February 12
Verse of the Day for February 12
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.Song of Solomon 8:7 KJV
The Key of Love · Day 12 of 29
Reflection · 3 min read
Many Waters
The Song is a love poem and it is unembarrassed about being one. Near the end it stops describing and makes a claim.
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.
The verse before compares it to a seal, to death, to the grave, to coals of fire — a most vehement flame. This is not sentimental language. It is language about things that do not let go.
And then the strangest line: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. Offering to buy it is not merely refused. It is despised.
Which means love in this poem cannot be purchased and cannot be extinguished, and those two facts belong together. Whatever cannot be bought cannot be drowned either.
It cannot be bought.So it cannot be drowned.
Marriages and friendships go through water. The poem does not deny the flood; it denies the flood's power to finish the thing.
Whatever you are in the middle of, waters and quenching are different verbs.
Carry this today
What are you assuming the flood has already finished?
Pray
Read Song of Solomon 8:6–7
6Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. 7Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.
Keep praying
Reflection by Collins Asein, from the daily devotionals in the PrayerKey app. Bible text: King James Version.