Chú giải Kinh Thánh

In this chapter, after the title of the book (So 1:1), we have Christ and his church, Christ and a believer, expressing their esteem for each other. I. The bride, the church, speaks to the bridegroom (So 1:2-4), to the daughters of Jerusalem (So 1:5,6), and then to the bridegroom, So 1:7. II. Christ, the bridegroom, speaks in answer to the complaints and requests of his spouse, So 1:8-11. III. The church expresses the great value she has for Christ, and the delights she takes in communion with him, So 1:12-14. IV. Christ commends the church's beauty, So 1:15. V. The church returns the commendation, So 1:16,17. Where there is a fire of true love to Christ in the heart this will be of use to blow it up into a flame.

INTRODUCTION

The Song of Solomon, called in the Vulgate and Septuagint, "The Song of Songs," from the opening words. This title denotes its superior excellence, according to the Hebrew idiom; so holy of holies, equivalent to "most holy"

(Ex 29:37);

the heaven of heavens, equivalent to the highest heavens

(De 10:14).

It is one of the five volumes (megilloth) placed immediately after the Pentateuch in manuscripts of the Jewish Scriptures. It is also fourth of the Hagiographa (Cetubim, writings) or the third division of the Old Testament, the other two being the Law and the Prophets. The Jewish enumeration of the Cetubim is Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra (including Nehemiah), and Chronicles. Its canonicity is certain; it is found in all Hebrew manuscripts of Scripture; also in the Greek Septuagint; in the catalogues of MELITO, bishop of Sardis, A.D. 170 (EUSEBIUS, Ecclesiastical History, 4.26), and of others of the ancient Church.

ORIGEN and JEROME tell us that the Jews forbade it to be read by any until he was thirty years old. It certainly needs a degree of spiritual maturity to enter aright into the holy mystery of love which it allegorically sets forth. To such as have attained this maturity, of whatever age they be, the Song of Songs is one of the most edifying of the sacred writings. ROSENMULLER justly says, The sudden transitions of the bride from the court to the grove are inexplicable, on the supposition that it describes merely human love. Had it been the latter, it would have been positively objectionable, and never would have been inserted in the holy canon. The allusion to "Pharaoh's chariots"

(So 1:9)

has been made a ground for conjecturing that the love of Solomon and Pharaoh's daughter is the subject of the Song. But this passage alludes to a remarkable event in the history of the Old Testament Church, the deliverance from the hosts and chariots of Pharaoh at the Red Sea. (However, see on

So 1:9).

The other allusions are quite opposed to the notion; the bride is represented at times as a shepherdess

(So 1:7),

"an abomination to the Egyptians"

(Ge 46:34);

so also

So 1:6; 3:4; 4:8; 5:7

are at variance with it. The Christian fathers, ORIGEN and THEODORET, compared the teachings of Solomon to a ladder with three steps; Ecclesiastes, natural (the nature of sensible things, vain); Proverbs, moral; Canticles, mystical (figuring the union of Christ and the Church). The Jews compared Proverbs to the outer court of Solomon's temple, Ecclesiastes to the holy place, and Canticles to the holy of holies. Understood allegorically, the Song is cleared of all difficulty. "Shulamith"

(So 6:13),

the bride, is thus an appropriate name, Daughter of Peace being the feminine of Solomon, equivalent to the Prince of Peace. She by turns is a vinedresser, shepherdess, midnight inquirer, and prince's consort and daughter, and He a suppliant drenched with night dews, and a king in His palace, in harmony with the various relations of the Church and Christ. As Ecclesiastes sets forth the vanity of love of the creature, Canticles sets forth the fullness of the love which joins believers and the Saviour. The entire economy of salvation, says HARRIS, aims at restoring to the world the lost spirit of love. God is love, and Christ is the embodiment of the love of God. As the other books of Scripture present severally their own aspects of divine truth, so Canticles furnishes the believer with language of holy love, wherewith his heart can commune with his Lord; and it portrays the intensity of Christ's love to him; the affection of love was created in man to be a transcript of the divine love, and the Song clothes the latter in words; were it not for this, we should be at a loss for language, having the divine warrant, wherewith to express, without presumption, the fervor of the love between Christ and us. The image of a bride, a bridegroom, and a marriage, to represent this spiritual union, has the sanction of Scripture throughout; nay, the spiritual union was the original fact in the mind of God, of which marriage is the transcript

(Isa 54:5; 62:5; Jer 3:1, &c.; Eze 16:1-63; 23:1-49;

Mt 9:15; 22:2; 25:1, &c.; Joh 3:29; 2Co 11:2; Eph 5:23-32,

where Paul does not go from the marriage relation to the union of Christ and the Church as if the former were the first; but comes down from the latter as the first and best recognized fact on which the relation of marriage is based;

Re 19:7; 21:2; 22:17).

Above all, the Song seems to correspond to, and form a trilogy with,

Psalms 45 and 72,

which contain the same imagery; just as

Psalm 37

answers to Proverbs, and the

Psalms 39 and 73

to Job. Love to Christ is the strongest, as it is the purest, of human passions, and therefore needs the strongest language to express it: to the pure in heart the phraseology, drawn from the rich imagery of Oriental poetry, will not only appear not indelicate or exaggerated, but even below the reality. A single emblem is a type; the actual rites, incidents, and persons of the Old Testament were appointed types of truths afterwards to be revealed. But the allegory is a continued metaphor, in which the circumstances are palpably often purely imagery, while the thing signified is altogether real. The clue to the meaning of the Song is not to be looked for in the allegory itself, but in other parts of Scripture. "It lies in the casket of revelation an exquisite gem, engraved with emblematical characters, with nothing literal thereon to break the consistency of their beauty" [BURROWES]. This accounts for the name of God not occurring in it. Whereas in the parable the writer narrates, in the allegory he never does so. The Song throughout consists of immediate addresses either of Christ to the soul, or of the soul to Christ. "The experimental knowledge of Christ's loveliness and the believer's love is the best commentary on the whole of this allegorical Song" [LEIGHTON]. Like the curiously wrought Oriental lamps, which do not reveal the beauty of their transparent emblems until lighted up within, so the types and allegories of Scripture, "the lantern to our path"

[Ps 119:105],

need the inner light of the Holy Spirit of Jesus to reveal their significance. The details of the allegory are not to be too minutely pressed. In the Song, with an Oriental profusion of imagery, numbers of lovely, sensible objects are aggregated not strictly congruous, but portraying jointly by their very diversity the thousand various and seemingly opposite beauties which meet together in Christ.

The unity of subject throughout, and the recurrence of the same expressions

(So 2:6, 7; 3:5; 8:3, 4; 2:16; 6:3; 7:10; 3:6; 6:10; 8:5),

prove the unity of the poem, in opposition to those who make it consist of a number of separate erotic songs. The sudden transitions (for example, from the midnight knocking at a humble cottage to a glorious description of the King) accord with the alternations in the believer's experience. However various the divisions assigned be, most commentators have observed four breaks (whatever more they have imagined), followed by four abrupt beginnings

(So 2:7; 3:5; 5:1; 8:4).

Thus there result five parts, all alike ending in full repose and refreshment. We read

(1Ki 4:32)

that Solomon's songs were "a thousand and five." The odd number five added over the complete thousand makes it not unlikely that the "five" refers to the Song of songs, consisting of five parts.

It answers to the idyllic poetry of other nations. The Jews explain it of the union of Jehovah and ancient Israel; the allusions to the temple and the wilderness accord with this; some Christians of Christ and the Church; others of Christ and the individual believer. All these are true; for the Church is one in all ages, the ancient typifying the modern Church, and its history answering to that of each individual soul in it. Jesus "sees all, as if that all were one, loves one, as if that one were all." "The time suited the manner of this revelation; because types and allegories belonged to the old dispensation, which reached its ripeness under Solomon, when the temple was built" [MOODY STUART]. "The daughter of Zion at that time was openly married to Jehovah"; for it is thenceforth that the prophets, in reproving Israel's subsequent sin, speak of it as a breach of her marriage covenant. The songs heretofore sung by her were the preparatory hymns of her childhood; "the last and crowning 'Song of Songs' was prepared for the now mature maiden against the day of her marriage to the King of kings" [ORIGEN]. Solomon was peculiarly fitted to clothe this holy mystery with the lovely natural imagery with which the Song abounds; for "he spake of trees, from the cedar in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall"

(1Ki 4:33).

A higher qualification was his knowledge of the eternal Wisdom or Word of God

(Pr 8:1-36),

the heavenly bridegroom. David, his father, had prepared the way, in

Psalms 45 and 72;

the son perfected the allegory. It seems to have been written in early life, long before his declension; for after it a song of holy gladness would hardly be appropriate. It was the song of his first love, in the kindness of his youthful espousals to Jehovah. Like other inspired books, its sense is not to be restricted to that local and temporary one in which the writer may have understood it; it extends to all ages, and shadows forth everlasting truth

(1Pe 1:11, 12; 2Pe 1:20, 21).

"Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine, and the configurations of their glorie,

Seeing not only how each verse doth shine, but all the constellations of the storie."--HERBERT.

Three notes of time occur [MOODY STUART]: (1) The Jewish Church speaks of the Gentile Church

(So 8:8)

towards the end; (2) Christ speaks to the apostles

(So 5:1)

in the middle; (3) The Church speaks of the coming of Christ

(So 1:2)

at the beginning. Thus we have, in direct order, Christ about to come, and the cry for the advent; Christ finishing His work on earth, and the last supper; Christ ascended, and the call of the Gentiles. In another aspect we have: (1) In the individual soul the longing for the manifestation of Christ to it, and the various alternations in its experience

(So 1:2, 4; 2:8; 3:1, 4, 6, 7)

of His manifestation; (2) The abundant enjoyment of His sensible consolations, which is soon withdrawn through the bride's carelessness

(So 5:1-3,

&c.), and her longings after Him, and reconciliation

(So 5:8-16; 6:3, &c.; So 7:1,

&c.);

(3) Effects of Christ's manifestation on the believer; namely, assurance, labors of love, anxiety for the salvation of the impenitent, eagerness for the Lord's second coming

(So 7:10, 12; 8:8-10, 14).

Introduction to Song of Solomon

1. "The Song of Songs which is Solomon's," so designated by its most ancient (Hebrew) title, holds a unique position in sacred literature. It may be said to be the enigma of the Old Testament, just as the Apocalypse (Revelation) is of the New Testament.

The Song was regarded as an integral and venerated portion of the Hebrew canon before the commencement of the Christian era, and passed as such into the canon of the primitive church. It has been always held both by the church and by the synagogue in the highest and most reverent estimation.

