Old Testament Survey - Lesson 39

Dr. Daniel Block 
Old Testament Survey
ot300-39
Song of Songs
Lesson Transcript

Responding personally to the grace and glory of God with godly fear and righteous living, the Song of Songs. The book of Proverbs is separated from the Song of Songs by Ecclesiastes in our Bibles. However, I will consider this song before Ecclesiastes because, like Proverbs, this song for the most part expresses normative Israelite perspectives, specifically on love in this case.

Indeed, one may interpret the song as a celebration of the joy of love as it is encouraged in Proverbs 5, 15 to 23, and then the mystery of love as announced in Proverbs 30, 18 to 19. Second, Ecclesiastes belongs with Job more than Proverbs since it raises questions about the order in the universe and the truthfulness of the saying, the fear of the Lord is the first principle of wisdom. Here we see, in a sense, wisdom in revolts, people protesting, but that's not the case in the book of Proverbs, which is normative wisdom, and in this book, which takes a small but vital slice of life and shows what wisdom looks like.

We need to begin by talking about the name of the book. The Hebrew title, Shir Hasharim, translates literally, The Song of Songs. Like holy of holies, king of kings, God of gods, Lord of the universe, this is a superlative expression.

It expresses the greatest song. English, Song of Solomon, represents a telescoping of verse one. The Song of Songs that belongs to Solomon or is associated with Solomon or involves Solomon, we're not quite sure, but it is this English Song of Solomon telescopes that into that sort of phrase, changes it slightly.

In Hebrew, it's the greatest song, the most beautiful song. The connection with Solomon probably comes from the tradition of this king as a great lover. Now, I am not using the lover, the word lover, in its proper sense, but in its improper sense.

While it has been traditional to view Solomon as the author of this book, the opening title may also be interpreted to mean this is a song about Solomon, and that's how I interpret it. The Lamed, the L in the title, to Solomon, for Solomon, about Solomon, could point to authorship. However, like the psalm titles, it could also point to Solomon as the one to whom it is dedicated or as the character whom it portrays as, shall we say, the great lover, the Don Juan, the lustful king of Israel.

How should we interpret this book? Few First Testament texts have been interpreted as differently and occasioned as much debate as the Song of Songs. You have, first of all, the ritual interpretation. Some interpret the book as a ritual text modeled after Sumerian poems celebrating the love between Inanna, the goddess, and Dumuzi, the god who is her lover.

Unfortunately for this interpretation, there is no hint in the song that we should interpret it in connection with any myth. There's nothing mythological here. In any case, it would hardly have been canonized if this had been the case, at least canonized in our scriptures.

Second, the allegorical interpretation. We do not know for certain how the book was interpreted when it was first composed. I wish we had a commentary from the author of the book.

But long before the coming of Christ, the rabbis were interpreting the book as an allegorical portrayal of the love between God and Israel. We have this in II Esdras 524 and following, and then in 726. This is especially the case in the Talmudic text, the Talmud, Sanhedrin 101a, which notes, whoever recites a verse of the Song of Songs and treats it as a secular air, whoever recites a verse at a banqueting table unseasonably brings evil upon the world.

That's grounded in the view that this is a sacred text. The allegorical interpretation is fully developed in the Aramaic Targum and has predominated in Christian interpretation until recent times. Origen interpreted Solomon's marriage as a lesson on Christ and the church.

Luther saw in the song an allegory of the relationship between Jesus and the souls. This interpretation still prevails among mystical and pietistic evangelicals. C.I. Schofield wrote in the Schofield Reference Bible, primarily the book is the expression of pure marital love as ordained by God in creation, and the vindication of that love against both asceticism and lust, the two profanations of the holiness and marriage.

The secondary and larger interpretation is of Christ, the Son, and his heavenly Bride, the church, as we see it in 2 Corinthians 11 1-4. The major weakness of the allegorical interpretation is its subjectivity. It's in the eye of the reader, or the ear of the hearer.

The song contains no internal hints that this is how the composer intended readers to interpret it, which leads then to a third view. This is a collection of secular love songs. While some have interpreted the book as a collection of wedding party songs sung in honor of the bride and the groom at their wedding, like Syrian wots, a special expression for this, recent interpreters have been less certain about its actual connection with a wedding.

