Love

Song of Songs 1:1-10 - Solomon's Song of Songs. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—for your love is more delightful than wine. Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the maidens love you! Take me away with you—let us hurry! Let the king bring me into his chambers. We rejoice and delight in you; we will praise your love more than wine. How right they are to adore you! Dark am I, yet lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, dark like the tents of Kedar, like the tent curtains of Solomon. Do not stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the sun. My mother's sons were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards; my own vineyard I have neglected. Tell me, you whom I love, where you graze your flock and where you rest your sheep at midday. Why should I be like a veiled woman beside the flocks of your friends? If you do not know, most beautiful of women, follow the tracks of the sheep and graze your young goats by the tents of the shepherds. I liken you, my darling, to a mare harnessed to one of the chariots of Pharaoh. Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings, your neck with strings of jewels.

Song of Songs 8:6 - Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.

Ecclesiastes 7:1 - A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth.

Conclusions:

• Song of Songs means greatest of songs
• Solomon wrote 1005 songs
• Love means expressions of love--caresses, embraces and consummation
• The lover and the beloved both describe each other as more delightful than wine
• Seals were precious to their owners, as personal as their names
• As the grave will not give up their dead, so love will not surrender the loved one
• The Hebrew for mighty flame conveys the idea of a most intense flame, hinting that it has been kindled by the Lord
• Perfumes are aromatic spices and gums blended in cosmetic oil
• The very mention of the lover's name fills the air as with a pleasant aroma
• The Hebrew words for name and perfume sound alike
• The Christian has ample reason to say the day of death is better than the day of birth
• The Teacher's point in Ecclesiastes 7:1 is valid, namely, that happy times generally teach us less than hard times

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Conclusions derived from NIV Study Bible

Iniquities Into The Depths Of The Sea

Micah 7:19-20 - You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. You will be true to Jacob, and show mercy to Abraham, as you pledged on oath to our fathers in days long ago.

Jeremiah 31:34 - No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

Isaiah 38:17 - Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back.

Deuteronomy 7:8 - But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Luke 1:54-55 - He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers."

Galatians 3:10,21,28 - All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law."… Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law…There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Conclusions:

• When the Lord has done His new work, there will no longer be among His people those who are ignorant of Him and His will for human lives
• God not only puts our sins out of sight, He also puts them out of reach, out of mind and out of existence
• All believers are ultimately included in the promise to Abraham
• The covenant of love stems from God's love for His people, based on His character and embodied in His covenant; it does not stem from the numerical greatness of the people or any virtue of theirs
• God's blessing has never been earned, but has always been freely given
• The reason the law is not opposed to the promise is that, although in itself it cannot save, it serves to reveal sin, which alienates God from man, and to show the need for the salvation that the promise offers

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Conclusions derived from NIV Study Bible

Who Is A God Like You?

Micah 7:15-18 - "As in the days when you came out of Egypt, I will show them my wonders." Nations will see and be ashamed, deprived of all their power. They will lay their hands on their mouths and their ears will become deaf. They will lick dust like a snake, like creatures that crawl on the ground. They will come trembling out of their dens; they will turn in fear to the LORD our God and will be afraid of you. Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy.

1 Samuel 2:2 - "There is no one holy like the LORD; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.

Joel 2:32 - And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the LORD has said, among the survivors whom the LORD calls.

Exodus 15:11 - "Who among the gods is like you, O LORD ? Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?

Conclusions:

• It is possible that Micah 7:15-17 constitutes a prayer that God will show His wonders again as in the exodus, that the nations will see and be ashamed, and that they will turn to the Lord in fear
• When the nations see God's power at the Messiah's coming, they will be amazed
• Lick dust like a snake is a picture of defeat
• Micah 7:18-20 is the conclusion for the whole book of Micah
• Who is a God like you is perhaps a pun on Micah's name (Micah means Who is like the Lord?)
• Rock is a metaphor to depict the strength and stability of the God of Israel as the unfailing source of security for His people
• Calls on the name of the Lord means worships God and prays to Him
• Saved means delivered from the wrath of God's judgment
• In Joel 2:32, perhaps Joel is recalling the Lord's covenant with David
• The Lord, who tolerates no rivals, has defeated all the gods of Egypt and their worshipers.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

