2. Thus b. Šab. 30b claims that “the sages sought to withdraw the book . . . because its words are mutually contradictory.”
3. See R. Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church, and Its Background in Early Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 283–91, for some discussion.
4. Cited in G. A. Barton, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Ecclesiastes (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1908), 20.
5. See, e.g., M. V. Fox, Qohelet and His Contradictions (JSOTS 71; Sheffield: Almond, 1989), 154–55, for a brief discussion.
6. Scholarly debate continues as to the era that the language in particular points to. Most believe that we are dealing with a fourth to third century B.C. book, but an earlier dating retains adherents (e.g., C. L. Seow, Ecclesiastes (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1997), 11–21, who dates the book to the late fifth or early fourth century; and the doubtful response in a review by T. Longman III in Bib 80 (1999): 420–24, who wonders “whether the language of the book can prove to be a reliable guide to the date of the book.”
7. The phrase is E. S. Christianson’s, A Time to Tell: Narrative Strategies in Ecclesiastes (JSOTS 280; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 128–72.
8. The verb is always used in the Old Testament with reference to people, not things. It is therefore difficult to defend another popular line of interpretation throughout the centuries, which understands qohelet primarily to refer to the assembling or collecting of tradition, experience, or wisdom.
10. This is the view, e.g., of Barton, Ecclesiastes, 58–65.
11. R. N. Whybray, Ecclesiastes (NCB; London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1989), 6.
12. M. V. Fox, “The Identification of Quotations in Biblical Literature,” ZAW 92 (1980): 416–31.
13. I cannot myself see that 12:8–12 offers an evaluation of Qohelet’s teaching “which begins with praise and then moves to doubt and finally to criticism” (so T. Longman III, The Book of Ecclesiastes [NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998], 38), nor do I find it generally plausible that Qohelet’s voluminous words would be cited in full just so that the author of 12:8–12 could append a few comments allegedly doubting and criticizing them (and even then not managing to do so clearly). The wisdom of a wise man who thus so spectacularly shot himself in the foot would surely be in doubt. If the genre of the book may rightly be described as a “framed wisdom autobiography” (ibid., 15–20), then I cannot agree that the “frame” intends somehow to correct or relativize the message of the autobiography. See further A. G. Shead, “Reading Ecclesiastes ‘Epilogically,’ ” TynBul 48 (1997): 67–91.
14. O. Wilde, “Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young,” Chameleon, December 1894.
15. The text is found in ANET, 90.
1. Whybray, Ecclesiastes, 34–38.
2. Other associated words are yeter, which can sometimes be used of abundance or affluence (e.g., Job 22:20), yitra, riches (Isa. 15:7; Jer. 48:36), and yoter, found almost exclusively in Ecclesiastes and used in different ways to express the idea of more (Eccl. 2:15; 6:8, 11; 7:11, 16; 12:9, 12).
3. In contrast to the moves in this direction by Fox, Qohelet, 13–15, 32–33, and elsewhere; see further now M. V. Fox, A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build Up: A Rereading of Ecclesiastes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 8–11, 30–33.
1. The Heb. is ʿinyan raʿ, as in 5:14; cf. also 4:8. In the latter case the NIV offers what would also be a better translation in 1:13: “a miserable business.” Words like “evil,” which are frequently appropriate for Heb. raʿ in the Old Testament, are often best avoided (and are often thus avoided in the NIV) in translating raʿ / raʿa in Ecclesiastes, since they can give the modern reader the impression that Qohelet is referring to moral wickedness where this is not necessarily the case. The Heb. can refer (and often does in Ecclesiastes) simply or mainly to situations or outcomes faced by human beings that are experienced by them as, or thought by Qohelet to be, “bad,” without moral blame being the explicit focus (e.g., 2:17, 21; 5:13, 16; 6:1–2; 7:14; 8:3, 5–6, 9). This is especially the case where God is concerned, who brings (and is entitled to bring) to human beings bad times as well as good (e.g., 7:14). As we will see shortly, a similar ambiguity is found in Ecclesiastes, as elsewhere in the Old Testament, with respect to Heb. ṭob, “good.”
