In short
A love story between a man and his bride. The traditional understanding is that, for the vast majority of the book, they are not yet married.
Why it is important
The first words proclaim it to be the greatest of all songs (ever). It is “The Song of Songs.” Much like God is “Lord of lords” (Ps 136:3), “God of gods” (Deut 10:17), and “King of kings” (1Ti 6:15). It’s the best of them all.
Main characters
- King Solomon (I think)
- His bride and later wife, who is unnamed (more about her later)
- “We” – a group that chimes in like a chorus from time to time; I assume they are the “daughters of Jerusalem” that are mentioned in 1:5 and 5:8, right before the group speaks.
If you use a modern English translation, you may see headings like “HE,” “SHE,” and “OTHERS.” What they have done is analyzed the Hebrew words and were able to determine who is speaking. And that is awesome, because in English, it is next to impossible to figure that out.
What is in this book
Some really steamy dialogue and love scenes. A big theme of the book is how the lovers look for each other and cannot find each other at times.
As far as a plot or structure to the book, no one has agreed on one. Many feel that they finally get married at the end of the book (around 8:5), but it’s not spelled out, and I would never have concluded that myself.
Who is the bride?
“The Shulammite” woman (Song 6:13).
This word appears nowhere else in the Bible, but there are some interesting things about the name. Hebrew has little interest in vowels, apparently*, so we look at the consonants in the name: SLM. This coincides with two other well-known names:
- SchLoMo, which is the Hebrew spelling of Solomon
- SaLeM, which is Jerusalem
#1 makes it seem like she is a feminine version of Solomon. Imagine a couple named Daniel and Danielle.
#2 seems to fit with (a) where Solomon lived, and (b) the call to the “daughters of Jerusalem” in Song 1:5. And yet the darkness of her skin (1:5) and comparison “to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots” in 1:9 might imply she is Egyptian, as Solomon’s first** wife was.
Theology and doctrine
WHY IS A LOVE STORY IN THE BIBLE? It’s the question of the ages.
- Personally, I think the purpose is to have a love story in the Bible
- Christians have tried to make it about Christ and the church, and some Jews say it is about God and Israel
- But I think people have begun to realize how very hard it is to force these analogies onto Song of Solomon.
Have you ever heard the song “Lily of the Valley”? Or the chorus of “Paradise Valley” that describes the Rose of Sharon? They get that from Song of Solomon 2:1, and the songs are implying that Jesus is the flower. This is not at all implied in the Scriptures but entirely assumes the doctrine that Song of Solomon is about Jesus.
What I really think is odd about this belief (that Jesus is the lily and rose), is that 2:1 is spoken by the woman, saying that SHE is “a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.” And the next verse confirms that, where the man says she is “a lily… among the young women.” So even if you think it’s a Christian allegory, you should think that the church is the lily of the valley – not Christ.
Footnotes
* Recall our discussion of the Hebrew for the name of God. It’s YHWH (an acronym), and the reader is free to insert the vowels she wants when pronouncing it. KJV translators went with “Jehovah,” while modern scholars say “Yahweh.” In the same way, Shulammite (SLM) can be a sort of sister word to Solomon or Salem.
** Well, his first wife that was mentioned was from Egypt (1Ki 3:1).
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