As hard as it might be to believe, few biblical books have been the subject of more commentaries, exposition, and sermons than the Song of Songs.

It might not seem that way because the Song has fallen out of favor in recent years. However, for centuries it was a staple of Christian teaching and preaching (not to mention Jewish instruction).

We might find this odd in the twenty-first century. When was the last time you heard a sermon in church from the Song? Perhaps because of traditional Christian puritanical morality we have covered the Song in a plain brown paper wrapper. After all, sometimes the language in the text is downright graphic. “The curves of your thighs are like jewels … this stature of yours like a palm tree, and your breasts like its clusters. I said, ‘I will go up to the palm tree; I will take hold of its branches’” (7:1-7).

Our sense of propriety may cause those of us with sensitive constitutions to blush at such straightforward talk about sex. Don’t be surprised when you open the Song if you feel like you are going behind the curtain in the local video rental store. Some ancient advice forbade men under 30 years old from reading the Song. When I was young, a well-meaning preacher instructed me not to read it until I was married.

This level of discomfort with the Song illustrates the church’s mishandling of the reality of human sexuality. Generally, the church has addressed questions about sex prudishly, relegating sex to simplistic moralistic pontificating. “God made sex, but only as a necessary evil. If you do not want to go to hell, remain virginal until you are married. Even then sex should not be enjoyed. Instead, it is merely the functional biological process to procreate children—and nothing more.”

Such advice misses the complexity of human sexuality, including the emotional magnitude, spiritual import, and the symbolic significance of sexuality.  It also ignores that God created the joy and pleasure of sex in the first place; to deny human sexuality is to deny its creator.

Whatever else it might be, we cannot pretend that the Song does not paint a passionate picture celebrating the God-given gift of human sexuality. It is a sensuous book filled with touch, taste, and smell.

The Song’s fervent intimacy ignites the fires of passion in the human heart. Robert Alter says “the representation of such closeness is precisely one of the most remarkable achievements of this poem.”[1]

Yet there is more to the Song than an erotic poem. What is the Song about? There is no shortage of opinions. Various possibilities have been suggested, ranging from an historical story about Solomon to a metaphor of the love of God for Israel. Other popular approaches consider it an allegory for the love of Christ for the institutional church or a parable of the individual soul longing for union with God.

In the thirteenth century, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote extensive sermons on the Song. He commented, “It is therefore only if the soul seeks God alone and only for God’s sake that its face will be wholly beautiful.”

Part of the Song’s lure is that it remains open to so many potential interpretations. The difficulty in determining the meaning of the book is compounded by the trouble in discerning who the characters are and what they are actually saying.

The Song has two primary actors and four supporting parts. The Shulamite, a young woman in search of her beloved, is the heroine. The Beloved is the male lead; he is the Shulamite’s dream guy. The Daughters of Jerusalem accompany the Shulamite, and the Beloved has his friends too.  The Shulamite’s older siblings recite a few lines.

And then, there is Solomon. One of the puzzles in the Song is ascertaining the role of Solomon. Is Solomon the Beloved, or is he an antagonist? The first line, “The song of songs, which is Solomon’s,” does not help much. Is Solomon the author, a pseudonym for the author, or the main character? And if he is the main character, is he the hero or an adversary?[2]

When reading the Song, remember it is a poem; perhaps even a play to be performed. A literalizing hermeneutic renders the Song meaningless.  Anyone who has ever been in love knows the importance of poetry and metaphor. “Your love is like a red, red rose.” Really, or is that a lyrical metaphor?

One such example in the Song is found in 1:3 where the Shulamite cajoles, “Your name is ointment poured forth.” The Beloved’s name was not unctuous perfume. A literal approach to the Song completely misses the poetry and the higher uses of language employed in the Song (and the entire Bible).

The Story

The gist of the story in the Song runs thus: Once upon a time, there were two lovers: the Shulamite and the Beloved. They pledge their undying love to one another and woo one another with sweet talk. “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—for your love is better than wine” (1:2).

Now, like any good love story we encounter some tension. For multiple reasons, the lovers remain frustratingly separated. “By night on my bed I sought the one I love; I sought him, but I did not find him” (3:1).

First, the Shulamite’s self image impeded the lovers’ union. “Do not look upon me because I am dark, because the sun has tanned me” (1:6). She feels that her status as a lowly farm worker disqualifies her from being loved. She senses an intrinsic ugliness. But as we shall see, the Beloved sees her differently.

A second obstacle preventing the two from joining together is that the Shulamite is dreaming and unable (or unwilling) to awake. The Shulamite is fantasizing of her dream man, or she is asleep dreaming of the time when her beloved will awake her and make her dreams come true—like Sleeping Beauty or Snow White she sings, “Some day my prince will come.” In her words, “Do not stir up nor awaken love until it pleases” (2:8; 5:2; 8:4).

