PROVERBS.
Here is the wisdom of God showing its path to man, in contrast with the corruption and violence in man. The first eight chapters give us the principle, showing Christ as wisdom. The remainder of Proverbs enters into details. It is addressed to man in a remarkable way. A man of the world escapes by knowing the crookedness of the world: this book enables a man to escape without knowing it – wise in that which is good, simple concerning evil.
ECCLESIASTES
Here is the result of the pursuit of happiness under the sun. Man’s wisdom, as man, is God’s law.
CANTICLES or SONG OF SONGS
The Song gives us the relationship, and the affections of the heart of the spouse, with Christ. This special form of the relationship, is to be realised properly in Israel, though we may apply this book, abstractedly, to the church and to the individual. (What Canticles treats of is not relationship, but desires, faith, getting the joy of the relationship with occasional glimpses, but not an established known relationship. The place of the church, though the marriage is not come, is that of being in the relationship. Israel will not have this.)
There is a kind of progress observable. (1) “My beloved is mine” – this is the lowest point. (2) “I am my beloved’s” – this is the consciousness of belonging to Him. (3) “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is towards me.”
_______
We have had subsequent to the history, the moral development of the heart of man, and of the Spirit of God working in various ways in his heart. Especially in Ecclesiastes, the heart of man makes itself a centre, and tries to feed itself, In Canticles, the heart is getting out of itself into the heart of Christ.
Slightly edited by Sosthenes, May 2014