Following the wonderful statement of 7.10 we now see an invitation for intimacy:
“Come, my beloved, let us go to the countryside;
let us spend the night in the villages.
Let us rise early to go to the vineyards,
to see if the vines have budded,
to see if their blossoms have opened,
if the pomegranates are in bloom—
there I will give you my love.
The mandrakes send out their fragrance;
over our door is every delicacy,
both new and old, which I have stored up for you, my lover.”(The Song Of Solomon 7.11-13, NET)
With an invitation similar to that of the husband in 2.10, the bride is now the initiator of intimacy. She suggests a getaway in a beautiful place where she has planned to give…[her] love (vv.11-12). We see that it not only falls on the husband to begin the process, so to speak, but that the bride can also be the instigator of intimacy.
Reading more we see the level of planning and intentionality that the bride is showing:
“The mandrakes send out their fragrance;
over our door is every delicacy,
both new and old, which I have stored up for you, my lover.”
The mandrake was widely considered to be an ancient aphrodisiac ¹ and its mention here shows us that the bride has taken every step to ensure a pleasure-filled time awaits.
In a book that has been unashamedly sensual and sexual it is encouraging to see something so practical: spouses should be planning pleasure filled experiences for their partner and this burden does not only fall on the husband.
When life gets busy many fall into the trap of ‘sure, we’ll get to that‘ or ‘when it happens it happens‘ where intimacy is concerned. This should not be so! Instead;
Plan to go to places together (v.11),
plan experiences together (v.12),
and plan to enjoy one another (v.13).
¹ – https://www.europeana.eu/en/exhibitions/magical-mystical-and-medicinal/mandrake
James Travis 