Original Meaning
THE BEST OF biblical songs (see the Introduction for discussion of the meaning of the title and the significance of the mention of Solomon) opens with the words of the female protagonist, who will reappear throughout the song as one of its main characters. She gets right to the matter in hand (vv. 2–4), expressing a passionate desire for her lover first in the third person (v. 2a) and then immediately in the second person (v. 2b)—a kind of change of person that is common in Hebrew poetry as the speaker moves in turn to address the self, other persons, and third parties. One finds frequent change of person, for example, in a book like Lamentations,1 which is, like the Song of Songs, a dramatic composition in which different voices speak.
Since we are dealing with a well-established phenomenon (sometimes referred to as enallage), it is unwise upon encountering a puzzling variation of this kind either immediately to emend the Hebrew text to render it more “logical” (a common strategy among translators and commentators, both ancient and modern, in respect of all kinds of biblical texts) or to assume too quickly that a “real” change of speaker in the text is being indicated—a particular mistake of some commentators on Song of Songs. It is entirely likely, in fact, that all of verses 2–4 is spoken by this same female individual, the plurals of two of the lines in verse 4 notwithstanding (although these plurals, as we will see, do intend to draw others into the picture along with the woman). Note how the male lover himself apparently speaks in the plural in verse 11. It is possible that in verse 2 we are supposed to understand the first line as an unexpressed private thought and the second line as the beginning of the woman’s speech to her beloved (note the similar transition from thought to speech in vv. 12–17).
The woman wants nothing other than that her lover should kiss her “with the kisses of his mouth,” for she considers his “love” (dod, referring here to acts of lovemaking, as in Prov. 7:18; Ezek. 16:8; and [negatively] in Ezek. 23:17) to be far better than wine. It intoxicates her and gives her more pleasure and delight than wine could ever provide (Song 1:2).
The recurrence in verse 3 of ṭobim (“better,” translated in NIV as “delightful” in v. 2 and as “pleasing” in v. 3), when considered in conjunction with the puzzling Hebrew le, which is prefixed to reaḥ, “fragrance,” perhaps indicates that the man’s lovemaking is also to be considered as “better” than the fragrance of his perfumes (lit., “oils,” referring to perfumed oils): “Your lovemaking is more delightful than wine, more pleasant than the fragrance of your perfumed oils.”2 Another fine thing that fills up the senses is not to be compared to what this man brings to the woman when he brings himself. His very “name”—in Hebrew thinking closely connected with the essence of a person—is indeed “like perfume poured out.”3 It is no wonder that he is desirable to maidens other than our speaker (v. 3), or at least is imagined to be universally desirable by our speaker.
In verse 4 the woman seems in part to identify herself with this wider group of female admirers, while in part distinguishing herself from them. Only thus is it possible to understand the strange mixture of first-person singulars and plurals in the verse, which the NIV partially disguises by choosing to ignore the Masoretic accentuation in the first line of the verse. This accentuation indicates the translation: “Draw me, let us hurry after you.” All maidens love (ʾhb, v. 3) this man, and they are right to love him (ʾhb, v. 4; NIV “adore”) and pursue him. Our speaker speaks as one of this wider group, who are all thought of as rejoicing and delighting in the man and are said to join her in praising his lovemaking more highly than wine (cf. v. 2).
It is not clear whether their knowledge of the man’s lovemaking is real or imagined and whether it is firsthand or secondhand knowledge. To some extent the answer we give to this question depends on our understanding of the second line of verse 4, which the NIV translates, “Let the king bring me into his chambers” (thus paralleling v. 2 in English, even though the verbal tenses are not in fact identical in the Heb.). The NIV translation already suggests that the lover and the king are one and the same person; if this is the case, then the way is opened up to understand the sentiments attributed to the females as a group as rooted in real, firsthand sexual experience of the king as members of the royal harem. The speaker then becomes only one of many women at the royal court (the “daughters of Jerusalem” of v. 5), who are anxious to share the king’s intimate company, albeit that she is clearly unusual (vv. 5–6) and obviously focuses for most of the time on her own desires rather than on the desires of others in the group.
