Exegesis on
The
Song of Songs 8: 6-7
Written
by John
Lee on the date of March 15, 1994
I.
INTRODUCTION
The
Song of Songs has an extensive range of differing opinions in its
exegesis. It is unlike other canonical
books because of its peculiar theme of human love, its allegorical
interpretation was predominant method in the earlier ages of Christianity in
spite of its inherent beauty and religious significance. However, literal understandings on the basis
of our context and the discovery of full
scope of Biblical literature and help of historical study of the text calls us
to find the integrity of human love in the Song. This naturalistic reading,
with the help of recent intensive studies of last two decades on the extra
canonical literature, confirms us the nature of wisdom literature in this book.
My
study on passage 8:6-7 is based on a naturalistic reading of the Song. I am going to start with examining the
canonical status and historical background of this book to have a clearer view
of the whole theme of the book, and then by finding the most adequate
translation, and examining the relationship of the passage to adjacent texts
within the book and to other canonical passages, draw the message of the text.
II.
CANONICAL STATUS
In
the Old Testament the Song of Songs appears among the Writings, the third
division of the Hebrew canon. The Song
is not witnessed before the 8th century A.D., and the 5th century Christian
scholar Theodore of Mopsuestia considered the Song worthless because there
existed no public readings of it among Jews or Christians.
There
were two views of interpretations of the Song: as an allegorical interpretation
and as a collection of secular love songs. The allegorical
interpretation of the Song could have been the reason why this book was
included in the canon. However, there is
evidence of its use in pre-Christian times at Qumran. The debate in Aquiba's day
in the 2nd century was not whether the Song should be included in the canon,
but whether it should have been included.
There might have been other reasons such as the plausibility of
Solomonic authorship.
Scholars
have tried to find the hidden meanings in this book, because they do not feel
that ordinary human love poetry would have been preserved in Israel and
included among the sacred writings.
Therefore some scholars interpreted it allegorically: the subject of the
book is God's relationship with Israel,
or Christ's relationship with a human soul.
This sort of interpretation explains why the book is read at the
festival of Passover, to celebrate God's work as the Saviour of Israel. Some of those who favour this interpretation
believe that there is a hidden meaning for each part of the human body
mentioned in this book such as the symbolization of the woman's navel (7:2) as
a communion cup, however this type of interpretation is risky because it gets
away from the natural meaning of the words.
Some scholars argue that the book was originally written in connection
with pagan fertility rites, and was later altered and adapted for use in
Israelite worship at the New Year Festival.
However the Jews were unlikely adopt a thoroughly pagan book and use it
in their own religious ceremonies.
Furthermore there is no clear evidence that the Jews observed a New Year
Festival in biblical times. Some
scholars have connected "Solomon's love was accepted or rejected"
with I King 2:13-25. However two
different ideas of the same form can hardly adjoin in a dramatic form. Some scholars claim that this book consists
of the ritual songs for a marriage feast, and its original form was prepared
for Solomon's marriage to Pharaoh's daughter.
It is true that such ritual songs were known in the ancient Near East,
nevertheless, not all the poems in this book are concerned with marriage. Some scholars try to illustrate that the book
records a progression from attraction to courtship, and finally to marriage and
the bliss of love's fulfilment, but there is no real evidence of order and
development in the book.
The
Old Testament material is not a purely holy material. In David's story with Uriah, if the editor
were to do the historian's redactional work, they would have deleted or altered
the story of David's profane adulterous behaviour. When we see the continuous message in the Old
Testament for humanity's righteous attitude towards God as "fear the
Lord," even profane behaviour was not a crucial factor which should be
hidden. Furthermore, the Greek concept
of love contains eros and agape whereas the Hebrew concept does
not distinguish. This implies that the
Hebrew notion of love includes God's love and humanity's love. They view humanity's love as God's gift and
blessing. Therefore it performs the
role of wisdom literature adequately as the supreme wisdom in the Hebrew canon.