Another problem complicates matters. Solomon—the powerful king—appears to want the young Shulamite for himself and attempts to steal her away from her Beloved. In Israel’s political theology, the monarch simply takes whatever he wants. Ordinary people have little recourse.[3] While the lovers embrace in 3:1-5 (if only in a dream), in 3:6-11 Solomon in royal regalia approaches her with a full retinue of soldiers having one thing on his mind. “Behold, it is Solomon’s couch…its interior paved with love.”[4] He intends to steal away the Shulamite for himself—like a rich man stealing a poor man’s sheep.

Here’s the thrust of the story. The two lovers (the Shulamite and the Beloved) have an unconsummated love that they anxiously look forward to fulfilling, yet they are currently unable. The lovers call out to one another in uninhibited language. “Awake, O north wind, and come O south! Blow upon my garden. That its spices may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden and eat its pleasant fruits” (4:16).  Nevertheless, their mutual longings go unmet. “Where has your beloved gone, O fairest among women?” (6:1).

Some of the dialogue may seem strange—even downright immoral—to twenty-first century Christianized ears. The Beloved exclaims, “You have ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; you have ravished my heart” (4:9). Meanwhile, the Shulamite sings, “Oh, that you were like my brother, who nursed at my mother’s breasts” (8:1).

Before knocking the Song as a piece of backwoods incestuous literature, we should remember that ancient Israelite marriage was tribal. One’s perfect mate was a “sibling,” a faithful son or daughter of Abraham.[5]

Sibling marriage in the Song echoes the ancient Israelite parents, Abraham and Sarah. The Hebrew ancestors were half brother and sister, and they gave birth to the covenant people. Imagine (theologically speaking) the superiority of “full-blooded” perfection. The Beloved and his bride are “soul mates” perfectly suited for one another. They are the true Adam and Eve cut from the same cloth.[6]

In the Second Temple period, Nehemiah demonstrates the zeal pious Jews felt for tribal marriage. This reformer reacted with outrage when he discovered that some of his countrymen had married outside their clan. “I also saw Jews who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab…so I contended with them and cursed them, struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them swear by God saying, ‘You shall not give your daughters as wives to their sons, nor take their daughters for your sons or yourselves” (Nehemiah 13:23-25).

As the story in the Song progresses, the two lovers experience a growing desire to consummate their love for one another. Their love yearns to awake, but the time has not arrived.

The Shulamite finally arises from her sleep, but Solomon enters the picture again. She likens herself to a vineyard and tells Solomon that he can have any winery in Israel. Why must he take this one? She then cries to her Beloved to save her from the clutches of the greedy king, “Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices” (8:14). There is no answer from the Beloved.

With this cry of “how long?” the Song concludes.

Song of the Exile

The prayer of Jewish exiles, “how long?” pervades the Second Temple Judaism. “How long, Lord? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire?” (Psalm 79:5).

When the Jews reentered the land following the decree of Cyrus, life for the nation had improved but only slightly. Israel continued to remain under pagan domination. The nightmare had ended, yet Israel continued dreaming of the day of her ultimate freedom. “When the Lord brought back the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dream…Bring back our captivity, O Lord” (Psalm 126).

Like the Shulamite, Israel could only fantasize of the day when she would unite with her beloved, God. Currently though, a powerful despot prevented the blissful union. The poem’s author could have pictured a Gentile monarch as the restraining power keeping Israel from consummating her divine union. How long would it be until this restrictive principality would be removed and the people of God could finally enjoy the fullness of consummated love?

When we come to the life of Jesus in the gospels we hear resonances of the Song. For instance, in referring to his relationship to Jesus, John the Baptist commented that ‘the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled” (John 3:29). The prophet saw Jesus as the groom coming to awaken Israel from her slumber, make her dream a reality, and usher in the joy of a perfected love.

Jesus himself used the occasion of the wedding in Cana to initiate his work. Symbolically, this event augurs the nearness of the eschatological wedding.

Unlike the general religious tenor of his day, Jesus celebrated the imminent arrival of the consummated eschatological wedding. Instead of fasting to express his repentance for Israel’s guilt, Jesus feasted. He confessed of himself, “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking” (Luke 7:34). This resonates the Beloved’s call, “Eat, O friends! Drink, yes drink deeply, O beloved ones” (Song 5:1).

Also, marriages worked their way into Jesus’ parables. “The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son” (Matthew 22:2).

On the Mount of Olives (Matthew 25:1-13), Jesus spoke the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. The wedding party went to meet the bridegroom who was—similar to the beloved in the Song—inexplicably delayed. While they waited for his arrival, the virgins slept—similar to the Shulamite. At an unexpected hour, the groom arrived to take his bride. Jesus warned those original disciples, “Watch, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming” (25:13). Nevertheless, the wedding would happen soon. Hence, they should be prepared.[7]

By alluding to the Song, the gospels propose that the time to awaken love was near.

The Song in the Epistles

In Ephesians 1:1-14, Paul contends that God had chosen and blessed these saints in Christ, and “He has made us accepted in the Beloved.” Divine acceptance equated to redemption and forgiveness. God was currently gathering all things unto himself and making “known” his will and pleasure in the fullness of times. Paul candidly proposes the imminence of the consummation of the divine wedding.