The problem with this interpretation, however, is that the second line of verse 4 is actually better understood not as expressing a desire but as referring to a past action: “The king brought me into his chambers” (i.e., into the innermost, most private, and secret parts of a dwelling; cf., e.g., 1 Kings 20:30; 22:25). It is by no means clear, thus understood, that the king and the lover are the same person. We could just as easily interpret the line as a report to the male lover by the woman about what the king has already done, perhaps designed to spur him on to similar amorous action—action that is implicitly carried through in 1:13–17. On the second occasion in which the king is mentioned in the chapter, in fact (v. 12), we have reason to think that a distinction is being made between the lover and the king (see further below).
It is certainly the case, then, that the female speaker is a member of the royal harem as the book opens, and we are justified in assuming that the other women whom she draws into her praise of the lover include her companions in this harem.4 There is no clear evidence, however, that it is the king’s lovemaking that is being praised by this woman or by those she imagines to be in solidarity with her. Evidence will accumulate as we move through this song, in fact, that the king and the lover are certainly not to be identified.
Leaving the king aside for the moment, then, we are confronted by a woman captivated by a man. She identifies in part with a wider group of women, who validate her perceptions of this amazing person (“we,” v. 4), but she also differentiates herself from them (“me” and “they,” vv. 2–4). This differentiation continues in verses 5–6, where it turns out that the speaker is physically distinguishable from the “daughters of Jerusalem,” who look on her, and that these observers are apt to stare at her because of this. Of the two striking characteristics mentioned in verse 5—her dark skin and her beauty5—it is on the former that the emphasis falls in verse 6, implying that it is her dark skin rather than her beauty in general that truly marks her out and makes her the focus of attention.
The passage itself makes clear, however, that this darkness (lit., “blackness”) of skin is not something with which she has been born, but a coloring that has come about as a result of exposure to the sun. The situation is somewhat like that in Job 30:30, where Job’s skin grows black (šḥr, as in Song 1:5–6) as a result of the heat of a fever. We should also note Job 30:28, where it is said that Job goes about “blackened” (qdr), but not by the sun (implying that “blackening” by the sun is a fairly normal phenomenon). The verbal root qdr is also echoed in the proper name “Kedar” in Song of Songs 1:5—“dark like the tents of Kedar.”6
There is no evidence in the text, then, that the female speaker is racially distinguishable from those who observe her. It is simply that her life has been lived outdoors, and she has consequently been scorched by the sun, which has “gazed” at her (Heb. šzp, as in Job 20:9; 28:7) long before humans ever stared at her. This is why she is dissimilar from these other women who have lived (we deduce) a more secluded life.
The life outdoors has, moreover, been imposed on her (v. 6). She fell victim to the anger of the men in her family, whether her own full brothers or not—“mother’s sons” is an ambiguous phrase.7 These brothers seem to be the dominant males, in the absence of any father (cf. 8:8–9). No father is in fact mentioned anywhere in the song. It is the brothers who have put her to work in the vineyards to “take care” (nṭr) of them. Her statement that, by contrast, she has “neglected” (lit., “she has not taken care of [nṭr]”) her own “vineyard” (a recurring metaphor throughout the Song for her own person) could in principle be taken as meaning that her neglect was consequent on being given her new task. She has been working outside and therefore has been unable to look after her appearance.
It seems more likely, however—since it would be a little curious to hear of the brothers’ anger without also hearing of any reason for it—that we are being given a hint here of the event(s) that led to her presence in the vineyards. She has not maintained or protected her own vineyard in a more intimate, sexual sense, but has known the love of a man. This was the cause of the outdoor work, which in turn means that her beauty is not “classical” according to the norms of the society in which she now moves, for it has not been cultivated in the way that is normal in that society. She is bronzed and beautiful but still an object of curiosity to those who have been kept within the home and away from public exposure (or perhaps, within the royal court and away from the countryside).
Our speaker’s attention has moved from her beloved man (vv. 2–3) to a wider circle of women, who also admire him while finding her unusual (vv. 4–6) and then back once again at the end of verse 6 (implicitly) to her beloved. In verse 7 she returns to address him. He is characterized as a shepherd, out in the countryside with his sheep and sought by his beloved in a manner similar to that of Joseph seeking his brothers in Genesis 37:16 (note the similarity of the question), although evidently not for the same purpose. She wishes to know where she can find him when he stops for his siesta at noon.8 It is important that she should have this information, so that she can go directly to the spot, for she fears otherwise that she will be mistaken by his shepherd-colleagues for a prostitute, lingering among them in the hope of business.