Some see it as a collection of 30-plus love songs of varying types, songs of teasing, admiration, boasting, yearning, dreaming of experiences, which should not necessarily be interpreted as linked to tell a story or develop a plot. It's simply a collection. Others read the book as a unified love poem, but it was composed for entertainment and intended to be sung at festivals.

Accordingly, the key to its canonation seems to have been its early association with religious festivals. But there is one additional approach we should consider, and that is a dramatic interpretation. In their present literary context, the love poems, plural, that have been combined seem to have been combined in an order and modified so as to tell a story and actually to develop a plot.

Indeed, the book may be read as a drama in which the words of the characters invite the reader to reflect on the nature of love. The dramatic interpretation takes on several forms. The scholar Dalich in the 1800s saw in the song a drama between Solomon the shepherd and a Shulamite shepherdess.

Falling in love with her, the king takes her from her homeland and marries her on Zion. In the process, his love is lifted from mere physical attraction to pure love. But in my mind, this portrayal of Solomon is unlikely for several reasons.

One, the portrayal of Solomon as a rustic shepherd is quite incongruous. The truth is he never was a shepherd. He grew up in the royal court.

What does he know about that? Second, with the king as the groom, to have the closing scene take place in the village of the bride, that's culturally improbable. He's the king. It would happen in his house.

Third, if Solomon is the male main character, the favorable comparison of the Shulamite to the royal harem in 6, 8 to 9, that's really tough. That seems unlikely to me. But fourth, most problematic of all, in the light of the record of Solomon's multiple wives and his vast harem as reported in 1 Kings, it is difficult to imagine him as a model of loyal, single-minded love.

That's not Solomon we find in 1 Kings 10 and 11. So from my perspective, it's preferable to interpret the song as a three-character, not a two-character drama involving Solomon, the Shulamite, and a shepherd lover. It portrays the triumph of genuine love between the and the Shulamite over top-down royal lust.

The dramatist has portrayed Solomon as an exploitative king who captures the maiden for his own harem and then attempts to win her affections through artificial means, 2-7-3-5-8-4. Now, I agree that the Song of Songs represents a collection of secular love poems that may have been composed independently and that have been secondarily gathered and arranged in their present form. But even so, the present arrangement of the poems in the book invites us to interpret all of these as an implicit critique on Solomon, like the book of Ecclesiastes.

So here's how I interpret the book. After the introduction in 1-1, in the first scene, 1-2-2-7, Solomon meets the Shulamite woman in his palace. It opens with the harem's sensuous words.

This is the chorus in this drama, verses 2-3. Then the Shulamite speaks in verse 4a. She yearns for her shepherd lover.

The king has abducted her. Then in 1-4b, the harem speaks. And in 5-7, the Shulamite offers her apology in the face of contempt from the rest of the harem.

In verse 8, the harem give their ironic response. Go back to your sheep, they say. And then in verses 9-11, Solomon speaks for the first time, his first attention to the peasant girl.

This is his first attention to the peasant girl, offering her the allurements of city and royalty. In verses 12-14, her response, she describes feelings towards her shepherd lover. And Solomon responds with flattery in verse 15.

But she comes back, 1-16-2-1, her thoughts remain on her lover from the country. In 2-2, Solomon replies, picking up her imagery. Then in 2-3-7, the Shulamite's response of devotion.

Verse 7 seems to be addressed to the harem. Do not stimulate love artificially. Let it be natural.

The second part, 2-8-3-5, the beloved's visit and the Shulamite's night search. It opens with the Shulamite, verses 8-9. She thinks longingly of her husband.

Suddenly she hears him and recalls his invitation. The shepherd speaks in verses 10-14. He invites her to come away with him.

The Shulamite responds, 14-17. She wants all that would spoil love to be removed. Sensing danger, she tells him to leave until evening, when it will be safer.

Verses 1-5, the Shulamite speaks. She searches for her lover, probably a dream that keeps recurring. The third section, Solomon's procession and songs, 3-6-5-1.

