27 “Behold,
this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the
account:”
Solomon is about to tell us his observation
and he is letting us know they were the result of a methodical search he made,
counting one by one. Unfortunately no matter how thorough his observations are
he is still analyzing them through the eyes of a backslidden man and so his
conclusions many times will be wrong. For instance, this verse is connected
with the next verse; they are part of the same statement. He is going to
conclude that he could only find very few men and no women who were virtuous
and yet we know that is not true because his first love was the Shulamite and
she was the virtuous woman.
28 “Which
yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but
a woman among all those have I not found.”
V:27-28 are one verse,
unfortunately when verses where added (The first Bible in English to use both
chapters and verses was the Geneva Bible published in 1560.) they divided them
into two making it difficult to expound them separately. Solomon, no doubt, is speaking from his own
experience, marrying one thousand "strange
women" (1 Kings 11:1).
However, we know the rarity of a virtuous woman, her price is far above rubies
(Proverbs 31:10), therefore, she is
rare indeed. This statement, however, can hardly be true for Solomon because at
one point he had found a virtuous woman; at one point Solomon had courted such
a woman as we read in Songs 6:8-9
but now he has become a disillusioned man forced to live with the wrong choices
he has made. He now has a thousand wives and none of them are upright.
At one point his Shulamite was to him his one
and only true love but now he has multiplied wives and none of them (not one of
the thousand) were good. This illustrates to us how we must preserve propriety
if we are to maintain our situation. Solomon had a good situation but he lost
it trough intemperate living and foolish choices. That which he once had he
lost because he strayed in his desires and as a result lost a very good
situation (one love who was rare). We have the one of a thousand, the one out
of a million as long as we preserve our walk with Him but if one begins to toy
with other idols then they lose their situation with Him and they too become disillusioned
and backslidden. Preserve your relationship with Jesus; be careful about what
you let into your heart and life because the wrong time to realize you have
lost something is after you lost it. Examine your walk daily in order to ensure
you are preserving your relationship with Him.
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