III.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE TEXT
The
authorship and origins of the Song are very little known. The first verse of the Song suggests that the
book belongs to Solomon. His name is
mentioned five times (1:5, 3:7, 9, 11, 8:11, 12) apart from the title, however,
there is very little evidence to support the idea that these poems were written
by Solomon. Solomonic authorship is
probably a literary fiction as in
Proverbs and the Wisdom of Solomon to support the nature of wisdom in this
book.
Linguistic
evidence is also uncertain, due to the lack of surviving poetry of a similar
type. Several seemingly late words and
constructions are used: the passive participle used in an active sense in ahuzey hereb "girt with
swords" (3:8), the use of relative se-
in place of aser, and the absence of
the wow consecutive verbs. Various nouns of later origin appear: kotel-wall (2:9), pardes-orchard (4:13), and berotim-cedars
(1:17). As shown above, the Song
contains many Aramaic language forms which belong to the period after Exile.
The linguistic evidence suggests that the Song was composed in its present
state late in the history of the biblical classical language, but early enough
to have gained acceptance as a religious book.
And a fragment in Qumran literature
suggests that the book must have been included in the library there.
As
Snaith points out, the Song's resemblance of the Egyptian songs suggest that
the Song is a collection of love songs of the same type. There must be a fairly good amount of various
existing love songs, and therefore, it is plausible of a multiple authorship
with an editor's addition of link passages. White examines the
parallelism of Egyptian poems and he discovers a great deal of thematic and
literary relevance to the Song.
There
is no agreement on the date of the Song.
Many of the constituent songs may
have existed for a long time before the collection of the songs and there are
very few biblical Hebrew poetry of the
same type with which to compare the Song. However there are a few
clues that suggest it as originating in the postexilic period. Mention of Tirzah, a city which was the
capital of the Northern Kingdom after the time of Solomon and before Samaria
became the capital in the reign of Omri in c. 870 BC (I Kings 15:21, 33). Therefore this verse, at its earliest,
belongs to a time after the division of the kingdom, thus later than Solomon. It was probably compiled
from poems of many different periods of the
history of Israel,
however it was put into its final form between 300-250 BC. Unlike other canonical books,
the importance of the historical background of the Song is not in its
historical date of writing, but the fact that it was influenced by Egyptian
love poems throughout Israelite history and developed within their thoughts out
of their culture and tradition.
IV.
INFLUENCE OF EXTRA-BIBLICAL INFORMATION
It
is reasonable to suggest that there was a mutual influence between the
love-language of ancient Israel
and that of Canaanite fertility rites with which Israel was often involved. However scholars have found no clear evidence
that portions of the Song were originally composed for or modeled upon these
rites, and Assiro-Babylonian literature provides only a few songs portraying
human love which are analogous to the Song.
John
White points out a few striking similarities of Egyptian love songs to the
Song. Lovers call themselves
"brother" and "sister" and the comparison between the
beauties of the beloved person and those of natural objects, e.g. trees,
flowers and gardens. In the Song 4:9, 10, 12, and
5:1, 2, the woman is designated "sister" and have parallel usage such
as 'my sister, my bride'. The usage of
"brother" also is in 8:1 as a general designation of
"lover." In the Song, with the
comparison to the Egyptian love poem, we are able to recognize that the usage
of "sister" and "brother" as lovers is clear. The parallelism of brother
and sister to lovers in the context of a human physical love song denotes that
physical love is not only of emotional intimacy but also of integrity as parental
love as we can see in the act of brothers in Gen 24:29ff. and 34:13ff. The Egyptian lyrics share the same expression
of love language, elements of design and the theme of the love song with the
Song. White also finds the similarities
between the Egyptian lyrics and the Song in the celebration of their human,
sexual love and the sensuous pleasures associated with the man-and woman
relationship. These discovery are a great contribution to the studies of the Song
through which we can have appropriate interpretation of the whole book in
unity.
V.
COMPARISON WITH OTHER TRANSLATIONS
Song
of Songs 8: 6-7 (NRSV)
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, (a) passion fierce as
the grave. Its flesh are fleshes of fire, (b) a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can
floods drown it. If (c) one (d) offered
for love all the wealth of his house it
would be utterly scorned.
