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Introduction to Song of Solomon

                             

Summary of the Book of Song of Solomon

This summary of the book of Song of Solomon provides information about the title author(s) date of writing chronology theme theology outline a brief overview and the chapters of the Book of Song of Solomon.

Title

The title in the Hebrew text is "Solomon's Song of Songs " meaning a song by for or about Solomon. The phrase "Song of Songs" means the greatest of songs (cf. Dt 10:17 "God of gods and Lord of lords"; 1Ti 6:15 "King of kings").

Author and Date

Verse 1 appears to ascribe authorship to Solomon (see note on 1:1; but see also Title above). Solomon is referred to seven times (1:1 5; 3:7 9 11; 8:11-12) and several verses speak of the "king" (1:4 12; 7:5) but whether he was the author remains an open question.

To date the Song in the tenth century b.c. during Solomon's reign is not impossible. In fact mention of Tirzah and Jerusalem in one breath (6:4; see note there) has been used to prove a date prior to King Omri (885-874 b.c.; see 1Ki 16:23-24) though the reason for Tirzah's mention is not clear. On the other hand many have appealed to the language of the Song as proof of a much later date but on present evidence the linguistic data are ambiguous.

Consistency of language style tone perspective and recurring refrains seems to argue for a single author. However many who have doubted that the Song came from one pen or even from one time or place explain this consistency by ascribing all the Song's parts to a single literary tradition since Near Eastern traditions were very careful to maintain stylistic uniformity.

Interpretation

To find the key for unlocking the Song interpreters have looked to prophetic wisdom and apocalyptic passages of Scripture as well as to ancient Egyptian and Babylonian love songs traditional Semitic wedding songs and songs related to ancient Mesopotamian fertility religions. The closest parallels appear to be those found in Proverbs (see Pr 5:15-20; 6:24-29; 7:6-23). The description of love in 8:6-7 (cf. the descriptions of wisdom found in Pr 1-9 and Job 28) seems to confirm that the Song belongs to Biblical wisdom literature and that it is wisdom's description of an amorous relationship. The Bible speaks of both wisdom and love as gifts of God to be received with gratitude and celebration.

This understanding of the Song contrasts with the long-held view that the Song is an allegory of the love relationship between God and Israel or between Christ and the church or between Christ and the soul (the NT nowhere quotes from or even alludes to the Song). It is also distinct from more modern interpretations of the Song such as that which sees it as a poetic drama celebrating the triumph of a maiden's pure spontaneous love for her rustic shepherd lover over the courtly blandishments of Solomon who sought to win her for his royal harem. Rather it views the Song as a linked chain of lyrics depicting love in all its spontaneity beauty power and exclusiveness -- experienced in its varied moments of separation and intimacy anguish and ecstasy tension and contentment. The Song shares with the love poetry of many cultures its extensive use of highly sensuous and suggestive imagery drawn from nature.

Theme and Theology

In ancient Israel everything human came to expression in words: reverence gratitude anger sorrow suffering trust friendship commitment loyalty hope wisdom moral outrage repentance. In the Song it is love that finds words -- inspired words that disclose its exquisite charm and beauty as one of God's choicest gifts. The voice of love in the Song like that of wisdom in Pr 8:1 -- 9:12 is a woman's voice suggesting that love and wisdom draw men powerfully with the subtlety and mystery of a woman's allurements.
This feminine voice speaks profoundly of love. She portrays its beauty and delights. She claims its exclusiveness ("My lover is mine and I am his " 2:16) and insists on the necessity of its pure spontaneity ("Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires " 2:7). She also proclaims its overwhelming power -- it rivals that of the fearsome enemy death; it burns with the intensity of a blazing fire; it is unquenchable even by the ocean depths (8:6-7a). She affirms its preciousness: All that one possesses cannot purchase it nor (alternatively) should it be exchanged for it (8:7b). She hints without saying so explicitly (see the last NIV text note on 8:6) that it is the Lord's gift.

