WE have already written of the spikenard at the table and the myrrh in the bosom, and now we come to the camphire in the vineyards. These three may represent to us corporate fellowship, private communion, and public testimony.
“CAMPHIRE” occurs twice in the Song of Solomon (1:14; 4:13), and evidently denotes not what we know in our day as camphor, but some fragrant plant. The word in the Hebrew translated camphire is the same as the cypress of the Greeks, and denotes the well-known henna of the East.
One writes of it thus: “The henna of the Arabs is a species of privet (Lawsonia inermis). Throughout the summer, in the gardens of Egypt and Palestine, it yields its delicate little clusters of blossom, lilac-colored. On account of their exquisite perfume they are highly prized, and one of the street cries of Cairo is, ‘O odors of Paradise! O flowers of the henna!’ These flowers grow in light open tufts, and are compared by Mariti to ‘an upturned cluster of grapes;’ and when we remember that they are still worn in their bosom by the ladies of the East, nothing can be more descriptive of a heartfelt affection than the language of the Canticle―
‘My beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna,
From the vineyards (or gardens) of Engedi.’”
Another writes― “Camphire here is the cypress flower or Alhenna, which is indigenous to India, and probably to Egypt, and may have been transplanted by Solomon in his vineyards at Engedi for the sake of the peculiarly strong odor of its yellowish-white grape-like clusters of flowers.” Compare in respect to the fondness of Oriental women for this aromatic plant the testimony of a recent traveler: “The white Henna-blossoms, which grow in clusters, and are called Tamar-henna, have a very penetrating odor, which seems disagreeable to the European who is unaccustomed to it; but the Orientals have an uncommon liking for this odor, and prefer it to any other. The native women commonly wear a bouquet of Tamar-henna on their bosom.”
Another writes “This beautiful odoriferous plant, if it is not annually cut, and kept low, as it is usually in other places, grows ten or twelve feet high, putting out its little flowers in clusters, which yield a most grateful smell, like camphor, and may therefore be alluded to Cant. 1:14, where it is said― ‘My beloved is to me as a cluster of cypress (or al-hennah) in the vineyards (or gardens) of Engedi.’ The leaves of this plant, after they are dried and powdered, are disposed of to good advantage in all the markets of this kingdom. For with this all the African ladies that can purchase it tinge their lips, hair, hands, and feet, rendering them thereby of a tawny, saffron color, which with them is reckoned a great beauty.”
The word translated “Camphire” is rendered “pitch” in Gen. 6:1414Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. (Genesis 6:14); “a ransom,” Exod. 30:1212When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them. (Exodus 30:12); “satisfaction,” Num. 35:31, 3231Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death. 32And ye shall take no satisfaction for him that is fled to the city of his refuge, that he should come again to dwell in the land, until the death of the priest. (Numbers 35:31‑32); and “a bribe,” Amos 5:1212For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right. (Amos 5:12). In each case the leading idea is to hide or cover. In the first passage the pitch is said to have been put on the gopher wood of the ark; in the second and third a sinful state is kept out of view, by a kind of atonement being made; and in the fourth the magistrate turning away from the mind of God, accepts a bribe that he may conceal the truth, and thus lead to a false judgment. Here, and in chapter 4:13, the same idea lurks in the word. The plant thus named yielded a substance which was used to cover certain parts of the body. The females in the East use it still as a dye for the palms of their hands, their fingernails, and their lips and teeth.
Dr. Kitto says― “The camphire is now generally agreed to be the henna of the Arabians. The deep color of the bark, the light green of the foliage, and the softened mixture of white-yellow in the blossoms, present a combination as agreeable to the eye as the odor is to the scent. The flowers grow in dense clusters, the grateful fragrance of which is as much appreciated now as in the time of Solomon. The women take great pleasure in these clusters, hold them in their hand, carry them in their bosom, and keep them in their apartments to perfume the air.”
Enough has now been said about the plant to give us a comprehensive grasp of the illustration, and enable us to see the force of the simile when it is said, “My Beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi.”
The cluster of camphire is spoken of as in the vineyards, and the Beloved is compared to it as it grows in its native habitat―in a place of great natural loveliness, fertility, and beauty. To us the figure points away from earth to “the paradise of God,” where our Beloved, the risen and ascended Lord Jesus, displays His living beauty, and diffuses the pleasing and peculiar fragrance of all the graces of His character as the glorified One. No doubt the natural illustration tells of the women taking great pleasure in these clusters―as cut flowers―holding them in their hand, carrying them in their hair and in their bosoms, and having them in their rooms to scent the air with their fragrance: nevertheless, we must think of the simile as placing us in the midst of the most fertile garden, and inviting us to satiate our eyes with looking on the beautiful living clusters of the cypress flowers as they bloom on their native soil, and feast our sense of smell with the aromatic perfume they emit as they fill the summer air with the “savor of life;” which, though unpleasant to a stranger, is very agreeable to the people who are born where they spread their fragrance.
