HEBREW WORD STUDY – A HORSE – SUS סוס Samek Vav Samek

Song of Solomon 1:9: “I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh’s chariots.”

So here we have King Solomon who is completely stricken with this Shulamite woman. I mean this old boy really has it bad for this woman, he is totally on Cloud 9. He is now describing her great beauty and what does he do, he compares her to horse. King or no king, if I were her I’d hit him.

Here is the real clincher. This poem is a metaphor of God’s relationship with us as His bride. So, God is comparing us to horse. Actually, we are being compared to a team of horses that pull a chariot. I mean really, is this all we are to God is just a beast of burden?

Well, let’s look at this from a historical and cultural lens. At this time there was an arms race going on. The nuclear bomb of that era was the chariot and the horses that pulled these chariots. At one point, Assyria, the arch enemy of Egypt and Israel was in the lead in this arms race. They developed chariots that required a team of horses that took them twenty years to breed and charioteers who were chosen as children and trained from childhood to adulthood to man the chariots. At one point they were invincible and struck terror throughout the known world for their powerful chariots. Egypt wasn’t far behind in the development of chariots and horses to pull them and they were catching up about the time of King David. King David, seeing the threat from Assyria declared in Psalms 20:7 “Some [trust] in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.”

 

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Israel really had no war horses during David’s time. However, things changed during the time of King Solomon and when he became King of Israel, the Pharaoh of Egypt, hoping to build an alliance with Israel, gifted King Solomon with one of his best and prized chariots as well as a team of horses bred to pull these chariots, as well as breeding stock. With that start-up kit the result was that over a short period of time King Solomon developed at least 12,000 of these chariots and had stalls built for 40,000 of these specially breed horses to pull the chariots putting them in the lead of this arms race. Of course, King Solomon kept the most beautiful and excellent horses to provide the horsepower for his presidential limousine of a chariot. Actually, it would be more like Air Force One as far as prestige goes. When the President of the United States flies into any country in Air Force one that plane has been polished to perfection. Everything on it is first class and it is the most exclusive plane in the world politically speaking. It is a show of the technical achievement, military might and power of the nation. In a word it is used to show off. That plane is pampered and cared for deliberately designed to do so the President could fly around the world and brag how great and powerful the country is that he leads.

That was the chariot and horses that King Solomon rode. The horses were pampered, groomed and decorated for one purpose and one purpose only, to show off the greatness of the king. King Solomon said he was comparing her to his team of royal horses. The word compare in Hebrew is dimmitik from the root word damah which means to imagine, to be similar to, to conceive an idea. In other words, it is something that gives you an idea of how to describe something else.

Well, obviously he was not comparing her to a horse in appearance. No matter how beautiful a horse can be, it is still a horse and who wants to look like a horse. But using the word damah would suggest that King Solomon is trying very hard to express what the Shulamite woman means to him. He thinks of his prize possession, his team of royal horses, and how he appears to his subjects when he rides that chariot before them. That chariot and those horses symbolize what he wants the world to see him as. A powerful king, a compassionate king who cares for his team by grooming them, taking extra special care of them and showing them off with great pride.

The Shulamite woman is one who is not only beautiful but makes him as a king look like he wants the world to see him. He not only wants to take care of her but to pamper her, to give her everything he can that will show important she is to him and he also wants to show her off to the world as the woman who holds a special place in his heart, one that he dearly loves.

If God loves you so much that he wants to not only take care of you but to pamper you, give you everything you need so the world can see how important you are to Him all because He wants to show you off as the love of His existence, would you mind being called a horse?

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