The Saint's Palanquin
G. Burrowes. Songs 3:9-10 King Solomon made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon.… It seems no part of the mind of the Spirit that we should take this description to pieces, and try to allegorize the several parts. The intention is to represent to us the fact that the believer is carried onward to heaven in a conveyance as costly and glorious as that here described; that the materials are of the richest, choicest, most durable character; that the midst is paved or tessellated with love. The provision made, the means provided for bringing us to glory, are of a rare and splendid nature. After exhausting the things most valuable among men, making the pillars silver, the railing gold, the seat or couch purple, he adopts a feature in the description entirely new, and says the midst is curiously wrought with something more precious than silver or gold, even with love itself — showing that the saint, while thus passing through the wilderness between this world and heaven, between our state of guilt and our state of glory, is in a palanquin of the most costly make, borne up in the hands of angels, surrounded by an armed angelic guard, and reclining on a soft couch beautiful as purple, the most costly colour, with the midst of the litter formed of love — the many acts of Divine love from Father, Son and Holy Spirit, there combining underneath us like the different pieces in a beautiful mosaic, tessellated pavement. In the spirit of this passage, those who wait on the Lord are said to renew their strength; and He will give His angels charge concerning such, to bear them up in their hands, lest at any time they dash their foot against a stone (Isaiah 40:31; Psalm 91:12). (G. Burrowes.) Parallel Verses KJV: King Solomon made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon. WEB: King Solomon made himself a carriage of the wood of Lebanon.