What Marriage is Like (Song of Songs 6:4-8:4)

Big Idea: A healthy marriage deepens through conflict and pursues joyful, holy intimacy that’s a reflection of Christ’s steadfast love.

I am a product of a single-parent home. For most of my childhood, I lived with my mother and my siblings but not my dad.

For that reason, I never had the privilege of seeing what a healthy marriage looked like. I’ve only seen hints of what a healthy marriage looks like from other couples, but that’s not the same as experiencing it consistently.

So I made a deliberate choice. When I went to seminary, I chose to live with a family. One of the reasons: I wanted to get married one day, and I knew that if I was going to be a decent husband one day, I had to learn what marriage looked like. I needed to see what it looks like to love each other in the everyday routines of life.

I’ve discovered I’m not alone. Many people I speak to have not had the experience of witnessing a healthy marriage. Maybe you, like me, grew up in a single-parent household. You may have grown up with both parents, but you might not have fully understood how a healthy marriage functions. Key aspects include resolving conflicts, maintaining open and honest communication, respecting each other, and sharing joy and laughter.

If you can relate to this, today’s passage can help. Song of Songs is such a helpful book because it shows us what dating looks like, what a wedding looks like, and even what conflict and tension look like after getting married. Today’s passage gives us an inside look at what a healthy marriage looks like.

Specifically, a healthy marriage looks like two things:

A healthy marriage is about a love that’s deepened through suffering (6:4-10).

Last week, we looked at chapter 5, in which there was a bit of an interruption in the relationship between this couple. It seems that at least part of their fight might have been about their physical relationship. I love the realism of the Song of Songs. Disruptions, arguments, failed connections are part of the normal marriage relationship in this fallen world. It’s going to happen in every marriage.

But handled well, conflict can be part of the process in which a relationship is deepened.

In Song of Songs 6:4-10, post-conflict, the man praises his wife, particularly her beauty. But I want you to notice a couple of things.

First, some of what he says is an exact repeat of his words on their wedding night. He says almost the same thing about her hair, her teeth, her temples, and her overall beauty. I love this. It’s as if he is saying, “You are still as beautiful to me as the day we married.” “He hasn’t changed in his fundamental view of her attractiveness,” writes Iain Duguid. He found her lovely before, and he still does, in spite of their quarrel.

But notice also that he modifies his praise a little. He omits some things, and he adds some things. What does he omit? He omits some of the more erotic praise of chapter 4. He sounds much more family-friendly in these verses. But he adds some things too:

In verses 4 and 5, he says:

You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love,
lovely as Jerusalem,
awesome as an army with banners.
Turn away your eyes from me,
for they overwhelm me…

He compares her to the capitals of the northern and southern kingdoms. Why? We don’t know for sure, but we can guess. Because these cities were beautiful, but also because they are formidable or “awesome as an army with banners.” That’s why he asks her in verse 5 to turn away from him. He admires her, but he’s also a little scared of her. He knows he’s met his match with her.

But then he adds one more thing in verses 8 to 9:

There are sixty queens and eighty concubines,
and virgins without number.
My dove, my perfect one, is the only one,
the only one of her mother,
pure to her who bore her.
(Song of Songs 6:8-9)

As you can picture, Solomon would have had an impressive harem. His harem would have had three classes of women in descending order: queens, concubines, and young women. This man looks at all of them, and then looks at his wife, and he says, “You’re better than all of them. I would take you over all of them combined.” When he says that she’s the only one of her mother, he’s saying something like they broke the mold when she was born.

Here’s what I think this passage is showing us. This couple has now settled into something a little more complex than their original attraction to each other. Their relationship is a little more complicated than it used to be. The couple has courted, married, experienced marital conflict and separation, and reconciled again. He now understands that she’s fierce, and he actually seems to be scared of her.

With all they’ve been through, their relationship has deepened, not been damaged. He loves her as much as he did on day one, even as the nature of their love continues to change and mature. It’s costly. Some things have changed since their wedding night. Their love has matured—still passionate, yet deeper, richer, and refined by conflict. And that’s a worthy goal for any couple today as well.

The Song holds out a beautiful vision of marriage as it was meant to be: one man and one woman who have a deep and awe-inspiring union that is profound enough to withstand the struggles and strains that come along when two sinners live together. They have a bond of forgiveness and love forged out of the uniqueness of their commitment to each other on their wedding day, a dazzling love that will not let the other person go, even when they are driving each other absolutely crazy. (Iain M. Duguid)

You want a healthy marriage? It’s going to involve everything we see in this book. There will be challenges and even times when you have to work through significant challenges to reconnect. But a healthy marriage involves returning to the newlywed joy that you once enjoyed, not because you’re naïve, but because you still see the beauty of that person even after you know them better than you knew them then. Knowing each other better doesn’t make you love them less; it actually deepens your love for one another.

