Old Testament

Song of Songs

The Song of Songs is a collection of love poems in which a young woman and her beloved speak of their longing for and delight in each other, with a chorus called the daughters of Jerusalem looking on. It moves through invitation and praise, absence and searching, a royal wedding and union, and reaches its summit in the claim that love is as strong as death. It belongs in the Bible because it celebrates the love of man and woman as God's good gift, and because Scripture elsewhere uses marriage to picture God's love for His people, which is why Jewish and Christian readers have long heard more than human love in it.

Author: The title calls it 'Solomon's Song of Songs' (1:1), and tradition took Solomon as author; 1 Kings 4:32 says he composed 1,005 songs. The Hebrew phrase can also mean 'for' or 'about' Solomon, and many scholars think it was written in his honor or tradition rather than by him.
Audience: Israel, as part of its wisdom and song. Its chorus of 'daughters of Jerusalem' suggests young women of the city, and its repeated charge not to awaken love before its time is addressed to them (2:7; 3:5; 8:4).
When: If by Solomon, the tenth century BC. Others date it later on the basis of its language, which includes some unusual words; the date is uncertain.
Where: The land of Israel in springtime: vineyards, gardens and pastures, Jerusalem and its streets, and places from Lebanon and Hermon in the north to En-gedi by the Dead Sea (1:14; 4:8).
Genre: The Song is lyric poetry: speeches and songs with few stage directions, so readers must often work out who is speaking from the Hebrew forms (masculine or feminine) and the content. It uses rich images of gardens, fruit, spices, animals and landscapes, often in 'description songs' that praise the beloved's body part by part (4:1–7; 5:10–16; 7:1–9). Whether it is one unified poem or an anthology of linked songs is debated. Read it as poetry, enjoy the images without decoding each one, and follow the refrains that tie it together.

Shape of the book

Longing, Delight and the Call of Spring · ch 1–2The woman longs for her beloved's love, the two exchange praise, she charges the daughters not to awaken love too soon, and he calls her to come away because winter is past.
Night Search, Royal Wedding and the Garden · ch 3–4She seeks him by night and finds him, Solomon's wedding procession appears, and the bridegroom praises his bride as a locked garden; she invites him in, and 5:1 completes the union.
Absence, Search and Reunion · ch 5–6She delays at his knock and he is gone; searching, she is beaten by watchmen, praises him to the daughters as altogether lovely, and the two are reunited as he praises her as unique among many.
Love Renewed and Love Strong as Death · ch 7–8His fullest praise of her and her invitation to the countryside lead to the book's summit: love is as strong as death, unquenchable and beyond price, followed by closing scenes and a final call to come away.

Themes

Love as God's Good Gift. The Song speaks frankly of physical beauty, desire and union, and it does so without embarrassment or apology. Placed in Scripture, it affirms that the love of man and woman, which God made at creation (), is good.
Mutual Belonging. Her refrain grows through the book: 'My beloved is mine and I am his' (), then 'I belong to my beloved and he belongs to me' (), and finally 'I belong to my beloved, and his desire is for me' (). The woman speaks most often, and love in the Song is given and returned freely on both sides.
Love Has Its Right Time. Three times the woman charges the daughters of Jerusalem not to stir up or awaken love until the time is right (; ; ). Desire is powerful and good, and for that very reason it must not be forced or rushed; the book places union in the setting of a wedding (; –).
Longing and Absence. Love in the Song includes seeking and not finding (; ). Absence makes the woman's longing sharper and her praise of the beloved fuller. The book does not pretend that love is always easy or constant in feeling.
Love Strong as Death. At its summit the Song speaks about love itself: set me as a seal over your heart, for love is as strong as death, many waters cannot quench it, and it cannot be bought with all a man's wealth (). Love here is exclusive, faithful and beyond price.

Where Christ is

The connection to Christ is indirect, and it is honest to say so. The New Testament never quotes the Song. Its link runs through the rest of Scripture, which pictures God as Israel's husband and Christ as the bridegroom of the church, so many Christian readers hear the Song as an echo of that love, while others read it first as a celebration of human marriage that itself reflects Christ and the church. Either way the bridge is built from passages like , not from decoding details of the poems.

