Song of Solomon

Introduction

The Song of Solomon stands unique among the Scriptures—an extended love poem celebrating the passion between a bridegroom and his bride. Its presence in the canon has puzzled some readers: where is God's name? Where are the laws, the prophecies, the explicit theology? Yet this very book was called by Rabbi Akiva 'the Holy of Holies' among the writings, and the church has treasured it for millennia as profound revelation of both human love rightly ordered and divine love typologically displayed. The Song teaches that passionate desire between husband and wife is not merely permitted but celebrated, a gift of the Creator woven into creation's fabric from the beginning.

The title 'Song of Songs' (שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים, Shir HaShirim) is a Hebrew superlative—the greatest of songs, the supreme song, as 'King of Kings' means the supreme king. Tradition attributes it to Solomon, Israel's king renowned for wisdom and for composing 1,005 songs (1 Kings 4:32). The text names Solomon explicitly (1:1, 5; 3:7, 9, 11; 8:11-12), and the luxuriant imagery—spices, perfumes, imported goods, royal splendor—fits the Solomonic era's prosperity. Whether Solomon composed it for a particular bride or as idealized wisdom poetry, the song reflects his reign's golden age.

The poem unfolds as dialogue between the beloved (the Shulamite bride) and her lover (the royal bridegroom), with occasional interjections from the 'daughters of Jerusalem'—a chorus providing context and heightening dramatic tension. The structure resists neat outlining; like love itself, it moves by association, memory, longing, and consummation rather than linear argument. Scenes shift between countryside and palace, vineyard and bedchamber, seeking and finding. This dreamlike quality has generated diverse interpretations, but the central thread is unmistakable: mutual desire, exclusive devotion, and the consummation of covenant love.

Throughout church history, interpreters have read the Song on multiple levels. The allegorical tradition—dominant from Origen through the Puritans—saw the bridegroom as Christ and the bride as the church or the individual soul. The literal tradition emphasizes the plain sense: a celebration of marital love providing wisdom for human relationships. The Reformed approach holds both together: the literal sense grounds the text (this is genuine love poetry celebrating marriage), while typological significance emerges from the canon's larger witness (marriage itself images Christ and the church, per Ephesians 5). Neither reading should exclude the other. The Song celebrates human marriage precisely because human marriage reflects divine love.

Book Outline

• Mutual Longing (1:1-2:7) — The bride and bridegroom express desire; she is brought to his chambers
• Springtime Pursuit (2:8-3:5) — He comes leaping on the mountains; she seeks him by night
• The Wedding Procession (3:6-5:1) — Solomon's arrival; the wedding night consummated
• Seeking and Finding (5:2-6:9) — A troubled dream; the bride describes her beloved; reconciliation
• The Beauty of the Bride (6:10-8:4) — The bridegroom praises her; the Shulamite's loveliness
• The Seal of Love (8:5-14) — Love strong as death; the vineyard; final invitation

Key Themes

• The Goodness of Marital Desire: The Song celebrates sexual desire within marriage as good, beautiful, and God-given. The beloved longs for her bridegroom's kisses; he delights in her body without shame. This corrects both asceticism (which views physical desire as inherently sinful) and licentiousness (which divorces desire from covenant). Passion belongs within the marriage covenant, where it flourishes as God intended from Eden.
• Exclusive Devotion: 'I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine' (6:3) captures the Song's ethic of exclusivity. The love celebrated here is not generic or diffuse but particular and jealous. The bride belongs wholly to one bridegroom; he to her alone. This mutual possession within covenant provides the security in which vulnerability and intimacy thrive. The refrain warns against awakening love before its proper time—exclusivity requires patience and commitment.
• Love Strong as Death: The Song's theological climax declares love's unconquerable power: 'Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it' (8:6-7). This love—fierce, enduring, and inextinguishable—transcends mere sentiment. It costs everything and cannot be purchased. Such love images the divine love that pursues sinners through death itself.
• The Beauty of the Beloved: Both bridegroom and bride lavish praise upon each other's beauty in elaborate 'wasfs' (Arabic: descriptive poems). He catalogs her features—eyes, hair, teeth, lips, neck, breasts—in language both sensuous and symbolic. She describes him with equal ardor. This mutual admiration teaches that covenant love involves seeing and celebrating the beloved's particular beauty, not generic attraction but delighted attention to this one person.
• Seeking and Finding: Twice the bride seeks her beloved through the city streets at night (3:1-4; 5:6-8). The tension of absence heightens the joy of presence. Love is not static possession but dynamic pursuit. Even within established covenant, desire must be cultivated, presence must be sought, love must be actively maintained. The seeking heart eventually finds, but the seeking itself is part of love's nature.
• The Garden Enclosed: The bridegroom calls his bride 'a garden enclosed, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed' (4:12). This imagery speaks of sexual purity preserved for one's spouse—a garden whose delights are not public but reserved for the rightful owner. When the bride invites, 'Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits' (4:16), consummation occurs within this protected, exclusive space. The garden imagery recalls Eden, suggesting marriage restores something of paradise.
• Christ and the Church: While the Song's literal sense celebrates human marriage, its canonical placement invites typological reading. If marriage images Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:31-32), then the Song's bridegroom images Christ pursuing His bride with passionate, sacrificial, exclusive love. The church is the bride adorned for her husband, sought when she strays, celebrated in her beauty. This reading does not replace the literal sense but crowns it—human marriage points beyond itself to the ultimate marriage.

