THE BOOK OF
SONG OF SONGS
The Song of Songs is romantic poetry at its best. It portrays two passionate lovers who revel in the emotional and physical pleasures of human intimacy. The book was misunderstood in the past as being only an allegory of the relationship between God and the church, but is now accepted as celebrating the profound love between a man and a woman, providing a refreshingly realistic and wholesome treatment of human sexuality without being a how-to manual. The book never mentions God, but it bears witness that the Creator has graciously provided his human creatures with the good gifts of sexuality and intimate love.
As a song of mutual human love, the Song of Songs is unique in the Bible. It is composed of the speeches of its characters, primarily an unnamed young man and an unnamed young woman. There is no narrator. Though the subject matter is not unique in the OT, the intense and exclusive focus on it certainly is. Other ancient Near Eastern literature, primarily Egyptian, has similar songs of admiration and intense desire in which the lover’s physical attributes are extolled and direct invitations to enjoy them are given.
The Song of Songs is associated with Solomon, David’s son and the third king of Israel (see “Authorship,” below; see also Song 1:1). Solomon is also mentioned in a few of the poems, both negatively and positively. The motivation of the author was apparently to celebrate God’s good gift of love and sexuality.
The Song is entitled “The Song of Songs” or “The Song of Solomon” because the opening phrase in the original language is literally “The Song of Songs of Solomon.” Sometimes it is called “Canticles” after its Latin title. The phrase “Song of Songs” means that we are about to study the song that is more wonderful than any other.
The superscription (first line of text) calls the work, literally, “The Song of Songs of Solomon.” Many take this to mean that Solomon wrote the book in its entirety.
One difficulty with viewing Solomon as the only author is that some of the Hebrew words appear to be foreign loanwords from Aramaic and Persian, which would presumably have come from a later era than that of Solomon, when the Aramaic and Persian cultures were more widespread. However, it is possible that these words were in use during Solomon’s era. Furthermore, Solomon was the first truly cosmopolitan king of Israel, so it is not surprising that he would use foreign loanwords.
Another problem with accepting Solomon as the sole author is that he was not a good example of godly love—it was precisely his love for many foreign women that led him away from the Lord (1 Kgs 11:1-13). In fact, the only positive reference to Solomon in the Song is in Song 3:6-11, while Song 8:11-12 presents him negatively and Song 1:5 is neutral. It is possible that Solomon did not compose the entire Song, but only part of it—especially if the Song is viewed as a poetic anthology. In this view, Solomon’s authorship of the Song might be similar to his authorship in the book of Proverbs and David’s authorship in the Psalms. On the other hand, Solomon might have written of himself in a self-deprecating tone.
Serious study of the Song of Songs requires a humble, open spirit because of two very significant matters that are usually straightforward in other biblical books but are very obscure here: (1) It is difficult to find a story line in these eight chapters, and (2) if the Song is a story, it is not easy to identify the main characters and their relationships.
Early Interpretation (up to the 1800s). We have no written records of people’s understanding of the Song until AD 100, long after the book was written, and even then we have only brief statements. The earliest comments from this time, provided by Rabbi Aqiba, demonstrate Judaism’s ambivalence about the message of the Song. The rabbi famously stated: “Whoever sings the Song of Songs with a tremulous voice in a banquet hall and [so] treats it as a sort of ditty has no share in the world to come.” Some people clearly understood the Song’s imagery as sexual. Aqiba censured this interpretation of the Song, even damning those who held it. In his declaration that “the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies,” Aqiba indicated his understanding of the book as an allegory. This view represents the predominant Jewish interpretation of the Song from Aqiba’s time through the mid-1800s. The man and the woman are not seen as a real man and woman, but as representing God and Israel. As an example of this interpretation, the Aramaic Targum (interpretive paraphrase) of the Song presents it as the story of God’s relationship with Israel from the Exodus to the future reign of the Messiah.
Early Christian interpreters, such as Origen (AD 185–253) and Jerome (AD 347–420) adopted the allegorical interpretation, but identified the man as Jesus Christ and the woman as the individual Christian or the church as a whole. The details of the Song were also made to fit the allegory. For example, Cyril of Alexandria proposed that the sachet of myrrh lying between the woman’s breasts (Song 1:13) was a picture of Christ, who spans the OT and the NT.
For many centuries the synagogue and the church continued to accept this interpretation. In Jewish circles it sometimes took a philosophical or mystical turn, as in the work of Levi ben Gershom, a Jewish philosopher of the 1200s who was influenced by Aristotle. He believed that the man represented “active intelligence” and the woman “passive intelligence,” and that their union as described in the Song signified mystical ecstasy.
Although details varied, the allegorical approach dominated interpretation until the 1800s. We find it in Catholic writers as well as in great Reformation statements by such interpreters as John Calvin, the Westminster Assembly, and John Wesley.