One or two allusions have been found in the Song to at least one older canonical book (Genesis); and a few references to it occur in books of later composition (Proverbs, Isaiah, Hosea); while two or three doubtful allusions have been thought to be made to it by writers of the New Testament. These references are sufficient to establish the recognition of the Song as a part of Holy Scripture by some among the canonical writers.

2. The difficulties of the interpreter of the Song are unusually great. One lies in the special form of composition. The Song of Songs might be called a lyrico-dramatic poem, but it is not a drama in the sense that it was either intended or adapted for representation.

Though the Song is a well-organized poetical whole, its unity is made up of various parts and sections, of which several have so much independence and individuality as to have been not inaptly called Idylls, i. e. short poetic pieces of various forms containing each a distinct subject of representation. These shorter pieces are all, however, so closely linked by a common purpose, as to form, when viewed in their right connection, constituent parts of a larger and complete poem.

The earliest Jewish expositor of the Song as a whole, the author of the so-called Chaldee Targum, divides it in his historico-prophetic interpretation into two nearly equal halves at Sol 5:1. All that precedes the close of that verse he makes refer to the times of the Exodus and of the first temple, and all that follows to times subsequent to the deportation to Babylon down to the final restoration of Israel and the glories of the latter day. Whatever we may think of this allegorical interpretation, the division itself may, with other divisions - suggested by refrains and recurrent phrases, used it would seem of set purpose to indicate the commencement or the close of various sections - prove a valuable clue to the true significance of the whole.

The two most important of these refrains are, first, the bride's three-fold adjuration to the chorus Sol 2:7; Sol 3:5; Sol 8:4, marking at each place, as most interpreters agree, the close of one division of the poem; secondly, the question asked three times by a chorus on as many distinct appearances of the bride Sol 3:6; Sol 6:10; Sol 8:5, marking, in like manner, a fresh commencement. These two refrains enable us to divide each half of the Song into three parts of nearly equal length, and make the whole poem consist of six parts; an arrangement which, in its main features, has obtained a majority of suffrages among modern interpreters.

The Song is throughout so far dramatic in form that it consists entirely of dialogue or monologue, the writer nowhere speaking in his own person; and the dialogue is connected with the development of a certain action. There are, we believe, only three chief speakers, "the bride," "the beloved," and a chorus of "virgins" or "daughters of Jerusalem," having each their own manner and peculiar words and phrases, and these so carefully adhered to as to help us, in some cases of doubt, to determine the particular speaker (see Sol 1:8 note)

If in other Scriptures are found words of indignation and wrath and terrible threatenings, the characteristics of this book are sweetness, cheerfulness, and joy, characteristics somewhat at variance with "the hypothesis" so-called "of the shepherd lover." According to the view taken in this commentary, there is only one lover in the Song, and one object of his affection, without rival or disturbing influence on either side. The beloved of the bride is in truth a king, and if she occasionally speaks of him as a shepherd, she intimates Sol 6:2-3 that she is speaking figuratively. Being herself a rustic maiden of comparatively lowly station she, by such an appellation, seeks to draw down him "whom her soul loveth" Sol 1:7; Sol 3:1-4, though he be the king of Israel, within her narrower circle of thoughts and aspirations. And, therefore, while the whole poem breathes of almost more than regal splendor and magnificence, the bride is nowhere represented as dwelling with any pride or satisfaction on the riches or grandeur of her beloved, but only on what he is to her in his own person as" chiefest among ten thousand" and "altogether lovely" (Sol 5:10, note; Sol 5:16, note).

3. Most recent critics have agreed in assigning to the Song an early date.

The diction of the Song (on the character of which several critics have insisted when arguing for a later date) is unquestionably peculiar. The poem is written in pure Hebrew of the best age, but with a large sprinkling of uncommon idioms and some very remarkable and apparently foreign words. Diction apart, most of the references and allusions in the Song would lead us to assign it, in accordance with its title, to the age of Solomon, nor does there seem to be sufficient reason for departing from the traditional belief that Solomon was himself the author; unless it be considered a panegyric composed in his honor by a prophet or poet of the king's own circle. In that case some of the peculiarities of diction and phraseology might be accounted for by assuming the author to have been a native of the northern part of Solomon's dominions.

One striking characteristic of the writer of the Song is a love of natural scenes and objects, and familiarity with them as they would be presented, in the wide area of the Hebrew monarchy, to an observant eye in the age of Solomon. Thus, it has been observed that this short poem contains 18 names of plants and 13 of animals. No less delight is exhibited in the enumeration of those works of human art and labor and those articles of commerce, which in the time of Solomon so largely ministered to royal pomp and luxury.

The time in which the Song was written was unquestionably one of peace and general prosperity, such as occurred but very rarely in the chequered history of Israel. All the indications named above concur with this in fixing that time as the age of Solomon.

4. The interpretation of the Song of Songs followed in this commentary proceeds on the assumption that the primary subject and occasion of the poem was a real historical event, of which we have here the only record, the marriage union of Solomon with a shepherd-maiden of northern Palestine, by whose beauty and nobility of soul the great king had been captivated. Starting from this historical basis, the Song of Songs is in its essential character an ideal representation of human love in the relation of marriage Sol 8:6-7.

5. According to this literal and historical interpretation, Parts I-- III constitute the first half or one main division of the poem, which may be called: the bride and her espousals with the king Cant. 1:2-5:1. The three parts represent each a different scene and distinct action.

Part I. The Bride in the King's Chambers

Cant. 1:2-2:7 subdivisible into four sections, corresponding to so many pauses in the action or dialogue.

The scene is laid apparently in a wooded district of northern Palestine near the bride's home, where the king is spending part of the summer season in tents. The three chief speakers of the poem are now introduced in succession: first, a female chorus (the "daughters of Jerusalem") commence by singing a short ode of two stanzas in praise of the absent king Sol 1:2-4. The next speaker, the Shulamite maiden ("the bride"), appears to have been recently brought from her country home to the king's pavilion, to be there affianced to him. A brief dialogue ensues between her and the chorus Sol 1:5-7. The king himself appears, in the third place, and commending the beauty of the bride, receives from her in return words of praise and affection Sol 1:16; Sol 2:7. Throughout this part the bride is represented as of inferior rank to him whom she calls her "beloved," shrinking at times from the splendors of the royal station that awaits her. She speaks of him both as a shepherd and as a king; but, in either character, as of one in whose favor and society she finds supreme satisfaction and entire rest. It is a day of early love, but not that of their first meeting.

Part II. Monologues of the Bride

Cant. 2:8-3:5, comprising two sections.

This part carries us back to an earlier period than the former, and affords a glance at the previous history of the Shulamite in her relations to the king. She describes to the chorus in two monologues how the beloved had visited her on a spring morning, and how she had afterward dreamed of him at night.

Part III. Royal Espousals

Cant. 3:6-5:1, subdivisible into three sections.

The scene changes to Jerusalem, where the bride is brought in royal state to be united to the king in marriage.

Parts IV - VI. The Bride, the King's Wife

Cant. 5:2-7:1. The once lowly Shulamite, though now sharing with her beloved the high places of Israel, yet retains that sweetness, humility, and devoted affection, which in other scenes and circumstances had gained his heart. She invites him to revisit with her rural scenes, and share once more their simple pleasures Sol 7:11-13.

Part IV. Seeking and Finding

Cant. 5:2-6:9 may be divided into three sections.

The scene of this part is still Jerusalem. The bride after relating to the chorus a second dream concerning her beloved, pours forth a stream of richest fancies in his praise, who, as she complains, has departed from her. The Chorus offering to aid her in her search of him, suddenly the beloved reappears and gives in his turn the noblest commendations to the bride.

Part V. Homeward Thoughts

Cant. 6:10-8:4, subdivisible into four sections.

The scene is still Jerusalem, or a palace-garden in the neighborhood; but the bride's thoughts are now reverting to her northern home. She relates how in early spring she had first met the king in a walnut-garden in her own country. The chorus ask her to perform a sacred dance seemingly well known to the bride and her country-folk. The bride complies, and while she is dancing and the chorus are singing some stanzas in her praise, the king himself appears. The bride invites him to return with her into the country and to her mother's house.

Part VI. The Return Home

Sol 8:5-14, containing three very brief sections.

The scene changes to the bride's birthplace, to which she has now returned with the king. The bride commends her brothers to the good graces of the king, and ends, at his request, by charming his ear with one last song, recalling to his memory a strain of other days (see Sol 8:14 note).

The history, which forms its groundwork is, however, throughout the poem, contemplated from an ideal point of view; and the fundamental idea expressed and illustrated is the awful all-constraining, the at once leveling and elevating power of the mightiest and most universal of human affections. The refrains and phrases, to which allusion has been already made, give expression at regular intervals to this idea.

The ideal character of the whole poem is further evidenced by the way in which the chief points whereon the action turns are indicated; and it will be found that the two halves, or main divisions of the Song have numerous well-balanced contrasts and correspondences throughout.

These and other peculiarities, which impart to the Song of Songs its unique and enigmatical character, seem chiefly due to its idealizing treatment of an actual history felt at the time, and especially by the writer, to be profoundly interesting and significant.

Further, that the history thus idealized and the form in which it is presented have meanings beyond themselves and point to something higher, has ever been a deep-seated conviction in the mind both of the church and of the synagogue.

The two axes, so to speak, on which the main action of the poem appears alternately to revolve, may be found in the king's invitation to the bride on bringing her to Jerusalem Sol 4:8, and in the bride's to the king in recalling him to Shunem Sol 7:11-13; Sol 8:2; in these two invitations and their immediate consequences - the willing obedience of the bride and the ready condescension of the king, the first surrender on her part and the final vow on his - the writer of the Song seems to have intended to exhibit the two-fold energy, both for elevation and abasement, of that affection, to the delineation of which his work is dedicated. The omnipotent, transforming, and yet conserving power of faithful love is here seen in like yet diverse operation in the two personalities through whom it is exhibited. In the case of the bride we see the lowly rejoicing in unforeseen elevation without loss of virginal simplicity, in that of the beloved the highest is made happy through self-abasement without compromise of kingly honor.

It is then no mere fancy, which for so many ages past has been accustomed to find in the pictures and melodies of the Song of Songs types and echoes of the actings and emotions of the highest love - of Love Divine - in its relations to humanity. Christians may trace in the noble and gentle history thus presented foreshadowings of the infinite condescensions of Incarnate Love; - that Love which, first stooping in human form to visit us in our low estate in order to seek out and win its object Psalm 136:23, and then raising along with itself a sanctified humanity to the heavenly places Ephesians 2:6, is finally awaiting there an invitation from the mystic Bride to return to earth once more and seal the union for eternity Revelation 22:17.

