Bible Flowers: The Henna Blossoms
Bible Flowers: the Henna Blossoms.
“Spring flowers are unfolding in the fields. The season of glad songs has come, the cooing of the turtledoves is heard in the land. The fig tree is forming its first figs, and the blossoming vines give out their fragrance. Come then, my beloved, my lovely one, come away with me.” (Song of Songs 2:12-13).
Every flower and blossom mentioned in Scripture has a story to tell. Bible flowers are planted in a context, and could be anything from an object lesson or sermon illustration, to a metaphor or a symbol, or perhaps simply a prime example of some of God’s creative genius. No matter what, when we study the flowers of the Bible, we will undoubtedly come to understand the Scriptures that much better,, whether we’re referring to the Henna blooms (Song of Songs 1:14) or the almond tree blossoms (Numbers 17:8); the Rose of Sharon (Song of Songs 2:1) or the hyssop flowers ( ); the Lily of the Valley (Song of Songs 2:1) or the Pomegranate blooms (Ex 28:33); the Crocus Saffron (Is. 35:1-2) or the myriads of wildflowers (Matt. 6:28-29); the Myrtle blooms or Willow blossoms (Ps. 137:1-2).
Is it true that everything physical points to something spiritual? That creation inevitably guides us back to the Creator? That physical realities in nature reflect spiritual realities in supernature? That God’s handiwork leads us to the Handiworker?
Beauty and Fragrance. Flowers are prime examples of how something that appeals to our physical senses can refer us to our spiritual senses. Let’s consider two wondrous qualities of flowers that help us praise the Maker at a deeper level: Beauty and Fragrance. Is there any doubt that only a beautiful God could have created the beauty we discover in flowers? Or that the sweet-smelling aroma of flowers serve to deepen our understanding of the Christian’s role in the world as the aroma of Christ? Because flowers lead the way in appealing to our natural senses, they are able to help us mere mortals to sense God in the full meaning of the term.
Senses and Symbols. Scripture loves to use our physical senses as symbols because if there’s one thing about us we can truly understand, it’s our senses. We may not truly understand our thoughts and actions, but we can understand our tangible senses. So the Bible uses our senses as reference points for how we can experience God more deeply. Our senses represent ways of participating in the Faith, of growing and knowing. Scripture encourages believers to use our senses both literally and spiritually in experiencing God. We can, with God’s help, sense God figuratively, using our physical senses as ideas that trigger a deeper understanding of the Faith.
A Word About the Song of Songs in the Hebrew Bible: “For all the world is not as worthy as the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the Writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies.” (Rabbi Akiva, the ‘Chief of the Sages,’ 50-135 AD).
The Song of Songs, often called the Song of Solomon ever since it was written around 960 BC. The title of this love poem means that this is the best song of all the songs, the most important song, and that this one song surpasses all others. There is debate as to whether Solomon literally wrote this extended love poem, or it was composed for Solomon, or written in honor of Solomon. Because this biblical poem has been understood in many ways down through the centuries, perhaps we can discuss it in the classic Jewish way of, on the one hand this, and on the other hand that…
Literally. On the one hand, the Song of Songs has been accepted simply as a superb piece of poetic literature in honor of romantic love between the lover and his beloved. It has become more popular now to claim that we shouldn’t read too much into it, that it is no more than an extended erotic conversation between two lovers. The intimacy between them is spelled out in graphic detail and the language is the most sensuous and explicit in all of Scripture. The faithful love between the two is a beautiful thing to behold as they celebrate the divinely created union between a woman and a man, a union that is enjoyed physically, emotionally, whole-heartedly, just as God intended.
Symbolically. On the other hand, limiting this classic piece of Scripture to a love poem flies in the face of how it has been historically understood by Jews and Christians alike. Jewish scholars and readers have always understood this book to be an exquisite picture of how God loves His people, Israel. Picking up on this, the early church leaders embraced the Song of Songs as a glorious allegory of the love Christ has for His bride the Church, as well as the love He has for each individual soul. If we followed the tributary of human love back to its source, we find the mysterious river of divine love. The pure intimacy between man and woman is the closest picture we get on earth to grasp the union that God wants with each of us and His body of believers. The human intimacy of Song of Songs is intended to help us understand and develop a profound spiritual intimacy with the Lord. The Song of Songs has been used throughout the history of faith to enable believers to contemplate the mystical union between God and His people, between Christ and His followers, both collectively and individually. In this surprising biblical poem, love is in the air, on every page, in every word. Eugene Peterson encourages the believer to read the Song of Songs devotionally, and he observed that this poem is a “prism in which all the love of God in all the world, and all the responses of those who love and whom God loves, gathers and then separates into individual colors.”
“You, my beloved, are like a bouquet of henna blossoms, plucked among the vineyards of En-gedi.” (the Bride speaking to the Bridegroom, Song of Songs 1:14).
The Henna Shrub. This short and bushy plant bears intensely fragrant flowers that have a beautiful white-yellow color. These blooms grow in clusters on the bush and are so powerfully-scented that they have been used in perfumes since at least 1,500 BC. Being both beautiful and fragrant, the henna blooms have been a feast for the senses for centuries in Israel. But they have practical uses as well… the henna bushes provide a hedge of protection around the En-gedi vineyards. Henna plants have thorns throughout their branches that shelter the vines and keep hungry animals from eating the grapes or destroying the vine altogether.
En-gedi. This particular little piece of paradise is a legendary oasis near the coast of the Dead Sea that can still be visited to this day. En-gedi has lush green gardens, groves of palm trees, a permanent spring of pure water, and even a stunning waterfall. This idyllic oasis is hidden at the base of very rugged limestone cliffs and is surrounded by desolate wasteland. The name En-gedi means “Fountain of the Lamb” and is famous as the site where David took refuge when he was being hunted down by Saul (1 Samuel 24:1).
“Kopher.” The Hebrew word for henna is “kopher,” which only adds to the packed meaning behind the bride’s pointing to the henna plant in En-gedi. Kopher is the word used for pitch when God instructed Noah to caulk the ark inside and out with pitch. In this one case, kopher, or pitch, was the substance used to waterproof the ark to protect the wood from the coming flood. (Genesis 6:14). Kopher is used in over 100 other passages in the Hebrew Bible, though, and its meaning was extended to mean reconcile, appease, cover over, such as the blood sacrifice covering over sin in the Tabernacle. So kopher, or henna, pointed directly to the atonement, redemption, the cover of a debt that would result in the ransom of a life.
Could the bride have used a more powerful metaphor for her beloved than the henna blooms from En-gedi? In her eyes, he was beautiful to gaze upon, as pleasant to her senses as the most fragrant of flowers, a protective hedge to shelter her, a flourishing and refreshing oasis in a barren landscape, who graciously covered over her unworthiness and redeemed her life from loneliness to love! Henna blossoms were quite the mouthful as a symbol for her man, wasn’t it?
“My beloved is to me a cluster of sweet-smelling henna flowers in the vineyards of En-gedi.” (Song of Songs 1:14).