God as Husband, Christ as Bridegroom. Echo through the wider canon. The prophets speak of God as Israel's husband, and the New Testament calls Christ the bridegroom and the church His bride, looking ahead to the wedding of the Lamb. Read against these passages, the Song's love between bride and bridegroom becomes a picture of that greater love. (; ; ; ; )
Marriage and the Mystery of Christ and the Church. Echo. Paul says marriage points to Christ and the church, and that Christ will present the church to Himself without spot or wrinkle. The bridegroom's praise, 'you are altogether beautiful, my darling; in you there is no flaw' (), is often heard alongside it, though Paul does not quote the Song. (; ; )
A Love Stronger Than Death. Echo. The Song says love is as strong as death and many waters cannot quench it (). The New Testament shows a love that went further, the Son laying down His life, and promises that nothing, not even death, can separate believers from the love of God in Christ. (; ; )
Desire Restored. Echo. The word for desire in appears elsewhere only in and , where desire is twisted by the fall. Many readers see the Song showing love freely given and returned, a glimpse of what God's redemption restores. (; ; )
The Royal Bridegroom. Echo held lightly. The procession of 'King Solomon' on his wedding day () has been read as a picture of Christ the King and His bride. Jesus says one greater than Solomon is here, but the text itself speaks of Solomon. (; ; )

Voices

Rabbi Akiva. When the Song's place in Scripture was discussed, the Mishnah records him saying that all the Writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the holy of holies.
Origen. His commentary and homilies read the Song as a wedding song about Christ and the church and about the soul's love for the divine Word, a reading that shaped Christian interpretation for more than a thousand years. More from Origen at CCEL ↗
Bernard of Clairvaux. He preached eighty-six sermons on the Song without getting beyond the start of , reading it as the language of the soul's love for Christ the Bridegroom.

Reading well, key terms and common misreadings

Read it well

Identify the speakers. Hebrew pronouns and verb forms show whether a man or woman speaks, which is why many Bibles add headings; the headings are helpful guesses, not part of the text.
Follow the refrains: the charge not to awaken love (2:7; 3:5; 8:4), the statement of belonging (2:16; 6:3; 7:10), and the search scenes (3:1–5; 5:2–8).
Let the images work as images. A neck like a tower or hair like a flock of goats speaks of beauty, strength and value in that culture's terms, not of literal shapes.
Read 8:6–7 as the book's summit. It is the one place where the Song steps back to speak about love itself.
Know the main readings before you start. Many read it first as love poetry; Jewish tradition long read it of God and Israel; much of the church read it of Christ and the church or the soul; others take the human love itself as a type of Christ's love. Some also see a story of a shepherd lover rivaling King Solomon, though most see one couple described as both king and shepherd.

Key terms

Song of Songs שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים (shir hashshirim) — A Hebrew way of saying the greatest or finest song, like 'holy of holies' or 'king of kings.'
Beloved דּוֹד (dod) — The woman's word for the man, used over thirty times. It can also mean love or love-making (1:2), and the plural is used for 'love' in several places.
My darling רַעְיָתִי (rayati) — The man's favored name for the woman, meaning companion or dear friend. Love in the Song includes friendship (5:16).
Bride כַּלָּה (kallah) — Used six times, all in 4:8–5:1, often with 'my sister,' an ancient term of endearment for a wife. It places the central union in the setting of marriage.
Desire תְּשׁוּקָה (teshuqah) — Used only three times in the Bible: Genesis 3:16, Genesis 4:7 and Song 7:10. In the Song, desire is freely directed toward the woman in love.
Shulammite שׁוּלַמִּית (Shulammit) — The name given to the woman in 6:13. Its meaning is debated: a woman from Shunem or Shulem, or a feminine form related to the name Solomon.

Easy to misread

Turning every detail into a code. Allegorical readers have made the two breasts the two testaments or the lattice the law, but nothing in the text supports such a key, and it can hide what the poems plainly celebrate. Any reading toward Christ is best grounded in passages like Ephesians 5.
Dismissing the Song as merely erotic and out of place in Scripture. It belongs to a canon that begins with God creating man and woman and calling it very good, and it presents love as exclusive, faithful and strong.
Using it to approve love outside marriage. The repeated charge not to awaken love before its time, the wedding of 3:11, the bride language of 4:8–5:1 and the seal of 8:6 set desire inside covenant faithfulness.
Applying 'rose of Sharon' and 'lily of the valleys' directly to Christ. In 2:1 these are most naturally the woman's words about herself; using them of Christ belongs to later devotion, not to the text.

Further reading: David Guzik, Enduring Word · Matthew Henry on CCEL · BibleProject overview video