God intends that such love -- grossly distorted and abused by both ancient and modern people -- be a normal part of marital life in his good creation (see Ge 1:26-31; 2:24). Indeed in the Song the faithful Israelite could ascertain how to live lovingly within the theocratic arrangement. Such marital love is designed by the Creator-King to come to natural expression within his realm.

Literary Features

No one who reads the Song with care can question the artistry of the poet. The subtle delicacy with which he evokes intense sensuous awareness while avoiding crude titillation is one of the chief marks of his achievement. This he accomplishes largely by indirection by analogy and by bringing to the foreground the sensuous in the world of nature (or in food drink cosmetics and jewelry). To liken a lover's enjoyment of his beloved to a gazelle "browsing among lilies" (2:16) or her breasts to "twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies" (4:5) or the beloved herself to a garden filled with choice fruits inviting the lover to feast (4:12-16) -- these combine exquisite artistry and fine sensitivity.

Whether the Song has the unity of a single dramatic line linking all the subunits into a continuing story is a matter of ongoing debate among interpreters. There do appear to be connected scenes in the love relationship (see Outline).

Virtually all agree that the literary climax of the Song is found in 8:6-7 where the unsurpassed power and value of love -- the love that draws man and woman together -- are finally expressly asserted. Literary relaxation follows the intenseness of that declaration. A final expression of mutual desire between the lovers brings the Song to an end suggesting that love goes on. This last segment (8:8-14) is in some sense also a return to the beginning as references to the beloved's brothers to her vineyard and to Solomon (the king) link 8:8-12 with 1:2-6. In this song of love the voice of the beloved is dominant. It is her experience of love both as the one who loves and as the one who is loved that is most clearly expressed. The Song begins with her wish for the lover's kiss and ends with her urgent invitation to him for love's intimacy.

Outline

I.           Title (1:1)

  1. The First Meeting (1:2;2:7)
  2. The Second Meeting (2:8;3:5)
  3. The Third Meeting (3:6;5:1)
  4. The Fourth Meeting (5:2;6:3)
  5. The Fifth Meeting (6:4;8:4)
  6. The Literary Climax (8:5-7)
  7. The Conclusion (8:8-14)

¢w¢w¡mNew International Version¡n

 

Introduction to Song of Solomon

This book is a Divine allegory which represents the love between Christ and his church of true believers under figures taken from the relation and affection that subsist between a bridegroom and his espoused bride; an emblem often employed in Scripture as describing the nearest firmest and most sure relation: see Ps 45; Isa 54:5 6; 62:5; Jer 2:2; 3:1; also in Ezekiel Hosea and by our Lord himself Mt 9:15; 25:1: see also Re 21:2 9; Eph 5:27. There is no character in the church of Christ and no situation in which the believer is placed but what may be traced in this book as humble inquirers will find on comparing it with other Scriptures by the assistance of God the Holy Spirit in answer to their supplications. Much however of the language has been misunderstood by expositors and translators. The difference between the customs and manners of Europe and those of the East must especially be kept in view. The little acquaintance with eastern customs possessed by most of our early expositors and translators has in many cases prevented a correct rendering. Also the changes in our own language during the last two or three centuries affect the manner in which some expressions are viewed and they must not be judged by modern notions. But the great outlines rightly interpreted fully accord with the affections and experience of the sincere Christian.

¢w¢w Matthew Henry¡mConcise Commentary on Song of Solomon¡n

 

00 Introduction

 

SONG OF SOLOMON

INTRODUCTION

The Title of the Book

It is generally believed that the title ¡§Song of Songs¡¨ is a superlative expression (like ¡§heaven of heavens¡¨) to indicate the best of songs; though some explain it in the sense of a song made up of different songs or canticles all having one subject--love. (James Robertson D. D.)

The opening words ¡§The Song of Songs which is Solomon¡¦s ¡¨ are of the nature of a title added in later times--an author would hardly call his poem the Song of Songs--and therefore are not conclusive evidence as to the writer. (A. M. Mackay B. A.)

