The Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) is a beautiful collection of love poems, describing a man and a woman seeking to get away together, into a garden of their own. (I first led a Bible Study on this book in January 2001 at Mt. Pleasant Community Church in Mt. Pleasant, MI, USA.)
This book is, at times, mildly erotic, with hints of sexual contact. It promotes the beauty of sexual commitment and love. The honest conversation between the man and woman, as they express their desire for each other, has led both Jews and Christians to view this book as an allegory of love between God and His people. Sadly, this has, at times, replaced the beautiful raw desire of the two lovers for each other.
The commentators I read object to this diversion. Davidson, p.95, writes
"To treat such language as an allegory of God and Israel, or of Christ and the Church, is to rob it of its poetry and passion."
He adds (p. 96)
"[I]t is always a dangerous game to give an allegorical interpreyation to something that is not intended as an allegory."
The attitude I saw in churches as a college student in the 1970s tended to suggest that sex was bad, invented by Hugh Hefner and that one should feel guilty for sexual thoughts. This has done a disservice both to dating and married Christians. The church pendulum seems to vibrate back and forth between fear of the power of sex and attempts to push it aside. Davidson would agree (p. 99):
"The distinction that we tend to make between the sacred and the secular, the religious and the non-religious, would have been quite meaningless to the wise men of Israel."
and (p.119):
"[I]t is sad to destroy such a delightful poem in the interests of such false and forced interpretations of scripture. Does our faith really need this kind of support?"
But since God created human sexuality, it should be Christians who are open and transparent about the beauty of sex and the strength of sexual desire!
Unlike the attitude of the ancient Near East (ANE), the emphasis in this book is not on sex and fertility, on the importance of the couple (possibly in an arranged marriage) producing children, but is on intimacy (including private sexual intimacy.) The poem promotes the friendship and mutual worship of the couple, as they make vows to each other. Their bonding is not arranged by parents (as was customary in the ANE) but is indeed true romantic (and ultimately erotic) love. This break from the ANE culture is really quite remarkable.
Throughout the book there is play between an outer (literal) world of nature and an inner, metaphorical world, where the the body is described in nature images. The most explicit example occurs in Songs of Songs 7:7-9, where the man tells his lover,
Your stature is like that of the palm, and your breasts like clusters of fruit. I said, "I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit." May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine, the fragrance of your breath like apples and your mouth like the best wine.
There are many other places where these allusions occur, gentle hints of sexual arousal without being as explicit.
Throughout these poems, the lovers appear to be common people. She is tanned from working in the sun; he is described as a shepherd. Yet they playfully describe each other as royalty, happy with their own banquets of love.
The book does not state that the couple are married. Indeed, there are suggestions that the couple slip away to meet in secret and at one point the girl looks forward to the day their relationship can be made public. At one point the man addresses his lover as "my sister, my bride", but (as Davidson points out), neither "sister" nor "bride" comes across as literal. She is his "sister" (ie., close companion) and "bride" (committed lover) but both are terms of endearment.
Resources and References
My practice is to read through the text from the New International Version (NIV), copied into the blog and italicized in blue. At the head of each blue paragraph of text I place a short title; after the text I place my thoughts or comments in black. I begin this process with my own reactions and thoughts and then supplement these comments with gleanings from a commentary or two.
The real goal of this blog is to force me to read every verse thoughtfully. I hope that you, too, read the passages thoughtfully! Feel free to disagree -- or to react in other ways! (I place hyperlinks in pink, created so that one can click on a link and see the linked site open in another window... and go down a rabbit hole if you wish!)
My main sources are Robert Davidson (Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon, The Daily Bible Study Series, published by Westminster John Knox Press, 1986 and Robert Alter's translation in Strong as Death is Love, The Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther, Jonah, and Daniel, A Translation with Commentary, W. W. Norton & Co., 2016.
In 2024 I acquired Song of Songs and Lamentations, Volume 23B (Word Biblical Commentary) by Duane Garrett and Dr. Paul R. House and will look more carefully at the commentary by Garrett at a future date.
There are other resources online.
- Amongst the online commentaries provided by EasyEnglishBible, is an online commentary on the Song. (The Easy English Bible commentaries are easy to read, with deliberately simple language intended for those for whom English is a second language. The Old Testament text is included in the commentary.)
- The Gospel Coalition now has a set of online commentaries. Here is their commentary on the Song of Songs.
- I highly recommend the Bible Project video on Song of Songs. This is part of a larger guide to the book.
Motivation
To quote Davidson (p. 157):
"The book is... from beginning to end, a liberating celebration of human sexuality as something which is good and holy, something not merely functional, but to be enjoyed, something not merely casual, but totally self-giving and demanding, something thas makes of two people 'one flesh' (Gen. 2:24) and joins them together in a relations which colours all that they do and are."
Are you ready for some beautiful love poetry, poetry that is almost three thousand years old? Let's dive in to this greatest Song of Songs.
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