Song of Solomon how to interpert?

[Beckrl]

I've been reading the song of Solomon and it's a beautiful book, written as a love song and abounding in metaphors and imagery. Historically, it depicts the wooing and wedding of the shepherdess by King Solomon with the joys and heartaches of wedded love. Allegorically, it pictures Israel as God's bride and the church as the bride of Christ.

At least that is how my bible commentary depicts the book. I was wanting to know how have you understood this book to mean and who would it apply too?

I would say, that first reading it would apply to Solomon, when I can also see it's depicting the relationship of God to Israel much like the book of Hosea. So in may question in how to read and understand this book would be in what scriptures do the church apply and not Israel?

Thanks

[HisLeast]

I don't buy the "Christ and his church" theory for a second. How would the Jews have understood the story between the time it was written and the birth of Christ? How do contemporary Jews view it today?

But its sexually charged, and today there's too many people who think that's wrong, even if its within its proper context.

[Servant89]

I don't buy the "Christ and his church" theory for a second. How would the Jews have understood the story between the time it was written and the birth of Christ? How do contemporary Jews view it today? Because its sexually charged, and today there's too many people who think that's wrong, even if its within its proper context.

Since when does God care for people's opinion? God created sex and then he said: It is good. Every time God created something, he followed that by "It is good." Satan did not create sex, God did. God created the book of Song of Songs, listen to him, understand him from his writings... God left his imprint in creation.... all creation that has male and female has the same message, the priority of the male is above all things, stop what they are doing when the female raises the flag that says I am in the mood. God is like that, he stops what he is doing to look for the lost sheep when the sheep says: "I am in the mood for God". The Bible says that the relationship between a husband and wife is analog of God and the church. Who cares for man's opinion on this? Not me.

Shalom

[Beckrl]

For what purpose is it that the song of Solomon remain within the final books of the bible and not disregarded? This is called the "song of songs" by Solomon it was picked over his 1005 other songs. What makes this one special?

Would it be because it is primarily written from the view of the Shulamite woman that Solomon fall in love with over his harem of 140 women (6:8-9). His dove, His only love, subjectively of Christ love for his church or God's love for his bride Israel.

[SeattleSun]

Ahh, let's keep the foxes out of the vineyard (2:15).

Does not the entirety of the OT point to Christ? But could Songs simply depict courtship and marriage and the high points and low points of a marriage as ordained by the Lord?

[markedward]

The Song of Songs is a sexual love song between a husband and wife.

Like HisLeast, I find the "Christ and the Church" allegorical reading to be terribly unsubstantiated. It only reads that way if one assumes it to be... Heck, the only reason that reading ever came to be was because people were uncomfortable with such an explicitly sexual book in the Bible. The point of the book is to show the wonderful, healthy sexual relationship between a husband and wife as God intended it to be.

[Fenris]

How would the Jews have understood the story between the time it was written and the birth of Christ? How do contemporary Jews view it today?

We view it is the love story between God and the Jewish people.

[RogerW]

We view it is the love story between God and the Jewish people.

Would you agree it is the love story between God and the spiritual Seed (Christ) of Abraham? Or true Israel; the Israel of God?

[Fenris]

Would you agree it is the love story between God and the spiritual Seed (Christ) of Abraham? Or true Israel; the Israel of God?

I'm Jewish; we see it as being about the Jewish people.

[Servant89]

I'm Jewish; we see it as being about the Jewish people.

I agree with Fenris. We gentiles must be grafted in the tree of Israel to be part of God's bride. The tree of Israel sustains the gentile branches as declared in Romans 11:18.

Shalom

[Beckrl]

I understand the primarily reason it was written as a song was that it was the view of the Shulamite woman that Solomon fall in love with, But as much as one can relate their relationship to God just like the book of Hosea with his wife Gomer, were the language is used in the restoration of Israel. (wilderness, vineyard, betroth, wedding) both song of Solomon and Hosea has much of the same language in a love story of two individuals. Although I don't see so much of the church depicted, but can see the relationship of God to Israel as in Hosea.

[the rookie]

The thing is, Paul used "bridal" language in Ephesians 5; John the Baptist used "bridegroom" language in the gospels. These are just a few examples of the manner in which marriage is intended to be a picture or "conceptual bridge" for the human mind and human heart to grapple with the transcendent love of Jesus for His people. We have "kingly" and "kingdom" analogies, "family" and "father" analogies, but the most powerful one is marriage and the relationship of a bride to her bridegroom.

Marriage and intimacy was God's idea, of course - as was love. The love of a husband for his wife (and her love back) does not happen in a vacuum solely for the benefit of the married; it was meant to be a picture of something higher. If this is true of our own marriages, today, how much more so in the "song of all songs"?

I find it interesting that the logic applied earlier to restrain the interpretation of Song of Solomon from allegory to literal marriage (discomfort with the intensity of the subject matter causes folks to go "allegorical") could be applied in the converse: we're too uncomfortable with the intense language to apply the book to our relationship with God.

[Nihil Obstat]

There's really quite a large gap between "interpretation" and "application" if you think about it.

I would interpret Song of Songs to be about a man and a woman's love for each other: herds of goats, fragrant fruit trees, towers, heaps of hay, regal curtains - the things they see throughout their day (whether seasonal or long-standing, natural or man-made, common or expensive) remind them of their beloved one. And it is mostly about physical attraction and sexual excitement; there is hardly any mention of loving the other due to their deeds (such as, say, sacrificial / selfless love, found at the cross), nor is there a single hint that they are being fruitful in their relationship in order to multiply (i.e., no mention of desiring children). They enjoy one another's presence, and long for the other when they are absent; they remember how they met, and daydream about might-have-beens and maybes.

This could then be applied to an individual person's / corporate people's intimate relationship with Yahweh, but not in a verse-by-verse or even thought-by-thought kind of way. The story can't really be pieced together in any one timeline: it can't fit nicely into the history of Israel after Sinai, nor does it read like how the prophets often envisioned Israel's future once obedient to the Lord. If anything, it sounds akin to the way the compilers of the Psalms (completed after the fall of Babylon) tell the story of Israel, with the back-and-forth ups and downs, minus their continual rebellion and judgment.

So again, it's the general concept that can be applied to our marriage with God, our Husband, but only by first recognizing that the song itself is not mostly about that. Yes, an argument could be made that it's in the backdrop and implied, in that the king of Israel, Solomon, was picturing himself as in covenant with Yahweh (or that Israel itself was God's covenant people), but even that is never explicitly stated in the stanzas of the song (and, in Solomon's case, is even challenged / exposed in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles).

Just my two cents. - astro

[Nihil Obstat]

A quick clarification: I say that we shouldn't apply the Song to our lives in a verse-by-verse manner because then (if we're honest and consistent with such a manner of application) we'll be weighing ourselves and others in the body to see "where we're / they're at" in the "normative" Christian walk toward maturity in intimacy with the Lord Jesus. We'll consider ourselves "closer to God" than someone else simply because we believe that we've gone through "a dark night of the soul" and they haven't. "I'm already past ch. 5 of the song, and they're still stuck in ch. 2 sitting in his shade and too afraid to go with him to the mountains and valleys." That sort of talk / thought is very real when you apply the Song as the "proper" way of maturity into intimacy in a verse-by-verse way. And such a way of application ought to be abandoned, as it can only cause confusion, envy, pride, bitterness, and a false perception about your (and others') level of maturity.