The Song of Songs

The Song of Songs

The Most Beautiful Song of Love

The expression “Song of Songs” meant, to a Hebrew, “the song par excellence,” “the most beautiful song.” This Book is so rich in the turbulent sentiments of the heart, of the passion of love, that it could shock some readers but also render mystical souls enthusiastic.

Experts find that this Song is, in fact, made up of six or seven songs. In them the calls of the young man and the young woman to one another alternate, and the chorus intervenes expressing the thoughts of the public, somewhat like the choral voice of fate in ancient tragedies. These verses exude an atmosphere of youthful freshness and ardent desires, of anxious searching and passionate encounters. The author evokes flowers, the beloved landscape of the Holy Land, and the thousand perfumes of the East. The poetic inspiration that animates these songs is difficult to resist.

It is also difficult to interpret the songs. Of what love are they speaking? Of the love between God and Israel or simply of the love between a man and a woman?

We may take it as almost certain that the Song of Songs was accepted among the inspired Books because Jews and, later on, Christians read in it the story of the relationship between God and his people. Hosea and other prophets after him used nuptial images to signify this relationship (Hos 2; Jer 2:2; 3:1-12; and especially Ezek 16; 23; Isa 50:1; 54:6-7, for example, the restoration of Israel is represented by the image of a conjugal reconciliation).

However, the Song mentions the Lord only once (8:6, alternative translation in note). In addition, the style of these songs is very close to that of the love poems of the East. As we read the Song, we have the impression of dealing with a collection of love songs.

It is probable that the original inspiration for these songs was the desire to write a book about human love. Later on, it was given a religious interpretation as a symbol of the love between God and his people. We shall, therefore, read each text in both perspectives. First of all, we shall allow ourselves to be captivated by the song of love between man and woman, and then meditate on the riches of the covenant between God and his people.

By singing of unconditional love, based on a free choice, and, therefore, of the unity of the couple, the Song throws new light on the people of that time, when marriage was first and foremost a decision of the clan and the families, while monogamy remained the lot of the poor. In this love that is beyond our imagining, the Spirit gives us the most beautiful and truest image of God’s tender love for his people.

We might better say that the mutual love of man and woman is a gift by which God enables them to attain to the wellspring of life that is his own heart. God is love (1 Jn 4:8), and all love has its birth in God and in his Son, Jesus Christ: this is what Christians believe. For this reason Paul could write: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church” (Eph 5:25). “Church” can also mean each individual member of it. The mystics realized this, and the discovery was decisive for their lives.

The arrangement of these different poems composes, in some way, a little drama about love; however, it is difficult to discover a real progression in the series of these songs. By the end of the first poem, the union of the lovers has been realized. There then develops a theme of seeking—which signifies that once love is found it is continuously seeking to achieve a greater depth.

The Song of Songs received its definitive form in the fifth or fourth century B.C., but the short poems that are used in it may go back to a fairly early time, perhaps even to Solomon. Written in poetry that is apparently popular, these songs reveal a deep understanding of sentiments of love. That is why they reach the very source of the love that the Song of Songs expresses concerning the covenant between God and his people and the union between man and woman.

The Song of Songs may be divided as follows:

I: Title and Prologue (1:1-4)

II: First Poem (1:5—2:7)

III: Second Poem (2:8-17)

IV: Third Poem (3:1—5:1)

V: Fourth Poem (5:2—6:3)

VI: Fifth Poem (6:4—8:4)

VII: Epilogue (8:5-14)