Consummation of Ahabah (Love)

{6} "Put me like a seal over your heart, Like a seal on your arm. For love is asstrong as death, Jealousy is as severe as Sheol ; Its flashes are flashes of fire, The very flame of the LORD. {7} "Many waters cannot quench love, Nor will rivers overflow it; If a man were to give allthe riches of his house for love, It would be utterly despised."

~Song of Solomon 8:6-7


A statement as well as a warning.

The word "love" here is the Hebrew word, "Ahabah" (which I have always heard as ahava...which is also the Hebrew name of a river =P). Most of us read the above passage and think about how amazing this love is- how captivating and exhilarating and _consuming_ this ahabah love is.

But it crossed my mind. A fire. This strong love, ababah, is often used of God for His people. It is used of David and Jonathan. It's used for strong..."sensual" desires. What the Shulamite (or "Beloved", for you NIV folk) says above is that ahabah can not be quenched.

It's even the "FLAME of the LORD"...the 'shalhebeth' (flame) of the 'Yahh' (shortened form of the Lord's name Yehovah). Some translations say vehement instead of Lord...but regardless...

We have this unquenchable, unstoppable, _powerful_ love here that consumes.

Consumes.

A love in marriage should consume; be a consummate love. But with a 'significant other', outside of marriage, ahabah must be set within proper boundaries to protect the two from being prematurely consumed. As a fire within it's place is lovely to behold, warm to be near, and maybe even exhilarating to use; it's also destructive when it consumes what it shouldn't have.

Ahabah isn't the only kind of love either. Eros (erotic) and Racham (deeply, affectionately, compassionately) are two others, and I am certain that they "heat" things up as well.

The point? Use boundaries respectively. While loving and being in love, be careful. Yes, DO romance and pursue, or swoon and flirt! Just watch it ;) The Shulamite obviously knew first hand of how amazing and consuming this ahabah is. And three times in what we have written before does the Shulamite warn "I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, By the gazelles or by the hinds of the field, That you do not arouse or awaken my love Until she pleases" {2:7; 3:5; 8:4}.

A fire that consumes the whole "garden" of a person leaves coals. In those that stay married for life work together to keep these coals hot; and often times find fires popping up from them. But if this garden is consumed by the flames, coals are formed, but the two that caused the fire split...there's less to work with. The plants are a blackened crisp and the soil is scorched. Raising a new garden to burn (ignore how odd that sounds =P) would take much more work.

And think of the previous coals that might still be hot. Desires and habits that carry over that might cause premature things. It can hurt and burn a new person that didn't create it with first.

DO love. Love wisely ;)