Song of Solomon · Debate · Featured Study
Two Traditions, One Song
The poem's speakers are a woman, a man and the daughters of Jerusalem, and the poem leaves its reader to decide whom they stand for.
The Song of Songs is a poem of love, and for nearly two thousand years its readers have heard more than one love in it.
- The question
- Is the Song of Songs a poem of human love, an allegory of God and his people, or a human love that Scripture makes a type of the divine?
Gustave Moreau, Song of Songs, 1893. Public domain.
Summary
The Song has been read in four ways: as the allegory of Israel, the allegory of Christ and the church, the natural reading and the typical reading.
- Read naturally, Song of Solomon 2:16 and Song of Solomon 8:6 are a woman's words to the man she loves. Read as allegory, they are Israel's words to God or the church's to Christ.
- The Jewish allegory of Israel is older than the Christian allegory of Christ and the church.
- Theodore of Mopsuestia's reading of the Song as Solomon's own marriage was held against him in 553.
- Delitzsch read the Song as a type of God's love and warned that a type can slide back into allegory.
The Same Verses, Read Two Ways
The natural and the allegorical readings both take these two verses as the heart of the book.
My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures his flock among the lilies.Set me as a seal over your heart, as a seal upon your arm. For love is as strong as death, its jealousy as unrelenting as Sheol. Its sparks are fiery flames, the fiercest blaze of all.Pope and Murphy wrote in the twentieth century, and Rashi, Bernard and Gill between the eleventh and the eighteenth.
| Verse | The natural reading | The allegorical reading |
|---|---|---|
| Song of Solomon 2:16 | Marvin Pope hears a woman speaking of her lover in the shepherd's language her people's love poetry shared with its neighbors, and the desire she voices is mutual and exclusive. | Rashi reads the verse of God and Israel, bound as in the betrothal of Hosea 2:19 to 20. Bernard of Clairvaux preached it as the soul's claim on the Word and the Word's claim on the soul. |
| Song of Solomon 8:6 | Roland Murphy hears love's case for itself, spoken by a woman to the man she loves. | John Gill hears the church speaking to Christ, and hears in a love as strong as death the love that took Christ to the cross. |
“‘Let me have a place in thy heart, an interest in thy love.’ This is that which all those desire above any thing that know how much their happiness is bound up in the love of Christ. ‘Let me never lose the room I have in thy heart; let thy love to me be ensured, as that deed which is sealed up not to be robbed.’”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible, on Song of Solomon 8:6Puritan
The Four Readings and Their Holders
The two allegories are the oldest readings, and the natural and typical readings lead among modern commentators.
Sixteen holders stand in the table, three Jewish sources and thirteen Christian writers.
| Reading | Its holders | The Song's subject | The texts it leans on |
|---|---|---|---|
| The allegory of Israel | The Targum, the Aramaic rendering of the Song; Rabbi Akiva (Mishnah Yadayim 3:5); Rashi (Commentary on the Song of Songs) | The love of God and Israel across Israel's history. | Song of Solomon 1:4; Hosea 2:19 to 20 |
| The allegory of Christ and the church | Origen (Commentary and Homilies on the Song of Songs); Bernard of Clairvaux (Sermons on the Song of Songs); John Gill (Exposition of the Old Testament), Matthew Henry (Commentary on the Whole Bible) and John Wesley (Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament) | The love of Christ for the church and for the soul that seeks him. | Song of Solomon 1:2; Revelation 19:7 |
| The natural reading | Theodore of Mopsuestia (on the Song of Songs, known from extracts); Christian D. Ginsburg (The Song of Songs, 1857); Marvin Pope (Song of Songs, Anchor Bible, 1977); Roland Murphy (The Song of Songs, Hermeneia, 1990) | The love of a man and a woman, celebrated as God's good gift. | Song of Solomon 1:5; Song of Solomon 4:1 to 7; Genesis 2:23 to 25 |
| The typical reading | Franz Delitzsch (Commentary on the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, 1875); Tremper Longman III (Song of Songs, 2001); Duane Garrett (Song of Songs, 2004); Richard Hess (Song of Songs, 2005) | A human marriage that points past itself to Christ and the church. | Isaiah 62:5; Ephesians 5:31 to 32 |
The Typical Reading
Franz Delitzsch set out the typical reading in a monograph of 1851 and in his commentary of 1875.
On Delitzsch's reading the Song tells a real love story, and Scripture makes that love a type of God's love.
Scripture does this by placing the Song in the canon. It also uses marriage throughout as the picture of God's covenant love (Hosea 2:19 to 20, Isaiah 54:5, Isaiah 62:5, Ezekiel 16:8, Ephesians 5:31 to 32, Revelation 19:7 and Revelation 21:2). The reader can then take the gardens and vineyards of the poem as gardens and vineyards.