That is the implication of the reference to the “veiled woman” in verse 7, as the story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38 makes clear. In this story Tamar lingers on the road to Timnah during the sheep-shearing season. Judah, seeing her sitting by the roadside with her face covered by a veil, assumes she is a prostitute (38:13–16). Whether we are to think of our speaker as similarly veiled—because this is her normal attire or because she does not wish others to know who she is (cf. Song 4:1)—or whether she only risks being treated “like” a veiled woman because of her behavior is not clear.
The vulnerability of the woman who lingers alone in the company of men is in any case also implied in the man’s response to the woman in 1:9. As he is attractive to many women and draws them after him (vv. 3–4), so she is like “a mare harnessed to one of the chariots of Pharaoh.” In common with chariots throughout the ancient Near East, Pharaoh’s chariots were typically drawn by stallions hitched in pairs; a mare placed among them would have caused great disruption and distraction, as her scent or mere presence was detected.9
Both the woman and the man in Song of Songs 1, therefore, are aware of the likely consequences in terms of unwanted male attention, should this “most beautiful of women” wander aimlessly through the countryside. Thus, he gives her some directions (v. 8). The directions are so vague, however, that one detects a sense of playfulness rather than of real threat in verses 7–9 overall. She is to “follow the tracks of the sheep” and, likened to a shepherdess herself, to graze her young goats “by the tents of the shepherds” (v. 8—presumably the place where the shepherds as a group, and thus the lover, have their siesta).
It is unclear whether any of this bucolic language is meant literally. That the lover is a “shepherd” and she is a “shepherdess” may speak as much of their compatibility and of their destiny to be together as of anything else.10 Whatever the case, his initial acknowledgment of her beauty in verses 8–9 continues in verses 10–11. Here we find both the recognition that she is already adorned with jewelry and the commitment to add to these adornments. The commitment is perhaps shared with the other admirers alluded to in verse 9 and now referred to in the “we” of verse 11. She is as widely admired as he is (cf. v. 3).
The interpretation of the whole chapter turns on precisely how we understand verses 12–14, in particular on whether we think that verses 13–14 are intended in contrast to verse 12. On balance the view taken here is that a contrast is indeed intended between the “king” and the “lover.” The woman reports that while the king was “at his table,” her “perfume spread its fragrance” (v. 12). The Hebrew word behind the NIV’s “perfume” is nerd—the English “nard,” an expensive aromatic oil deriving from a plant that grows in northern and eastern India and was widely believed to possess aphrodisiac qualities (cf. Mark 14:3).
This report, however, which does not especially suggest any ongoing intimacy between the woman and the king (it is an isolated incident in the past), immediately gives way to two affirmations about what the lover means to the woman, which taken together do imply ongoing intimacy.11 The lover is like “a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts” (v. 13). Myrrh is an equally precious substance that is also associated with physical love (e.g., Prov. 7:14–20, but there of illicit sex), yet one whose fragrance does not simply go out from the woman to the king but actually draws the lover into the most intimate and ongoing embrace. He “lodges” between her breasts—the Hebrew verb is lyn, which usually means “to spend the night” (e.g., Gen. 28:11; Job 24:7). He takes up residence in this intimate place, in which a woman might have secreted a sachet or pouch of perfume.
He is, moreover, like “a cluster of henna blossoms,” which, in addition to producing their famous reddish dye, also give out a strong, pleasant fragrance. We deduce that women of the time may also have secreted clusters of these blossoms about their person.12 It is perhaps also significant that a cluster of henna blossoms is shaped somewhat like the male sexual organ. The blossoms in question are said to derive from “the vineyards of En Gedi”—a famously fertile oasis on the western shore of the Dead Sea. The name of the place means literally “kid-fountain,” which is interesting in the light of the reference to “young goats” or kids in verse 8. Its presence underlines the extent to which the imagery of the passage carries with it overtones of both eroticism and fertility (cf. Gen. 38:17, where a kid is thought an appropriate payment to the apparent prostitute, Tamar; also Judg. 15:1).
