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About this book: Song of Solomon

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

The goodness of married loveLonging and faithfulnessLove stronger than deathCreation as a garden of delight

Outline

  1. 1:1–2:7First longings and mutual praise
  2. 2:8–3:5Spring, search and reunion
  3. 3:6–5:1The wedding and the garden
  4. 5:2–6:3Absence and seeking again
  5. 6:4–8:4Admiration and deepening union
  6. 8:5–8:14Love as a seal, strong as death

Key verses

About this chapterThe book opens with the title, a song of songs, and a young woman longing for her beloved, whose love she counts better than wine. She describes herself as dark yet lovely, sunburned from working the family vineyards. She asks where he pastures his flock, and the chorus of women answers playfully. The lovers then exchange compliments, comparing each other to jewels, flowers, and the pleasant shade of trees. Jews and Christians have long read the poem as celebrating married love, and many also hear in it an echo of God's covenant love for his people.

The book opens with the title, a song of songs, and a young woman longing for her beloved, whose love she counts better than wine. She describes herself as dark yet lovely, sunburned from working the family vineyards. She asks where he pastures his flock, and the chorus of women answers playfully. The lovers then exchange compliments, comparing each other to jewels, flowers, and the pleasant shade of trees. Jews and Christians have long read the poem as celebrating married love, and many also hear in it an echo of God's covenant love for his people.

Themes

  • Longing for the beloved
  • Delight in love
  • Praise exchanged

Key verses

Audio Bible · Song of Solomon 1

Listen while you go about your day.

Song of Solomon 1

Berean Standard Bible17 verses · 2 min read

1This is Solomon’s Song of Songs. 2Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is more delightful than wine. 3The fragrance of your perfume is pleasing; your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the maidens adore you. 4Take me away with you—let us hurry! May the king bring me to his chambers.The Friends We will rejoice and delight in you; we will praise your love more than wine.The Bride It is only right that they adore you. 5I am dark, yet lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. 6Do not stare because I am dark, for the sun has gazed upon me. My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me a keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have neglected. 7Tell me, O one I love, where do you pasture your sheep? Where do you rest them at midday? Why should I be like a veiled woman beside the flocks of your companions? 8If you do not know, O fairest of women, follow the tracks of the flock, and graze your young goats near the tents of the shepherds. 9I compare you, my darling, to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots. 10Your cheeks are beautiful with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels. 11We will make you ornaments of gold, studded with beads of silver. 12While the king was at his table, my perfume spread its fragrance. 13My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts. 14My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of En-gedi. 15How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how very beautiful! Your eyes are like doves. 16How handsome you are, my beloved! Oh, how delightful! The soft grass is our bed. 17The beams of our house are cedars; our rafters are fragrant firs.

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Verses in Song of Solomon 1

Chapters of Song of Solomon

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