Delitzsch held his reading to be the one right key to the Song, and Otto Zöckler, in his Das Hohelied und der Prediger (1868), and the Speaker's Commentary agreed with him. The typical reading grants the allegorical tradition its right to hear Christ in the Song, and it grants the natural reading that the poem is pure as it stands.
For as a young man marries a young woman, so your sons will marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so your God will rejoice over you.“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, but I am speaking about Christ and the church.Four Teachers on Three of the Readings
Origen taught in the third century and Spurgeon in the nineteenth.
“This section is made by the Targumist and other Jewish interpreters to adumbrate the condition of Israel in the wilderness; by some Christian expositors, that of the Gentile Church on her first conversion.”
Albert Barnes · Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, on Song of Solomon 1:5Evangelical
“And in the song of the bride, hair, teeth, lips, cheeks, the neck, and breasts, are praised by the bridegroom. The bride is either the soul of man, which enters into marriage with Christ, or the church. The parts of the body are interpreted figuratively: if they are said of the soul, then they apply to its powers.”
Origen of Alexandria · Fragments on Luke 186 · on Song of Solomon 4:5Patristic
“I am black, but comely - This is literally true of many of the Asiatic women; though black or brown, they are exquisitely beautiful. Many of the Egyptian women are still fine; but their complexion is much inferior to that of the Palestine females. Though black or swarthy in my complexion, yet am I comely - well proportioned in every part. As the tents of Kedar - I am tawny, like the tents of the Arabians, and like the pavilions of Solomon, probably covered by a kind of tanned cloth. The daughters of Jerusalem are said to represent the synagogue; the bride, the Church of Christ. It is easy to find spiritual meanings: every creed will furnish them.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible · on Song of Solomon 1:5Evangelical
“You are aware that these Canticles are responsive songs—that one sentence is uttered by Solomon and the next by Solyma, his spouse. We believe that in this ‘Song of Songs, which is Solomon's,’ we also hear Christ speaking to His Church, His bride, and the Church responding to His words of love in tones which His love has suggested to her. The fact that it is a responsive song sometimes renders it the more difficult to understand because it is not easy, in every case, to discover whether it is Solomon or Solyma—Christ or His Church—who is speaking.”
Charles Spurgeon · The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2785: “Christ's Love for His Vineyard” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) · on Song of Solomon 8:12
Adam Clarke, Charles Spurgeon
Nineteen Centuries of Readers
The Jewish and Christian allegories ran side by side for sixteen centuries before the natural reading returned in the modern era.
The readers run from Rabbi Akiva about AD 90 to Richard Hess in 2005.
| When | Who | What they held |
|---|---|---|
| c. 90 AD | Rabbi Akiva | Defends the Song's canonicity at the Council of Jamnia (“the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies”, Mishnah Yadayim 3:5), evidence the allegorical reading already anchored the book's place in the canon. |
| 3rd c. | Origen | Founds the Christian allegorical reading in his Commentary and Homilies. |
| Died 428 | Theodore of Mopsuestia | Reads the Song as a poem Solomon wrote about his own marriage to the daughter of Pharaoh. The reading was among the charges brought against him at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553. |
| 7th to 8th c. | The Targum to the Song of Songs | Reads the whole book as Israel's covenant history, from the Exodus to the Messianic age, and gives the Jewish allegory its fullest early form. |
| 11th c. | Rashi | Writes that Solomon foresaw Israel's exile and wrote the Song as the words of a widow longing for her husband, and carries the allegory of Israel through the Middle Ages. |
| 12th c. | Bernard of Clairvaux | Preaches 86 sermons that reach only Song of Solomon 3:1 and read the bride as the soul in love with Christ (Eales tr. 1895). |
| 18th c. | Gill, Wesley, Henry | They carry the reading of Christ and the church into plain English, verse by verse. |
| 1857 | Christian D. Ginsburg | Reads the Song as the story of a shepherdess who stays faithful to her shepherd in the court of Solomon. |
| 1875 | Franz Delitzsch | Reads the Song as Solomon's true love for a country maiden. |
| 1977 to 2005 | Pope, Murphy, Longman, Garrett and Hess | Read the Song mostly as love poetry; the evangelical scholars among them (Longman, Garrett, Hess) also hold the typical reading. |
18th c., 1857, 1875, 1977 to 2005
What the Question Changes
Whom the Song speaks of decides what it teaches its reader.
