By Neil Earle
In Everyman’s Bible Commentary, pastor-scholar Paige Patterson laid down this challenge:
“In a world awash with the debris of broken homes, crushed spirits and fractured dreams, God’s people need the message of The Song of Solomon as never before. The Song is a righteous antidote to a licentious society that has prostituted the sacred nature of human love. Hope exudes from its pages…My prayer is that this brief commentary will encourage expository preachers everywhere to do the unimaginable – preach through the Song of Solomon” (page 9).
Now there’s an invitation. Trouble is, as Patterson goes on to say, the symbols, metaphors, allusions and geography behind the Song is very foreign to us today. If Shakespeare needs decoding, how much more a piece of poetry from Iron Age Israel. Fortunately there are learned Christians, who have put together enough background to this delightful jewel of Hebrew literature that we can begin to intuit its message. I’m not alone in thinking Craig Glickman’s A Song For Lovers the best popular attempt at this. Glickman realizes much of the Song is sheer poetry and he is not afraid to allow for lots of “poetic license” in his rendering of the message.
Such an approach is essential. Take Song 4:1, for example, “Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from Mount Gilead.” Wow! What could that mean? Would you advise a young man to use that today? Probably not. Glickman uses this as an example of textual difficulty calling for a translator’s imaginative ingenuity. So he explains it this way:
“It is perhaps the end of a long day, so the goats are descending from the mountain. Across the valley is seen an entire flock moving together down the mountains. The individual members of the flock blend in to form a dark stream flowing smoothly to the valley. The peacefulness of the evening, the flowing movement of the flock tell us that the long flowing hair of the bride is very attractive, almost hypnotic to the king” (page 14).
Bravo, Glickman. With his aid, with the help of Paige Patterson and the insights of John Balchim’s chapter in The New Bible Commentary (NBC) it is possible to unlock this outstanding piece of Scripture. I’ll borrow a page from Glickman and turn this book into a seven act play, illustrating each chapter with classic love songs from popular culture of the 20th century.
For purposes of this article the seven acts can be seen as:
Act One: Dating Snaphsots
From the Royal Album/ Theme: “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” (Song
1:1-2:3)
Act Two: Heavy Date/
Theme: “I Only Wanna Be With You” (Song 2:4-2:17)
Act Three: Pre-Marital
Jitters and The Wedding/ Theme: “One Hand, One Heart” (3:1-11)
Act Four: The Wedding
Night/Theme: “The Way You Look Tonight” (4:1-5:1)
Act Five: First Fight and
Kiss and Make Up: “I Will Always Love You”
Act Six: Escape Weekend/
Theme: “So Happy Together” (7:11-8:5)
Act Seven: Flashback
Reflections/Theme: “I Must Have Done Something Good” (8:8-14)
At least this is one way to organize the material. Each interpreter will do it a little differently. Still, the thought of seeing this Song as a sequence of events in the life of two young people very much in love, very much infatuated, very much interested in the physical aspect of their relationship yet not doing anything improper is what makes this such a priceless part of Scripture. Paul McCartney and Wings had a song in the 1970s called “Silly Love Songs” wherein he wondered, why is it that people want to fill the world with silly love songs. Then he pauses, musically, and asks a cute question in the “bridge” section:
What’s wrong with
that/I’d like to know
Cause here I go,
again…..I love you (repeat, repeat, repeat)
See how it works?
This special Song is not written by a prudish God or a morbid deity whose only advice to young people is “Don’t. Don’t Don’t.” And again – “Don’t.” Without compromising the highest standards of biblical morality these two young lovers show how wonderful romantic attraction can be, why a generous Creator knew it was needed to draw young folks together to start life in sequence. It’s good to remember in instructing young people about their sexuality the healthy and longstanding WCG insight that sex is God’s creation, that he invented it, that he set in motion the dynamic stimuli that attract us to each other. This is the same benign being who pronounced the male and female anatomy and all that goes with it as “very good” (Genesis 1:31). Note: not just good. Very good.
At SEP teaching Christian Living classes I found that most young people have no problem agreeing with that. And that’s why the richly imbedded message of this Song needs to reach them. “Well begun is half done” and if our youth can be inspired by the healthy yet godly approach contained herein everyone benefits.
Okay. Ready for Act One?
Remember that poetry, as the Elizabethans said, is “right royal”i.e. can be thrilling, high-toned, richly ornate language. This opening scene is probably best explained a s two young people at a banquet or the royal table totally “twitterpated” (remember Bambi?) with each other and longing for physical closeness. Or it could capture the young girl out on the terrace of an evening drinking in the moon, the mood and the moment. Guess what she’s thinking about? The opening lines are frankly sexual. “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—for your love is better than wine.”
Jimmy Rodgers made a mint singing “Kisses sweeter than wine” in the 1950s and it is a direct steal from this Song. (Wush I’d thought of it first!) The lesson here is that she, the girl, highly regards him as the leader. She desires him to initiate affection. Not that he will. He’s got his hormones flying in formation. He clearly began the relationship – brought her to the big city, to the royal palace so they could get to know each other better. Wise move. She admires his leadership but is also clearly intoxicated with him. Lovesick. In such a condition its good to have other people around so we first meet the “daughters of Jerusalem” in Song 1:4. This relationship is public and above board. Good idea. They are not tempting each other by always being alone.
