful in this life. Or,
2. Confederate together; and so this may signify either,
1. The re-collection and union of Jews and Gentiles which shall one
day be under Christ as their common Head, Eph_2:15. Or,
2. The safety and strength of the church, which is compared to an army
with banners, above, Son_6:4,10, and here to a numerous host distributed into two armies; wherein also there may be an allusion to that story, Gen_32:1, where this very word, here rendered two armies, is used.