What is particularly noticeable about verses 7–17 as a whole, in fact, is the extent of the outdoor imagery in contrast with the indoor imagery of verse 12. This does not seem unconnected with the fact that the woman herself is said to have come most recently from the outside into the indoor world, represented by the king and his chambers (v. 4) and by the staring daughters of Jerusalem (vv. 5–6). She now returns, as it were—when love is the focus of the passage—to the place where she has most recently spent her time. She is a vineyard-keeper (v. 6), and it is with vineyards that she most naturally associates her lover in verse 14.
The conversation between the lovers, suspended in verses 12–14, is picked up once again as the chapter closes (vv. 15–17). The woman is, to the man, “my darling” or “my friend” (raʿyati), and the man is, to the woman, “my lover” or “my love” (dodi)—terms found throughout the song (raʿyati in 1:9; 2:2, 10, 13; 4:1, 7; 5:2; 6:4; dodi on twenty-six occasions, including 1:13–14; 2:3; note that the woman also calls the man “my friend” [reʿi] in 5:16).
He is struck in particular by her eyes, which he likens to “doves,” perhaps referring to their brightness and quickness, to the fact that they flutter, or to their partial concealment behind a veil (like doves that hide away in dark recesses [2:14; 4:1]). She is struck more generally by his beauty and by the luxuriant (NIV “verdant”) nature of the bed they share. They are evidently to be found lying together on lush foliage, out in the forest where the only roof-beams are the cedar trees and the only rafters are the firs. They have found their own chambers (cf. v. 4) and their own bed, located in their own forest “palace” (cf. the superfluity of cedar in Solomon’s palace in 1 Kings 7:1–12, to which a contrast may be intended here).
As we reflect on the passage as a whole, then, it seems that we have three main characters rather than simply two. (1) There is the woman, who has come (at least in the recent past13) from the outside world to the world of the royal court, yet longs to return to the outside, where her special friend is to be found. (2) There is the king, who inhabits the inside world of the court (represented by his chambers and his dining table) and knows the woman (perhaps sexually, although this is not explicit) as a member of his royal harem. It is most natural to assume, in view of verses 1 and 5, that the king is Solomon; it is difficult to understand the presence of the name in verse 5 if this is not so. (3) There is, finally, the man who is to be found (if he does not actually reside14) in the outside world, represented by grazing lands, vineyards, and forests. He is certainly romantically and sexually (although this is still only implicit) involved with the woman.
As the Song of Songs unfolds, we will discover more of these three and of the ties that bind them. We will also discover in the remainder of the book, as here, that the individuals are always bound up with wider circles of people who are drawn into their story and are involved in it. In a sense we, as readers, are also members of these circles, absorbed into the world of the text as its realities are described to us in such graphic terms and its intimacies become our own.
Bridging Contexts
IF WE ARE fully to understand both the Song of Songs and its history of interpretation down to the present day, one of the first things we must do is to ensure that we understand something of what it meant to be a woman in ancient Israel, as we have access to that reality through the lens with which the Old Testament provides us. Both the laws and the narratives of the Old Testament suggest that the reality was often bleak.
Legally, women were regarded in the first instance as the possessions of males. The Ten Commandments as they appear in Exodus 20:1–17 already suggest this when they include a man’s wife in the midst of a list of his possessions (20:17), and other texts presuppose it. Deuteronomy 22:13–21 describes, for example, the case of a man acquiring a woman as wife and subsequently hating her and slandering her by claiming he did not find proof of virginity (22:13–14). The woman does have some protection under the law, but the implication throughout the passage is that she is not a legal person in her own right. She is defended by her previous “owners” (her father and mother); the father, being the one who gave her to the husband in the first place (v. 16), is also the one to whom any fine for slander must be paid (v. 19). It is essentially a business or property dispute between men (did the father sell damaged goods to the other man?). The interest of the passage is resolutely male, the background issue being whether husbands can assure themselves that their children are really theirs. There is no escape for the woman from this situation of hatred and suspicion—she is either put to death, if guilty of not being a virgin, or condemned to live with a man who hates her and has publicly humiliated her, if innocent. Indeed, the penalty for the woman, if guilty, is death; but the penalty for the man, if guilty (and even though he threatened the life of his wife), is only a monetary fine.