(a) passion
fierce as the grave
KJV,
RSV, SGE translate this as "jealousy is cruel as the grave," NIV also translates similarly but uses
"unyielding" instead of "cruel." However NRSV is different from the ones above
mentioned, but GNB has a free translation as "passion is as strong as
death itself," and thus harmonizes
with NRSV. In
SGE, the Greek zelos was translated
into jealous. According to Analytical
Greek Lexicon, zelos in a good sense means generous rivalry and noble aspiration,
but in a bad sense it can mean jealousy, envy and malice. It was probably through the influence of the
Greek notion of passion vs. reason that it was translated with the bad sense as
jealousy. In my judgment, the
differing views originated from the different concepts of "love"
whether it is good or bad. GNB's free translation is a
good one without distortion of the meaning.
However NRSV's translation is faithful to both its meaning and its
original literal structure as a poem.
(b) a
raging flame
There
are various translations as "even the flames thereof" in SGE, as
"a mighty flame" in NIV, as "a most vehement flame" in KJV
and RSV, and as "a raging fire" in GNB. This expression may be taken as one word with
the emphatic "yah" ending
or as two words "flame of Yahweh", which again is emphatic in
accordance with the Hebrew idiom of using the divine name with superlative
force. However, my suggestion is
that yah is not a mere emphatic
expression, rather it is a flame of Yahweh, not a flame of death, by which it
emphasizes the powerful divine nature from which originated love.
(c) one
This
passage is the climax of the whole poem in which praises the power of love of
both man and woman. Therefore as the
inclusive term "one" in NRSV, NIV is better translation than
"man" in KJV and RSV, and "anyone" in GNB which harmonizes
with NRSV by free translation.
(d) offered
The
GNB translation "tried to buy love with" does not distort the
original meaning especially when we consider today's profane attitude of love
relationships. However, in its poetic
literal context, considering that it is a collection of love poem which treats
love as a human act with integrity, and particularly in this passage describes
the love as the most powerful divine gift, "offered" in NRSV,
RSV, is a better translation than
"were to give" in NIV, and "would give" in KJV and SGE.
From
the differing translations, we are able to detect the colouring of culture and
hierarchical images in their translations. Some translations describe love as
bad by using the negative metaphors, and give us confusion and losing the unity
of the whole book. In NRSV, the physical
love is praised without any prejudice of negative concept of love in these
poems, therefore NRSV's translation is the most appropriate.
VI.
THE CONTEXT OF THE PASSAGE, THE PASSAGE TO ADJACENT VERSES AND WITHIN
THE BOOK AS A WHOLE.
It
is appropriate to view the Song as a collection of different types of love
poems that did not necessarily all derive from the same author or serve the
same function in their original society.
As I noted in the section of historical background, attribution to
Solomon hinders the ability to detect the theme of the whole book. Rather, it should suggest us to de-emphasize
the attribution to Solomon in order to have clearer view of the text in relation
to the theme of the whole book.
The
book does not give any hint as to when one character stops speaking and another
starts, or which character says what, the sorting out of speech presents a
difficult problem. However some portions
are clear enough to decipher who she or he is.
There is no clear outline and little evidence of order in this
book. However, it is certain that the
different parts of the book are addressed to different people. It has a natural division into six parts: A
girl addresses her lover (1:2-4, 15-17, 7:10-8:3); a girl think about her lover
(1:12-14, 2:8-17, 6:11-12, 8:13, 10); a
man addresses his beloved (1:9-11, 4:1-5:1, 6:4-10, 7:1-9); a man thinks about
his beloved (6:13, 8:5); Dialogues between the girl and the man (1:7-8, 2:1-3,
8:13-14): and the girl speaks to her woman friends (1:5-6, 2:4-7, 3:1-11,
5:2-6:3, 8:4). There can be varieties of
analyses of this book: by the theme, as a structure of a drama, as a ritual
rite. However this book has a flow that
escalates in its emotion within the concrete love act, with dialogues between a
man and a woman runs throughout the work and gives it a certain unity. Within the development of the emotion with
unity, the passage of 8:6-7 does the role of a climax by praising the power of
love which is the gift and blessing of God.