Recent Interpretations (1800s to the Present). In the 1800s the allegorical interpretation began to lose followers. It became increasingly clear that the only reason to deny the Song’s obvious references to sexuality was the deep-seated but unbiblical idea that physical love and spiritual life are polar opposites. This idea came more from Greek philosophy than from the Bible itself. The Bible text itself never suggests that the images of the Song were intended as anything but sensual and romantic.
The 1800s also recovered much from the ancient cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Egypt produced love poetry similar to the Song that could only be understood as human love poetry. There was thus a decisive shift from allegorical interpretation to an understanding of the Song as love poetry. Today there is virtually universal agreement that the Song speaks God’s wisdom into an important area of our lives as human beings: It affirms and celebrates God’s good gift of love and sexuality in the context of marriage.
The Song as a Love Story. Many scholars understand these poems as a drama telling a story, either about two lovers or about a woman and two men. If only a couple is present, the characters are usually understood to be King Solomon and a young woman, and the entire poem is their conversation with each other. If it is a triangle, there is a second man whom the woman loves. In this case, Solomon is trying to force the woman to leave her true lover and enter his harem, but she remains faithful and true to her lover.
The main drawbacks of the dramatic perspective are: (1) There is no narrator to guide the reading of the story, and (2) there are many different possible stories, and every interpreter seems to see a different story.
The Song as a Two-Character Drama. Some interpreters understand the Song as a drama of King Solomon’s love affair with a woman. According to this view, the entire poem is a conversation between Solomon and the woman he loves more than all of the other queens and concubines in his possession. The storyline could then be something like the following:1
Act One: The Lovers’ Mutual Affection (Song 1:2–2:7)
Act Two: Mutual Seeking and Finding (Song 2:8–3:5)
Act Three: The Marriage (Song 3:6–5:1)
Act Four: Love Disdained but Won Again (Song 5:2–6:9)
Act Five: The Attractive Yet Humble Princess (Song 6:10–8:4)
Act Six: Love in the Woman’s Native Home (Song 8:5-14)
If there was a favored woman in Solomon’s life, the Scriptures suggest that she was Pharaoh’s daughter, whom he married very early (1 Kgs 3:1; 7:8; 9:24; 11:1), not the working woman from the king’s flocks and vineyards who is pictured here. Furthermore, this song of true love is not very credible if the woman was one of the scores of Solomon’s women who are clearly mentioned in Song 6:8. If this romance between Solomon and the woman was of such deep sincerity, why did Solomon add another 860 women to his harem afterwards?
The Song as a Three-Character Drama. Noting the difficulties with the two-character storyline, several recent scholars have become convinced that the Song actually describes a three-character drama. This would suggest a more complicated plot in which the woman actually loves a shepherd, not the king. The unfortunate woman finds herself in Solomon’s harem as a concubine, probably because she is unable to pay a debt of one thousand pieces of silver, which she owes as caretaker of the king’s vineyards (Song 8:11-12). She is unable to pay because her angry brothers have forced her first to take care of vineyards other than her own (Song 1:6). So even though she is in the very close and potentially intimate presence of the king in the city palace (Song 1:12), her passionate thoughts are set intently on her love for a common shepherd in the countryside (Song 1:7). This fervent affection drives her to escape with her true love into the country where they declare their mutual love to one another in marriage. Three separations of the couple are recounted in the song, proving that the agony of isolation from each other is just as intense as their ecstasy when together. After the woman escapes and lives with her shepherd husband, she is able to hire caretakers to harvest her crop and pay off the debt to Solomon. Now she and her beloved are forever free to continue living and loving together in the countryside (Song 8:12-14).
From this perspective, the Song could be outlined as follows:
1. Superscription (Song 1:1)
2. The Woman’s Predicament with Solomon (Song 1:2-14)
Her Desire to Be Rescued (Song 1:2-4)
Her Searching Heart (Song 1:5-11)
Her Choice: King or Shepherd? (Song 1:12-14)
3. Their Prenuptial Relationship (Song 1:15–3:5)
Mutual Admiration (Song 1:15–2:7)
An Excursion in the Country (Song 2:8-15)
Separated and Searching Again (Song 2:16–3:5)
4. Their Wedding and Consummation (Song 3:6–5:1)
Solomon Graces Their Wedding (Song 3:6-11)
The Consummation (Song 4:1–5:1)
5. Her Nightmare: Separation and Searching (Song 5:2–6:3)
The Trauma of Interrupted Love (Song 5:2-6a)
Another Search for Her Lover (Song 5:6-16)
Their Love No Longer Interrupted (Song 6:1-3)
6. Their Stimulating Marriage (Song 6:4–8:10)
She Is Her Husband’s Delight (Song 6:4–7:9)
He Gives His Wife Pleasure (Song 7:10–8:7)
Protective Brothers (Song 8:8-10)
7. Free from Debt, Free to Love (Song 8:11-14)
The Song as an Anthology of Love Poetry. Some scholars have concluded that approaching the Song as a drama would impose a story on the book that is not really there. These interpreters believe that the Song of Songs is an anthology of love poems that do not tell a story, but rather evoke a mood. The poems use imagery to express the poets’ understanding of human sexuality. In this way, the Song is similar to the book of Psalms, except that all the poems have to do with love between a man and a woman.