The secondary status of women vis-à-vis men before the law is seen again in a passage such as Leviticus 27:1–8, where females are worth roughly half as much as males in financial terms. According to Deuteronomy 22:28–29, moreover, the rape of an unbetrothed, unmarried woman elicits only a fine of fifty shekels of silver from the man, paid to the father to compensate him for the damage to his property, while the woman, who has no say in the matter, suffers not only the trauma of rape but the further trauma of being forced to live with the man who raped her. It is clear from such examples, along with others, that the legal position of women in ancient Israel seems to have differed little from the legal position of slaves. The law provided them with some protection, but it was protection of a limited kind in a world dominated by men, whose decisions were at all points decisive for their fate.
As we turn to the narratives of the Old Testament, the nature of this world is graphically portrayed. It is not that individual women are by any means always treated badly by individual men, for there are many biblical stories to be found in which men behave virtuously toward women (e.g., the story of Ruth). Yet it is the men who have the overt power, whether they choose to use it for good or ill. The story of Ruth itself displays this reality, even while presenting Boaz to us in a good light.
In the Old Testament world female choices are usually limited and female power is rigorously curtailed, especially when it comes to matters of love and marriage. It is often a dark place, in which male power wreaks havoc on the female world. One of the most striking examples is the story of Jephthah the Gileadite and his daughter in Judges 11:29–40. Jephthah makes a vow that applies to any of his possessions. His daughter, tragically, is the first of his possessions to greet him and is killed as a sacrifice to God. Jephthah does not blame himself for the evil he has brought on her but blames her instead for the evil she has brought on him (v. 35); nor does he offer himself in her place or refuse to fulfill the vow and suffer the consequences. The daughter simply serves the needs of the father, having no way of avoiding doing his will and finding solace in a male-ordered world only among her female friends, who weep with her (v. 38)—and even then, permission for this mourning has to be given by the father.
This story of Jephthah is a terrifying tale of the extent to which females, as possessions, could be victimized in the world of male power,15 and it is by no means the only such tale in the Old Testament. This is what it means that, in our fallen world, men have come to “rule over” women (Heb. mšl, Gen. 3:16), regarding them as part of the creation over which governance must be exercised (cf. Heb. mšl, also in Ps. 8:6) rather than as partners in that government (Gen. 1:26–28).
The Song of Songs must certainly be understood against this background, as the opening chapter already makes clear. The woman to whom we are introduced had previously been subject to the power of the males in her family (the brothers, in the absence of any father). She now finds herself, along with other women, in the royal harem. It is to be doubted, to put it mildly, that she had much choice in the matter, which was probably settled by all the men (see comments on 8:8–12, where we gain some insight into the attitude of both the brothers and Solomon in respect of women).
The story of Esther gives ample evidence of just how little interest was shown by another king (and perhaps even by the author of the book) in the feelings or thoughts of young women whose presence in the royal harem was commanded. That entire tale underlines, in fact, just how man-centered the ancient world was. Queen Vashti is summoned to appear before King Xerxes and his drunken nobles and officials for no other reason than that he wishes to show off her beauty to them and thus to have his ego stroked (Est. 1). Her refusal to oblige creates a moment of crisis in the Persian empire, for the fear is expressed that other women will follow her example and that male power over women will be undermined. Vashti is therefore punished, and the search for a new queen ensues (ch. 2).
The king simply casts his net over his kingdom and trawls in as many beautiful women as he can find. Ridiculous efforts are then made to make these women as appealing as possible to the king (Est. 2:12), and he tests them out sexually, one by one, until he finds a competition winner. The whole exercise emphasizes the absolute power of men over women, the scant regard for the female person or future life they often display in exercising it, and the enormous effort they expend in retaining it. It is to be especially noted in the Esther story that the possibility that Esther herself might refuse to enter the harem or to sleep with the king is never for a moment considered. It is not, apparently, a realistic option.
While it is theoretically conceivable that the woman of the Song of Songs herself did not actually, in entering the royal chambers in 1:4, have sexual intercourse with the king, it is probably a somewhat romantic notion (though sometimes found in commentaries) to think that she would have been given any more say in the matter than Esther apparently was. We cannot be certain since the Song of Songs is not explicit on the matter, but general considerations, combined with the emphasis in 3:6–11 on the royal bed as a place of power and coercion from which sacrificial victims arise, suggest that when this song speaks of fidelity between the woman and her beloved man, it is not necessarily implying that she has never engaged (albeit unwillingly) in the physical act of sexual intercourse with anyone else. It is claiming, rather, that she has not abandoned her first love when faced with all the seductive pomp and glory of Solomon and his royal court.