Introduction to the Canticles, or Song of Solomon

The book before us is called in the Hebrew שיר השירים Shir Hashshirim, "The Song of Songs;" or, "An Ode of the Odes:" which might be understood, "An Ode taken or selected from others of a similar kind;" or, "An Ode the most excellent of all others;" this being an idiom common to the Hebrew language: e.g., the God of gods is the supreme God; the Lord of lords, the supreme Lord; the King of kings, the supreme King; the heaven of heavens, the supreme or highest heaven. It may therefore be designed to express "a song of the utmost perfection; one of the best that existed, or had ever been penned." Perhaps the title may have a reference to the other poetical compositions of Solomon, which were no less than one thousand and five; and this was considered the most excellent of the whole, and the only one that remains, unless we suppose Solomon, with some of the Jews, to be the author of Psalm 72 and Psalm 127:1-5 : but this cannot be proved.

There have been some doubts concerning the author of this book. Some of the rabbins supposed it to be the work of the prophet Isaiah; but this sentiment never gained much credit. Most have, without hesitation, attributed it to Solomon, whose name it bears; and if the book of Ecclesiastes be his, this will follow in course, as the style is exactly the same, allowing for the difference of the subject. Both books seem to have been written about the same time, and to have had the same author.

This book, if written by Solomon, could not have been written in his old age, as some have supposed the book of Ecclesiastes to have been; which sentiment is, I think, sufficiently disproved; for we find that long before Solomon's old age he had three hundred wives, and seven hundred concubines; but at the time this Song was written, Solomon had only sixty wives and eighty concubines. And the Song most certainly celebrates a marriage; whether between Solomon and the daughter of Pharaoh, or between him and some Jewish princess, has not been fully agreed on among critics and commentators. It is most likely to have been a juvenile or comparatively juvenile production; and indeed the high and glowing colouring, and the strength of the images, are full proofs of this. Though Anacreon made amatory odes when he was bald-headed, yet neither he nor any one else, humanly speaking, could have made such odes as the Canticles when stricken in years.

But to what denomination of writing do the Canticles belong? Are they mere Odes, or Idyls, or Pastorals; or are they an Epithalamium? Let us define these terms, and examine the Song of Solomon by them.

1. The Ode is generally understood to be a species of poetry containing sublime and important matter, always sung, or accompanied by the harp, or some proper musical instrument.

2. The Idyl implies a short poem, containing some adventure.

3. The Pastoral contains what belongs to shepherds, and their occupations.

4. The Epithalamium is the congratulatory song, sung to a new married pair, wishing them abundant blessings, a numerous and happy offspring, etc.

Strictly speaking, the Book of Canticles falls under neither of these descriptions: it is rather a composition sui generis, and seems to partake more of the nature of what we call a Mask, than any thing else; an entertainment for the guests who attended the marriage ceremony, with a dramatic cast throughout the whole, though the persons who speak and act are not formally introduced. There are so many touches in the form and manner of this Song like those in the Comus of Milton, that it leads me to doubt whether the English poet has not taken the idea of his mask from the Jewish.

As to the persons, chiefly concerned, it is generally believed that Solomon and Pharaoh's daughter are the bridegroom and bride; with their proper attendants, viz., companions of the bridegroom, and companions of the bride, with certain mutes, who only appear, or are mentioned by others, without taking any particular part in the transactions.

But it is much more easy to be satisfied on the species of composition to which this book belongs, than on the meaning of the book itself. Is it to be understood in the obvious manner in which it presents itself? And are Solomon and his bride, their friends and companions, to be considered as mere dramatis personae? Or are they typical or representative persons? Does this marriage represent a celestial union? Do the speeches of each contain Divine doctrines? Are the metaphors, taken from earthly things, to be understood of spiritual matters? In a word, does Solomon here represent Jesus Christ. Is the daughter of Pharaoh the Christian Church; or, according to some Roman Catholics, the Virgin Mary? Are watchmen, vineyard-keepers, shepherds, etc., the ministers of the Gospel? Wine and vartous fruits, the influences and graces of the Divine Spirit? etc., etc. How multitudinous and positive are the affirmative answers to these questions! And yet, though the many agree in the general principle, how various their expositions of the different parts of the piece! And where, all this time, is the proof that the principle is not misunderstood? As to conjectures, they are as uncertain as they are endless; and what one pious or learned man may think to be the meaning, is no proof to any other that he should make up his mind in the same way.

Let us for a moment consider the different opinions held on this book, without entering into the discussion of their propriety or impropriety. They are the following: -

I. It is a plain epithalamium on the marriage of Solomon with the daughter of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and is to be understood in no other way.

II. It is an allegory relative to the conduct of God towards the Hebrews, in bringing them out of Egypt, through the wilderness to the Promised Land.

III. It is intended to represent the incarnation of Jesus Christ, or his marriage with human nature, in reference to its redemption.

IV. It represents Christ's love to the Church or elected souls, and their love to him.

V. It is an allegorical poem on the glories of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary.

VI. It is a collection of sacred idyls; the spiritual meaning of which is not agreed on.

Now each of these opinions has its powerful supporters, and each of these has reasons to offer for the support of the opinion which is espoused; and nothing but a direct revelation from God can show us which of these opinions is the correct one, or whether any of them are correct.

The antiquity of an opinion, if that be not founded on a revelation from God, is no evidence of its truth; for there are many ungodly opinions which are more than a thousand years old. And as to great men and great names, we find them enrolled and arranged on each side of all controversies. It may be asked, What do Christ and his apostles say of it?

1. If Jesus Christ or any of his apostles had referred to it as an allegory, and told us the subject which it pointed out, the matter would have been plain: we should then have had data, and had only to proceed in the way of elucidation. But we find nothing of this in the New Testament.

2. If they had referred to it as an allegory, without intimating the meaning, then we should be justified in searching everywhere for that meaning; and conjecture itself would have been legal, till we had arrived at some self-testifying issue.

3. If they had referred to it at all, in connection with spiritual subjects, then we should have at once seen that it was to be spiritually understood; and, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, we must have humbly sought for its spiritual interpretation.

4. Had the Supreme Being been introduced, or referred to in any of his essential attributes, or by any of the names which he has been pleased to assume in his revelations to men, we should have then seen that the writer was a spiritual man, and wrote probably in reference to a spiritual end; and, that we should pass by or through his letter, in order to get to the spirit concealed under it.

But none of these things appear in this book: the name of God is not found in it; nor is it quoted in the New Testament. As to certain references which its allegorical expositors suppose are made to it, either in the Gospels, Epistles, or Apocalypse, they are not express, and do not, by any thing in or connected with them, appear unequivocally to point out this book. And after all that has been said, I am fully of opinion it is not once referred to in the New Testament. But this is no proof of its not being canonical, as there are other books, on which there is no doubt, that are in the same predicament. But still, if it refer so distinctly to Christ and his Church, as some suppose, it certainly would not have been passed over by both evangelists and apostles without pointed and especial notice; and particularly if it points out the love of Christ to his Church, and the whole economy of God's working in reference to the salvation of the souls of men.

From all this it will appear to the intelligent reader, that the spiritual meaning of this book cannot easily be made out:

1. Because we do not know that it is an allegory.

2. If one, the principles on which such allegory is to be explained do nowhere appear.

Whom then are we to follow in the interpretation of this very singular book? The Targumist, who applies it to God and the Hebrews, in their journeyings from Egypt to the promised land? Origen, who made it a Christian allegory? Apponius, who spiritualized it? Gregory the Great, who in the main copied them? The good man, who in 1717, at Paris, so illustrated it as "to induce men to devote themselves to Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary?" Mr. Durham, Mr. Robotham, Mr. Ainsworth, Mr. Romaine, and Dr. Gill, who endeavored to prove that it concerns Christ and the elect? Or Mr. Harmer and others who acknowledge it to be an inimitable composition, and to be understood only of Solomon and Pharaoh's daughter? Or, finally, Dr. Mason Good, who considers it a collection of sacred idyls, the spiritual interpretation of which is not agreed on?

I had for a long time hesitated whether I should say any thing on this book; not because I did not think I understood its chief design and general meaning, for of this I really have no doubt, but because I did not understand it as a spiritual allegory, representing the loves off Christ and his Church. I must own I see no indubitable ground for this opinion. And is it of no moment whether the doctrines drawn from it, by those who allegorize and spiritualize it, be indubitably founded on it or not? The doctrines may be true in themselves, (which is indeed more than can be said of those of most of its interpreters), but is it not a very solemn, and indeed awful thing to say, This is the voice of Christ to his Church, This is the voice of the Church to Christ, etc., etc., when there is no proof from God, nor from any other portion of his word, that these things are so?

It is much better, therefore, if explained or illustrated at all, to take it in its literal meaning, and explain it in its general sense. I say general sense, because there are many passages in it which should not be explained, if taken literally, the references being too delicate; and Eastern phraseology on such subjects is too vivid for European imaginations. Let any sensible and pious medical man read over this book, and, if at all acquainted with Asiatic phraseology, say whether it would be proper, even in medical language, to explain all the descriptions and allusions in this poem.

After what I have said on the difficulty of interpreting this book in a spiritual way it would not be fair to withhold from the reader the general arguments on which the theory of its allegorical meaning is founded. The principal part of the commentators on this book, especially those who have made it their separate study, have in general taken it for granted that their mode of interpretation is incontrovertible; and have proceeded to spiritualize every figure and every verse as if they had a Divine warrant for all they have said. Their conduct is dangerous; and the result of their well-intentioned labors has been of very little service to the cause of Christianity in general, or to the interests of true morality in particular. By their mode of interpretation an undignified, not to say mean and carnal, language has been propagated among many well-meaning religious people, that has associated itself too much with selfish and animal affections, and created feelings that accorded little with the dignified spirituality of the religion of the Lord Jesus. I speak not from report; I speak from observation and experience, and observation not hastily made. The conviction on my mind and the conclusion to which I have conscientiously arrived, are the result of frequent examination, careful reading, and close thinking, at intervals, for nearly fifty years; and however I may be blamed by some, and pitied by others, I must say, and I say it as fearlessly as I do conscientiously, that in this inimitably fine elegant Hebrew ode I see nothing of Christ and his Church, and nothing that appears to have been intended to be thus understood; and nothing, if applied in this way, that, per se, can promote the interests of vital godliness, or cause the simple and sincere not to "know Christ after the flesh." Here I conscientiously stand. May God help me!

