“Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.”
In this verse, the Bride continues her description of “The Delight under His Shadow.” She further defines and describes her Beloved’s actions. Here she gives a few specifics of the manner in which her Beloved expressed his love to his Bride.
“Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love” (verse 5). Here in this verse, the bride is saying that she is infected with “love”; “I am sick of love.” Not meaning she had a disease of love or that she was fed up with love. No, she was saying, I am totally under the control of love. I am covered in love; I am totally infatuated by my Beloved’s love to me and his manner of expressing his love to me. She said: I am full of love, his love; I am saturated in his love.
Because she is “sick of love,” her request to him is to first, “Stay me with flagons”; or give me to drink of your love. “Stay me,” or establish me, with the wine of your love. Let it fill me. Let it permeate through every fiber of my body; every desire of my soul; and every perception of my spirit. My soul needs to drink of your love to satisfy my passion and desire. My spirit needs to drink of the water of thy love to assure me, to give me confidence, and to give me liberty of and in your love. “Stay me” (support me, establish me) husband, with the water of your love; for my tongue is parched in this desert, in this famine.
This is the Beloved’s responsibility. He is to “stay” his queen, his love, his wife. It is essential and imperative for the Beloved to sense his love’s needs; and to fill every need in her soul and spirit with his water of love. His Bride needs stability; she needs assurance from him of his love. She needs this confidence; and she needs this liberty to walk in and to continue in. She needs to be supported, built up, established; that yes, her Beloved loves her above all others.
Her second request is, “Comfort me with apples”; or I am sick of love, I need to be stayed (or established) with the water (the wine) of thy love. Also I need to be fed with your fruit; which when tasted brings comfort. When the bride experiences the fruit (or the expression of her Beloved’s words and deeds); it brings comfort, for her stomach of love is satisfied. Not only does the bride need the assurance, confidence, and stability of his love; she also needs to be comforted, even brought to a peace and a rest in her Beloved’s fruit.
Again this is the Beloved’s responsibility. He must, by his words and deeds, establish his love to his bride, and bring her comfort, or peace and rest, in his love.
Husbands, wake up. Your wife needs your stability. She needs to know without a doubt that you love her, and that nothing can separate this love from her. She needs this comfort (peace and rest) in order to function in her role. She needs to know that she is not a tool of her Beloved’s own selfishness; but that she is his body, his soul, and his spirit; that she is indeed one with him.
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