Until the day breaks, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag upon the mountains of Bether.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
In the first stage, that of formation, the soul still sees shadows not yet parted by the revelation of the Word’s approach, and therefore hitherto the daylight of the gospel did not shine upon it. In the second, it enjoys sweet fragrances without the confusion of the shadows. - "Isaac, or the Soul 8.68"
In this verse, the Lord’s resurrection is taught and foretold. Just as the apostles were afraid without him, terrorized by the treachery of the Jews, so also is the soul, which, in a certain sense, is naked and unarmed without the assistance of the Holy Spirit, terrorized by the treachery of demons. - "Exposition of Song of Songs 5.4"
Since, then, there are in the Old Testament precepts that we who belong to the New Testament are not compelled to observe, why do not the Jews realize that they have remained stationary in useless antiquity rather than hurl charges against us who hold fast to the new promises, because we do not observe the old? Just as it is written in the Canticle of Canticles: “The day has broken, let the shadows retire,” the spiritual meaning has already dawned, the natural action has already ceased. “The God of Gods, the Lord has spoken: and he has called the earth from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof.” - "In Answer to the Jews 6.8"
“Until the day breathes and the shadows lengthen,” that is, until the eternal light of the coming age appears and the shadows of the present life, that is, the ignorance or error whereby even many of us faithful who have the use of the lamp of God’s word are temporarily darkened, lengthen and disappear. - "Commentary on the Songs of Songs 2.2.17"
With the barren synagogue abandoned, she asks the bridegroom to come to those downtrodden and humiliated and formerly idolatrous souls who will be raised with him to heavenly heights. - "Fragments in the Commentary on the Song of Songs 2.17"
Break. Or "yield a refreshing air "(aspiret) in the morning, (Haydock) and evening, when she begs he will return, (Theodoret) as she could not enjoy his company in the day-time, chap. i. 1., and iv. 6.
Bether. Or the lower Be thoron, near Jerusalem. These short visits in the night, show the vicissitudes of comfort and dryness in the most perfect. Those who are still addicted to their passions, and to the world, can have no pretensions to such favours, which amply repay any passing desolation. (St. Bernard, ser. lxxiv.) (Calmet)
He pastures his flocks among the lilies, therefore, although he does so only until the coming day emerges and the shadows begin to move on. Since the majority of people think that the events which are passing and not stable are fixed and will remain, because their faculty of discernment is obscured by the darkness of ignorance, they have need of the daylight in order to see that the shadows of the things of this world dissipate and have no permanence. For all present realities are shadows, drawing their origin from the good things of the heavens yet subsisting like shadows, only resembling the truth of the things there above. But once the night has passed and the dawn has arisen, the nature of things from on high is clearly seen, as if in sunlight. Then people realize: “Our life on the earth is a shadow.” Then they say, “My days, as the shadow, are in decline,” indicating how feeble and quick to vanish is temporal success. The one who says, “If there are many gods and many lords, yet f...