Key Verses

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.

My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.

Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes.

A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies.

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.

Historical Context

The Song of Solomon derives from Israel's united monarchy under Solomon (circa 970-930 BC), a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and cultural flourishing. Solomon's reign saw extensive trade relationships, building projects (including the Temple), and literary production. The spices, perfumes, imported woods, and royal luxury pervading the Song reflect this era's wealth. Solomon's legendary wisdom included musical and poetic composition—he authored 1,005 songs and 3,000 proverbs (1 Kings 4:32). Whether this Song was composed for a particular bride among his many wives or represents idealized wisdom poetry, it breathes the Solomonic era's opulence and literary sophistication.

The Song belongs to the wisdom literature tradition alongside Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, also attributed to Solomon. While Proverbs instructs in practical righteousness and Ecclesiastes contemplates life's meaning under the sun, the Song explores love—complementing wisdom's curriculum. Ancient Near Eastern parallels exist (Egyptian love poetry shares similar conventions), but the Song's canonical placement transforms its significance: this is Israel's Scripture, revealing God's design for human love.

Literary Style

The Song is lyric poetry of the highest order—sensuous, symbolic, and sophisticated. Its primary literary device is dialogue: the bride and bridegroom address each other directly, with the daughters of Jerusalem functioning as chorus. Refrains punctuate the poem ('I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem...'), creating structural markers. The 'wasf' (descriptive poem cataloging the beloved's features) appears multiple times, each partner praising the other in elaborate metaphor.

The imagery draws from nature (lilies, gazelles, doves, vineyards, gardens, mountains), royal luxury (chariots, ivory, gold, spices), and military might (towers, shields, armies with banners). This fusion of pastoral and courtly elements creates a world where shepherd and king merge—possibly reflecting Solomon's identity or perhaps the democratization of royal love language for all covenant marriages. The metaphors are evocative rather than photographic; comparing teeth to shorn sheep or neck to the tower of David captures qualities (uniformity, stateliness) rather than visual resemblance.

The Hebrew is among the most difficult in Scripture, containing unique vocabulary and grammatical forms. The Septuagint translators struggled with numerous terms; the KJV occasionally represents interpretive conjecture. This linguistic richness suggests the poet pushed language to its limits, inventing expressions for experiences that transcend common speech.

Theological Significance

The Song of Solomon makes essential contributions to biblical theology. First, it affirms the goodness of creation, including physical desire and bodily beauty. Against Gnostic or ascetic tendencies to spiritualize faith and denigrate the physical, the Song insists that bodies matter, desire is good (rightly ordered), and material creation declares God's glory. The incarnational logic of Christianity—God becoming flesh—finds preparation here: if flesh were inherently evil, why would Scripture celebrate it so lavishly?

Second, the Song provides the Bible's most extended treatment of marital love, complementing Genesis 2's institution of marriage, Proverbs' warnings against adultery, and the prophets' use of marriage as covenant metaphor. Here we see not instruction about marriage but immersion in its experience—longing, delight, consummation, security, admiration. This experiential dimension teaches what no list of duties could convey: what covenant love feels like from within.

Third, the Song anchors the biblical metaphor of God as husband and Israel/church as bride. Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel employ this imagery; Ephesians 5 and Revelation 19-21 consummate it. But metaphors require literal grounding—if we don't understand human marriage, divine marriage language becomes empty abstraction. The Song provides that grounding, so that when Scripture calls Christ the bridegroom, we know what bridegroom love looks like: pursuing, admiring, exclusive, passionate, enduring.