VII.
THE LITERAL SENSE OF THE TEXT
Interpreting
the book literally, it would seem to be a kind of poetic drama, in which a
number of different characters speak: the bride, the bridegroom, a chorus of
women, and perhaps others. However, it
is difficult to find evidence of dramatic structure: acts, scenarios, and
dramatis personae of coherent plot.
Rather the Song has a variety of contexts that shift frequently in no
apparent dramatic sequence and within
which may different voices seem to speak.
There is not enough evidence to view the speaker as a few fixed
character or the King Solomon. It is
more probable the see the name of Solomon as a redactional purpose of the later
compilers for the structural unity.
As
I noted, the Song of Songs shares the topoi,
elements of the structure with Egyptian love songs. By treating this book as the finished product with the
knowledge of multiple authorship with a single overall editor, as well as
considerable influence of the Egyptian lyrics, we are able to draw the message
of the book within its unity. The Song
describes the beauty of human love in mutuality as the gift of God. It emphasizes that our physical love with the
compassion in our hearts has the power to overcome death. This
passage of short poem which consists of two verses can be seen as a
continuation of the second half of v.5.
However, the themes of this text is different from that one, thus it
does not make enough sense. The little
sister with no breasts of v. 8 is also in a different category. Seal is a key word in this passage. "Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a
seal upon your arm" shows that the girl asks her lover to show openly his
special relationship with her.
In
praising the power of love, "for love is strong as death" is
parallel to "passion fierce as the
grave."
"Passion" in NRSV differs from other translations such as
"jealousy." As I noted
earlier, love in a good sense leads us to read it as "passion," and there is no third party involved for the
word jealousy in this context. Therefore
this parallel passage describes the power of
love. Its flesh are fleshes of fire, a raging flame: If we can say this passage is compelling
power of love, "passion," this is a praising of love which originated from God. The intensified ending of -yah seemingly an abbreviation of Yawheh,
the divine name which is occasionally used to create a superlative
expression.
The usage of divine element
in this passage as a significant importance to interpret the theme of the whole
book as well as this passage. Many
waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it: Another expression of powerfulness of love is
shown in this passage. In ancient
mythology, many water is a symbol of great power which is, in a sense, more
powerful which we cannot prevent. If
one offered for love all the
wealth of his house it would be
utterly scorned: This final praising of the power of
love expresses that it is worthier than all other human efforts. This
poem sings the yearning for love which is the most powerful in the world and
originates from God.
VIII.
THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE TEXT TO TORAH, PROPHECY, WISDOM AND GOSPEL
The
first verse as its title, "the Song of Songs" which the Hebrew idiom
expresses a maximum, implies the superlative, "the greatest song,"
and "the Song of Solomon" implies the wisdom of the greatest sage
Solomon. It is the only book of love
poems in the Bible. We can view one
great theme "fear the Lord" in the book of Torah, the Prophets, and
the wisdom literature. Within this
framework, we are able to understand that "love" contains mutual
respect and appreciation of God's creation.
When we appreciate the beauty of sexuality as God's creation and gift,
no one can have adulterous mind. Only
the ones who fear God can have visions in the Song of Songs and sing these
lovely songs. Similar to Job, throughout
the whole book, it tells us another level of concept of wisdom by showing the
vision of God's creation.
IX.
CONCLUSION
The
preservation and possible enhancement of the Song by the sages underscore that
this collection of love poems displays an important message: integrity of human
love as well as fidelity and mutuality
in human love.
The
greatest teaching in this wisdom literature the Song of Songs is that
humanity's love includes both spiritual and physical love which is the gift and
the blessing of God. Human beings, who
were created by God's image, are called to live for the glory of God. However, by viewing sexuality as means of
objectifying others, human beings have profaned the pure gift and blessing of
God. It is not merely a story of
today. Throughout the history of
Christianity, asceticism was practiced for the integrity of spirituality. It is
taken for granted in the Christian tradition that sexuality is something that
profanes our spirituality, partly originated by the misunderstanding of Paul's
use of the two opposite terms 'spirit' and 'flesh' which, in fact, does not
mean bodily.
