Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Song of Songs 3, Night Wandering; Solomon's Caravan

We continue the poetry of two young lovers. The woman continues to speak. This chapter may start a second or third poem in our poetry collection.

Song of Songs 3:13, Where is he?
All night long on my bed I looked for the one my heart loves; 
I looked for him but did not find him.  

I will get up now and go about the city, 
through its streets and squares; 
I will search for the one my heart loves. 

So I looked for him but did not find him.  
The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city. 
"Have you seen the one my heart loves?"  

This poem (or portion of the poem) begins with the woman on her bed at night. For this reason, many suggest that this portion is a dream.  An alternative (suggests Alter) is that she is awake because her lover is not next to her. There is no explanation for why the two are separated? 

The watchmen seem to treat her well -- compare this with chapter 5 where they assume a woman walking in the city at night is a prostitute. (See Ruth 3:13-14 where Boaz prevents Ruth from returning home through the fields at night.) Her fair treatment by the watchmen supports the suggestion by some that she is dreaming.

Song of Songs 3:4, Where is he?
Scarcely had I passed them when I found the one my heart loves. 
I held him and would not let him go 
till I had brought him to my mother's house, 
to the room of the one who conceived me.

The woman apparently finds her lover shortly after speaking to the watchmen.  She clings to him and brings in to her mother's home. The room to which she brings her lover has very definite sexual implications -- she brings her lover into the very bedroom where her mother and father conceived her.

Song of Songs 3:5, Do not arouse love!
Daughters of Jerusalem,
 I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: 
Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.

Once again, as in verse 2:7, the woman tells the daughter of Jerusalem to not awaken love (or her lover) before its time. Alter suggests that this instruction, lying here as it does after she had taken her lover into her mother's bedroom, is a hint that there love is indeed awake.

Song of Songs 3:6-8, See Solomon!
Who is this coming up from the desert like a column of smoke, 
perfumed with myrrh and incense 
made from all the spices of the merchant?  

Look! It is Solomon's carriage, 
escorted by sixty warriors, the noblest of Israel,  
all of them wearing the sword, 
all experienced in battle, 
each with his sword at his side, 
prepared for the terrors of the night.  

There is a sudden transition to our poem. Solomon appears!  Outside this passages, in the other references to Solomon (Song of Songs 1:1,5,  8:11,12), he is a distant figure and not involved with the two lovers. Here he is suddenly thrust into the story. Some has used this passage that the book is about a woman who is a concubine of Solomon who has a boyfriend whom she really loves. But I think it is easier to interpret this portion as a public event (possibly a royal wedding) which the two lovers watch. A modern version of this story might have two English lovebirds watching a procession approaching St. Paul's Cathedral for the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.

Song of Songs 3:9-10a, A regal carriage
King Solomon made for himself the carriage; 
he made it of wood from Lebanon.  
Its posts he made of silver, its base of gold. 
Its seat was upholstered with purple, 
its interior lovingly inlaid by the daughters of Jerusalem.

The carriage of Solomon is rich and elegant, indeed extravagant, with the rarest wood and prescious metals. It seats use the very expensive purple colors and the interior is made by -- who else -- the mysterious daughters of Jerusalem!

Alter points out a twist in the treasures described here: expensive wood, silver, gold, ... then love.

One would wish that the many young English couples who watched  the wedding of Charles and Diana had long and loving marriages, unlike the royal pair. A reader recalling a wedding of Solomon and one of his many queens might be aware that those royal weddings were not happy; a young rural couple, who compare their love to flowers and wild animals, certainly have a better chance. My lover and I, like my parents before me, lived in married student housing at a university, pinching pennies and struggling to make ends meet. Looking back through rose-colored glasses, I would not have it any other way.

Song of Songs 3:10b-11, See Solomon!
Come out, you daughters of Zion, 
and look at King Solomon wearing the crown,
 the crown with which his mother crowned him 
on the day of his wedding, 
the day his heart rejoiced.

This address to the daughters of Jerusalem is different than the previous ones. I see the young woman waving her friends over, to take a look at the glorious king in his parade.  Davidson (p. 123) speaks to the impressions such a wedding might have made on a young Israelite peasant couple, looking towards their own wedding. It was not just kings and queens that wore crowns at  weddings. "There is indeed references from some rabbinic sources which suggest that ... the [peasant] bride and groom both wore crowns at Jewish weddings."

Both Alter and Davidson link this royal wedding image to Psalm 45, a psalm which does indeed describe a wedding of the king.

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