The Authorship of the Book

Solomon is expressly mentioned in the superscription as the author. Positive arguments for the genuineness of the superscription are--

(a) Its enigmatical and pregnant character and that mingling of description of the subject and of the author which is very probable and appropriate as emanating from the sacred poet himself but not as emanating from a later glossarist;

(b) The circumstance that at the beginning of the poem there would be no mention of its subject if the present superscription be pronounced inaccurate. The evidence in relation to the author furnished by the superscription is confirmed by the marked connection of the historical relations and allusious of the book with the age of Solomon. This is most decided and plain in such passages as Song of Solomon 4:8; Song of Solomon 7:5. The age of Solomon is farther suggested by the whole style and character of the work. ¡§The whole feeling the whole tone of the book and its manner which is in part splendid and in part beautiful and natural lead us at.once to think of the writer as belonging to the most flourishing period of the Hebrew constitution and history.¡¨ (Kleuker.) The account given of itself by the Song of Songs receives further confirmation from the fact that the mental and other peculiar characteristics of Solomon reappear in it It breathes the high and lofty spirit attributed to Solomon in 1 Kings 5:9 ff; and it could only have been written by a man whose experiences in connection with earthly love had been such as Solomon¡¦s. History testifies to Solomon¡¦s pleasure in gardens (Ecclesiastes 2:4-6). Here we have the natural groundwork of the allegorical description of nature contained in the Song. According to 1 Kings 4:33 Solomon ¡§discoursed concerning trees . . . cattle and birds ¡¨ etc. Now there is not a book in the whole of the Scriptures which contains in so brief a space so many allusions to natural objects. Again Solomon ¡§built houses¡¨ (Ecclesiastes 2:4; cp. 1 Kings 6:7.); and his taste for art shows itself in various ways in the Song (Song of Solomon 1:5; Song of Solomon 1:10-11; Song of Solomon 1:17; Song of Solomon 3:10-11; Song of Solomon 5:14-15; Song of Solomon 7:2; Song of Solomon 7:5; Song of Solomon 8:9). The testimony of the superscription to Solomon as the author is also confirmed by the reference to the Song found in the oldest prophets especially in Hosea; see also Joel 3:3; Isaiah 5:1. A further confirmation is that Psalms 45:1-17. which belongs to an early period presupposes the existence of the Song and is evidently a compendium thereof. (E. W. Hengstenberg D. D.)

If Solomon was indeed the author he must have written in the dialect used in the northern part of his country; and not in that with which he was most familiar. That he should have written so strongly in favour of an ideal of love the reverse of that which he adopted in practice is certainly improbable but not as Driver says ¡§out of the question.¡¨ Did not Burns in ¡§The Cotter¡¦s Saturday Night ¡¨ eloquently denounce the cruelty of that licentiousness which was his own besetting sin and is not all literature full of such inconsistencies? (A. M. Mackay B. A.)

The view most generally accepted at present is that the Song was the work of a poet in the northern kingdom composed not long after the separation of the two kingdoms probably about the middle of the tenth century before Christ. In evidence of its northern birthplace are the frequent and almost exclusive mention of localities in the north; the author¡¦s strongly expressed dislike of the luxury and expense of Solomon¡¦s court which necessitated the exactions that so contributed to the schisms between the two kingdoms (1 Kings 12:4 seq.; 2 Chronicles 10:1 seq.); the entire absence of all allusions to the temple and its worship; the exaltation of Tirzah to an equal place with Jerusalem as a type of beauty (Song of Solomon 6:4); dialectical peculiarities which can only be accounted for on this hypothesis or on the untenable one of an extremely late composition; the comparison of Hosea undoubtedly a northern writer which shows that the two authors ¡§lived in the same circle of images and that the same expressions were familiar to them.¡¨ (Renan.) This fact of a northern origin established it follows almost inevitably that the date of the poem must be placed somewhere in the middle of the tenth century for it was only during the period from 975 to 924 b.c. that Tirzah occupied the position of northern capital; and the whole tone and spirit of the book together with its treatment of Solomon is what we should expect at a time not far removed from the rupture of the two kingdoms. As yet tradition had not exaggerated the splendour of the Solomonic era: in the references to Solomon¡¦s guard his harem and his arsenal the figures are not extravagant as in the comparatively late accounts in Kings and Chronicles. A crowd of smaller indications point the same way e.g. the mention of Heshbon which had ceased to be an Israelitish town by Isaiah¡¦s time (Isaiah 15:8). The mention of the Tower of David as still possessing a garrison (Song of Solomon 7:4; Song of Solomon 4:4) the allusion to Pharaoh¡¦s equipages have a similar tendency; while it is almost inconceivable that Solomon himself or any author while that monarch was alive and his rule all-powerful could have represented him and his court in such an unfavourable light as they appear in the Song. But it is exactly the representation we should look for in a poet of the northern kingdom in the early years after it revolted against the tyranny of the Davidic dynasty. (Archdeacon Aglen D. D.)