The natural reading gives the reader a book that calls the love of husband and wife good, as Genesis 1:31 calls all that God had made very good.
The two allegories give the reader the Song as a voice of the covenant.
Seeking God in the Song and in The Pursuit of God
In The Pursuit of God (1948) Aiden Wilson Tozer wrote of the soul's gaze toward God, the allegorists' theme of the soul seeking God.
In the Song the bride searches twice by night for the one she loves, at Song of Solomon 3:1 to 4 and Song of Solomon 5:2 to 8.
On my bed at night I sought the one I love; I sought him, but did not find him. I will arise now and go about the city, through the streets and squares. I will seek the one I love. So I sought him but did not find him.Each Reading and Its Hardest Question
Ginsburg and Delitzsch raise all four objections, Delitzsch the last against his own reading.
The allegory of Israelthe Targum, Akiva, Rashi
The case: the prophets call Israel the LORD's bride, and a book of love songs could only stand among the holy writings if it spoke of that love.
The objection, as Ginsburg put it in 1857: the poem gives no hint that it is an allegory, and it speaks of no one but its human characters.
So I will betroth you to Me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in loving devotion and compassion. And I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will know the LORD.”The allegory of Christ and the churchOrigen, Bernard, Gill, Wesley
The case: the New Testament calls the church the bride of Christ, and Origen, in the Prologue to his Commentary, read the love songs of the Old Testament as fulfilled in that marriage. He called the book a marriage song of the bride and the Word of God.
The objection, as Ginsburg put it in 1857: Christ and his apostles never once refer to the book. Delitzsch added that in two thousand years the allegorists had reached no sure result on what a garden, a vineyard or a breast stands for.
Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him the glory. For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready.The natural readingTheodore, Ginsburg, Pope, Murphy
The case: the Song reads as love poetry, and Herder translated it in his Salomons Lieder der Liebe (1778) as the oldest and most beautiful love songs of the East.
The objection, as Delitzsch put it in 1875: the synagogue and the church received the book as holy Scripture. A reading that finds no word of God in it has to explain why both kept it among the holy writings.
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and they were not ashamed.The typical readingDelitzsch, Longman, Garrett, Hess
The case: Delitzsch held Solomon to be a type of Christ, so the Song's king can stand for Christ and still be a real king.
The objection, which Delitzsch himself raised: the line between a type and an allegory is hard to hold, and the allegory can return under the name of the typical reading.
The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and now One greater than Solomon is here.Books to Read Next
Six books carry the four readings, one or more for each.
The Targum to the Song of Songs
tr. Hermann Gollancz · 1908
Gollancz's translation gives the Aramaic Targum to the Song in English.
Commentary and Homilies on the Song of Songs
Origen · 3rd century
Its reading of the Song was received almost everywhere in the church after him.
Sermons on the Song of Songs
Bernard of Clairvaux · 12th century
Bernard preached the sermons to the monks of Clairvaux.
Commentary on the Whole Bible, the Song of Solomon
Matthew Henry · 1710
The commentary reads the Song as the love of Christ and the believer.
The Song of Songs, with a Commentary, Historical and Critical
Christian D. Ginsburg · 1857
Its introduction gives a history of the Song's interpreters from the Targum to 1857.
Commentary on the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes
Franz Delitzsch · 1875; English 1877
Delitzsch sets out every reading of the Song in the introduction.
What the Song Asks of Its Reader
All four readings agree that love is as strong as death.
Each reading stands at full strength, and a reader is free to stand in one, or, with Delitzsch, in the natural and the spiritual at once.
Mighty waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If a man were to give all the wealth of his house for love, his offer would be utterly scorned.Wealth cannot buy the love each reading finds in the Song, whether a bride's, Israel's or the church's.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- Mishnah Yadayim 3:5.
- The Targum to the Song of Songs, tr. Hermann Gollancz, 1908.
- Rashi, Commentary on the Song of Songs, introduction.
- Origen, Commentary on the Song of Songs, Prologue.
- Theodore of Mopsuestia, on the Song of Songs, as paraphrased in the acts of the Second Council of Constantinople (553)
- Christian D. Ginsburg, The Song of Songs, 1857.
- Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, 1875, tr. M. G. Easton, 1877.
- Otto Zöckler, Das Hohelied und der Prediger, 1868.
- Johann Gottfried Herder, Salomons Lieder der Liebe, die ältesten und schönsten aus Morgenlande, 1778.
- Matthew Henry, An Exposition of the Old and New Testament, the Song of Solomon, 1710.
- Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Canticle of Canticles, tr. a Priest of Mount Melleray, 1920.
- The Acts of the Council of Constantinople of 553, tr. Richard Price, 2009.
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