'Hear, O daughter, consider and incline your ear, forget your people and your father’s house, and the king will desire your beauty’. It seems that this appeal is an invitation to silence; ‘listen ... incline your ear ...’. But to hear, one must forget the house of one’s father, that is, all that binds one to the natural life, that life which was spoken of by the apostle when he said, ‘…if you live according to the flesh you will die’ (Rom. 8:13).