The most rational view of the subject that I have seen is that taken by Mr. Harmer, who has indeed detailed and strengthened the arguments of his predecessors who have declared for the spiritual meaning. In his "Outlines of a Comment upon Solomon's Song," he supposes that the Song refers to Solomon's marriage with the daughter of Pharaoh; and that he had a Jewish queen, who is frequently referred to in the work; and that, unless this be allowed, there are several important passages in the book that cannot be understood; and indeed it is on this principle that he finds his chief ground for a spiritual and allegorical interpretation.

"Whatever was the intention of God," says he, "in bringing about this marriage, and in causing it to be celebrated in such an extraordinary manner, by songs that were directed to be placed among the sacred writings, it is certain there never was any resemblance more striking between the circumstances and transactions of any of the remarkable personages of the Old Testament and those of Messiah, than the likeness we may observe between Solomon marrying a Gentile princess, and making her equal in honor and privileges with his former Jewish queen, and in her being frequently mentioned afterwards in history, while the other is passed over in total silence, and the conduct of the Messiah towards the Gentile and Jewish Churches.

"The two remarkable things in the conduct of the Messiah towards the two Churches are the making the Gentiles fellow heirs of the same body and partakers of the promises, without and difference; and the giving up to neglect the Jewish Church, while that of the Gentiles has long flourished in great honor, and been the subject of many a history. St. Paul takes notice of both these circumstances with particular solemnity; of the first, in the third chapter of Ephesians, and elsewhere; of the other, in the eleventh chapter of Romans. They are points, then, that deserve great attention.

"They are both called mysteries, (Romans 11:25; Ephesians 3:3), that is, things that had been concealed aforetime; but it by no means follows that there were no shadowy representations of these events in the preceding ages, only that they were not clearly and expressly revealed.

"Kingdoms and cities are frequently spoken of in holy writ as women. Sacred as well as secular bodies of men are represented under that image. The universal Church is spoken of under the notion of a bride, and the Messiah as her husband, Ephesians 5:The two Churches of Jews and Gentiles, or the Church under the Mosaic dispensation and the Church freed from those ceremonies, are represented as two women - the one formerly treated as the principal wife; and the second, as having been for a long time neglected, but afterwards producing a much more numerous issue than the first-by the prophet Isaiah in his fifty-fourth chapter, according to the explanation St. Paul has given of that passage in Galatians 4:Particular Churches are mentioned after the same manner. So, concerning the Church at Corinth, St. Paul says, "I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ;" 2 Corinthians 11:2.

"Since then it is common for the Scriptures to represent the Church of God under the notion of a woman, and the Messiah under that of a husband; since the two bodies of men - that which worshipped God according to the Mosaic rites, and that which observed them not - are compared to two women; and since the circumstances of these two Churches are such as I have given an account of from St. Paul, it must be acknowledged that there is a lively resemblance between Solomon's espousing the Egyptian princess and the Messiah's admitting the Gentiles to equal privileges with the Jews, whether it was or was not designed by God as an emblem and type of it celebrated by his prophets for this cause, in holy songs; and those songs preserved with care to this day among writings of the most sacred kind on that account."

This is the whole of Mr. Harmer's argument; see his Outlines, pages 74-77. And what is proved by it? Nothing, in reference to this book. We know that the Jewish people, not the Church exclusively, are represented under the notion of a woman addicted, and a wife unfaithful, divorced, and forsaken, etc.; and that the Corinthians were represented under the notion of a chaste virgin espoused to Christ. And we know that all this was done to show, that as the marriage union was the closest, strictest, and most sacred among men, the union of the soul to God, and its connection with him, might be most fitly represented by that union, and unfaithfulness to him by infidelity in the other case. But what has this to do with the Song of Solomon? Where is the intimation that Solomon represents Christ; Pharaoh's daughter, the Church of the Gentiles; and the Jewish queen, the Church of the Israelites? Nowhere. Why then assume the thing that should be proved; and then build doctrines on it, and draw inferences from it, as if the assumption had been demonstrated?

Were this mode of interpretation to be applied to the Scriptures in general, (and why not, if legitimate here?) in what a state would religion soon be! Who could see any thing certain, determinate, and fixed in the meaning of the Divine oracles, when fancy and imagination must be the standard interpreters? God has not left his word to man's will in this way.

Every attempt, however well-intentioned, to revive this thriftless, not to say dangerous, Origenian method of seducing the Scriptures to particular creeds and purposes, should be regarded with jealousy; and nothing received as the doctrine of the Lord but what may be derived from those plain words of the Most High which lie most on a level with the capacities of mankind. Allegory, metaphor, and figures in general, where the design is clearly indicated, which is the case with all those employed by the sacred writers, may come in to illustrate and more forcibly to apply Divine truth; but to extort celestial meanings from a whole book, where no such indication is given, is most certainly not the way to arrive at the knowledge of the true God, and of Jesus Christ whom he has sent.

As the Jewish marriages were celebrated for seven days, it has been often observed that this Song divides itself into seven periods, and describes the transactions of each.

I. The First chapter represents the bridegroom and bride as a shepherd and shepherdess. The bride asks her spouse where he takes his flock at noon, to preserve them from the excessive heat, lest she, in seeking him, should go astray into some strange pastures. After this day, the first night succeeds, which is pointed out Sol 2:4-6. The bridegroom rises early in the morning, leaves the bride asleep, and goes hastily to the fields to his necessary occupations, Sol 2:7.

II. The Second night is pointed out Sol 2:8, Sol 2:9, etc. The bridegroom comes to the window of his spouse. She opens it, and he enters; and on the morrow, he returns to the fields to his flocks, Sol 2:17.

III. The Third night, the bridegroom having delayed his coming, the bride, being uneasy, arises from her bed, and goes out and inquires of the guards of the city, whether they had seen her beloved. She had not gone far from them till she met with him; she conducts him to her apartment, 3:14. Very early in the morning, he retires to the country, leaving the bride asleep, verse 5. Afterwards she arises, and goes also to the fields, verse 6.The Fourth chapter is an eulogium on the bride's beauty; and seems to be a conversation between the parties in the country. She invites the bridegroom to visit her, Sol 5:1. He leaves his friends, with whom he was feasting, and comes to the door of his spouse, Sol 5:2. She hesitating to let him in, he withdraws and goes to his garden. The bride follows; but, not knowing whither he had retired, asks the guards of the city, by whom she is maltreated; thence goes to the daughters of Jerusalem, and inquires of them, Sol 5:3, etc. At last she meets with him, Sol 6:1, etc., and having spent some time with him, returns.

IV. Sol 6:9, points out the Fourth night of the marriage.

V. The Fifth night is pointed out Sol 7:1, etc. The bridegroom gives his bride nearly the same praise and commendations which he had received from her in the preceding chapters; and early in the morning they go out together to the fields, Sol 7:11-13.

VI. The Sixth night they pass at a village in the country, at the house of a person who is termed the bride's mother, Sol 7:13; Sol 8:1-3. She invites her spouse thither, and promises to regale him with excellent fruits and choice wine; and early in the morning the bridegroom arises, leaves the bride asleep as formerly, and retires to the country, Sol 8:4.

VII. The Seventh night is passed in the gardens. From Sol 8:5, we have a series of dialogues between the bride and bridegroom. In the morning the bridegroom, having perceived that they were overheard, begs the bride to permit him to retire. She assents, Sol 8:13, Sol 8:14, and exhorts him "to make haste, and be like a roe or a young hart on the mountains of spices."

This is the division, which is in the main most followed, especially by the best critics. But, besides this, several others have been proposed; and the reader, who wishes to enter more particularly into the subject, may consult Bishop Bossuet, Calmet, and Bishop Lowth. For my own part I doubt the propriety of this technical arrangement, and do not think that any thing of the kind was intended by the author. The division is not obvious; and therefore, in my apprehension, not natural. Of Dr. Good's division I shall speak below.

The dramatis personae have been marked by some of the ancient interpreters, and the different portions of the whole Song appointed to several persons who are specified; and this division served for the basis of a commentary. The most regular division of this kind with which I have met is in a MS. of my own; the Bible which I have often quoted in my comment.

This, attributed by some to Wiclif, and by others to an older translator, I have carefully transcribed, with all the distinction of parts and speeches. The translation is very simple; and in many cases is much more faithful to the meaning of the Hebrew text, though in the main taken from the Vulgate, than our own version. It is a great curiosity, and certainly was never before printed; and is a fine specimen of our mother tongue as spoken in these countries in M.CCCLX., which may be about the date of this translation. On the common mode of interpretation I venture to assert that my readers will understand this Song ten times better from this translation and its rubricks, than they have ever done from all the forms in which it has been presented to them, to the present time. For this addition, I anticipate the thanks of every intelligent reader. The indications of the speakers, printed here in black letter, are all rubrick, in the beautiful original. I have added a short glossary on some of the more difficult or obsolete words, which will assist the less experienced reader, under whose notice such remote specimens of his own tongue seldom fall.

Between twenty and thirty years ago I received from India a part of the Gitagovinda, or Songs of Jayadeva. This poet, the finest lyric poet of India, flourished before the Christian era; and the poem above, which makes the tenth book of the Bhagavet, was written professedly to celebrate the loves of Chrishna and Radha, or the reciprocal attraction between the Divine goodness and the human soul. The author leaves us in no doubt concerning the design of this little pastoral drama; for in the conclusion he thus speaks: "Whatever is delightful in the modes of music, whatever is Divine in Meditations on Vishnu, whatever is exquisite in the sweet art of love, whatever is graceful in the fine strains of poetry; all that, let the happy and wise learn from the Songs of Jayadeva, whose soul is united with the foot of Narayan." Vishnu and Narayan are epithets of Christina, or the supreme incarnated god of the Hindoos. I found the general phraseology of this work, and its imagery as well as its subject, to correspond so much with those of the Song of Solomon, that in the short notes which I wrote on this book in 1798, I proposed the illustration of many of its passages from the Gitagovinda; and was pleased to find, several years after, that my view of the subject had been confirmed by that encyclopedia of learning and science, Dr. Mason Good, who in his translation of the Song of Songs, with critical notes, published 1803, 8vo., has illustrated many passages from the Gitagovinda.

After having made a selection from this ancient poet for the illustration of the Song of Solomon, I changed in some measure my purpose, and determined to give the whole work, and leave it to my readers to apply those passages which they might think best calculated to throw light upon a book which professedly has the wisest of men for its author, and according to the opinion of many, the most important doctrines of the Christian religion for its subject. I have now followed the metrical version which I received from India, but rather the prose translation of Sir William Jones; dividing it into parts and verses, after the model of the metrical version above mentioned; and adding verbal interpretations of the principal proper names and difficult terms which are contained in the work.

