Song of Solomon 2:17

Until the day break, and the shadows flee away; until the morning of that great and blessed day of the general resurrection and judgment, when all the shadows, not only of ignorance, and sin, and calamity, but even of all ordinances and outward administrations, shall cease, and make way for the immediate enjoyment of my Beloved. And this clause may be joined either,

1. With the foregoing words; and so the sense is, Christ doth and will abide with his church as long as this life and world lasts; which agrees with Christ's promises of being with his church to the end of the world, Matthew 28:20. But neither that nor this place imply that Christ will then forsake his people, but only secures God's people against that which was the chief, if not only, matter of their fear, to wit, lest Christ should leave them, and cast them off in this life, which, if he did not, they were assured that hereafter they should be ever with the Lord, 1 Thessalonians 4:17. For it is well known, and hath been oft observed already, that the word until doth not always exclude the time to come. Or,

2. With the following words, Turn thou, my Beloved, until the day break, & c. Turn; return to me. For although Christ had come to her, and she had gladly received and embraced him, yet he was gone again, as is here implied, and evidently appears from the next following verse; which sudden change is very agreeable both to the nature and method of such dramatical writings and amatorious transactions, and to the state of God's people in this world, where they are subject to frequent changes and vicissitudes of Christ's withdrawing from them, and returning to them again. Like a roe or a young hart, in swiftness; make haste to help me, for I am ready to faint. Bether; a place in the Land of Promise, possibly the same called Bithron, 2 Samuel 2:29, where it seems those creatures were in great abundance, or where they were commonly hunted, and so being pursued, they made all possible haste to escape.