The renowned biblical book The Song of Songs is undoubtedly a spiritual and literary gem in the Jewish-Christian faiths. It speaks about an intensely romantic and passionate love between a man and woman. If that is so, why has it found itself included in the Jewish and Christian Bibles? Why is it considered an inspired book? What is its theological significance within the biblical tradition?
In the Hebrew bible, The Song of Songs is located with the writings that make up the third and last section of the Jewish canon. For Roland E. Murphy, The Song of Songs is a word-for-word translation of the Hebrew heading šîr haššîrîm, that comes out in the editorial superscription (1:1) simultaneously with an accreditation of the book to Solomon.
Regarding the Solomonic authorship, it is more likely to be a literary fiction. Hence, one can say that, as with other books of the Bible, it is the end result of a collective authorship of the songs with a singular general editor. This editor is unknown.
As regards its date, there are no persuasive arguments. In his book The Song of Songs, Murphy says that, “although common opinion gives a postexilic date, individual poems might have been composed much earlier… Canticle was acknowledged early on as canonical by both Jews and Christians. It became one of the five Megilloth, or scrolls, chosen for public reading at the Passover”.
It is absolutely detectable that The Song of Songs is made up of a cluster of short individual poems linked together. In The New Century Bible Commentary Song of Songs, John G. Snaith explains the structure of the book. “The Song takes a romance between two characters and looks at it from various different view points using the lyric imagery which is to hand. The romance includes wishful thinking, lonely misery, vivid dreams and happy companionship”.
Where does the unity of the book stand? The Song is definitely not an accidental conglomeration of poems. There is a prevalent symbolism and a certain unity throughout. The characters of lover and beloved continue extraordinarily coherent. There are amazing instances of recurrent expressions that function as refrains and keep the totality together. These repetitions or repetends, jointly with the repetitive symbolism of animals, flowers and so forth, render the songs in this biblical book much more uniform when compared to those found in the Egyptian compendium.
The Egyptian love lyrics help us to estimate the milieu that would, in other respects, have been widely lost had it not been for the work of the author of The Song, who has written or put in order poems from that milieu to demonstrate numerous varied forms of human love.
Both Jews and Christians tend to give a spiritual interpretation to this biblical book. Hosea, for instance, exhibited God’s relationship with Israel in the mode of courtship and marriage. What The Song does is precisely to deepen this perspective. Likewise, in the Christian domain, the same idea is translated to the love of Christ for his Church (or the individual soul).
It seems that there is a general agreement on the current scholarly position, namely that the literal significance of The Song is the manifestation of human sexual love. This does not mean that the literal historical significance says everything regarding the meaning of The Song. Modern hermeneutical theory acknowledges the fact that each and every text has an after life. It attains sense as it is experienced within the community that preserves it. Thus, the present theory recalls another feature to human love – it participates in one way or another in divine love. As song 8:6 says, human love is “the flame of Yah (weh)”.
In his introduction to The Song of Songs, Murphy alludes to the fact that in the book the reader witnesses so much poetry and images. Robert Gordis gives examples of the symbolism that is found in The Song in his work entitled The Song of Songs and Lamentations. For Gordis, this symbolism is typically true of love poetry. “ … The beloved will be compared to a flower (2:1f), and the lover to a tree (2:3). The delights of love will be described as fruit (2:3), wine (1:4; 5:1), or perfume (5:1), as milk and honey (5:1), as a garden (4:12; 5:1; 6:2), or a vineyard (8:12). The maiden’s resistance to the lover’s advances will lead to the metaphor of a sealed mountain (4:12) or a high wall (8:9), and the beloved “enemy” will be attacked with the power of charms (8:8ff). The invitation to the lover will be couched in the form of a call to enjoy the vineyard (2:15), the fountain (4:15), or the garden (4:16), while the confession that love’s demands have been met will be expressed by the figure of the vineyard unguarded (1:6) or of a gazelle upon the mountains of spices (2:17; 8:14)”.
Murphy says that these are created in order that the exercise of imagination would be possible. The literal composition of The Song suggests that love has produced a reality which is sui generis. Regarding the reader’s position, it has to be said that in order to understand the message conveyed by this sacred text, a challenging adjustment is surely required from him or her since the imagery used is symbolic and at the same time exciting.
The Song of Songs has a great theological importance within the biblical tradition. In the Old Testament mentality, human sexual love was considered as good in itself. It could also be an image of God’s love. Seen from this angle, The Song demonstrates to us a biblical paradigm of human intimacy. The reciprocity and faithfulness between lovers, the significance of their relationship, their affection for one another, evidently emanates from The Song. This mutual self-giving is well expounded by George A.F. Knight in his commentary The Song of Songs & Jonah. “This self-giving defies the pain. In our poems each gives to the other, not looking to receive. Giving implies action. Thus we are shown that love… is a movement, growth, development, all in the realm that includes flesh”.
What makes this love special is the fact that it can be comprehended solely as a gift from God. This, in turn, would have helped any reader to realise that a mutual authentic and total self-giving love would lead to a relationship with the divine. I think that this may suggest why the sages of Israel are accountable for the conservation and diffusion of the book, since they identified a strong emphasis on the values of human love (cf Prov 5:18; 18:22).
Through these values The Song discloses the message that the relationship of Yahweh and his people is an adventure of love, a “growing together”.
Through divine inspiration, the sacred author has organised the poems in such a manner, that he or she is capable of gradually demonstrating the significance of authentic love. From the love of a young couple he or she goes on to show the love of the living God. It is God who is the unique origin of the love they show and which they recognise to be more powerful and lasting than death itself.