It is just this fierce self-determination, however, that makes the Song of Songs such a remarkable piece of literature when set in the context of ancient Israelite culture. The world that is dominated by men certainly lies in the background of the book, but in the foreground stands a woman who will not be dominated and who exercises her freedom in extraordinary ways. She initiates love with her man of choice, announcing her intention right at the beginning of chapter 1 (1:2) and pursuing her lover (1:7) even while resident in the contexts that society has successively forced on her (vineyards and court).
She undoubtedly takes risks in doing so, for society will look askance at her course of action (1:7; the theme returns in 5:7 and 8:1); yet she persists. There is in this relationship with a man, at least, no male domination or ownership, but only the meeting of equal persons in dialogue with each other, verbally and physically. It is as if the curse of the Fall has been nullified, and we are now back in the Garden of Eden, where it is accepted that male and female are indeed created equally in the image of God (Gen. 1:27) and stand together in partnership as they relate to the rest of creation (Gen. 1:26, 28). It is as if, in the fertile, outdoor space where the lovers meet, they have once again captured the democratic intimacy of the first Garden, where woman is “woman” who corresponds to “man” (Gen. 2:23)—one flesh, naked, and never ashamed—and not simply “Eve,” who is defined by her role as mother (Gen. 3:20) and destined to relate to her man only as powerful superior.
It is striking, indeed, that female initiative in Song of Songs 1 results in restored intimacy and joy. Female initiative in Genesis 3:6 (at the invitation of the serpent) results only in guilt and alienation—the first instance in the human story of men and women blaming each other for reality, as Adam accuses Eve, Eve the serpent, and the serpent (as it has been well said) finds himself without a leg to stand on.
The Song of Songs thus reminds readers of the Old Testament of something that we ought to have realized without its help, especially as Christian readers of these Scriptures, but have frequently missed. It reminds us that we are called not simply to live in the fallen world and accept its constraints, injustices, and horrors but rather to live out the kingdom of God in its midst. It reminds us of God’s creation purposes as they are so wonderfully described in Genesis 1–2, and it rebukes us for forgetting so often throughout church history to keep these chapters in mind as we read Genesis 3 and the rest of the Bible.
When the legal and narrative sections of the Old Testament are read in the context of these opening chapters of Genesis (as Jesus himself invites us to do, Matt. 19:3–8), they are clearly seen only to tell us, first, of the realities of the fallen world and, second, of the ways in which God has provided laws that might mitigate only the worst effects of human wickedness. They do not provide us with any excuse for living contentedly with the world as we find it rather than seeking to live out God’s rule in our lives, and they certainly do not provide us with texts that can be used to legitimate the world order as we currently find it in its fallen state.
Law and narrative, and indeed prophecy and other forms of Old Testament literature, must be read in the context of the whole of God’s plans for the world in creation and redemption as they are revealed throughout the Bible, if they are not to be misunderstood in their particularity. The Song of Songs helps us to see this by presenting us with a male-female relationship that evokes Genesis 1–2 rather than Genesis 3 and many other parts of the Bible. Christian readers are helped further by texts such as Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” The redeemed community of the church, which is the firstfruits of the redeemed creation, is a community that no longer knows of hierarchical distinctives and divisions. It is a community in which it is only one’s identity as a human being in a relationship of love with God and neighbor that is important. It took the early church some time to understand what this really meant for Jews and Gentiles. It took the church that followed the early church a much longer time to understand what it really meant for slaves and masters. It has only very slowly been dawning on the church much more recently what it means for males and females.
The figure of the nonsubmissive woman who actively courts her man, seeking mutuality with him while refusing to give herself to another whose language is that of power, naturally invites reflection, in the context of the canon of Scripture, on the relationship of God to God’s people. It has perhaps been one of the more obvious consequences of the fact that biblical interpretation has largely been carried out historically by men who lived in male-dominated societies in which women had little power and were widely regarded as passive, dependent characters, that the understanding of God has often reflected in an unbalanced way the self-understanding of the men who articulated it.
