Chapter 4, which also includes the first verse of chapter 5 is Solomon’s description of his bride as she stands before him at their wedding. As we read the poetry one thing is obvious: the images are time bound. He describes her teeth as a “flock of goats,” and her neck as being like “the tower of David.” While the descriptions were undoubtedly well-received in his day, they don’t sound romantic in ours.
As we move to chapter 5, it is somewhat confusing in that at first the bride cannot find her husband. When he knocks on the door of her chamber, she tells us she cannot come, because she hasn’t dressed. Then when she goes to the door to answer, and he is not there, she goes out after him. She tells us she was found by the city watchmen and bruised by them. Then the scene shifts to her offering a description of her beloved, another beautiful, but time-bound bit of poetry.
Chapter 6 offers an interchange between the bride and her beloved, with a few brief comments by the choir or the others who are in the background. The description Solomon offers of his bride is once again poetic, but time bound, something we men wouldn’t want to use to impress our wives.
As we return to Mark 4, we’re reminded of how action-oriented this gospel is, because here we turn to a body of teaching for the first time. Jesus tells several parables telling us what the Kingdom of God is like. We read the familiar (to us) Parable of the Sower (sometimes called the Parable of the Soils). Jesus also talks about the Kingdom of God as being like a mustard seed, and like a growing plant, that grows on its own (a literal translation would be close to “automatically.”) The chapter ends with action, though, as is Mark’s trademark. Jesus and the disciples take the boat out on the sea. Jesus, tired from the day, falls asleep, but a storm comes up threatening to swamp the boat. The disciples, at least a quarter of whom were fishermen familiar with sailing, grow terrified and waken Jesus, asking Him whether He doesn’t care if they drown. Jesus speaks to the wind and waves, and immediately the sea becomes come. The disciples respond in wonder, as any of us would. While the storm Jesus calmed was a literal storm, it reminds us He is able to calm the “storms” of our lives as well.
[Note: as you read this post, if all is well, I am in Israel. Please, pray that the Lord will use me in this native land of Jesus to be light and salt to those I meet, and that opportunities will come for me to share Jesus with people here. (I wrote these posts ahead of time, because I wasn’t certain whether I would be able to write them daily while in Israel.)]