May 17
Reading: Song of Solomon 1
1 The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s.
2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!
For your love is better than wine;
3 your anointing oils are fragrant;
your name is oil poured out;
therefore virgins love you.
4 Draw me after you; let us run.
The king has brought me into his chambers.
We will exult and rejoice in you;
we will extol your love more than wine;
rightly do they love you.
5 I am very dark, but lovely,
O daughters of Jerusalem,
like the tents of Kedar,
like the curtains of Solomon.
6 Do not gaze at me because I am dark,
because the sun has looked upon me.
My mother’s sons were angry with me;
they made me keeper of the vineyards,
but my own vineyard I have not kept!
7 Tell me, you whom my soul loves,
where you pasture your flock,
where you make it lie down at noon;
for why should I be like one who veils herself
beside the flocks of your companions?
8 If you do not know,
O most beautiful among women,
follow in the tracks of the flock,
and pasture your young goats
beside the shepherds’ tents.
9 I compare you, my love,
to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots.
10 Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments,
your neck with strings of jewels.
11 We will make for you ornaments of gold,
studded with silver.
12 While the king was on his couch,
my nard gave forth its fragrance.
13 My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh
that lies between my breasts.
14 My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms
in the vineyards of Engedi.
15 Behold, you are beautiful, my love;
behold, you are beautiful;
your eyes are doves.
16 Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved,
truly delightful.
Our couch is green;
17 the beams of our house are cedar;
our rafters are pine.
The Song of Solomon (also called Song of Songs or Canticles) is a love song. On this there is no debate. 1 Kings 4:32 tells us about Solomon that “He also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005.” This song is his most famous, and runs 117 verses.
At first one might wonder why it is in the Bible. It is vivid, sensuous, even sexual. This makes it difficult to read to children or study in mixed company. To understand it, one must use one’s imagination. In this case that can be potentially troublesome.
Some consider the Song of Solomon to be allegory, a fictional picture of Christ’s relationship with His bride, the church. Others have seen it as an actual love song, or drama, between two real people, a man and a woman. It is, in fact, difficult to escape the realness of the people and places in this book.
So why is it in the Bible? The Song of Solomon displays God’s good design of marital love between a real man and a real woman that points us to the love that our Shepherd-King Jesus has for us and we ought to have for Him.
In a sense the entire book is an exposition and application of Genesis 2:23-25.
Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
You might think that you didn’t need such an exposition. God thinks that you do. Douglas O’Donnell sums it up in this way, “The Song is a song that Adam could have sung in the garden when Eve arose miraculously from his side; and it remains a song that we can and should sing in the bedroom, the church, and the marketplace of ideas.”
The book is to be read as a conversation in song (like a musical or an opera) between two married lovers. The first application is simple and obvious. God wants you to praise your spouse; how she looks, how she smells, in detail, out loud, to her. Just reverse the pronouns if you are a woman. If you do not know how to do this, it is time to begin. Use the words here on the page.