God has frequently been conceived of among Christians, for example, as a distant, emotionally uninvolved person, albeit all-powerful and sovereign over human affairs. If God is the only initiator of all that happens in the universe, human beings only respond fairly passively to his plans and advances. He has been conceived of, in other words, as “male,” and “male” has been interpreted in terms of what it means to be male in societies that have been highly patriarchal and hierarchical and to some extent emotionally dysfunctional. The way in which women have often been regarded in Christendom is not unrelated to this fact since, as feminist theologians have pointed out, when God is male, the male tends to be god.
The Bible does, of course, teach us about a God who is all-powerful and sovereign over human affairs and whose will in the end shall be done. It does not teach us that God is any more male than female, however (Gen. 1:27 explicitly suggests otherwise), even though it encourages us to call God “Father,” and it does not know of a God who is emotionally uninvolved with his creatures, nor does he coerce them through force of will, expecting only a passive and somewhat fatalistic response.
The Song of Songs, when read in the larger canonical frame, reminds us of what Jesus should already have taught us: that God enters human space vulnerably and quietly, wooing us and intriguing us rather than overwhelming us with power, and he is certainly joyous rather than offended when we take the initiative in pursuing his embrace. It was the Pharisee (as well as the disciples), we recall, who were offended by the woman who came to Jesus in Bethany with perfume, not between her breasts but in an alabaster jar, depositing both perfume and kisses on his head and feet (Luke 7:36–50, with parallels in Matt. 26:6–13; Mark 14:3–9). It is those whose love likewise drives them to seek Jesus who will find him.
Contemporary Significance
No man . . . would think to compliment his fair one by writing of her . . . as if she had lost her retiring modesty, her female dignity, and degraded herself by doing that for which every man would despise her. The very first word of this Song, then, stands as witness against the notion of its being a human love-song . . . Till fishes mount to sing with larks on the shady boughs, and nightingales dive to ocean’s depths to court the whales, no man, of any age, of any clime, of any rank, can be supposed to write ordinary love-songs in such a style.16
One wonders if the nineteenth-century clergyman who spoke such words had ever for one second considered that Scripture might wish to critique his culture rather than simply to legitimate it. He is only one in a long line of Christian men throughout the centuries, however, who have found themselves unable to look the Song of Songs straight in the eye, as it were, and deal with its implications for a Christian worldview. The description of the strong, self-determined female character presents an obvious challenge to all cultures (and not just Christian Victorian culture) that have sought to disempower and to pacify women, not least through caricature, and have considered them (whether legally or simply intellectually) to be second-class human beings.
The roots of caricature and discrimination in Christendom lie in the Old Testament itself, for as we have seen, the biblical legal tradition in particular can be read by those who wish to do so as justifying both bad male attitudes towards women and also all those laws in countries influenced by the Judeo-Christian heritage, which for so long throughout history have denied women the same legal status and rights as men.17 Jewish law as found in the Mishnah (m. Qid.) already builds on biblical law in this way:
By three means is the woman acquired and by two means she acquires her freedom. She is acquired by money or by writ or by intercourse . . . she acquires her freedom by a bill of divorce or by the death of her husband.
In terms of Jewish attitudes, we need only recall the well-known Jewish morning prayer, “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has not made me a woman.” A spectacular exemplar of Christian attitudes is provided by Augustine:
If it were not the case that the woman was created to be man’s helper specifically for the production of children, then why would she have been created as a “helper”? Was it so that she might work the land with him? No . . . a male would have made a better assistant. One can also posit that the reason for her creation as a helper had to do with the companionship she could provide for the man. . . . Yet for company and conversation, how much more agreeable it is for two male friends to dwell together than for a man and a woman! . . . I cannot think of any reason for woman’s being made as a man’s helper, if we dismiss the reason of procreation.18
One might wish that this were the only example of such sentiment that could be found in the history of the church, but it is far from being so. If the strength and self-determination of the woman in the Song of Songs has not been easy to accommodate within a pathologically male and Christian intellectual universe, however, then the fact that she is an overtly sexual being has proved still more difficult. Celibate Christian monks like Bernard of Clairvaux, who first became monks partly through fear of female sexual power, were hardly likely to welcome the entrance of this sexually powerful literary woman into their intellectual and emotional inner chamber.
