Who is this who looks down like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awesome as an army with banners?
– Song of Solomon 6:10
So this is the husband in this relationship in Song of Solomon talking about his wife. And as you hear these words, they might almost sound a little overboard. Like, really, she looks down like the dawn, she’s beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, and awesome as an army with banners? But that’s part of the beauty of this book in the Bible because it’s showing us this is the way husbands and wives are supposed to talk to each other and about each other. They’re supposed to build each other up.
Song of Solomon 6:10 teaches us to use our words to build up our marriages.
Heather and I were talking the other night to a couple that’s about to get married, and our conversation was just about how potent our words can be in marriage. How a husband or a wife can so build up the other like nobody else in the world can with their words. And a husband or a wife can tear down each other like nobody else in the world can with their words. So to use our words obviously at all times, in every way, we prayed about this and all throughout the Proverbs and different places in Scripture, that our words would be edifying to others and glorifying to God, and all the more so in this close intimate relationship called marriage.
And so for any husband or wife listening to this right now, and specifically husbands in light of husbands saying this to his wife and about his wife in Song of Solomon 6:10, let it be a takeaway from this verse today to go overboard and be extravagant in your praise of… And I don’t use that word lightly. I think about Proverbs 31. Charm is deceitful. Beauty is vain. But a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. That’s the word that God uses to describe how we praise, edify, encourage, lift up, and build up a wife if you’re a husband. And of course, wives to look for opportunities to do this with their husbands.
Song of Solomon 6:10 illustrates how marriages should be marked by words of praise.
At the end of Ephesians 5, the Bible talks about a wife respecting her husband or honoring her husband in ways that are appropriate. And so to look for opportunities to build up your husband. And for us all to pray for this in marriages around us. That marriages around us would be marked by just effusive praise of husbands and wives for one another. They’re building each other up. They’re encouraging each other… Caring for each other, edifying each other with their words. Knowing this is God’s good design for marriage to give and receive edification like this.
So God, we pray for our marriages… For those of us who are married and for others’ marriages around us. We just want to see your good design for marriage on display in the world in a way that reflects the gospel. So we intercede right now for our and others’ marriages. We pray for edifying words in marriage, in our marriages, and others’ marriages. God, we pray for the kind of appropriate praise that we see here in Song of Solomon.
This verse teaches us to prioritize encouragement, honor, and respect in our words in marriage.
We see in different parts of your Word for encouragement, honor, respect, and edification of one another in ways that build up each other in Jesus. God, we do pray that you would help us to do this in all of our relationships. And today, help us to edify others with our words, to encourage others with our words. And God, especially in marriages, our marriages, others’ marriages… We pray that this picture of husbands saying to their wives, like Song of Solomon 6:10 says, “She’s as awesome as an army with banners.”
God, we pray that you would help husbands and wives to build each other up in this way. God, even as we pray all of this according to your Word to us… Which instructs us, encourages us, edifies us every day… We praise you for your words spoken into our lives in ways that define us… The ways you describe us as fearfully and wonderfully made.
Prayer for the Balti People
And as your children, God, help us to live in light of your words to us today. Help us, God, to spread your Word to others… To lead others to know how much you love them, to speak your Word, to speak the gospel to others.
And God, we pray for those who’ve never heard it. For the Balti people of India, God, we pray for this Muslim people group of a hundred thousand of them. God, we pray that they would be reached with the good news of your love through your Word… That they might experience salvation from your Word and relationship with you through your Word. God, may it be so. We pray all this according to your Word in Song of Solomon 6:10. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