Having been long convinced that the Chaldee Taryum is at once the oldest and most valuable comment upon this book, I have also added this. And here I might say that I have not only followed my own judgment, but that also of a very learned divine, Dr. John Gill, who, having preached one hundred and twenty-two sermons on the Song of Solomon, to the Baptist congregation at Horsleydown, near London, embodied them all in what he calls "An Exposition" of this book; to which he added a translation of the Targum, with short explanatory notes, folio, 1728. This was, however, suppressed in all the later editions of this exposition; but why, I cannot tell. This piece I give to my readers, and for the same reasons alleged by this very learned and excellent man himself: -

"At the end of this exposition I have given," says he, "a version of the Targum or Chaldee paraphrase upon the whole book, with some notes thereon, induced hereunto by the following reasons:

"First, to gratify the curiosity of some who, observing frequent mention and use made of it in my exposition, might be desirous of perusing the whole.

"Secondly, for the profitableness thereof. Our learned countryman, Mr. Broughton, says, this paraphrase is worth our study both for delight and profit. It expounds several passages of Scripture, and some in the New Testament, which I have directed to in my notes upon it; and I am persuaded that the writings of the Jews, the ancient Jews especially, would give us much light into the phraseology and sense of abundance of texts in the New Testament."

It is certain that this paraphrase does very often direct us, or at least confirm us, as to the persons speaking in this Song, to know which is of very great use in the explication of it. I shall add another reason: I believe the Song of Solomon refers more to the Jewish than to the Christian Church, and I think the Targumist has made a more rational use of it than any of his successors.

I have thus places within the reach of all my readers Three especial helps towards a good understanding of this book:

1. The ancient English translation, with its curious dramatis personae

2. The Gitagovinda, a most curious poem of the spiritual and allegorical kind.

3. The Chaldee Targam, the oldest comment on this Song. And I add my prayer, May God guide the reader into all truth, through Christ Jesus! Amen.

On this part of the subject it would be almost criminal not to mention, still more particularly, Dr. Mason Good's translation and notes on the Song of Songs. He has done much to elucidate its phraseology, and his notes are a treasury of critical learning. He considers the book to be a collection of Sacred Idyls, twelve in number; and his division is as follows:

Idyl I Royal Bride Sol 1:2, Sol 1:3, Sol 1:4 Attendant Virgins Part of the fourth verse, beginning, "We will exult." Royal Bride Sol 1:5, Sol 1:6, Sol 1:7 Attendant Virgins Sol 1:8 Idyl II King Solomon Sol 1:9, Sol 1:10, Sol 1:11 Royal Bride Sol 1:12, Sol 1:13, Sol 1:14 King Solomon Sol 1:15 Royal Bride Sol 1:16, Sol 1:17, Sol 2:1 King Solomon Sol 2:2 Royal Bride Sol 2:3, Sol 2:4, Sol 2:5, Sol 2:6, Sol 2:7 Idyl III Royal Bride Sol 2:8, Sol 2:9, Sol 2:10, Sol 2:11, Sol 2:12, Sol 2:13, Sol 2:14, Sol 2:15, Sol 2:16, Sol 2:17 Idyl IV Royal Bride Sol 3:1, Sol 3:2, Sol 3:3, Sol 3:4, Sol 3:5 Idyl VScene, a Chiosk or Pavilion Attendant Virgins Sol 3:6 Other Virgins Sol 3:7, Sol 3:8, Sol 3:9, Sol 3:10 Royal Bride Sol 3:11 King Solomon Sol 4:1, Sol 4:2, Sol 4:3, Sol 4:4, Sol 4:5, Sol 4:6, Sol 4:7 Idyl VI King Solomon Sol 4:8, Sol 4:9, Sol 4:10, Sol 4:11, Sol 4:12, Sol 4:13, Sol 4:14, Sol 4:15 Royal Bride Sol 4:16 King Solomon Sol 5:1 Royal Bride Part of the first verse, beginning, "Eat, O my friends." Idyl VII Royal Bride Sol 5:2, Sol 5:3, Sol 5:4, Sol 5:5, Sol 5:6, Sol 5:7, Sol 5:8 Virgins Sol 5:9 Royal Bride Sol 5:10, Sol 5:11, Sol 5:12, Sol 5:13, Sol 5:14, Sol 5:15, Sol 5:16 Virgins Sol 6:1 Royal Bride Sol 6:2, Sol 6:3 King Solomon Sol 6:4, Sol 6:5, Sol 6:6, Sol 6:7, Sol 6:8, Sol 6:9, Sol 6:10 Idyl VIII Royal Bride Sol 6:11, Sol 6:12 Virgins Sol 6:13 Royal Bride Part of the thirteenth verse, beginning, "What do you expect?" Virgins Latter part of the thirteenth verse, beginning "Fortitude." Idyl IX Virgins Sol 7:1, Sol 7:2, Sol 7:3, Sol 7:4, Sol 7:5 King Solomon Sol 7:6, Sol 7:7, Sol 7:8, Sol 7:9 Idyl X Royal Bride Sol 7:10, Sol 7:11, Sol 7:12, Sol 7:13, Sol 8:1, Sol 8:2, Sol 8:3, Sol 8:4 Idyl XI Virgins Sol 8:5 King Solomon Part of the fifth verse, beginning, "I excited thee." Royal Bride Sol 8:6 King Solomon Sol 8:7 Idyl XII Royal Bride Sol 8:8 King Solomon Sol 8:9 Royal Bride Sol 8:10, Sol 8:11, Sol 8:12 King Solomon Sol 8:13 Royal Bride Sol 8:14 There have been various opinions on this division; and many will still think that much remains yet to be done. Dr. Good considers it a spiritual allegory; but he does not attempt a spiritual application of any part of it. This perhaps is no mean proof of his good sense and judgment. I have acted in the same way, though not so convinced of its spirituality as Dr. Good appears to be. If I took it up in this way, I should explain it according to my own creed, as others have done according to theirs; and could I lay it down as a maxim, that it is to be spiritually interpreted in reference to the Christian Revelation, I might soon show my reader that it points out the infinite love of God to every human soul, in the incarnation of Christ; the means he uses to bring all mankind to an acquaintance with himself; the redemption of true believers from all unrighteousness, through the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit; their consequent holy life, and godly conversation; the calling of the Gentiles; the restoration of the Jews; and the final judgment! And my comment on this plan would have just as solid a foundation as those of my predecessors, from Origen to the present day.

To conclude: I advise all young ministers to avoid preaching on Solomon's Song. If they take a text out of it, to proclaim salvation to lost sinners, thev must borrow their doctrines from other portions of Scripture, where all is plain and pointed. And why then leave such, and go out of their way to find allegorical meanings, taking a whole book by storm, and leaving the word of God to serve tables?

It is curious to see the manner in which many preachers and commentators attempt to expound this book. They first assume that the book refers to Christ and his Church; his union with human nature; his adoption of the Gentiles; and his everlasting love to elect souls, gathered out of both people; then take the words bride, bridegroom, spouse, love, watchmen, shepherds, tents, door, lock, etc., etc., and, finding some words either similar or parallel, in other parts of the sacred writings, which have there an allegorical meaning, contend that those here are to be similarly understood; and what is spoken of those apply to these; and thus, in fact, are explaining other passages of Scripture in their own way, while professing to explain the Song of Solomon! What eminent talents, precious time, great pains, and industry, have been wasted in this way! One eminent scholar preaches to his congregation one hundred and twenty-two sermons upon the Song of Solomon, while all this time the evangelists and apostles have been comparatively forgotten; except only as they are referred to in illustration of the particular creed which such writers and preachers found on this book. How can they account to God for so much time spent on a tract which requires all their ingenuity and skill to make edifying, even on their own plan; a text of which they are not permitted to allege, in controversy, to prove the truth of any disputed doctrine? This, however, is not the fault of any particular class of ministers exclusively; several of all classes, though of some more than of others, have been found, less or more, laboring at this thriftless craft. Some, having preached on it during the whole of their ministry, have carried it, in a certain way, beyond the grave. An aged minister once told me, in a very solemn manner, that as God had been exceedingly merciful to him in saving his soul, and putting him into the ministry, thus accounting him faithful, he hoped that, when called to the Church above, if any funeral sermon were preached for him, it should be from Song of Solomon, Sol 1:8 : "Go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents." That he could have applied these words to his own state, and the use which should be made of his life and death, I have no doubt; but who, from this text, would have chosen to pronounce the funeral oration?

I repeat it, and I wish to be heard by young ministers in particular, take the plainest texts when you attempt to convince men of sin, and build up believers on their most holy faith; and thus show rather your love for their souls than your dexterity in finding out spiritual meanings for obscure passages, on the true signification of which few, either among the learned or pious, are agreed.

I now, according to my promise, lay before my readers a transcript from my own MS. Bible, which is most probably the first translation of this Song that was ever made into the English language. I have added, for the sake of reference, the figures for the present division into verses, in the margin: these are not in the MS. The dramatic personae, here in black letter, are in red in the MS. The orthography is scrupulously followed.

The bride's love to her spouse, Sol 1:1-5. She conffieuses her unworthiness; desires to be directed to the flock, Sol 1:6, Sol 1:7; and she is directed to the shepherds' tents, Sol 1:8. The bridegroom describes his bride, and shows how he will provide for her, and how comfortably they are accommodated, Sol 1:9-17.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SONG OF SOLOMON

This book is entitled, in the Hebrew copies, "Shir Hashirim", the Song of Songs. The Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions call it, "the Song"; and the title of it in the Syriac version, is,

