Passage for reflection: Song of Solomon 2: 8 - 11
The voice of my beloved!
Look, he comes,
leaping upon the mountains,
bounding over the hills.
My beloved is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
Look, there he stands
behind our wall,
gazing in at the windows,
looking through the lattice.
My beloved speaks and says to me:
‘Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away;
for now the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone.
“What in the world is this doing in the Bible?” It’s a not an uncommon reaction to a first encounter with the Song of Solomon (or, as it’s known from the Hebrew title, the Song of Songs). A love song between a man and a woman full of lush and sometimes erotic imagery hardly seems appropriate for Holy Writ. But here it is, in our Bible and in our lectionary readings. “My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag….My beloved speaks and says to me, ‘Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away'” (Song of Solomon 2:9, 10).
Modern readers are not the only ones to be startled by the content of the Song. Its inclusion in the canon of Scripture was a matter of debate among rabbis in the first century CE. Some considered it little more than a drinking song. The matter was settled by the great teacher and mystic, Rabbi Akiba, who said, “The whole world is not worth the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the Scriptures are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies” (Mishnah Yadayim3:5).
Early and medieval Christians shared this high opinion of the Song. Origen wrote homilies and a ten-volume commentary on it. In the Middle Ages, the Song was the subject of more commentaries than any other Old Testament book. Bernard of Clairvaux, in the twelfth century, wrote eighty six sermons on the Song (and did not even get past chapter 2)!
What is it about this book that has inspired such enthusiasm through the centuries? Modern scholars are almost unanimous in viewing the Song as a celebration of sexual love between a man and a woman. For Jewish and Christian interpreters of previous centuries, however, the Song described the mutual love of God and Israel or Christ and the Church.
Both interpretations can be supported by the text. At its most basic level, the Song of Solomon is indeed a celebration of human love. It consists primarily of dialogue between a pair of lovers, a man and a woman. There is no explicit narrative plot in the book. The scenes are connected instead by similar motifs and themes: passion, descriptions of physical beauty, memories of past encounters, and longing for the lover’s presence.
But we have a story… and it’s about two lovers, just that. At times the words are erotic, the Song presents an unabashed look at the joy of love (and sex) between two lovers.
We find a girl peeking out through the palace window for her lover, straining to hear his voice from a distance. She imagines him as wild and free, tempting her away into the joys of spring and the promise of togetherness.
There’s though another story…
If we read the text allegorically – as a metaphor for the relationship between God and God's people, or Christ and the Church – it speaks of a love so strong that God runs over mountains to seek us out and invite us into relationship.
In this song, it is clear that things have been difficult, but those days are no longer, “for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone” (verse 11). Such words imply that what has been spoken is not just sweet nothings or platitudes, but hope that springs even from dry places. It implies the reality of those things in life that keep us shut in and frozen, or looking out at dreary skies once again with lament. While it should be noted that any one relationship should not be the be-all-end-all of our happiness, it is certainly true that the love we share with others has the potential to turn even our worst days around. For the people of God hearing these words from Song of Solomon, there may have also been a deep longing for a restored relationship with the Divine. When all else seems to have failed, we too search the horizons for signs of hope and promise.
How would it be if we believed in a God who constantly beckons to us to come away?
How would it be if we got passionately excited about God’s love again and in a God who runs over mountains to find us?
Do we believe in him our winter is past?
The Christian desire is to be wrapped in the infinite love of God. When we can’t experience that, we yearn for it, we pray for it, earnestly. Remember St John of the Cross who experienced a dark night of the soul. He used some of the imagery of Song of Songs in his quest to find divine love again:
Where have you fled and vanished, Beloved, since you left me here to moan? Deer-like you leaped; then, banished and wounded by my own, I followed you with cries, but you had flown.
Shepherds, if you discover,
going about this knoll to tend your sheep,
the dwelling of that lover
whose memory I keep,
tell him I sicken unto death and weep.
Let me say again:
How would it be if we believed in a God who constantly beckons to us to come away?
How would it be if we got passionately excited about God’s love again and in a God who runs over mountains to find us?
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