This extraordinary beauty takes on a quality that defies technical analysis. Its essence can’t be captured by oceans of words. An element that leads to a deeper understanding of the point I’m making however, is found in the poetic words of the Song of Solomon. I have been speaking of the beauty of the kind intentions in the mind of God, including foreknowledge, creation, atonement, salvation, sanctification and glorification. These things have not been a list of technical specifications such as those one consults when purchasing a new motor vehicle. Rather they have been deeply personal acts of love and devotion by a personal God, to whom created persons respond in similar devotion.

Something of the deep mystery of this relationship is encapsulated in the Song of Solomon. Without pursuing an understanding of the entire writing—which is certainly worth doing at depth—I would like to simply point out two verses in which a particular word is found. This word expresses thoughts that in fact cannot be captured by such a word or any other number of words.

In Song of Solomon 5:2, the word appears. The language in the whole section (verses 2-8) is rich and extravagant. Images gush from those sentences that speak beyond the words in vivid colour. “I slept”, she says, “but my heart was awake. Listen! My lover is knocking: “Open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my flawless one. My head is drenched with dew, my hair with the dampness of the night.”” Can you just hear the emotional energy in this single verse, straining at the seams of the grammar? As the poet and the characters he portrays, reach for words that carry the precise import of the deep yearnings they desire to convey, they select many to say the same thing, but not the same. They want to say more, but the chosen word simply falls powerless to the paper, conveying accurate meaning, but not saying everything. One senses a yearning to communicate something unspeakable, that remains just that: unspeakable.