Monday, October 27, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Song of Solomon 1
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 124
Key Verse
Song of Solomon 1:9 — “I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh’s chariots.”
Devotional Thought
The Song of Songs opens not with doctrine but with longing—a bride speaking to her beloved, and the beloved answering. Solomon, Israel’s poet-king, gives us a love song that the rabbis called the Holy of Holies of Scripture, and it begins with a request so intimate it almost makes us look away: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.” The woman is not named. She calls herself “black, but comely,” darkened by the sun because her brothers, angry with her, set her to keep the vineyards while her own vineyard went unkept. She is a working woman, weathered and weary, and still she is called “the fairest among women.” She asks where her shepherd feeds his flock at noon, and he answers tenderly, comparing her to a company of horses in Pharaoh’s chariots, adorning her with rows of jewels and chains of gold. Then comes the quiet exchange of delight: spikenard and myrrh, camphire in the vineyards of Engedi, doves’ eyes, cedar beams, green beds, and rafters of fir.
It is late October as we read this, when the year itself begins to darken and the vineyards of our own lives stand bare after harvest. The bride’s words fit the season: “mine own vineyard have I not kept.” How many of us know that confession? We tend everyone else’s rows—the job, the family, the endless needs of others—while the garden of our own soul goes untended. And yet the Song does not scold her. It draws her in. “Draw me, we will run after thee,” she cries, and the king brings her into his chambers. This is the shape of the gospel before the gospel was written: the beloved does not wait for the bride to clean herself up. He calls her fair while the sunburn is still on her face.
The psalmist sings the same truth from another angle. “If it had not been the LORD who was on our side,” Israel says, remembering when men rose up against them, when wrath was kindled, when the waters would have overwhelmed their soul. “Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.” That is the bride’s story too. She was snared in her brothers’ anger, in the heat of the day, in her own neglected vineyard—and love found her there.
So today, whether your vineyard is flourishing or fallow, hear the invitation. The King sits at His table, and the spikenard sends forth its smell. Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth—and He is not ashamed to call us His love, His fair one, His bride.
Reflection
- The bride confesses, “mine own vineyard have I not kept.” What vineyard in your own soul—prayer, rest, Scripture, honest self-examination—have you neglected while tending everyone else’s rows, and what would it look like this week to let the King draw you back into it?
- Psalm 124 says the snare is broken and we have escaped. Where in your life do you still live as though the snare were intact, and what would change if you truly believed the LORD who made heaven and earth is on your side?
Prayer
Lord, we come to You as the bride came—sunburned, weary, our own vineyard neglected—and we ask You to draw us, for we cannot run after You on our own strength. Thank You that You do not wait for us to become fair before You call us fair; You adorn us with jewels we did not earn and bring us into Your chambers. Blessed be Your name, for You have not given us as a prey to the teeth of our enemies. The snare is broken, and we are escaped. Our help is in Your name, O LORD, who made heaven and earth. Teach us to keep the vineyard of our own hearts, to sit at Your table and let our spikenard send forth its fragrance to You. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 124:1 — “If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, now may Israel say;”