We are, after all, thinking of a postapostolic and medieval world, in which the church father Jerome could advise an inquirer not to allow her daughter to bathe because of the danger of exciting her sexual desire. It is intriguing to note that Jewish tradition, even though it has just as routinely allegorized the Song of Songs, has not proved nearly as neurotic as Christian tradition regarding this matter of sexuality. The reason is that it possesses a much more robust creation theology than Christian thinkers have usually managed to articulate. Thus:
We . . . believe that God, blessed be He, created everything as His wisdom dictated, and He created nothing containing obscenity or ugliness. For if we were to say that intercourse is obscene, it would follow that the sexual organs are obscene . . . And how could God, blessed be He, create something containing a blemish or obscenity, or a defect?
Robert Gordis, who cites this text in his commentary, also reminds us of the story of the rabbinic student found hiding in his rabbi’s bedroom, observing his lovemaking. Challenged about his presence there, he declared: “This, too, is Torah, and I wish to learn.”19
The fact of the matter is that we find in the Song of Songs, and specifically here in chapter 1, a text that challenges all worldviews that insist that women are not fully persons in their own right, that women must not take initiatives and make free choices about their lives and their loves, and in particular that they should not display sexual desire and pursue a beloved man with a view to sexual consummation with him. We have a text that insists that male-female relationships, when lived out in fulfillment of God’s creation purposes, are about mutuality and not about dominance/submission. We have a text that absolutely challenges any idea that our humanness in any aspect is incompatible with our spiritual calling. It not only sanctifies sexual intimacy but also sanctifies frank speech about sexual intimacy.
Song of Songs 1 is a text that has a significant amount to say, therefore, to modern Christians who hold the Old Testament to be Scripture and yet find themselves unable, as many Christians historically have been, to bring their attitudes and their behavior into line with this song’s vision of the world—unable to affirm that women are truly made in the image of God as equals with men, that they should rightly be confident in their nature as women rather than deferential and submissive toward men, that sexual intimacy is a good thing, and that an overtly sexual woman is not thereby a bad person. There is no question but that the embrace of this vision would bring widespread and deep healing both to fractured lives and to fractured relationships within the Christian church, as both men and women understand their humanity more fully in relationship with the good God who created it for integration and for blessing.
The challenge and the healing of the Song of Songs is offered, however, not only to the church, but also to the world at large. For it is by no means only in the church that we find fractured selves and fractured relationships. In many ways, in fact, the sexual revolution in the West, which was in part a reaction to a false and repressive view of sexuality, has resulted in a far worse state of affairs than what preceded it; for sexual expression, when it is not rooted in a committed, lifelong relationship, wreaks destruction. The mantra of the revolution is “sexual freedom,” but slavery rather than freedom has resulted, and entire new empires (e.g., Internet pornography) have surfaced in which abusive male power has again reasserted itself over women.
The Song of Songs does not speak in favor of sexual repression or the denial of woman’s humanity and rights. But neither does it speak in favor of sexual license and the kind of pursuit of “rights” (by men or women) that in the end destroys all humanity. The sexual intimacy of this song is intimacy in the context of commitment—the kind of commitment that in actuality and in mutuality gives up “rights” in pursuit of relationship.
The self-sacrifice that is thus involved in true love is above all displayed, for the Christian reader of the Song of Songs, in the events of the life of Jesus. This is the model of committed love for human beings, whose erotic moments are thus bound up with a much larger framework of commitment and, beyond that, with the Love that lies at the heart of all things. The freedom of women, although it must be defended against male desires to curtail it (since men are not gods), is in the end not to be understood as different from the freedom of men. It is a God-given freedom, which is only in the end exercised to mutual human benefit when it is embraced as such and offered joyfully and faithfully back to God.
To the extent that the Song of Songs reminds us of that, when read as part of Scripture, it challenges a culture that has lost its bearings and its sense of purpose and has come to look for things in sexual expression itself, as a phenomenon, that it can never find. The challenge to the culture is no greater than the challenge to the church, however; for it is possible that people might not have had such difficulty in understanding how to be sexual beings and godly beings at the same time if Christians had done a better job, historically, of modeling how it can be done.
The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. (Gen. 2:23–25)