Seal on your heart

“Put me like a seal on your heart, like a seal on your arm,” says the Bride in the Song of Songs (8:6).

Seals mark something with the name of the owner.  A letter is sealed as proof of its author (1 Kings 21:8).  The high priest’s golden plate is engraved with the name of God like a seal, to mark the priest as one “holy to Yahweh.”  Zerubbabel is placed “like a seal” as a mark that the kingdom of Israel is Yahweh’s kingdom (Haggai 2:23).  To say that the Bridegroom is sealed by the Bride is to say that the Bride stamps her name on him .  Of course there is mutual ownership: I am my beloved’s, my beloved is mine.  But the seal image highlights the Bride’s ownership of her Husband.  Thus also the church’s ownership of Jesus.

Heart and arm are sealed.  Heart because the Bridegroom’s’ heart is captivated by the bride (cf. Song 7:5), arm because the arm symbolizes strength – the strength of Yahweh’s arm stretched out against Egypt (Exodus 6:6; 15:16; Deuteronomy 4:34; 5:15; 26:8), the strength of the everlasting arms that defend Israel (Deuteronomy 33:17), the strength of the hosts of Yahweh (cf. Daniel 11:15, 22).  The Bridegroom’s arm, like his heart, belongs to the Bride.

So, too, Jesus’ heart and arm are the church’s.