This is the goal for those of us who are married: that we will not stay the same as when our relationship began, but that our love will change but also deepen as it’s forged in the realities of life. Love is meant to change and deepen.

A healthy marriage is about a love that’s deepened through suffering. Here’s the other thing that a healthy marriage looks like:

A healthy marriage is about the pursuit of happy, holy sexuality (6:11-8:3).

Even if you've witnessed a healthy marriage, the concept of healthy sexuality within it remains somewhat mysterious. This is only right. You see this in this passage. In verses 11 and 12, it seems that the woman goes to see if things are good in the garden or not. It seems that she is seeing if things are patched up between her and her husband. It turns out they are, and this begins the most passionate part of the entire book.

Verse 13 suggests the man is inviting the woman to leave public spaces for a more intimate setting just for the two of them. Their intimacy is private.

Chapter 7 reveals God's wisdom by offering a glimpse into the intimate dimensions of marital love, providing both guidance and a model for healthy, God-honoring sexuality that we could never grasp on our own.

One commentator says:

God is willing to do what some commentators are not: to talk to us about our bodies and our sexuality. God is not embarrassed by such subjects, and neither should we be embarrassed by them. Equally, though, the Word of God is not crass and crude when it talks about sex. It treats the body with an appropriate poetic modesty and restraint that we should try to respect. (Iain Duguid)

So what does a healthy marriage look like in this area? This passage teaches us a couple of things.

First, it looks like the pursuit of sexual joy.

Read this section, and it’s hard to escape a conclusion: there is a lot of joy. The man expresses his desire in verses 1 to 10, and the woman responds in verses 11 to 13. There is a lot of enjoyment going on, as there should be. Proverbs 5:18-19 says:

Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
be intoxicated always in her love.

Do you hear what this passage is saying, and what Song of Songs 7 illustrates for us?

A spring of joyously bubbling sexual happiness between husband and wife. And that is sexual wisdom. Even as the years go by, she will always be “the wife of your youth.” You will always cherish her and rejoice over her as that dear girl who gave herself completely to you alone…
The Bible is saying, “When you get married, drop your inhibitions, and go for it in both quality and quantity.” That is a command of God… Proverbs 5 is adding, “Make it fun and frequent!” The word translated “be intoxicated” is used elsewhere for a man staggering down the street in drunkenness (Isaiah 28:7). The point is to be crazy in love together. That is the good and wise will of God. (Ray Ortlund)

I like how Ray Ortlund puts it: “Every Christian married couple may rightly see, by faith, their heavenly Father raising his hands in blessing over their marriage bed.”

It will take work. This doesn’t come easy in a broken world. God has given you the gift of enjoyment within marriage, as highlighted in Proverbs and Song of Songs. It is worth pursuing.

But notice something else.

It looks like intimacy that goes beyond the bedroom.

If chapter 7 is about what happens in private, the first 4 verses of chapter 8 are about what it looks like in public. There’s more than just lust going on here. There’s a deep love that’s evident to anyone who knows them.

Oh that you were like a brother to me
who nursed at my mother’s breasts!
If I found you outside, I would kiss you,
and none would despise me.
I would lead you and bring you
into the house of my mother—
she who used to teach me.
I would give you spiced wine to drink,
the juice of my pomegranate.
His left hand is under my head,
and his right hand embraces me!

If you see a family member in public, the woman observes, it’s acceptable to kiss publicly. But that’s not as appropriate with your lover. She wishes it were. She wishes that their love could be something that could be expressed appropriately even in public. There is a longing for their intimacy to be shared appropriately, both privately and publicly. She wants to blend the best aspects of marriage and family, sharing her love openly rather than keeping it private.

So what does a healthy marriage look like? Many of us have not seen it firsthand. But this passage shows us. A healthy marriage deepens through conflict and pursues joyful, holy intimacy that is a reflection of Christ’s steadfast love.

We all fall short of this. Every marriage. But this is what is worth pursuing. We at least know what the goal is supposed to be.

And even better: as good as this relationship is, it’s just a pointer to something greater. This passage points us to a greater love: the love of Christ for his people. The intimacy, joy, and faithfulness in this couple's relationship reflect the perfect love of Jesus. Like a man who cherishes his wife despite conflicts, Christ’s love for us is steadfast and unchanging. He sees us fully—our flaws, our failures—and yet he loves us with a love that will never let us go.

The gospel shows us that Christ pursued us at great cost, laying down his life to reconcile us to himself. His love deepens through our struggles, not because he changes, but because we come to know him more fully in the midst of life’s challenges. And just as this couple’s love matures and grows richer over time, so does our relationship with Christ as we walk with him.

Marriage exemplifies the gospel truth of a covenant love that mirrors the beauty, sacrifice, and joy of Christ's love for the church. This is the ultimate love story, and it’s one we’re all invited to experience.

A healthy marriage deepens through conflict and pursues joyful, holy intimacy that is a reflection of Christ’s steadfast love.