"the Wisdom of Wisdoms of the same Solomon;''

that is, the same who wrote the two preceding books. It has always been received and esteemed by the ancient Jews as a valuable part of the sacred writings, calling it "the Holy of Holies" (a); forbidding their children to read it, because of the sublimity and mysteriousness of it, until they were at years to understand it: nor was there ever any controversy among them about the authenticity of it; but all their writers (b), ancient and more modern, agree that it was written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The ancient Christian fathers and councils have held it as a part of the holy Scriptures, and have continued it in the canon of them; and it has been received as canonical by Christians in all ages, except a very few, as Theodore of Mopsuest, condemned calling it in question by the second council at Constantinople, in 553; and Castalio, in later times, who for the same was censured and exiled by the senate at Geneva; and Mr. Whiston, in our age, whose objections to it I have attempted to answer, in my larger Commentary on this book, published in 1728, and since republished: and I am very sorry I am obliged to take notice of an objection to the antiquity of it, and to its being Solomon's, made by a learned (c) man, very lately; who observes, that the word David, from its first appearance in Ruth, where it is written without the "yod", continues to be so written through the books of Samuel, Kings, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; but appears with a "yod", in the books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Zechariah; wherefore he suggests, that if it was customary to write this word without a "yod" till the captivity, and with one after it; then he thinks a strong argument may be drawn from hence against the antiquity of the Canticles, and its being made by Solomon, since this name is written with a "yod" in Sol 4:4; the only place in it in which it is used: but in answer to this it must be said, that it is not fact that the word is invariably without a "yod" in the books mentioned, particularly the book of Kings: for the authors of the Masorah have observed, on 1 Kings 3:14, that it is five times written in that book full, as they call it, that is, with a "yod", three of the places I have traced out, 1 Kings 3:14; and have found it so written in all the printed copies I have seen; and so it is read by the eastern Jews, in Ezekiel 37:24. This learned man is aware that it is so written, once in Hosea, and twice in Amos, books written two hundred years before the captivity; but then he observes, that in the two last places, in Bomberg's edition, it has a little circle (o) to mark it for an error, or a faulty word, though none over the word in Hosea: but it should be known, that that circle, in hundreds of places, is not used to point out anything faulty in the copy; but is only a mark referring to the margin, and what is observed there; and be it that it does point out an error, or a faulty word, the same circle is over the word in Canticles, and consequently shows it to be faulty there, and to be corrected and read without the "yod", as it was originally without it there; which observation destroys the argument from it: and so it is read in that place in the Talmud (d) without it, and in the ancient book of Zohar (e); and indeed it seems as if it was read without the "yod" in the copies seen by the authors of the Little Masorah; since in their note on 1 Kings 3:14; besides the five places in the Kings, where it is written full, or with the "yod", they say, it is so written throughout the Chronicles, the twelve minor prophets, and Ezra, which includes Nehemiah; but make no mention of Solomon's Song, which, one would think, they would have done, had it been so written there in the copies before them: so that, upon the whole, the argument, if it has any force in it, turns out for, and not against, the antiquity of Solomon's Song. This book of Canticles has plain marks of a divine original, and proofs of its being of divine inspiration: it was written by, one that was inspired of God, as appears by the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, written by him; the greatness of the matter contained in it, the dignity, sublimity, and majesty of its style, show it to be no human composure; the power and efficacy which it has had over the hearts of men, in reading it, and hearing it explained, is another evidence of its being the word of God, which is quick and powerful; the impartiality of it, the bride, who is introduced speaking in it, confessing and proclaiming her own failings and infirmities, is no inconsiderable proof of the same; to which may be added the agreement between this and other portions of Scripture, as particularly Psalm 45:1; and there seem to be many allusions and references to various passages of this book in the New Testament; see Matthew 9:13, &c. John 3:8 Colossians 2:17; compared with Sol 1:3 Sol 5:1. In what time of Solomon's life this book was written is not agreed on: some of the Jewish writers say the book of Proverbs was written first, then the Song of Songs, and last of all Ecclesiastes; others, that the Song was written first, then Proverbs, and then Ecclesiastes (f); though their chronologer (g) says they were all written in his old age, as indeed the last book seems to be; but the Song rather seems to have been written in the middle part of his life, when in the most flourishing circumstances as to body, mind, and estate. Dr. Lightfoot (h) is of opinion it might be written in the thirtieth year of his reign, about ten years before his death, after he had built his summer house in Lebanon, to which he supposes respect is had in Sol 4:8; and upon his bringing Pharaoh's daughter to the house prepared for her, 1 Kings 9:24; but be this at it may, it was not a celebration of the amours between Solomon and her, since the literal sense, in many places, would be monstrous and absurd; and besides it must be written twenty years at least after that, if the house of the forest of Lebanon is referred to in the above places; nor does it set forth their amours, and the marriage between them, as typical of the inexpressible love and marriage union between Christ and his church; though there is a resemblance between natural and spiritual marriage, and the love of persons in such a relation to one another, and to which there may be an allusion in some passages. Nor is this book historical and prophetic, expressing either the state of the people of Israel, from the times of Abraham to Solomon, and so to the Messiah; in which way go many Jewish interpreters, as the Targum, Jarchi, Aben Ezra, and others: nor is it to be considered as describing the state of the church: of God, whether legal, from the times of David and Solomon, and before, in and after the captivity, to the birth and death of Christ; or the Gospel church, in its beginning, progress, various changes, and consummation, as Brightman and Cotton nor as setting forth the several ages and periods of the Christian church, in agreement with the seven churches of Asia, as Cocceius, and those that follow him, Horchius, Hofman, and Heunischius; which latter, particularly, makes this distribution of them:

(1) The Ephesian church, Sol 1:5; from the ascension of Christ to heaven, A. C. 33, to 370. (2) The Smyrnaean church, Sol 2:1; from A. C. 371, to 707; (3) The church at Pergamos, Sol 3:1; from A. C. 708, to 1045. (4) The Thyatirian church, Sol 4:1, from A. C. 1046, to 1383. (5) The Sardian church, Sol 5:2, from A. C. 1384, to 1721. (6) The church at Philadelphia, Sol 6:9, from A. C. 1722, to 2059. (7) The Laodicean church, Sol 8:1, from A. C. 2060, and onwards.

But these senses are very arbitrary, uncertain, and precarious, and limit the several parts of it to certain periods; whereas it is applicable to believers in all ages of time. The whole is figurative and allegorical; expressing, in a variety of lively metaphors, the love, union, and communion, between Christ and his church; setting forth the several different frames, cases, and circumstances of believers, in this life; so that they can be in no case and condition spiritual whatever, but there is something in this Song suitable to them; and which serves much to recommend it, and shows the excellency of it; and that it justly claims the title it bears, the Song of Songs, the most excellent. M. Bossuet (i) is of opinion, that whereas the nuptial feast with the Hebrews was kept seven days, this Song is to be distributed into seven parts, a part to be sung, one each day, during the celebration: The first day, Sol 1:1. The second day, Sol 2:7. The third day, Sol 3:1. The fourth day, Sol 5:2. The fifth day, Sol 6:10. The sixth day, Sol 7:12. The seventh day, Sol 8:4. The thought is ingenious, but seems too fanciful, and without foundation.

(a) Misnah Yadaim, c. 3. s. 5. Shir Hashirim Rabba, fol. 2. 4. Abarbinel in 1. Reg. iii. 12. fol. 209. 2.((b) Zohar in Exod. fol. 59. 3. Shir Hashirim Rabba, fol. 2. 4. Targum, Jarchi, & Aben Ezra in loc. (c) Dr. Kennicott's Dissert. 1. p. 20, &c. (d) T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 30. 1.((e) In Gen. fol. 114. 3.((f) Shir Hashirim Rabba, fol. 3. 3. Yalkut Simeoni, par. 2. fol. 28. 3.((g) Seder Olam Rabba, c. 15. so Shir Hashirim Rabba, fol. 3. 3. (h) See his Works, vol. 1. p. 76. (i) Vid. Lowth de Sacr. Poesi Heb. Praelect. 30. p. 393, 394. & Not. Michaelis in ibid. p. 156-159.

INTRODUCTION TO SONG OF SOLOMON 1

In this chapter, after the general title of the book, Sol 1:1, the church expresses her strong desires, and most ardent wishes, for some fresh discoveries of the love of Christ to her, and for communion with him; having tasted of his love, smelt a sweet savour in his grace, and enjoyed fellowship with him in his house, Sol 1:2. She observes her blackness and uncomeliness in herself; the trials and afflictions she met with from others; and her carelessness and negligence of her own affairs, Sol 1:5; and entreats her beloved to direct her where she might meet with him, feeding his flocks, and giving them rest, to which he returns a kind and gracious answer; gives her proper instructions where to find him, Sol 1:7; and commends her beauty; sets forth her amiableness and loveliness, by various metaphors; and makes promises of more grace and good things to her, Sol 1:9. And then she declares what a value she had for Christ, her beloved; and how precious he was unto her, like a bundle of myrrh, and a cluster of camphire, Sol 1:12. Christ again praises her beauty; and particularly takes notice of her eyes, and her modest look, Sol 1:15; and she returns the encomium back to him, and expresses her pleasure and satisfaction in the house he had built for her, and the furniture of it, Sol 1:16.

THE SONG OF SOLOMON.

The Song of Solomon.

BY

THE REV. ARCHDEACON AGLEN, M.A.

INTRODUCTION

TO

THE SONG OF SOLOMON.

THE “Song of Songs”—from its Latin name, “canticum canticorum,” known generally as Canticles—holds, without question, the first place among the puzzles of literature. Such uncertainty attaches to its subject, its purpose, its authorship, and even its form, that it would have occupied in any literature a place similar to that of Shakespeare’s Sonnets in our own. Born on the sacred soil of Palestine, and appearing among the Holy Scriptures, it offers the greater difficulty of explaining its position. The history of the interpretation of the book from the earliest times has been a long apology to account for its place in the sacred Canon.

For from beginning to end there is not a single word in it which suggests any connection with religion. It presents itself as a page of secular literature that has become bound up with sacred. Of the rest of the Bible the forty-fifth Psalm is most naturally compared with it, since it has marriage for its theme, and is called in the inscription “A Song of Loves.” But there in the space of seven verses the name of God occurs four times. Here it is not found at all. The word “Jah” indeed appears in the Hebrew (Song of Solomon 8:6), but only in its proverbial use as an expression of greatness. The forty-fifth Psalm, on the contrary, though on a secular subject, is as deeply religious in tone as any of those destined for Temple use. In the true Hebrew spirit everything is made subordinate to the master feelings of loyalty to the God Jehovah and reliance upon Him. In the Song of Songs not a trace of this feeling shows itself. There is not a single religious or spiritual sentiment of any kind, nor is there even the most distant allusion to any sacred rite or ordinance whatever. It is. only by the cabalistic method of the Rabbis that reference to the Mosaic system can be forced into the book. The Law, the Temple, the Sacrifices, are unknown. There is not the faintest echo of the worship of the sanctuary. The priest and Levite are silent, and the voice of the prophet is not heard.

Yet the absence of direct religious allusion is not the only, is not the principal, distinction which sets the Canticles in contrast with other parts of the Old Testament. Rather it is the absence of the religious intention which everywhere else controls Hebrew poetry. The poem stands alone as an instance of what Hebrew poetic genius could do when released from the religious purpose. Nature is no longer, as in the rest of sacred song, the veil of the Divine, admired and loved as the vesture, the dwelling of the Most High. The breath of spring, the flowers of the valley, the woods and hills, are here loved for their own sake. The universe is not now filled with the angels of Jehovah, “fulfilling His word.” The winds blowing from the north or the south, the streams flowing from the mountains, the lightning flash, “all are but ministers of love, and feed his sacred flame” (Song of Solomon 4:15-16; Song of Solomon 8:6). The lessons of the lily, so dear to this poet, are not those of the Sermon on the Mount—it is to him only what the daisy was to Chaucer, a sweet emblem of the “truth of womanhede.” The grass is a verdant couch for him (Song of Solomon 1:16), not, as to the author of Psalms 104, a suggestion of a wide and beneficent providence, or, as to Isaiah, an emblem of human frailty. It is not because God has planted them that he recalls the cedars of Lebanon, nor because their majestic beauty humbles human pride, but because their branches form a shady bower for meetings with his love. Had we the whole literature of Palestine, doubtless there would be found among it many other specimens of poetry which in distinction from that which is directly religious in tone we call profane. Israel must have given birth to “bards of passion and of mirth.” Love and wine no doubt had their praises sung in the gathering of the vintage and at the harvest festivals. The strangeness lies in the fact of the admission of a specimen of amatory poetry into the sacred collection. How did the vigilance of those who watched the formation of the Canon allow it?