The Purpose and Plan of the Book

There is no doubt that different speakers are introduced so as to give a dramatic appearance to the book; but they appear so abruptly that it is exceedingly difficult to say who or how many they are; and hence the determination of the purpose and plan of the whole book remains one of the most perplexing problems of Old Testament study.

1. In the original the distinction of male and female speakers is indicated by the genders of the words. We can thus so to speak discriminate the voices though we cannot clearly discern the features of the characters. In the R.V. a space between the verses denotes a change of speaker.

2. Of the characters of the piece one can be traced throughout viz. the ¡§Shulam-mite ¡¨ so named in Song of Solomon 6:13 (R.V.)
and generally understood to he a maiden of Shunem (compare 2 Kings 4:12). The ¡§daughters of Jerusalem ¡¨ who somewhat resemble the chorus in a Greek play though subsidiary are easily recognizable. The main question is whether the Shulammite has two suitors or only one; for according as this question is answered the division of dialogue must be made and the interpretation of the whole carried out.

(a) On the view that there is only one male speaker it is the king who falls in love with a rustic maiden and at length raises her to the position of his bride in the palace. The most of the dialogue on this view consists of the exchange of endearments between the lovers.

(b) The other opinion which many now hold is that the Shulammite has been betrothed to a shepherd lover; but she has been noticed by Solomon and his retinue on some royal journey (Song of Solomon 6:10-13) brought to Jerusalem and there surrounded by the women of the palace is plied with entreaties by the king in the hope of winning her affections. On this view it is explained that those speeches of a rustic suitor which do not befit the character of Solomon (see Song of Solomon 2:8-14) are the words of her absent lover recalled by the maiden herself to confirm her in her devotion. Towards the close the parted lovers are united (Song of Solomon 8:5-7) and the conclusion of the whole seems to be that true love is unquenchable and cannot be bought by wealth and position.

3. The conclusion to be drawn as to the purpose of the book depends upon the opinion we form of the characters introduced. On the view that has just been mentioned (b above)
the book would have an ethical aim--to exhibit the triumph of pure spontaneous love over all worldly and unworthy enticements; and the scene being laid in the time of Solomon (though the book could not thus have come from his hand) the protest would be all the more striking against the loose view of marriage which is associated with his reign. The lesson would be one on the sacredness of human love which our Lord Himself emphasized (Matthew 19:4-8 etc.). On the other view mentioned (a above)
while some would regard the book as nothing more than a collection of love-songs or a composite poem made up of songs such as arc found in other Eastern literature others think that the marriage of Solomon to Pharaoh¡¦s daughter or to a Galilean maiden whom he raised¡¦ to the throne is made typical of a higher and spiritual love. On this ground they suppose the book was taken into the Canon and has a counterpart in Psalms 45:1-17. This may be called a modification of the earliest known mode of interpreting the book which was allegorical. This view found among the Jews as early as the Fourth Book of Esdras (end of the first century (a.d.) and among Christian writers first in Origen (died a.d. 254) regarded the book as teaching symbolically the love of God to the nation of Israel or to the Church or to the individual soul; and the literature connected with the Song on this line of interpretation has been most extensive down to modern times. (James Robertson D. D.)

The mystical sense is false philosophically but it is true religiously. It corresponds to the great sanctification of love inaugurated by Christianity. (E. Renan.)

