Song of Solomon: the song of love
The Song of Solomon, or Song of Songs, is a poem of love between a man and a woman, who long for each other, meet, lose each other and are one again. The church has read it both as a song of the married love God gives and as a song of Christ and his church.
About the book
The book opens, "This is Solomon’s Song of Songs" (Song of Songs 1:1). Song of songs is the Hebrew way of saying the finest song, as the holy of holies is the holiest place.
Following its heading, Jews and Christians long took Solomon as its author. Solomon's "songs numbered a thousand and five" (1 Kings 4:32), and his name comes several times in the Song. Many scholars note that the heading can also mean ‘for Solomon’ or ‘about Solomon’, and from its language read the book as a collection of love poems gathered later. Other scholars hold to Solomon's time, noting that the Song's places range over the whole land, north and south, as in the days of one kingdom. The map under the Jesus tab sets it in Solomon's time, the united monarchy (about 1050–930 BC).
How it unfolds
Readers differ over its structure, but the song moves broadly like this:
| Chapters | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1–2 | Longing and meeting |
| 3–5:1 | Seeking by night, Solomon's wedding procession, the wedding |
| 5:2–6:3 | Losing each other and finding again |
| 6:4–8:14 | Union, and the praise of love |
The woman, called the Shulammite (Song of Songs 6:13), and the man she loves sing in turn, and the daughters of Jerusalem join in. Three times she charges them, "Do not arouse or awaken love until the time is right" (Song of Songs 2:7): love has its time.
Key passages
The two sing that they belong to each other:
My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures his flock among the lilies.
Song of Songs 2:16
After their parting she says it again the other way round, "I belong to my beloved and he belongs to me" (Song of Songs 6:3). Near the end the song confesses how strong love is:
Set me as a seal over your heart, as a seal upon your arm. For love is as strong as death … Mighty waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away.
Song of Songs 8:6-7
Such love cannot be bought with all a man's wealth. On any reading, the Song speaks in the language of love between a man and a woman. From the beginning God made man and woman, and "they will become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24): the love of husband and wife, and the joy of the body within it, is no shame but God's gift. What does the Bible say about sex and marriage? says more.
The book and Christ
The Song hardly names God, so it has long been read in more than one way. Ancient Jewish interpreters read it as the love between God and Israel. Origen in the third century, Bernard of Clairvaux in the twelfth, who preached eighty-six sermons on it, and many Fathers and medieval teachers read it as the love of Christ and his church, or of Christ and the soul. In On Loving God, Bernard hears the bride as the church, faint with love as she looks on Christ crucified Bernard, On Loving God 3.1. A reading that says one thing to mean another is called allegory.
Many interpreters today read the Song first as a song in praise of the love of husband and wife that God made. And many hold the two readings together: a poem of married love that points beyond itself to a greater love. Interpreting Scripture, in the theology course, sets out these ways of reading.
The New Testament never quotes the Song, but it calls Christ the bridegroom and the church his bride. Paul tells husbands to love their wives "just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her" (Ephesians 5:25), and says of marriage, "This mystery is profound, but I am speaking about Christ and the church" (Ephesians 5:32). At the last, "the marriage of the Lamb has come" (Revelation 19:7). However the Song is read, Scripture binds married love and the love of Christ together.
Reading it
Read its eight chapters at one sitting, aloud if you can; half an hour is enough. Begin with Song of Songs 1. Follow who is speaking, and take its images of gazelles, gardens and vineyards, the language of ancient love poetry, as pictures. Then go on to Isaiah.
Practice
- Practice 1 of 5
What does the Hebrew name ‘Song of Songs’ mean?
- Practice 2 of 5
Which pairs a reading of the Song with readers who held it?
- Practice 3 of 5
To what does Song of Songs 8:6 compare love?
- Practice 4 of 5
In Ephesians 5:32, speaking of husband and wife becoming one, of whom does Paul say "I am speaking"?
- Practice 5 of 5
Which is true of who wrote the Song?
Reading to the end marks it read; tap to switch it.
Related topics
Lessons from the Bible, the church's creeds and classic commentary. Each book's author and date are given as the church has received them, and scholars who see them otherwise are presented fairly. Scripture quotations: BSB.