This interpretation elucidates Paul’s statement in 1:13-14 concerning the seal of the Spirit “who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of his glory.” The word guarantee comes from the Greek arrabon which denotes a promise to be fulfilled. Modern usage of arrabon equates to an engagement ring. Paul contends that the then-current gift of the Spirit amounted to God’s engagement to his bride, and that the wedding would soon take place.  Paul draws this theme from Song 8:6, “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm.”

Spiritual marriage finds expression in more explicit detail in Ephesians 5:22-33. In this text, Paul elaborates on the Ephesian church’s role as the wife whom Christ loved and gave himself for. Christ would present the bride “not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (5:27). Paul echoes the Beloved who utters, “You are fair my love, and there is no spot in you” (Song 4:7).[8] He sums up by quoting Adam's and Eve’s wedding sermon and concludes, “This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

The New Testament writers[9] looked at their era as the time of consummation. For centuries, Israel had been waiting for her dream to become a reality. It would happen soon. Even so, a tyrant stood in the way. A powerful royal dictator, a Solomon, vied for the attention of the bride and threatened to steal her by force. This competitor was torah-zealous Israel accompanied with the retinue of the Law and temple apparatus.[10]

The lure of traditional Judaism, its practices, and accoutrements attracted many Hebrew Christians. In fact, the messianic movement surrounding Jesus appeared to many to be little more than another Jewish sect.[11] If the Jewish believers in Jesus simply remained loyal to the traditions and the temple, hardly anyone would have noticed a difference. Yet if they associated with uncircumcised Gentiles as equals and called on Israel to cease her opposition to Roman rule, then they would stand out like a sore thumb. The pressure to remain true to the old paths was strong.

Peter wrote his second letter to bolster the confidence of dispersed believing Jews against the last-days scoffers who mocked, “Where is the promise of his coming?” (2Peter 3:4). The bridegroom, they ridiculed, had been delayed.

The book of Hebrews pleads with its audience to press forward and not to return to the conventional ways so that they “may receive the promise” of consummated love in just a little while (10:36-38).

The pressure was being felt by non-Jewish Christians too. Paul admonished the Galatian Gentile churches concerning the torah-zealous party, “They zealously court you, but for no good; yes, they want to exclude you, that you may be zealous for them” (Galatians 4:17).  The Judaizing impulse wooed both Gentile converts and ethnic Jews to become and remain faithful to the traditional customs. When some Pharisee believers taught the necessity of circumcising Gentiles thereby binding them to the Law of Moses, the Jerusalem Conference convened to address this very question[12].

Paul believed that the enticement of the Judaizing faction stemmed at least partly from a fear of persecution. “These try to compel you to be circumcised, only that they may not suffer persecution for the cross of Christ” (Galatians 6:12). Like the Solomon character in the Song, torah-zealous Judaism (like Saul of Tarsus) in league with the Judaizing bloc within the church sought to take the bride for itself by use of force and intimidation.

Voices of the bride continued to express hope. Possibly the loudest declaration comes from the book of Revelation. John encouraged the churches to remember their first love. They had been forcibly coerced by the synagogue of satan. But the Son of Man promised to arrive quickly at an unannounced hour. He would make all “to know that I have loved you” (Rev. 3:9).

By the end of the book, John sees the wedding ceremony itself. “Let us be glad and rejoice and give him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready” (Rev. 18:7).

Soon thereafter, the New Jerusalem descends from heaven “prepared as a bride for her husband” (Rev 21:2). God’s tent covers his people, and the angelic messenger shows John the wife’s indescribable beauty. Then, the bride and spirit invite all to enter into the joyous feast.

John’s vision concludes differently from the Song. Where the song ends with the bride’s plaintive cry, the Revelation wraps up with the groom’s assurance, “Surely, I am coming quickly.” (Rev. 21:20). This declaration of confidence guarantees that the groom and bride would soon consummate their love.

Summary

The multi-layered message of the Song of Solomon finds expression in the writings of the New Testament. The Gospels portray Jesus drawing on wedding imagery from the Song and relating it to his ministry. In the New Testament letters, Paul and John present the church as the bride awaiting her beloved’s imminent arrival so that they may consummate their love.

Meanwhile in this narrative, torah-zealous Israel in conjunction with the rival Judaizing movement played the role of the strong competitor attempting to take the bride for himself.

With the collapse of Second Temple Judaism in A.D. 70, the groom arrived and the dream became a reality. No longer did the bride cry out, “How long?” With the advent of the husband, marriage became actuality, and the cosmic couple consummated their love.

"And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderstorms, saying, ‘Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!’” “Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it. If a man would give for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly despised.”[13]

Kevin Beck (kabeck1@presence.tv) serves as senior minister of Brookwood Way Church of Christ. He and his wife Alisa have two daughters and a son and live in Mansfield, Ohio. This article was published in the Fall 2004 issue of Living Presence Journal, Vol 14, No. 4.

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[1] Robert Alter, “The Song of Songs: An Ode to Intimacy.” Bible Review, p24-32. August 2002.