The Canonicity of the Book

This was a subject of dispute down to the assembly of Jewish doctors held at Jamnia about 90 a.d. when it was settled on the authority of Rabbi Akiba that ¡§no day in the history of the world is worth the day when the Song of Solomon was given to Israel ¡¨ and that ¡§the Song of Solomon is a holy of the holies ¡¨--though indeed its sanctity was still sometimes questioned in the second century after Christ. (Chambers¡¦s Encyclopaedia.)

Castellio was forced to leave Geneva in 1544 for having demanded its exclusion from the Canon as a mere amatory poem. (Chambers¡¦s Encyclopaedia.)

The story could only seem out of place in Holy Scripture to one who assigns to religion a very narrow sphere indeed and leaves outside its pale the largest and most important tracts of human life. Consider how large a part love plays in the literature of every nation how vividly it colours the experience of almost every life how powerfully for evil or for good it influences character and conduct and few will fail to appreciate and approve the words of Niebuhr: ¡§I should think there was something wanting in the Bible if we could not find in it any expression for the deepest and strongest sentiment of humanity. To the ancient Jew it must have been a witness for monogamy against polygamy for true and honest love as against the organized lust which then prevailed in king¡¦s courts. And by the modern Englishman its lessons are not less needed. How much misery and sin is occasioned by marriages made for money for position for mere convenience without that strong affection which can fuse two personalities into one; how often is a legal marriage made a cover for prostitution of the soul! So far from the poem taken in its primary sense being unworthy of the Bible it is to be wished that the Church would take to heart the lessons it teaches and inculcate them upon its children with growing insistence and earnestness. (A. M. Mackay B. A.).


 

SONG OF SOLOMON

INTRODUCTION

The Title of the Book

It is generally believed that the title ¡§Song of Songs¡¨ is a superlative expression (like ¡§heaven of heavens¡¨) to indicate the best of songs; though some explain it in the sense of a song made up of different songs or canticles all having one subject--love. (James Robertson D. D.)

The opening words ¡§The Song of Songs which is Solomon¡¦s ¡¨ are of the nature of a title added in later times--an author would hardly call his poem the Song of Songs--and therefore are not conclusive evidence as to the writer. (A. M. Mackay B. A.)

The Authorship of the Book

Solomon is expressly mentioned in the superscription as the author. Positive arguments for the genuineness of the superscription are--

(a) Its enigmatical and pregnant character and that mingling of description of the subject and of the author which is very probable and appropriate as emanating from the sacred poet himself but not as emanating from a later glossarist;

(b) The circumstance that at the beginning of the poem there would be no mention of its subject if the present superscription be pronounced inaccurate. The evidence in relation to the author furnished by the superscription is confirmed by the marked connection of the historical relations and allusious of the book with the age of Solomon. This is most decided and plain in such passages as Song of Solomon 4:8; Song of Solomon 7:5. The age of Solomon is farther suggested by the whole style and character of the work. ¡§The whole feeling the whole tone of the book and its manner which is in part splendid and in part beautiful and natural lead us at.once to think of the writer as belonging to the most flourishing period of the Hebrew constitution and history.¡¨ (Kleuker.) The account given of itself by the Song of Songs receives further confirmation from the fact that the mental and other peculiar characteristics of Solomon reappear in it It breathes the high and lofty spirit attributed to Solomon in 1 Kings 5:9 ff; and it could only have been written by a man whose experiences in connection with earthly love had been such as Solomon¡¦s. History testifies to Solomon¡¦s pleasure in gardens (Ecclesiastes 2:4-6). Here we have the natural groundwork of the allegorical description of nature contained in the Song. According to 1 Kings 4:33 Solomon ¡§discoursed concerning trees . . . cattle and birds ¡¨ etc. Now there is not a book in the whole of the Scriptures which contains in so brief a space so many allusions to natural objects. Again Solomon ¡§built houses¡¨ (Ecclesiastes 2:4; cp. 1 Kings 6:7.); and his taste for art shows itself in various ways in the Song (Song of Solomon 1:5; Song of Solomon 1:10-11; Song of Solomon 1:17; Song of Solomon 3:10-11; Song of Solomon 5:14-15; Song of Solomon 7:2; Song of Solomon 7:5; Song of Solomon 8:9). The testimony of the superscription to Solomon as the author is also confirmed by the reference to the Song found in the oldest prophets especially in Hosea; see also Joel 3:3; Isaiah 5:1. A further confirmation is that Psalms 45:1-17. which belongs to an early period presupposes the existence of the Song and is evidently a compendium thereof. (E. W. Hengstenberg D. D.)