From this perspective, the Song of Songs is composed of some twenty love poems that are bound together by consistency of characters, refrains, repeated images, and other poetic binding devices:
Superscription (Song 1:1)
1. The Woman’s Pursuit (Song 1:2-4)
2. Dark But Beautiful (Song 1:5-6)
3. An Invitation to a Tryst (Song 1:7-11)
4. Intimate Fragrances (Song 1:12-14)
5. Outdoor Love (Song 1:15-17)
6. Flowers and Trees (Song 2:1-7)
7. Spring, the Time for Love (Song 2:8-17)
8. Seeking and (Not) Finding (Song 3:1-5)
9. A Royal Wedding Procession (Song 3:6-11)
10. The Man’s Sensuous Description of the Woman (Song 4:1–5:1)
11. To Search and (Not) Find, Once Again (Song 5:2–6:3)
12. Like an Army with Banners (Song 6:4-10)
13. Surprise in the Walnut Grove (Song 6:11-12)
14. The Dance of the Woman of Shulam (Song 6:13–7:9)
15. Back to the Garden (Song 7:10-13)
16. Yearning for Love (Song 8:1-4)
17. Like a Seal (Song 8:5-7)
18. Protecting the Sister (Song 8:8-10)
19. Who Owns the Vineyard? (Song 8:11-12)
20. Lingering Desire (Song 8:13-14)
The main criticism of viewing the Song as merely a poetic anthology is that the Song exhibits a greater unity and development than is usual for such a collection. There is repetition and development of poetic themes, and there seems to be growth in the couple’s relationship. Those who view the Song as a story or drama would argue that the anthology view fails to take this into account. Even if the Song is not a story per se, it certainly seems to have a structure and coherence that transcends the individual stanzas of poetry. However, those who view it as an anthology rather than a story generally do take into account the unity and development in the Song. They view the Song like a concerto or symphony in which themes repeat and build, without actually providing a narrative or plot.
Conclusion. All of the interpretive approaches have their challenges. The approach in these study notes is (1) to point out different elements in the book that might contribute to a storyline or to our understanding of its structure as an anthology, and (2) to discuss the possible meaning of individual scenes and images.
The man and woman in the Song of Songs speak in the most romantic terms, describing sensuous longings and alluding to an intimate physical relationship. However, they are never explicitly described as married, leading some readers to suggest that the Song is an example of unmarried love in the Bible. Such a reading ignores obvious allusions to the true marriage relationship between the man and the woman. The language of some of the passages clearly indicates that the couple is married. For example, the man occasionally refers to the woman as his “bride” (e.g., Song 4:8-12).
Even more importantly, viewing the couple as unmarried though sexually intimate does not take into account the context of the Song in the whole of Scripture, including the law found in the Pentateuch. In the context of ancient Israel, it is impossible to believe that this couple is not married when engaged in such an intimate relationship. A study of the books of OT history (Gen 39), law (Exod 20:14), and other wisdom literature (Prov 5–7) makes it clear that sexual relations were only tolerated within the legal commitment of marriage. The couple, accordingly, should be understood as being married, at least in those passages where they are found in intimate embrace.
Though the Song itself does not address it, other passages of Scripture explain how marriage is a picture of God’s relationship with his people (see Jer 2:1-2; Hos 1–3; Eph 5:21-33; Rev 19:6-8).
Many people have questioned whether the Song of Songs, with its overtly sensual imagery, belongs in Holy Scripture, but this poem is a wonderful celebration of one of God’s good and holy gifts. The Bible does not envision human beings as intangible souls temporarily encased in a body; rather, body and soul are two terms that emphasize different aspects of a single entity. The body is important, and sexuality is good and precious when enjoyed within marriage.
Human Intimacy. Intense love and the appropriateness of voicing that love in words of physical attraction and fulfillment is the central theme of the song. Yet it is clear that the lovers’ relationship is not only physical. They are friends and desire to be with each other for more than sexual reasons. Their total relationship includes their sensual enjoyment of each other.
Sexual intimacy has always been a critical issue for individuals and for the community. Numerous biblical passages recount the beauty and dangers of sex, as well as the practical implications of its appropriate and inappropriate expressions. As human love poetry, the Song plays a crucial role in the Bible. Love and its physical expression are major aspects of the human experience, and God has spoken through the Song to encourage us and warn us about the power of sexuality in our lives. Here we have wonderful wisdom from God describing the beauty of a wholesome sexual relationship between a woman and a man. According to the Song, marital love should be mutual, exclusive, complete, and beautiful. The book encourages intimate, passionate love between a man and a woman who have committed themselves to each other.
1 See F. Delitszch, The Song of Songs.