Oh, the attractiveness of a risen, living, glorified Christ! It is something indescribable, when one’s eyes are opened, to see not only the value of the death of Christ; but, being transported in spirit to heaven itself, to “see JESUS,” who is filling all the air of the paradise of God with the living fragrance of His adorable glorified person, after He has glorified the Father on the earth, died for our sins, and risen again into a sphere which will never witness the bleeding myrrh, but be perfumed by the peculiar aroma of the ever-blooming camphire, while a happy eternity rolls on its timeless, glorious years.
Ah, beloved, is not this the great defect of our public testimony that we are not entering into the holiest―that we are not living in the spiritual realization of the preciousness, attractiveness, and agreeableness of the risen, exalted, glorified Christ? In order to give a full-orbed testimony we must be in fellowship with Him as He sits at His table; He must be to us as the myrrh in our bosom in the preciousness of His love, His blood and death; but our spirits must also know Him, and the power of His resurrection. We must gaze on His living beauty, and smell the perfume of His resurrection-life now that He is seen in risen and exalted glory in His celestial home.
It is this leaving the bustle and din of the crowded city for the seclusion of the far-off garden—this entering into the grand and glorious truth that the Christ who gave Himself for us is now in the fragrant bloom of life for evermore, that we feel a holy separation to Him who is now gone into heaven, and such satisfaction and delight in Him, our ever-living High Priest, that we are not only filled and pervaded by a sweet sense of His loveliness, but we feel it to be our delight to be “always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.”
In proportion, then, as death works in us, and the earthen vessels containing the treasure of a heavenly Christ are broken, so life is communicated by means of our testimony, though directly by the grace of the Holy Ghost. Our testimony in the Church will be with refreshing and edifying power, in the measure that we ourselves are enjoying a dead, risen, and glorified Christ. All Church witness is produced by the Holy Ghost in connection with a glorified Christ, for “beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory.” The Holy Ghost is writing “the epistle of Christ,” with nothing other than the pen of glory. And just as no man was able to stand before Joshua and the Israelites after they had crossed the Jordan, encamped in Gilgal around the stones commemorative of death and resurrection, were circumcised, kept the passover, and ate the old corn of the land; and had seen the armed Man―the Captain of the Lord’s host―and stood before Him with the unshod foot: so neither will men be able to stand before even the most despicable ram’s-horn testimony of those who are consciously associated with a risen Christ, and are captivated by His attractiveness, and perfumed with his ever-living fragrance as the heavenly one.
When our souls are feasting on Him, as they drink in the living sweetness of His life in glory, and we have the fragrant bloom of life in Him permeating our spirits; when we have Him in our bosoms nearest our hearts; when a risen Christ is carried openly in our hands, as the Orientals carry the cluster of cypress blooms, with all the sweet-smelling savor of “life and immortality;” when our every sense receives the fresh “savor” of our glorified Lord; and when every power of the mind, sensibility of the soul, affection of the heart, and action of the life, declares plainly that our eyes are in the paradise of God, and our whole life here below is one prolonged, ecstatic utterance― “The Lord has risen” ― “We see Jesus crowned with glory and honor”― “My Beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the gardens of Engedi:” then shall our testimony to the Christ of God be “in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance;” and the simplest word of precious gospel truth will serve to lay down sinners in the dust before the exalted One, as suddenly as the walls of Jericho fell down flat before the Captain of the Lord’s host, when His people had compassed it seven days, blowing with trumpets of rams’ horns, and raising the united and God-appointed battle shout.
It has greatly interested me, in a spiritual sense, to observe the united testimony of travelers to the excessive fondness of the eastern women for the camphire flowers. O beloved, if we had more of the woman in our Christianity, we should soon be made to wonder and give thanks at the success of our life and labors. We hear much of an intelligent, a manly, a self-sacrificing, and even a muscular Christianity; and if there be true conversion―the “new creation” ―we find no fault; but surely if there is to be a manly Christianity there should also be a womanly; for the Lord God has said, “It is not good that the man should be alone;” and an apostle wrote, “Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.”