It opens with a chorus, a description of Solomon's procession intended to impress the Shulamite, verses 6-11. In verses 1-7, we have Solomon's love song, 4-1-7, we have Solomon's love song, a typical oriental description of the beauty of the body. Verses 8-15, the shepherd's love song, as it is perhaps remembered by the Shulamite.

In verse 16, the Shulamite speaks an invitation to her lover to possess his garden. That is the shepherd. And then in 5-1, his enthusiastic response.

In 5-2-6-3, we have the fourth scene, a missed opportunity. In verses 2-8, she seems to be dreaming of her lover, the shepherd. She gives lame excuses for not responding, only to find that when she's ready, he's gone.

She may be teasing or just drowsy and slothful, but then she rushes out to find him, only to run into brutal guards who stop her. Verse 9 of chapter 5, this seems to be a mocking response by the harem who hear her. Verses 10-16, a detailed description by the Shulamite of her true lover.

After another mocking response, retort from the harem in 6-1, in verses 2-3, we have her honest and confident response. Scene 5, the king's failure to win the Shulamite, 6-4-8-4. In verses 4-10, the king's wooing is met with uncompromising constancy.

Verses 11-12 give the Shulamite's response. She reminisces about her capture, how he caught her. Then in verse 13a, you have another mocking interlude from the harem to which the Shulamite responds, unconscious of her own beauty.

It doesn't matter to her. And the harem responds again with flattery, so that she will come back and join them. In chapter 7, verses 6-9, we have Solomon.

This is the king's last attempt to win her with flattery, and her speech has intoxicated him. Verses 10-13, this is the high point of the book. Her love for her lover, the shepherd, will not be deflected.

She will not get sucked in by the allurements of the palace. And it ends with the Shulamite in 8-1-4. This is her soliloquy.

She desires freedom to express love openly. We come then to scene 7, the reunion of the lovers, 8-5-14. The villagers see her returning with the shepherd, 8-5-A, and then the shepherd recalls how he first aroused her love in her own home circumstances.

Contrast this with the artificiality of the court. And then in verses 6-7, we have a moving description from the Shulamite of true love. In 8-10, she recalls the attitudes of her brothers when she was young.

If she in her innocence responds too easily to overtures of love, they will protect her. In maturity, she was firm. She did not give in to Solomon, but she found security in relationship to her husband after she had been earlier finding security in her family, her brothers.

In 8-11-12, the Shulamite reflects on love, which cannot be bought. The shepherd in 8-13 requests the bride to speak so he and friends may hear her voice. And her response is, come to me quickly.

And with that, the book ends. Well, what is the message of this book? This is an imaginative interpretation, but I am not sure what else we should do with it. This seems to make the most sense.

What shall we do about the point? Whatever the proper approach to the book, the canonical association of the song with the wisdom writings of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes invites us to read it as a wisdom text. The involvement of Solomon as one of the characters in the composition reinforces this conviction. As another literary cartoon, it caricatures in my mind the love life of Solomon.

This song teaches that true love needs no stimuli, no artificial awakening like Solomon tries. It resists all the false sensual allurements of the world. The book, then, is a censure of lust, of polygamy and infidelity.

It highlights a love that is unquenchable and cannot be bought, 8-6-7, a love that is exclusive and absorbing, 4-12. In so doing, it endorses the place of physical love within a legitimate covenant relationship. As such, it explores the theme of the mystery of love, a common theme in the wisdom writings.

We see this in Proverbs 5-7, Proverbs 30, 18-19, Ecclesiastes 9-9. It invites us to reflect on why a woman would resist the allurements of royal love in favor of the love of a shepherd boy from the hills. Well, why would this? So, that's the first reflection on this book.

It highlights love that is unquenchable. What else can we say? Well, first, this text represents a reflection on the nature of a common human experience. It's not a literal historical document.

The author is reflecting on love. The function of wisdom is essentially didactic, not philosophical, and here he is learning lessons or teaching lessons on love. Second, in spite of its apparently secular tone, this cannot be treated as a secular song.