2. See BDB, 237–39, on the root hll (which can be used both of self-praise and the praise of God) and the nouns associated it with it.
3. The NIV’s inconsistent translation brings with it unnecessary confusion; it would be better to translate “frustration and pain” in 1:18 and “pain and frustration” in 2:23. Heb. kʿs in noun and verbal forms appears also in 5:17; 7:3, 9; 11:10, where the NIV translates variously as “frustration,” “sorrow,” “anger,” “provoked . . . anger,” and “anxiety.” There is no case in Ecclesiastes where it cannot refer to anger or suppressed anger (frustration), however (its normal use in the Old Testament), and several cases where it almost certainly does (5:17; 7:3, 9). It seems best to aim at a consistent translation throughout.
4. See I. W. Provan, 1 and 2 Kings (NIBC; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1995), 84–102.
5. The Heb. of the line is difficult, lit., “for what the man who comes after the king? That which they have already done!” The NIV is surely correct to supply the verb in its first part and to understand the plural in its second part impersonally: “For what (is) the man (to do) who comes after the king? That which has already been done!” (GKC, §§117l, 144g, 167a). Yet the NIV’s omission of “for” (ki) unfortunately obscures the connection between the two parts of v. 12.
6. We may note here Heb. šlṭ in 5:19 and 6:2 (NIV’s “enable[s]”) of God’s control; the same verb occurs in 8:9 (NIV’s “lords it over”) of temporary human control.
7. So R. K. Johnston, “Confessions of a Workaholic: A Reappraisal of Qoheleth,” CBQ 38 (1976): 14–28, citing the title of the book of the same name by W. Oates (New York: World, 1971).
8. The NIV follows most interpreters in assuming that MT is slightly corrupt in v. 25 (“without me who can eat . . . ?”), reading “him” for “me” (as in a few Heb. mss., LXX, and Syr.). This may well be correct, although it is also conceivable that we have here an interjection in the first person from God akin to those found in some psalms and in Lamentations. It is also the case that we should normally expect, in order to achieve the NIV translation at the beginning of v. 24 (which is clearly the correct sense in context), some further indication that Heb. ṭob, “good,” is being used as the comparative “better” (cf. the closely similar expressions in 3:12, 22; 8:15). It is commonly assumed that a preposition mem has fallen out by haplography before šeyyoʾkal (as Syr., Vulg., and some LXX mss. perhaps imply). Finally, the NIV translation “find enjoyment” in v. 25 also requires comment, since it is a guess. The Heb. verb usually means “hasten.” It is possible that the reference is to (speedy?) movement connected with work and that the sense is simply this: “Without God, who can eat or bustle about?”
9. Pierre Renoir, cited from M. Howard, ed., The Impressionists by Themselves (London: Conran Octopus, 1991), 194.
10. Movie director James Cameron, at the 1999 Academy Awards ceremony.
11. Cited from Howard, The Impressionists, 302.
12. Allan Harrington, cited in B. Cameron, “Wisdom Against the Power of Death,” Vocatio 3:1 (December 1999): 13–15.
13. C. S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew (Harmondsworth: Puffin, 1963), 162.
1. Merismus involves the statement of polar extremes as a way of embracing everything that lies between them (e.g., north and south; heaven and earth) and is a frequent feature of ancient Near Eastern literature. The totality of things is probably also implied by the fact that our list of opposites comprises twenty-eight items in fourteen pairs—multiples of seven, the number symbolizing completion or perfection in the Bible.