If Solomon was indeed the author he must have written in the dialect used in the northern part of his country; and not in that with which he was most familiar. That he should have written so strongly in favour of an ideal of love the reverse of that which he adopted in practice is certainly improbable but not as Driver says ¡§out of the question.¡¨ Did not Burns in ¡§The Cotter¡¦s Saturday Night ¡¨ eloquently denounce the cruelty of that licentiousness which was his own besetting sin and is not all literature full of such inconsistencies? (A. M. Mackay B. A.)

The view most generally accepted at present is that the Song was the work of a poet in the northern kingdom composed not long after the separation of the two kingdoms probably about the middle of the tenth century before Christ. In evidence of its northern birthplace are the frequent and almost exclusive mention of localities in the north; the author¡¦s strongly expressed dislike of the luxury and expense of Solomon¡¦s court which necessitated the exactions that so contributed to the schisms between the two kingdoms (1 Kings 12:4 seq.; 2 Chronicles 10:1 seq.); the entire absence of all allusions to the temple and its worship; the exaltation of Tirzah to an equal place with Jerusalem as a type of beauty (Song of Solomon 6:4); dialectical peculiarities which can only be accounted for on this hypothesis or on the untenable one of an extremely late composition; the comparison of Hosea undoubtedly a northern writer which shows that the two authors ¡§lived in the same circle of images and that the same expressions were familiar to them.¡¨ (Renan.) This fact of a northern origin established it follows almost inevitably that the date of the poem must be placed somewhere in the middle of the tenth century for it was only during the period from 975 to 924 b.c. that Tirzah occupied the position of northern capital; and the whole tone and spirit of the book together with its treatment of Solomon is what we should expect at a time not far removed from the rupture of the two kingdoms. As yet tradition had not exaggerated the splendour of the Solomonic era: in the references to Solomon¡¦s guard his harem and his arsenal the figures are not extravagant as in the comparatively late accounts in Kings and Chronicles. A crowd of smaller indications point the same way e.g. the mention of Heshbon which had ceased to be an Israelitish town by Isaiah¡¦s time (Isaiah 15:8). The mention of the Tower of David as still possessing a garrison (Song of Solomon 7:4; Song of Solomon 4:4) the allusion to Pharaoh¡¦s equipages have a similar tendency; while it is almost inconceivable that Solomon himself or any author while that monarch was alive and his rule all-powerful could have represented him and his court in such an unfavourable light as they appear in the Song. But it is exactly the representation we should look for in a poet of the northern kingdom in the early years after it revolted against the tyranny of the Davidic dynasty. (Archdeacon Aglen D. D.)


The Purpose and Plan of the Book

There is no doubt that different speakers are introduced so as to give a dramatic appearance to the book; but they appear so abruptly that it is exceedingly difficult to say who or how many they are; and hence the determination of the purpose and plan of the whole book remains one of the most perplexing problems of Old Testament study.

1. In the original the distinction of male and female speakers is indicated by the genders of the words. We can thus so to speak discriminate the voices though we cannot clearly discern the features of the characters. In the R.V. a space between the verses denotes a change of speaker.

2. Of the characters of the piece one can be traced throughout viz. the ¡§Shulam-mite ¡¨ so named in Song of Solomon 6:13 (R.V.)
and generally understood to he a maiden of Shunem (compare 2 Kings 4:12). The ¡§daughters of Jerusalem ¡¨ who somewhat resemble the chorus in a Greek play though subsidiary are easily recognizable. The main question is whether the Shulammite has two suitors or only one; for according as this question is answered the division of dialogue must be made and the interpretation of the whole carried out.

