Old Testament
Song of Solomon
8 chapters
Start reading: Song of Solomon 1About this book
The Song of Solomon, also called the Song of Songs, is a collection of love poems voiced mainly by a bride and a bridegroom, with a chorus of friends weaving in and out. The lovers seek, find, lose and find each other again, describing one another in lavish images of gardens, spices, vineyards and mountains. The poetry celebrates desire, faithfulness and marriage as good gifts from God, with no embarrassment. Its closing lines describe love as strong as death and too powerful for floods to drown. Christians have read it in several ways: as a literal celebration of married love, as an allegory of God and his people, or of Christ and the church, or as both at once. Many teachers hold that the literal reading should not be lost inside the symbolic one. However it is read, the book affirms that human love, rightly ordered, belongs to the goodness of creation.
- Author
- Attributed to Solomon in the opening line, which can mean written by him or for him; some scholars see a later compiler.
- Date
- Uncertain: the tradition points to Solomon's reign in the tenth century BC, while some scholars favor a later date.
- Audience
- Israel's worshiping community, and every reader who wants to see married love as part of God's good world.
Themes
Outline
- 1:1–2:7First longings and mutual praise
- 2:8–3:5Spring, search and reunion
- 3:6–5:1The wedding and the garden
- 5:2–6:3Absence and seeking again
- 6:4–8:4Admiration and deepening union
- 8:5–8:14Love as a seal, strong as death
Key verses
Chapters of Song of Solomon
- 1Song of Solomon 1The book opens with the title, a song of songs, and a young woman longing for her beloved, whose love she counts better than wine.
- 2Song of Solomon 2The woman speaks of herself as a spring flower and of her beloved as an apple tree standing among the trees of the forest, offering shade and sweetness.
- 3Song of Solomon 3The woman recalls a night of searching the city streets for the one her heart loves, finding him and refusing to let him go until she brings him home.
- 4Song of Solomon 4The bridegroom praises his bride from head to toe, using the rich imagery of the ancient world: eyes like doves, hair like a flock of goats on a hillside, teeth like shorn sheep, and a neck like a tower.
- 5Song of Solomon 5The bridegroom answers her invitation and speaks tenderly of enjoying his garden, and friends celebrate.
- 6Song of Solomon 6The women ask where the beloved has gone, and the bride replies that he has gone down to his garden and that they belong to each other.
- 7Song of Solomon 7The bridegroom describes his beloved again, this time from her feet upward, calling her a princess and expressing his delight in extravagant, poetic images.
- 8Song of Solomon 8The bride wishes she could openly show affection to her beloved as to a brother, and repeats the charge not to awaken love before it is ready.