Fourth, the climactic declaration that 'love is strong as death' (8:6) elevates love to cosmic significance. Death is Scripture's great enemy, the last foe to be destroyed. That love matches death's power anticipates the gospel: divine love entered death and emerged victorious. The love that 'many waters cannot quench' points toward a love that many sins, failures, and even death itself cannot defeat—the love of Christ for His bride.

Christ in Song of Solomon

The typological reading of the Song as depicting Christ and the church has deep roots in both Jewish (where the bridegroom represents God and the bride Israel) and Christian interpretation. While respecting the literal sense, several features invite this reading:

The bridegroom seeks his bride with relentless devotion, coming to her even when she is slow to respond (5:2-6). Christ likewise pursues His church, knocking at the door, seeking the lost sheep, leaving the ninety-nine to find the one. His love is not passive but active, not reactive but initiating.

The bridegroom delights in his bride's beauty, declaring her 'all fair' with 'no spot' in her (4:7). Christ presents the church to Himself 'not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish' (Ephesians 5:27). This is not beauty she possessed naturally but beauty His love creates—He sees her as she will be, cleansed by His blood and perfected by His Spirit.

The bride's identity is found in belonging: 'I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine' (6:3). The church's identity is similarly relational—we are Christ's, purchased by His blood, and He is ours, given by the Father. This mutual possession defines Christian existence.

The invitation 'Come into his garden' (4:16) and the response 'I am come into my garden' (5:1) echo Eden's intimacy lost and restored. Christ, the second Adam, restores His bride to paradise. The marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9) consummates what the Song anticipates.

The love 'strong as death' with flames that 'many waters cannot quench' (8:6-7) finds ultimate expression in Christ's love that passed through death's waters and emerged triumphant. Romans 8:35-39 echoes this: neither death nor life nor any created thing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Relationship to the New Testament

The New Testament does not directly quote the Song of Solomon, yet its theology of marriage pervades apostolic teaching. Ephesians 5:22-33 presents marriage as imaging Christ and the church—husband loving as Christ loved, wife responding as the church responds. This framework makes the Song's bridegroom-bride dynamic a christological text by canonical implication.

Revelation's marriage imagery—'the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready' (19:7)—brings the Song's anticipation to eschatological fulfillment. The bride adorned for her husband (Revelation 21:2) echoes the Shulamite's preparation. The garden-city of the New Jerusalem, with its river of life and tree of life, restores Eden's intimacy on a cosmic scale.

Jesus' self-identification as bridegroom (Matthew 9:15; 25:1-13; John 3:29) claims the role the Song celebrates. The bridegroom's presence brings joy; his absence brings fasting. The wise virgins await his coming; the wedding feast marks history's goal.

Paul's concern that believers not unite with prostitutes—'know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ?' (1 Corinthians 6:15)—assumes the exclusive devotion the Song celebrates. Sexual union creates one-flesh reality; that reality belongs within covenant. The Song's ethic undergirds New Testament sexual ethics.

Practical Application

The Song of Solomon offers wisdom for marriage, singleness, and spiritual life. For married couples, it models several practices: verbal admiration (regularly expressing delight in one's spouse), cultivated desire (not assuming passion maintains itself but actively nurturing it), exclusive devotion (forsaking all others in thought as well as deed), and protected intimacy (creating space—physical, emotional, temporal—for covenant love to flourish).

The refrain 'stir not up, nor awake love, until it please' (2:7; 3:5; 8:4) addresses the unmarried: desire has its proper season. Awakening love prematurely—through pornography, emotional affairs, or physical intimacy outside marriage—distorts what God designed for covenant context. Patience in singleness honors love's proper timing.

The bride's troubled dream of seeking and not finding (5:6-8) speaks to spiritual dryness. Even in established relationship with Christ, believers experience seasons when He seems absent, when seeking yields no immediate finding. The Song counsels persistence—keep seeking, keep knocking, describe your beloved to others (5:9-16), and reunion will come.

The declaration that love cannot be purchased (8:7) challenges transactional approaches to both human and divine relationships. Love is given, not earned. Works cannot buy God's favor; it comes as gift. Manipulation cannot secure a spouse's heart; only genuine love wins genuine love.

Finally, the Song invites meditation on Christ's love for His church. If human bridegrooms should love like this—pursuing, admiring, delighting, sacrificing—how much more does Christ love His bride? Contemplating His 'better than wine' love, His delight in calling us 'all fair,' His fierce jealousy over our hearts, His love stronger than death itself—such meditation transforms both our worship and our human relationships.