(a) On the view that there is only one male speaker it is the king who falls in love with a rustic maiden and at length raises her to the position of his bride in the palace. The most of the dialogue on this view consists of the exchange of endearments between the lovers.

(b) The other opinion which many now hold is that the Shulammite has been betrothed to a shepherd lover; but she has been noticed by Solomon and his retinue on some royal journey (Song of Solomon 6:10-13) brought to Jerusalem and there surrounded by the women of the palace is plied with entreaties by the king in the hope of winning her affections. On this view it is explained that those speeches of a rustic suitor which do not befit the character of Solomon (see Song of Solomon 2:8-14) are the words of her absent lover recalled by the maiden herself to confirm her in her devotion. Towards the close the parted lovers are united (Song of Solomon 8:5-7) and the conclusion of the whole seems to be that true love is unquenchable and cannot be bought by wealth and position.

3. The conclusion to be drawn as to the purpose of the book depends upon the opinion we form of the characters introduced. On the view that has just been mentioned (b above)
the book would have an ethical aim--to exhibit the triumph of pure spontaneous love over all worldly and unworthy enticements; and the scene being laid in the time of Solomon (though the book could not thus have come from his hand) the protest would be all the more striking against the loose view of marriage which is associated with his reign. The lesson would be one on the sacredness of human love which our Lord Himself emphasized (Matthew 19:4-8 etc.). On the other view mentioned (a above)
while some would regard the book as nothing more than a collection of love-songs or a composite poem made up of songs such as arc found in other Eastern literature others think that the marriage of Solomon to Pharaoh¡¦s daughter or to a Galilean maiden whom he raised¡¦ to the throne is made typical of a higher and spiritual love. On this ground they suppose the book was taken into the Canon and has a counterpart in Psalms 45:1-17. This may be called a modification of the earliest known mode of interpreting the book which was allegorical. This view found among the Jews as early as the Fourth Book of Esdras (end of the first century (a.d.) and among Christian writers first in Origen (died a.d. 254) regarded the book as teaching symbolically the love of God to the nation of Israel or to the Church or to the individual soul; and the literature connected with the Song on this line of interpretation has been most extensive down to modern times. (James Robertson D. D.)

The mystical sense is false philosophically but it is true religiously. It corresponds to the great sanctification of love inaugurated by Christianity. (E. Renan.)

The Canonicity of the Book

This was a subject of dispute down to the assembly of Jewish doctors held at Jamnia about 90 a.d. when it was settled on the authority of Rabbi Akiba that ¡§no day in the history of the world is worth the day when the Song of Solomon was given to Israel ¡¨ and that ¡§the Song of Solomon is a holy of the holies ¡¨--though indeed its sanctity was still sometimes questioned in the second century after Christ. (Chambers¡¦s Encyclopaedia.)

Castellio was forced to leave Geneva in 1544 for having demanded its exclusion from the Canon as a mere amatory poem. (Chambers¡¦s Encyclopaedia.)

The story could only seem out of place in Holy Scripture to one who assigns to religion a very narrow sphere indeed and leaves outside its pale the largest and most important tracts of human life. Consider how large a part love plays in the literature of every nation how vividly it colours the experience of almost every life how powerfully for evil or for good it influences character and conduct and few will fail to appreciate and approve the words of Niebuhr: ¡§I should think there was something wanting in the Bible if we could not find in it any expression for the deepest and strongest sentiment of humanity. To the ancient Jew it must have been a witness for monogamy against polygamy for true and honest love as against the organized lust which then prevailed in king¡¦s courts. And by the modern Englishman its lessons are not less needed. How much misery and sin is occasioned by marriages made for money for position for mere convenience without that strong affection which can fuse two personalities into one; how often is a legal marriage made a cover for prostitution of the soul! So far from the poem taken in its primary sense being unworthy of the Bible it is to be wished that the Church would take to heart the lessons it teaches and inculcate them upon its children with growing insistence and earnestness. (A. M. Mackay B. A.).

¢w¢w¡mThe Biblical Illustrator¡n