Thy Strong Word — Song of Solomon 6:1-13: My Dove...is the Only One

She has lost her husband and goes looking again, and the daughters of Jerusalem ask where he went so they can help her search. He turns up in his garden, grazing among the lilies, and tells her there are sixty queens and eighty concubines, but “my dove, my perfect one, is the only one.” And yet, 1 Kings says he finished with seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, so this line is a confession as much as a compliment. How do we make sense of Solomon’s not-so-exclusive love?

The Rev. Peter Burfeind, pastor of Our Savior Lutheran Church in Union City, Michigan, and Agnus Dei Lutheran Church in Marshall, Michigan, joins the Rev. Dr. Phil Booe to study Song of Solomon 6:1–13.

To learn more about Our Savior and Agnus Dei Lutheran churches, visit facebook.com/oursaviorunioncity and agnusdeimarshall.com.

The Song of Solomon is a book of love poetry, a bride and her bridegroom singing to each other across eight chapters. God’s people have sung it since Solomon’s day, and Jewish congregations still read it at Passover. The Church has heard in it the voice of Christ and His bride, and Luther quoted the Song in The Freedom of a Christian to describe what happens when Christ takes a sinner as His own. Paul was working the same ground in Ephesians five, where he set marriage beside Christ and the Church and called it a great mystery.

This series works through the whole book verse by verse, from the kiss in chapter one to the seal on the heart in chapter eight. We hear what it says about the body, about desire, and about the marriage God instituted in the garden. We also ask where Christ is in it, since the Church has long heard in these songs the voice of the Bridegroom who gave His life for His bride.

Thy Strong Word, hosted by Rev. Dr. Phil Booe, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church of Luverne, MN, reveals the light of our salvation in Christ through study of God’s Word, breaking our darkness with His redeeming light. Each weekday, two pastors fix our eyes on Jesus by considering Holy Scripture, verse by verse, in order to be strengthened in the Word and be equipped to faithfully serve in our daily vocations. Submit comments or questions to: thystrongword@kfuo.org.

Thy Strong Word is graciously underwritten by the Lutheran Heritage Foundation. Through the mission gifts of people like you, LHF translates, publishes, distributes and introduces books that are Bible-based, Christ-centered and Reformation-driven. Learn more at lhfmissions.org.

Song of Solomon 6:1-13

Others

[1] Where has your beloved gone,

O most beautiful among women?

Where has your beloved turned,

that we may seek him with you?

Together in the Garden of Love

She

[2] My beloved has gone down to his garden

to the beds of spices,

to graze in the gardens

and to gather lilies.

[3] I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine;

he grazes among the lilies.

Solomon and His Bride Delight in Each Other

[4] You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love,

lovely as Jerusalem,

awesome as an army with banners.

[5] Turn away your eyes from me,

for they overwhelm me—

Your hair is like a flock of goats

leaping down the slopes of Gilead.

[6] Your teeth are like a flock of ewes

that have come up from the washing;

all of them bear twins;

not one among them has lost its young.

[7] Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate

behind your veil.

[8] There are sixty queens and eighty concubines,

and virgins without number.

[9] My dove, my perfect one, is the only one,

the only one of her mother,

pure to her who bore her.

The young women saw her and called her blessed;

the queens and concubines also, and they praised her.

[10] “Who is this who looks down like the dawn,

beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun,

awesome as an army with banners?”

She

[11] I went down to the nut orchard

to look at the blossoms of the valley,

to see whether the vines had budded,

whether the pomegranates were in bloom.

[12] Before I was aware, my desire set me

among the chariots of my kinsman, a prince.

Others

[13] Return, return, O Shulammite,

return, return, that we may look upon you.

Why should you look upon the Shulammite,

as upon a dance before two armies?

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV Text Edition: 2025. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Rev. Dr. Phil Booe

Native North Carolinian Rev. Dr. Phil Booe serves pastor of St. John Lutheran Church of Luverne, MN, and host of Thy Strong Word on KFUO Radio. His parishioners probably think he can’t teach Bible study without a mug of coffee in his hand, and he’ll always be happy to eat a plate of sushi. When he’s not shepherding his flock or teaching on the radio, you might find him watching bad movies from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and especially binging RiffTrax and MST3K episodes. Some day he’d love to travel to the Lutheran homeland in Germany, but for now he spends time in Minnesota with his wife, son, daughter, and cat, and looks forward to Holy Week every year.