The intervention of the Daughters of Jerusalem – perhaps ladies of the court who function as a sort of Greek chorus (or backup group if you want to redo this as an opera) throughout – brings her back to reality. It is his “name” that is like strong perfume. He has character. He has a good reputation. The first questions parents ask: “What kind of boy is he?” As Glicknman says: “She should not be so infatuated that she imagines a scoundrel or a knave to be her knight in shiningg armor (page 31). “No wonder the maidens love you.” Yes, her guy, her beau is well known, not some reclusive “moody blues” fellow with no fixed address who drops in from who knows where. He’s a hit. That’s why:
There’s nothing you can
say can tear me away from my guy,
Nothing you can do cause
I’m stuck like glue to my guy.
Silly love talk. But we need more of it, especially as we grow older in marriage. What excellent principles of courtship and dating in or out of marriage we see here already!
She continues to praise him (verse 5-7). She reveals herself as somewhat shy and that innocent virginal quality is part of her appeal to him. Another thing: She has had a generally strict upbringing and…it wasn’t the worst thing really. She says: “My mother’s sons (her older brothers) were angry with me.” That’s the way it feels to a young person but at the end of the Song she reveals that they had her best interest at heart (Song 8:8-10).
She wants to be with him. Very natural in her state (verse 7-8), When he sees her coming he responds with ardent love talk and now the poetry needs some decoding. “I liken you my darling to a mare harnessed to one of the chariots of Pharoah” (verse 9). What is he saying: “You look like a horse?”
No. As Patterson says, for the ancients well-bred horses symbolized grandeur, beauty, stateliness. Even the fabled Helen of Troy was compared to a “Thessalian steed.” Glickman notes that the lead horse in Pharoah’s famous chariot squadrons was always the prize of the lot – “uniquely noble and beautiful.” She returns the compliment – her beau is like myrrh and henna (verses 13-14) which was the Chanel Number Five or the Max Factor of its day. “Night and day I think of you” by Cole Porter comes close to expressing the emotional tone here. She clearly desires physical union but knows that everything will happen in its time – healthy drives, under control. As John Balchin comments in NBC: “The world says, any time, any place. God says, my time, my place.” This explains the references scattered throughout to “the little foxes that can devour the vine” throughout. The hormones need to be there but they have to be flying in formation.
From 1:15 to 2:3 the love talk is very intense. Infatuation is anything but logical so it is difficult to interpret it all, especially 3000 or 2500 years later. Glickman explains the sexual tension that is building, something most engaged couples know about:
“As they come closer to marriage, restraint becomes more necessary (the little foxes)…nothing is wrong with suppression – the conscious restraint of natural impulses. For example, you may have an imulse to punch someone in the nose, but it is good to suppress that impulse and restrain yourself.”
For sure, no one can give an exact blueprint in how to carry out a godly courtship. There is no such manual on the market. But already from Act One of this splendid Song we see some very helpful principles at work. They encourage wise restraint in the face of passion. This mature reaction under her fiance’s steady direction is the reason she grows in self-confidence and self-esteem as Balchin explains:
“She sees herself as a beautiful flower (the Rose of Sharon). It is a very beautiful thing how being truly loved can bring about a transformation in the view you have of yourself. As believers we are the object of Christ’s unfailing love, and we are beautiful in his eyes” (NBC, page 621).
The motif of exhilirating fun takes over here. She remembers his last, lingering romantic embrace. She remembers having to heed the wise advice: “Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.” (2:7). Verse 8 always reminds me of the many love songs about the guy coning to get the girl in whatever mode is used at the time. In Oklahoma, all about young love, Rodgers and Hammerstein set Curly and Laurie in a “surrey with the fringe on top.” In the Sixties it was “Let’s go surfin’ now, everybody’s learnin’ how, come on safari with me” or “Honda, Honda, faster, faster.”
The technology changes but true exhiliration of a fun date never does when you’re young and in love. He exemplifes male vigor – “like a gazelle or a young stag” (2:9). Maybe he drives a Mustang!?. But it doesn’t matter. It’s springtime, time for courting. And wasn’t it another poet who said,
In the spring a young man’s fancy, lightly turns to thoughts of love.
His voice thrills her, and that’s a sure mark of young love – the voice, away from the explicitly sexual overtones. “Arise, come my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.” He responds in kind: “Let me hear your voice.” This is one reason 33% of cell phone users are young people. They can’t get enough of each other’s voice. Long may they feel that way!
There’s the athletic image again – a guy on a motorcycle is hard to resist – “Turn my lover and be like a gazelle or like a young stage on the rugged hills.” It’s been a good date. Ah, to be young again.
Now that we’ve laid out a few principles about how to interpret this Song we can rush through a bit and leave each reader to paint in the blanks.
That’s getting close to the way we need to decode this brillaintly rich love song. It is poetry after all so it gives us a little room for the famous “poetic license.”