My beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of Engedi.
All Commentaries on Song of Songs 1:14 Go To Song of Songs 1
Nilus of Sinai
AD 430
The cluster of grapes in bloom, suspended from the branch, is not desired by everyone, because it fails to possess an immediate pleasure. Rare indeed are those who rejoice at postponing pleasures, for people attach themselves naturally to the preference of present enjoyment, just as those pleasures whose utility is not immediate but resides in future hope are reckoned not to have the same usefulness. Now it pertains to the science of agriculture to recognize future utility in the present condition of fruit that has not yet reached maturity, and in the unripe grape to discern whether there is any future and assured maturity.
In the same way also, the Lord hanging upon the cross, as if to say in a public examination before the eyes of all, evoked a great despair in those who saw him. For who therefore would not be perplexed, understandably, seeing the liberator of the human race undergoing the ultimate punishment, seeing the one who accomplished so many miracles and delivered Lazarus from the bonds of death, nailed to the cross and his life passing over into death? Thus the condemnation inflicted at that time upon the good name which everyone attributed to him induced doubt among those who saw it when compared with the opinion regarding him that everyone entertained then. This was because every eye, filled in an untimely way with the evidence of the suffering by which he was tested and forgetting the miracles, took sides with the suffering it could see. For not only the Jews but also the disciples themselves fell into doubt such that even after learning that “he had been raised from the dead,” they did not believe in his resurrection.