Most Christians understand
"love" only as spiritual. We
have been neglected the truth that God created us both body and soul under the
name of religious or integrity. As we
understand, the foundation of the Old Testament theme for our faith journey is
"fear the Lord," within the framework of this theme, physical love
should be respected as the gift and blessing of God which is the means of
revealing the glory of God. When we fear
the Lord, we became humble, are able to unmask the hypocrisy, respect each other,
and become grateful for the sexuality and its expression as a gift and blessing
from God.
[1] John G. Snaith, The New Century Bible Commentary: Song of
Songs, London:
HarperCollins, 1993, pp. 3-4. Snaith
claims that there were both views from the time of the Council of Jamnia, by
examining that the Mishina (Yadaim 3:5)
records Rabbi Aqiba of the 2nd century saying, "... for all the Writings
are holy, but the Song of Songs in the Holy of holies." He points out that this remark is the
indication of the debate about the canonical status of the Song continued long
after the Council of Jamnia in c. 90 AD, with different views of it as a good
secular song or collection of songs.
Ibid, pp. 4-5. Solomon's name is
mentioned in five occasions apart from the title (1:5, 3:7, 9, 11, 8:11), and
Solomon is famous for his literary activity as in I king 4:32, three thousand
proverbs and a thousand and five songs.
David F. Hinson, The Books of
the Old Testament: Old Testament Introduction 2, Rev. Ed., London: SPCK, 1992, pp. 120-121.
The
blessing in Genesis, "be fruitful and multiply" become realized by
human physical love, and the use of flame of Yahweh confirms this notion by describing
the passion as the source and the power of Yahweh.
Snaith, The New Century, p. 9.
Snaith, The New Century,
p.8
John Bradley White, A Study of
the Language of Love in the Song of Songs and Ancient Egyptian Poetry, Missoula: Scholars Press,
1978.
Snaith, The New Century, p. 9.
Hinson, Old Testament
Introduction 2, pp. 119-120.
Hinson, Old Testament Introduction 2, pp. 119-112.
John Bradley White, A Study of
the Language of Love in the Song of Songs and Ancient Egyptian Poetry, Missoula: Scholars Press,
1978, pp. 67-71.
Cf.
"my mother's sons" in 1:6 which was used as the meaning of
brother. Some scholars (Snaith) claim
that this expression is an evidence of polygamous societies to distinguish half
brothers from real brothers. However,
what is clear in this poem is that the writer differentiates "my mother's
sons" as persons who do not have love.
NRSV: New Revised Standard Version;
RSV: Revised Standard Version;
KJV: King James Version; NIV: New
International Version; GNB: Good News
Bible; SGE: The Septuagint Greek and
English Bible.
Cf.
George Arthur Buttrick, ed., The Interpreter's Bible, New York: Abingdon Press, Vol. 5, 1956, p.
143. The commentator asserts that
jealousy is better than zealous love or passion because the parallelism
indicates jealousy. However this
assertation is based on following phrase 'cruel as grave'. Considering GNB translation 'as strong as
death itself' and NRSV's 'fierce as the
grave' as better one, "passion" is an appropriate translation.
The
blessing includes fruitful and multiple which is founded on the passion and
sexuality. Therefore the Jewish notion of passion and sexuality is not
a bad thing rather it is a blessing.
Hinson, Old Testament Introduction 2, p.120. It is based on Hinson's analysis, however I
rearranged girl's song.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Buttrick, George
Arthur, ed. The Interpreter's Bible,
New York:
Abingdon Press, Vol. 5, 1956.
Gordis, Robert The
Song of Songs and Lamentations: A Study, Modern Translations and Commentary,
New York:
KTAV Publishing House Inc., 1974.
Hinson, David
F. The Books of the Old Testament:
Old Testament Introduction 2, Rev. Ed., London: SPCK, 1992.
Snaith, John
G. The New Century Bible Commentary:
Song of Songs, London:
HarperCollins, 1993.
White, John
Bradley A Study of the Language of
Love in the Song of Songs and Ancient Egyptian Poetry, Missoula: Scholars Press, 1978.
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