onclusions derived from NIV Study Bible

Eat But Not Satisfied

Micah 6:11-16 - Shall I acquit a man with dishonest scales, with a bag of false weights? Her rich men are violent; her people are liars and their tongues speak deceitfully. Therefore, I have begun to destroy you, to ruin you because of your sins. You will eat but not be satisfied; your stomach will still be empty. You will store up but save nothing, because what you save I will give to the sword. You will plant but not harvest; you will press olives but not use the oil on yourselves, you will crush grapes but not drink the wine. You have observed the statutes of Omri and all the practices of Ahab's house, and you have followed their traditions. Therefore I will give you over to ruin and your people to derision; you will bear the scorn of the nations."

Hosea 4:10-12 - "They will eat but not have enough; they will engage in prostitution but not increase, because they have deserted the LORD to give themselves to prostitution, to old wine and new, which take away the understanding of my people. They consult a wooden idol and are answered by a stick of wood. A spirit of prostitution leads them astray; they are unfaithful to their God.

Zephaniah 1:13 - Their wealth will be plundered, their houses demolished. They will build houses but not live in them; they will plant vineyards but not drink the wine.

1 Kings 16:30 - Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the LORD than any of those before him.

Jeremiah 25:9 - I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon," declares the LORD, "and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin.

Conclusions:

• Instead of giving themselves to the Lord, the priests in Hosea gave themselves over to prostitution
• The assets of those who have become wealthy through dishonesty will be exposed and plundered
• Doing evil in the sight of the Lord results in ruin and derision
• Evil in the sight of the Lord includes cheating, lying, deceit

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Conclusions derived from NIV Study Bible

Obedience

Micah 6:5-6 - My people, remember what Balak king of Moab counseled and what Balaam son of Beor answered. Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the LORD." With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?

Numbers 25:1-2 - While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in…immorality with Moabite women, who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate and bowed down before these gods.

Psalm 40:6-7 - Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced; burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require. Then I said, "Here I am, I have come—it is written about me in the scroll.

Psalm 51:17 - The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

1 Samuel 15:22 - But Samuel replied: "Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD ? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

Hosea 6:6 - For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

Conclusions:

• Shittim is another name for the region of Israel's staging for the conquest of Canaan; it was across the Jordan river opposite the ancient city of Jericho
• Israel's engagement in the fertility rites of Baal involved not only the evil of immorality
• It was also a breach of covenant with the Lord, a worship of the gods of the land and a foretaste of the people's ruin in the unfolding of their history
• The thought of Micah 6:6 is also expressed in 1 Samuel
• Micah does not deny the desirability of sacrifices but shows that it does no good to offer them without obedience
• More important than sacrifices and offerings is obedience, especially to God's moral law--i.e., the ten basic commands of His covenant
• Pierced probably refers to the sign by which a servant pledged lifelong service to his beloved master
• If, however, pierced is translated opened, it refers to ears made able and eager to hear God's law

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Conclusions derived from NIV Study Bible

Their Peace

Micah 5:5 - And he will be their peace. When the Assyrian invades our land and marches through our fortresses, we will raise against him seven shepherds, even eight leaders of men.

Isaiah 9:6 - For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Luke 2:14 - "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

Colossians 1:19-20 - For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Conclusions:

• Christ is our peace
• He is WONDERFUL, MIGHTY, and EVERLASTING
• He is GLORIOUS
• We have peace with our God because of Christ's death on the cross
• All things dwell in Him and are reconciled to Him

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Conclusions derived from NIV Study Bible

Strong, Majestic, Great

Micah 5:3-4 - Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor gives birth and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.

Ezekiel 34:11,23 - " 'For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them…I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd.

Isaiah 52:13 - See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.

Luke 1:32-33 - He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

Conclusions:

• HE is strong.
• HE is majestic
• HE is great
• HE is wise
• HE is exalted
• HIS kingdom will never end

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Conclusions derived from NIV Study Bible