The dichotomy of the sacred and the secular is alien to Hebrew thought. The absence of references to Israel's law, Israel's cult, Israel's theology is characteristic of Israelite wisdom, but this does not mean it is secular in its origin. The approach we have taken cautions against misinterpretation

Both the allegorical and the cultic interpretation impose on it religious notions that are alien to the text. And fourth, as a wisdom text, it reflects on the joyful and mysterious nature of love within marriage and or that leads to marriage. This song is a mashal, a proverb, a literary statement on the rich wonders of love, itself a gift of God's love.

In fact, the paradisiacal imagery, imagery from paradise, and the numerous echoes of Genesis 2 suggest a celebration of the kind of love that Adam and Eve enjoyed in the Garden of Eden. The Song of Songs consists of a series of songs. That is, as a unity together, they provide a beautiful literary portrayal of true and natural love.

The praise songs in the book are interesting, but they're entirely metaphorical. The figures of speech employed in the song are strange to the modern Western ear. I mean, if a man would tell his wife or the person he's engaged to, your belly is a heap of wheat, she'd slap him.

It doesn't work in our culture. But we must interpret this in the light of how the ancient Orientals spoke about these matters. Whoever wrote this was quite familiar with ancient Near Eastern patterns, and it is in light of this cultural context that they must be interpreted.

In fact, we now have literature like this from Egypt that helps us interpret this. Although most referents have some feature in common with a metaphor, your neck, her neck is a tower, or the whiteness of washed sheep, to speak about the teeth, the intention of the comparisons is not to depict sensory correspondence between images and referents. In fact, sometimes the incongruity between the image and what he's actually talking about is so great that it almost loses us, the modern readers, and we may never get around to recognizing the harmony between the image of the tower and the nose.

Your nose is a tower, and so the reader must quickly abandon efforts to create pictures of lovers as sums of the image they use to describe each other. I have seen images, efforts people have taken to interpret this literally, and they are grotesque. Try drawing the image of the woman as it is pictured here.

It is grotesque. But this song is not erotic. It is not preoccupied with genitalia.

The poet never dwells on any part of the body. The reader's attention is diffused, scattered, spread throughout the body and projected onto the world beyond. In the song, love is not a composite of two principles, masculine and feminine sexuality.

The lover's love for one another is one in intensity and one in quality. There is no stereotyped picture of an aggressive male and a coy mistress who must be seduced. Each reaches out to the other.

Each comes to the other. Each awaits the other in a mutuality and egalitarianism that reflects the metaphysics of love, not the realities of society. For the author of the Song of Songs, Canticles, love is more than a feeling.

It is the confluence of souls expressed by tightly coherent dialogue and the medium of praise. Love looks outward with a vision so broad as to create its own world. The song prevents a way of seeing, of creating a perfect world, an idyllic universe.

As Michael Fox observes after comparing the Song of Songs with ancient Egyptian love literature, he says, Here the world blossoms in a perpetual spring. Birds sing and bathe in milk. Spices give forth their fragrance.

Springs flow with clear water. Fruits and wines offer their sweetness. Heaps of wheat are surrounded by lilies.

Yews, white and clean, bear twins and never miscarry. Goats stream gently down the mountainside. Proud and ornate towers stand tall above the landscape.

Nor are there lacking silver and gold, precious stones and objects of art. This is a rich and blessed world. This is not only the background of the expression of love.

Through it we see the lover's view of the world through the eyes of the poet. In fact, the imagery shows not how lovers look, what do they look like, but how they see. A lover looks at his beloved and through the prism of her beauty sees an ever-present arcady.

This is a world created by love, which comes into being only through the lover's vision of each other. So, Michael Fox. This is a song of songs.

The song of songs does not intend primarily to exalt the joy of sex, nor even the pleasure of love. It is a celebration of commitment summed up in, I am my beloved's and he is mine. This is total dedication and permanent obligation.

The book represents a glorious celebration of our humanity, male and female, created as God's image for mutual support and enjoyment. But this is not sex for sex's sake, nor for recreational reasons, nor is this casual sex. It is the celebration of covenantal love, covenantal commitment.

In this context, love needs no artificial stimuli. At the same time, it is strong enough to withstand the most severe challenges from without. This is love according to the song of songs.