The allegorical and typical methods of interpretation which began with the Talmud, and have continued in favour till comparatively recent times, supply one answer to this question. Modern criticism for the most part substitutes a profound moral purpose for a concealed sacred meaning, as the raison d’être of the poem. This introduction will only set forth the plan and purpose of the book as it can be gathered, without hypothesis, from itself.

1. The subject of the book is the sentiment of love.

2. The language is like that of all love poetry, passionate, sensuous, voluptuous, in some cases with Oriental licence passing the bounds of the Western standards of sobriety and propriety.

3. The lovers whose mutual passion is sung are wedded. This is evident, not alone from the use of the word khallah—see note, Song of Solomon 4:8—which, though its common employment is to designate a wife, might possibly in the language of love be employed (as sister in the same verse) as a term of strong endearment, but by quite a sufficient number of indications which, combined, leave no doubt on the point. (1) The deliberations of the heroine’s family as to what shall be done with her when at a marriageable age are introduced in his own manner by the poet in one of the reminiscences of which the book is composed (Song of Solomon 8:8 seq., with note), and such a turn given as to show beyond question that she married the man of her choice. (2) There is impressed on the whole poem a feeling of the superiority of wedded love over concubinage, and of monogamy over polygamy. (3) The glowing pictures of Solomon’s marriage (Song of Solomon 3:6 seq.) are introduced evidently either as a foil, to set off the simpler yet greater happiness of the poet, or because this very marriage is the actual subject of the poem. (4) Lastly, the only class of literature with which the poem can be naturally compared is the epithalamium. Many points of analogy with compositions of this class are noticed in the notes, and the one conjecture which is almost irresistible is that first started by Bossuet, that it was actually composed for such a purpose, and was a specimen of a species of literature common in Palestine.

4. Certain obstacles that lay in the way of this union, and which constancy and devotion succeeded in surmounting, furnish the incidents of the piece.

5. There is a kind of unity in the book. The lovers are the same throughout, but the unity is of feeling, not of form. The poem has the appearance of a collection of scattered pieces. Certain marks of division are self-evident; e.g., at Song of Solomon 2:7; Song of Solomon 3:5; Song of Solomon 4:7; Song of Solomon 5:1, and Song of Solomon 8:4. No commentator makes less than five breaks.

6. The poem does not consist of one continuous narrative, nor exhibit a plot progressively developed, but the same story of courtship is repeated again and again in different forms, with the same conclusion.[23] In one case the actual form is repeated with expansions (comp. Song of Solomon 3:1 seq. with Song of Solomon 5:2 seq.). Descriptions, images, phrases, refrains, repeat themselves.

[23] This may seem an arbitrary assumption in the face of the attempts of so many eminent scholars to present the poem as a regular drama, but the unsatisfactory nature of all such attempts is a sufficient testimony to the fact that they have overlooked the plain indications given by the book itself.

7. The story is varied by the use of dialogue. Different speakers can be plainly recognised; e.g., a bridegroom in the character of a shepherd (whether real or assumed, as in so much pastoral poetry, is uncertain), a bride, the Shulamite, as a shepherdess, various maidens, the brothers of the bride. Others are conjectured, and the poem has frequently been arranged as a drama, with regular acts and scenes. All that is certain is that the author, as a matter of form, puts his sentiments into the mouth of different persons, instead of writing in his own person, and that his work is thoroughly dramatic in feeling.

These seven indications are clear and apparently beyond conjecture. Whether the writer had a concealed purpose beyond that of telling his story, whether it is his own passion which he paints so feelingly, or only an ideal representation of love, whether the scenes described are actual or imaginary, the characters historical or fictitious, all this will continue to be a matter of dispute; but it will never be questioned that there is in the Song of Solomon the delineation of a true and passionate love, a constancy tempted and tried, but triumphant over all obstacles, and proof against all seduction, “strong as death, inexorable as Hades,” and that the representation is given in verse of such exquisite melody and poetry of such blended sweetness and power, that it must, apart from all other merits, rank by these alone among the highest lyric attempts of the world.

But it has assumed a place far higher. Not only has it a place in the sacred canon, but it has, in the mystic sense attached to it, been regarded as the most sacred book there. Its first commentator, R. Akiba, who lived in the first century of our era, said of it, “The whole world is not worthy of the day in which this sublime song was given to Israel; for all the Scriptures are holy, but this sublime Song is most holy.” On the other hand, a recent commentator, E. Reuss (Le Cantique des Cantiques dit de Salomon, Paris, 1879), hesitates to include it in his commentary on the Bible, lest his readers should be shocked at a book so totally different from all the rest of Scripture, and conceived in a spirit, if not anti-religious, yet positively strange to all religious sentiments. It was no doubt the shock experienced by pious minds that first suggested the allegorical method of interpretation, which in spite of the uncompromising verdict of criticism will probably continue to keep its hold on the book. As Renan says, “the mystical sense is false philosophically, but it is true religiously. It corresponds to the great sanctification of love inaugurated by Christianity.” Association consecrates no less than dedication. Words, though in themselves indifferent, when set to sublime music partake of its inspiration. So the Canticles can never, under any interpretation, altogether lose the sacred power impressed upon them by generations of pious minds. But apart from an assumed religious character, the poem has its proper place in the Bible. The passion of love is ennobling according as it partakes of the moral sentiment. There have been writers on the Song who have been unable to discover any trace of this controlling influence, “but from beginning to end only marks of folly, vanity, and looseness” (Whiston). Such a view loses sight of the Eastern origin of the poem, and neglects the undoubted contrast displayed throughout between the meretricious manners of the harem and the purity of a constant passion, between the evils of polygamy and the blessings attending the unalterable attachment of two loving souls. It is not a taint of voluptuousness that can rob of its principal worth such a representation of love as culminates in the magnificent description in Ecclesiastes 12:6-7 of chapter 8, and this representation is alone enough to justify the admission of the Song into the Canon; for, in the language of Bunsen, “There would be something wanting in the Bible, if there was not found there an expression of the deepest and the strongest of all human feelings.”

EXCURSUS ON NOTES TO SONG OF SOLOMON.

EXCURSUS I.—ON THE DATE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE SONG.

THE title and Rabbinical tradition are in favour of the Solomonic Authorship. But the value of the evidence of the title is not greater than that of the titles of the Psalms, which need the confirmation of internal evidence before they are accepted as authority. Beyond this there is no external evidence whatever.

INTERNAL EVIDENCE:—I. For the Solomonic Authorship.

(1) The knowledge displayed of plants and animals, and other productions of nature, which is in accordance with 1Kings 4:33.

(2) The evidence of wide acquaintance with foreign things, products of the East, &c, such as we know Solomon possessed; add to this the decidedly secular tone and feeling, a tone and feeling belonging only to this age.

(3) Similarity with certain parts of the Book of Proverbs. Comp. Song of Solomon 5:6, with Proverbs 1:28—Song of Solomon 4:12, with Proverbs 5:15—Song of Solomon 4:5, with Proverbs 5:19—Song of Solomon 8:7, with Proverbs 6:34-35—Song of Solomon 6:9, with Proverbs 31:28; also for analogies of diction comp. in the Hebrew, Song of Solomon 4:9, with Proverbs 1:9—Song of Solomon 4:11, with Proverbs 5:3—Song of Solomon 1:2, with Proverbs 27:6—Song of Solomon 7:2, with Proverbs 25:12—Song of Solomon 4:14, with Proverbs 7:17.

(4) The language is such as we should expect from the Solomonic age. It belongs to the flourishing period of the Hebrew tongue. Highly poetical, vigorous and fresh, it has no traces of the decay which manifested itself in the declining period of Israel and Judah. All the Aramean colouring it has can be explained by the hypothesis of a northern origin (see below).

No one of these indications is conclusive, and all together amount to no more than a strong probability in favour of a date not far removed from the Solomonic era. They certainly make against the extreme view of Grätz, who finding, as he thinks, in the book, a number of words of Greek origin, brings its date down to the third or second century before our era. Others, also on linguistic grounds, have referred it to the post-exile times.

II. The view most generally accepted at present is that the poem was the work of a poet in the northern kingdom, composed not long after the separation of the two kingdoms, probably about the middle of the tenth century before Christ.

The following are among the chief reasons for accepting such a view.

(1) In evidence of its northern birthplace, are the frequent and almost exclusive mention of localities in the north; the author’s strongly expressed dislike of the luxury and expense of Solomon’s court, which necessitated the exactions that so contributed to the schisms between the two kingdoms (1Kings 12:4, seq.; 2Chronicles 10:1, seq.); the entire absence of all allusions to the temple and its worship; the exaltation of Tirzah to an equal place with Jerusalem as a typo of beauty (6:4); dialectical peculiarities, which can only be accounted for on this hypothesis, or on the untenable one of an extremely late composition; the comparison with Hosea, undoubtedly a northern writer, which shows that the two authors “lived in the same circle of images, and that the same expressions were familiar to them” (Renan, Le Cantique des Cantiques, p. 112, referring to Hitzig, Das Hohelied, pp. 9, 10).

This fact of a northern origin established, it follows almost inevitably that the date of the poem must be placed somewhere in the middle of the tenth century, for it was only during the period from 975 to 924 B.C. that Tirzah occupied the position of northern capital (see Note ad loc.); and the whole tone and spirit of the book, together with its treatment of Solomon, is what we should expect at a time not far removed from the rupture of the two kingdoms. As yet tradition had not exaggerated the splendour of the Solomonic era: in the references to Solomon’s guard, his harem, and his arsenal, the figures are not extravagant, as in the comparatively late accounts in Kings and Chronicles. A crowd of smaller indications point the same way, e.g., the mention of Heshbon, which had ceased to be an Israelitish town by Isaiah’s time (Isaiah 15:8). The mention of the Tower of David, as still possessing a garrison (Song of Solomon 7:4, and Song of Solomon 4:4), the allusion to Pharaoh’s equipages have a similar tendency; while it is almost inconceivable that Solomon himself or any author, while that monarch was alive, and his rule all-powerful, could have represented him and his court in such an unfavourable light as they appear in the song. But it is exactly the representation we should look for in a poet of the northern kingdom in the early years after it revolted against the tyranny of the Davidic dynasty.

