"On my bed night after night/I sought him whom my soul loves;/I sought him, but found him not" (3:1). In her introspection, in her down situation, she seeks her Beloved, but she fails to find Him.
Song of Songs 3:2-4 speaks of the lover's waking up and recovery.
"I will rise now and go about in the city;/In the streets and in the squares/I will seek him whom my soul loves./I sought him, but found him not" (v. 2). She will rise up from her introspection to seek her Beloved in the ways and in the methods of the heavenly Jerusalem (signified by Jerusalem on earth).
"The watchmen who go about in the city found me—/Have you seen him whom my soul loves?" (v. 3). The ones who watch over God's people spiritually (Heb. 13:17) in the ways of the heavenly Jerusalem find her, and she asks them if they have seen the One whom she loves.
"Scarcely had I passed them/When I found him whom my soul loves;/I held him and would not let go/Until I had brought him into my mother's house/And into the chamber of her who conceived me" (S.S. 3:4). Not long after she leaves the ones who watch over God's people, she finds her Beloved, and she holds Him and will not let go until she brings Him into the Spirit of grace, through which she was regenerated (mother's house—chamber—Heb. 10:29; Gal. 4:26; Eph. 2:4-5; Gal. 5:4) for secret fellowship.
The mother's house was the place where she was born, and the mother's chamber was the place where she was conceived. The mother is grace. According to Galatians 4:25-26 the Jerusalem above, which is our mother, represents the principle of grace, which produces free heirs, and the Jerusalem on the earth produces children in bondage. The mother's chamber signifies love, which is of the Father. The Father's love issues in grace. Ephesians 2:4-5 says that God loved us and then saved us by grace. We were conceived in God's love and born by God's grace.
Although the lover of Christ fell into introspection, one day she woke up and realized that she was a sinner saved by grace. Then she could say, "God loved me and Christ saved me by grace." Second Corinthians 13:14 speaks of the grace of Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit brings God's love and carries God's grace to us. Hence, the Spirit is called the Spirit of grace (Heb. 10:29). Once the lover realized that she was a sinner saved by grace, she was revived. Then finding her Beloved, she held him and would not let go. She brought Christ to her mother's house, where she was born by grace, and to the chamber, where she was conceived in love. As the chamber is the inward part of the house, so God's love is the inward part of Christ's grace. As saved ones, we have both the love of God and the grace of Christ.
"I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,/By the gazelles or by the hinds of the fields,/Not to rouse up or awaken my love/Until she pleases" (S.S. 3:5). Here Christ charges the meddling believers (daughters of Jerusalem) not to awaken her from her experience of Christ in her being delivered from the self, secluded in her introspection, into her secret fellowship with Him until she feels pleasant concerning her next experience of Him (she pleases).