The risen and glorified Lord Jesus, who, when on earth, bore our sins, who died our death, and glorified God in regard to sin, has been raised from the dead by the glory of the Father; and the Holy Ghost has come down from the Father to unfold the glories and attractions of His exalted Son, as well as to present His blood and death as meeting our need; and He not only satisfies our minds and relieves our consciences by His unfolding’s of Christ, but He presents “Jesus Himself” in all the fragrance of His spotless life on earth, His atoning death, present intercession, and coming glory, as the one object to engage and feast the renewed affections of our new nature, and fill our spirits with a sweet sense of His constraining love.
No fondness of the Oriental women for the al-henna clusters should equal our womanly affection for our precious and exalted Lord. For what purpose is it again and again recorded that woman was found in deepest attachment to the Saviour’s person when on earth, but to show us that as the Bride of the Lamb we are to be filled with an ardent affection to our glorious Head and Lord?
Whatever men may think or say, the weakness and little success of the ransomed bride of Christ is chiefly owing to the all but universal exclusion of the womanly from our modern Christianity. O beloved, why do we not take our place with that Christ-loving woman sinner to whom Jesus said, “Thy sins are forgiven—thy faith hath saved thee?” and of whom we read that she “brought an alabaster box of ointment and stood at His feet behind Him weeping, and began to wash His feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet and anointed them with ointment;”―or with that Mary “who stood at the sepulcher weeping,” and lingered there weeping on with a heart full of affection for her absent Lord, even after the ardent Peter and the loving John had gone away to their own home: for her heart could find no home for itself until the lips of the Incarnate Love said “Mary,” and filled her spirit with the fragrance of His love and the attractive power of His risen life.
Christian knowledge is of great importance; labor for Christ is a blessed privilege which we should diligently improve; a life of holiness should be assiduously cultivated; but the heart and soul of all these must be an all-absorbing love to our risen Christ Himself. If we were enjoying the glorified Christ, our cup of joy would overflow, and saints and sinners would be benefited. We often say to sinners that feelings are of no use to obtain pardon of their sins; but having faith there must be feeling and love, for love is the very nature of God and the source of Christianity.
As we stand on the verge of year after year, and look back over the years that have passed away, who have not cause to deplore how sadly Christless they have been, when they ought to have had each day’s waking hours filled with thoughts of Him, love to Him, labor for Him? nay, more, our hearts should have been burning with such a boundless, exhaustless flame of love to Him, that our very dreams in the night season should have been dreams of our Beloved.
O how blessed to have our eyes and hearts filled with Him, as we may still have to tread, for a “little while,” the desert way, fight the good fight of faith, or labor to gather in lost ones to His flock. He is coming to take us, His ransomed bride, into the Father’s house, to present us there in Himself our righteousness, spotless and stainless; and then shall the marriage supper of the Lamb be enjoyed. A well-known poet sings of the glory of the place in such words as these:
“The gems are gleaming from the roof,
Like stars in night’s round dome;
The festal wreaths are hanging there,
The festal fragrance fills the air,
And flowers of Heaven divinely fair
Unfold their happy bloom.”
But what will be all the glory of our circumstances, compared with the unutterable blessedness of being with our Lord and Saviour Himself in His own glorious Home? He is now “our hope;” and hopeless indeed and dark were our present desert journey, did we not entertain good hope, through grace, of being with Christ, which is far better. But even now, blessed be God, “we see Jesus,” and soon “shall we ever be with the Lord;” and every Christ-loving heart can now go on its way rejoicing, singing such a song of deliverance as this, for “hope maketh not ashamed” :
“‘Midst the darkness, storm, and sorrow,
One bright gleam I see;
Well I know the blessed morrow,
Christ will come for me.
‘Midst the light, and peace, and glory
Of the Father’s home,
Christ for me is watching, waiting―
Waiting till I come.
“Long the blessed Guide has led me
By the desert road;
Now I see the golden towers―
City of my God.
There, amidst the love and glory,
He is waiting yet;
On his hands a name is graven
He can ne’er forget.
“Who is this who comes to meet me
On the desert way,
As the Morning Star foretelling
God’s unclouded day?
He it is who came to win me,
On the cross of shame;
In His glory well I know Him,
Evermore the same.
“Oh, the blessed joy of meeting,
All the desert past!
Oh, the wondrous words of greeting,
He shall speak at last!
He and I together entering
Those bright courts above;
He and I together sharing
All the Father’s love.
“Where no shade nor stain can enter,
Nor the gold be dim;
In that holiness unsullied,
I shall walk with Him.
Meet companion then for Jesus,
From Him, for Him made;
Glory of God’s grace forever
There in me displayed.
“He who, in His hour of sorrow,
Bore the curse alone;
I who, through the lonely desert,
Trod where He had gone.
He and I in that bright glory
One deep joy shall share;
Mine, to be for ever with Him;
His, that I am there.”