EXCURSUS II.—ON THE FORM AND PURPOSE OF THE POEM.

The dramatic feeling was not altogether strange to the Hebrews, as we see from the Book of Job, the sixty-third chapter of Isaiah the concluding chapters of Micah, and certain of the Psalms. And there is undoubtedly a great deal of the dramatic element in the “Song of Songs.” Two characters at least speak, a bride and a bridegroom, and as early as the Alexandrian codex of the LXX. translation the dramatic character was recognised, the words “bride” and “bridegroom” being in many instances prefixed to denote the persons speaking. Following out the suggestions thus given by the poem itself, a great many commentators have arranged it as a regular drama, and suppose that it may actually have been put on the stage, but this hypothesis can only be supported by a long succession of other hypotheses. M. Renan, for example, thinks that all the actors must have been present on the stage at once, but always unobservant of what was going on outside their own rôle. And in fact the almost infinite diversity of conjecture hazarded in support of the dramatic theory and the tremendous liberties taken with the text by its advocates go far to disprove it altogether. But it is not necessary, on the other hand, to have recourse to a theory like Herder’s, that the Song is a collection of different love-poems selected and arranged by Solomon. The pieces have a certain unity of subject and style. This is now generally admitted, but they are so loosely connected that they might easily be detached, and a new arrangement made without altering the sense and purpose. Indeed various suggestions of such alterations have at times been made.

The division we accept gives the following lyrical pieces, which we regard not, strictly speaking, as separate poems, but as stanzas of the same poem, somewhat loosely strung together, and not arranged after any definite artistic method.

{

I

Song of Solomon 1:2-8.

II.

Song of Solomon 1:9 to Song of Solomon 2:7.

III.

Song of Solomon 2:8-17.

IV.

Song of Solomon 3:1-5.

V.

Song of Solomon 3:6-11.

{

VI.

Song of Solomon 4:1-7.

VII.

Song of Solomon 4:8-11.

VIII.

Song of Solomon 4:12 to Song of Solomon 5:1.

IX.

Song of Solomon 5:2 to Song of Solomon 6:3.

X.

Song of Solomon 6:4-9.

XI.

Song of Solomon 6:10-13.

XII.

Song of Solomon 7:1-10.

XIII.

Song of Solomon 7:11 to Song of Solomon 8:4.

XIV.

Song of Solomon 8:5-7.

XV.

Song of Solomon 8:8-10.

XVI.

Song of Solomon 8:11-12.

XVII.

Song of Solomon 8:13-14.

The break at the end of II., IV., and XIII. is marked by the formula, “I charge thee,” &c; at the end of III. and VI. by another formula, expressing the return of night, “until the day breaks,” &c, properly “until the day cools,” i.e., the evening. Similarly the emphatic declaration, “I am my beloved’s,” &c, which ends the pieces IX. and XII. An abrupt change of situation sometimes indicates the beginning of a new stanza, as at end of I., VI., and XIV., or a question marks a new departure, as at the beginning of V. and XI. Some of the pieces, as indicated by the brackets, are more closely related than others. But in every case, without exception, there is described, or at least implied, under figures transparent enough, the complete union of the wedded pair. In fact each piece has exactly, whether short or long, whether more or less elaborate, the same general character and dénoûment. Each tells from one or other point of view the story of a courtship, ending in the complete and happy union of the lovers. The book is a series of love-poems, written, or supposed to be written, by a husband for or to his own wife, to recall to her, in the midst of their perfect union, the difficulties their love had encountered, the obstacles thrown in its way, its devoted constancy on both sides, and ultimate conquest over every hindrance.

There is a further conjecture which the form of the poem suggests, it is that these love-poems, by whomsoever originally composed, were arranged and adapted for the celebration of marriages, since, as pointed out in the Notes, maidens and young men vie in praising, these the bridegroom’s beauty, those the bride’s. But whether arranged for any one particular marriage or to be used at such events generally, there is no indication. The daughters of Jerusalem and the friends of the bridegroom may actually have been introduced to sing these praises, or they may have only been present in fancy; we have no positive indication to guide us. Bossuet is really to be credited with this suggestion, though his division into seven portions to suit a period of seven days, the ordinary duration of an Eastern wedding, is somewhat too arbitrary. His conjecture in its general outline is accepted by Renan as well as by our own scholar Lowth; the former even finds confirmation of the Epithalamium hypothesis in the expression of Jeremiah 7:34; Jeremiah 25:10, “the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.” The analogy of modern Eastern weddings is a still stronger confirmation of this conjecture, that the Song was employed as an Epithalamium, if not composed in that character. It also helps to explain what else would seem extravagant in the poem and bordering on the licentious. The manners of many countries allow at weddings a relaxation of the ordinary rules of propriety. It was so in Palestine. “The evening feast was one of boisterous merriment, almost amounting to rioting. There were regular joke-makers; anything however false might be said of the bride, and to make the gravest Rabbi, even the President of the Sanhedrim, sing or dance, seemed a special object of delight” (“Marriage among the Ancient Hebrews,” by the Rev. Dr. Edersheim, Bible Educator, Vol. IV., p. 270). In the remarks on the Song of Songs, by Dr. J. J. Wetstein, given by Delitsch in an Appendix to his Commentary, many illustrations of the poem are adduced from modern Bedouin customs, among others, that of the Wasf, or a description of the personal perfections and beauty of the young couple, of which a specimen is actually given, very analogous in character and imagery to Song of Solomon 7:2-6. But it is not only the East which offers analogy. Love and its language are necessarily the same all the world over. Spenser’s famous Epithalamium helps us to understand the Song of Solomon.

As to the versification of the Song of Songs, it contains examples of almost all the different forms of parallelism, the name given to indicate that balance of clause against clause, either in regard to construction or sense, which constitutes the chief element of Hebrew rhythm. But the greater part of it is free even of the very lax rules which seem to have guided the poets of Israel. We may compare them to those irregular measures in which so many modern poets love to express their sweet and wayward fancies, in which the ear alone is the metrical law. Had the Song but the completeness given by rhyme, it would want no. thing of the richness of sound of the finest pieces of Tennyson’s Maud. (See Bible Educator, Vol. III., p. 48.)

The Title of the Book

¹ The song of songs, which is Solomon's.

We have here the title of this book, showing, 1. The nature of it; it is a song, that it might the better answer the intention, which is to stir up the affections and to heat them, which poetry will be very instrumental to do. The subject is pleasing, and therefore fit to be treated of in a song, in singing which we may make melody with our hearts unto the Lord. It is evangelical; and gospel-times should be times of joy, for gospel-grace puts a new song into our mouths, Ps 98:1. 2. The dignity of it; it is the song of songs, a most excellent song, not only above any human composition, or above all other songs which Solomon penned, but even above any other of the scripture-songs, as having more of Christ in it. 3. The penman of it; it is Solomon's. It is not the song of fools, as many of the songs of love are, but the song of the wisest of men; nor can any man give a better proof of his wisdom than to celebrate the love of God to mankind and to excite his own love to God and that of others with it. Solomon's songs were a thousand and five (1Ki 4:32); those that were of other subjects are lost, but this of seraphic love remains, and will to the end of time. Solomon, like his father, was addicted to poetry, and, which way soever a man's genius lies, he should endeavor to honour God and edify the church with it. One of Solomon's names was Jedidiah—beloved of the Lord (2Sa 12:25); and none so fit to write of the Lord's love as he that had himself so great an interest in it; none of all the apostles wrote so much of love as he that was himself the beloved disciple and lay in Christ's bosom. Solomon, as a king, had great affairs to mind and manage, which took up much of his thoughts and time, yet he found heart and leisure for this and other religious exercises. Men of business ought to be devout men, and not to think that business will excuse them from that which is every man's great business—to keep up communion with God. It is not certain when Solomon penned this sacred song. Some think that he penned it after he recovered himself by the grace of God from his backslidings, as a further proof of his repentance, and as if by doing good to many with this song he would atone for the hurt he had perhaps done with loose, vain, amorous songs, when he loved many strange wives; now he turned his wit the right way. It is more probable that he penned it in the beginning of his time, while he kept close to God and kept up his communion with him; and perhaps he put this song, with his father's psalms, into the hands of the chief musician, for the service of the temple, not without a key to it, for the right understanding of it. Some think that it was penned upon occasion of his marriage with Pharaoh's daughter, but that is uncertain; the tower of Lebanon, which is mentioned in this book (So 7:4), was not built, as is supposed, till long after the marriage. We may reasonably think that when in the height of his prosperity he loved the Lord (1Ki 3:3) he thus served him with joyfulness and gladness of heart in the abundance of all things. It may be rendered, The song of songs, which is concerning Solomon, who as the son and successor of David, on whom the covenant of royalty was entailed, as the founder of the temple, and as one that excelled in wisdom and wealth, was a type of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and yet is a greater than Solomon; this is therefore a song concerning him. It is here fitly placed after Ecclesiastes; for when by the book we are thoroughly convinced of the vanity of the creature, and its insufficiency to satisfy us and make a happiness for us, we shall be quickened to seek for happiness in the love of Christ, and that true transcendent pleasure which is to be found only in communion with God through him. The voice in the wilderness, that was to prepare Christ's way, cried, All flesh is grass.

So 1:1-17.

CANTICLE I.--

(So 1:2-2:7)

--THE BRIDE SEARCHING FOR AND FINDING THE KING.

1. The song of songs--The most excellent of all songs, Hebrew idiom

(Ex 29:37; De 10:14).

A foretaste on earth of the "new song" to be sung in glory

(Re 5:9; 14:3; 15:2-4).

Solomon's--"King of Israel," or "Jerusalem," is not added, as in the opening of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, not because Solomon had not yet ascended the throne [MOODY STUART], but because his personality is hid under that of Christ, the true Solomon (equivalent to Prince of Peace). The earthly Solomon is not introduced, which would break the consistency of the allegory. Though the bride bears the chief part, the Song throughout is not hers, but that of her "Solomon." He animates her. He and she, the Head and the members, form but one Christ [ADELAIDE NEWTON]. Aaron prefigured Him as priest; Moses, as prophet; David, as a suffering king; Solomon, as the triumphant prince of peace. The camp in the wilderness represents the Church in the world; the peaceful reign of Solomon, after all enemies had been subdued, represents the Church in heaven, of which joy the Song gives a foretaste.