Jan | 15 | “Bring on The DDG Dancing Girl!”

HAPPY

“Bring on The DDG Dancing Girl!” 

Song of Solomon 6:13
Return, return, O Shulamite; Return, return, that we may look upon you! What would you see in the Shulamite — As it were, the dance of the two camps?


The Song of Songs is many things and not least is the story of mad and almost maniacal sensual desire. Which, by the way, for a man in his fifties like me is pretty exhausting just to read about.

Even so, in our text for today, the well-loved woman is enticed back by her beloved and his watching friends and all the other choral ladies, to come and display her all consuming drop dead gorgeous beauty one more time. Without being pornographic, this is a call for an exclusively energetic and erotic encore. “What do you wanna see boys and girls?” she says, “The Dance of Two Camps?”

Literally, DDG (Drop Dead Gorgeous), is referring to ‘the dance of Mahanaim’. Now this has reference to when Jacob, broken and fearful, returned to the place of his family and birth to meet what he fully expected to be the vengeful wrath of his long robbed brother Esau. Jacob thought he was going to be killed and that all he had and cared for would be taken, brutalised utilised and destroyed. To comfort his heart at that quaking time, God gave Jacob, his faith then faltering child, a vision of two camps of angels, two armies, two regiments of singing soldiers, two choirs of armed angels, all seemingly war dancing their way to his protection. Now there’s a thought, I mean, do angels actually do the Maori Hakka?

‘Ka mate Ka mate’
It is death It is death
‘Ka ora Ka ora’
It is life It is life
‘Ka mate Ka mate’
It is death It is death
Ka ora Ka ora
It is life It is life
Tenei Te Tangata Puhuruhuru
This is the hairy man
Nana i tiki mai whakawhiti te ra
Who caused the sun to shine again for me
Upane Upane
Up the ladder Up the ladder
Upane Kaupane
Up to the top
Whiti te ra
The sun shines!

So, anyway, Jacob, now partly pacified, went on his way, after the angels of God had met him, and Jacob said, "This is God's camp." And he called the name of that place Mahanaim, two camps. Genesis 32:1-2 NKJV

I wonder today if DDG today points us to what seemed to be a well known dance now lost in the sands of time. A heavenly dance if you will, which was awesomely war like, beautiful and glorious, joyous in expectancy, dangerous like a sword dance, and maybe as scary as a highland fling performed by a kilted Scots guardsman whirling like a whooping dervish whilst wearing no underwear! The dance of the ‘meat and two veg’ if you will! Maybe I go to far.

My point today is simple however: Real joy, deep joy, the ecstatic release of tension to peace, all leads to dancing. In the Holy Scriptures, the joy of reconciliation, of union, of redemption and of deliverance, of forgiveness and of blessing, always results in dancing, even if it does mean exposing your bits! So, without getting arrested please, I pray your joy will turn to dancing, and that God would grant you happy feet and two companies of kilted angels to teach you how to fling it about a bit. Oh and remember: ignore the daughters of Saul. They are always far too anal for their own good.

Listen:-  Then David danced before the Lord with all his might; and David was wearing a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet. Now as the ark of the Lord came into the City of David, Michal, Saul's daughter, looked through a window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart. 2 Samuel 6:14-16 NKJV

O my love, you are as beautiful as Tirzah, Lovely as Jerusalem, Awesome as an army with banners! Song of Solomon 6:4 NKJV

How beautiful are your feet in sandals, O prince's daughter! The curves of your thighs are like jewels, The work of the hands of a skillful workman. Song of Solomon 7:1 NKJV

Pray:-  Father, so give me joy unspeakable and full of dancing glory, even if I do look like Zorba the Greek after a few Rakis too many! Amen.

If this Everyday Bible Insight has helped you - then do please share it!