2. Heb. ʿolam is normally used adverbially, as in 1:10 (“long ago”), 2:16 (“long”), and 1:4; 3:14 (“forever”), to denote virtually unlimited time past or future. Although commentators have often struggled with the syntax and the meaning in 3:11, it is difficult to imagine that the same notion of “foreverness” is not intended here, esp. in view of the close proximity of 3:14. The point is that mortals share with God a sense of the whole sweep of time, which has been given them by God himself, but that they cannot move on to comprehend it or control it; it is always slipping away from them (1:10–11; 2:16).
3. The line is syntactically rather awkward, but its overall intention seems clear: “to purify them God (is intent), and to see that they are beasts,” i.e., that they themselves should see that they are beasts, which is perhaps the reason for the curious final Heb. hemma lahem, “they to themselves.” The complexity of the second part of the verse, in particular, may be due to syntax playing second fiddle to quality of sound: šehem-behema hemma lahem.
4. It is sometimes claimed that the Heb. as it is found in the pointed text and translated accurately in the NIV footnote intends more certainty on the matter, and indeed that the pointing represents an “orthodox” revision of Qohelet’s thought. Yet even as translated in the footnote, the verse is still best understood in context as expressing agnosticism in relation to claims about reality that cannot be demonstrated (“who knows the spirit of man, which rises upward . . . ?”); it is not clear how else it could plausibly be understood. Even as pointed, indeed, it is by no means clear that the translation in the NIV main text is not correct; see R. Gordis, Koheleth, The Man and His World: A Study of Ecclesiastes, 3d ed. (New York: Schocken, 1968), 238, on variety in pointing the interrogative particle. It is certainly how we are prompted to translate it in the light of 2:19.
5. G. MacDonald, The Curate’s Awakening (Minneapolis: Bethany, 1985), 203–4.
6. Private Witt, in the movie The Thin Red Line.
1. One thinks, for example, of the period of the Khmer Rouge domination in Cambodia in the late 1970s, when a new “vision” of society resulted in the deaths of around one and a half million people.
2. Peanuts, in Vancouver Sun, August 16, 1999.
1. Lisa Simpson in The Simpsons.
2. O. Guinness, “America’s Last Men and Their Magnificent Talking Cure,” in No God but God, ed. O. Guinness and J. Seel (Chicago: Moody, 1992), 111–32 (quote on p. 123).
3. V. Ramachandra, Gods That Fail: Modern Idolatry and Christian Mission (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1996), 18.
4. O. Guinness, “Sounding Out the Idols of Church Growth,” in No God but God, 174–88 (quote on p. 165).
5. T. Pruzan, “Angels in the Ad Field,” Print (1998), 58–63 (quote on p. 61).
6. Ramachandra, Gods That Fail, 18.
7. D. Wells, “The D-Min-ization of the Ministry,” in No God but God, 174–88.
8. J. Ellul, The New Demons, trans. C. Edward Hopkin (New York: Seabury, 1973), 154.
9. E. Peterson, Subversive Spirituality (Grand Rapids/Vancouver: Eerdmans/Regent College, 1997), 30.
1. The NIV has laid the text out so as to imply that vv. 13–15 concern one grievous evil, apparently unconnected to what precedes, and vv. 16–17 a second grievous evil. Consideration of the content, however, reveals that both vv. 13 and 16–17 represent summary statements and elaborations of that which precedes them, not that which follows. A partial and paraphrastic translation of vv. 13–14, 16 that brings this out would be: “I have seen a grievous evil . . . wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner. Or (consider the case where) that wealth is lost . . . this too is a grievous evil. . . .”
2. The NIV translates this phrase in a variety of ways, such as “heavy burden” in 1:13 and “miserable business” in 4:8; here in 5:14 it is translated “some misfortune.”
3. The Heb. text is again difficult here but is probably best rendered: “All his days he eats in darkness and is frustrated, and sickness and anger are his [lot].”
4. Cited in M. Habertal and A. Margalit, Idolatry, trans. N. Goldblum (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1992), 243.
5. See H. Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction: Christian Faith and Its Confrontation with American Society (Nashville: Nelson, 1983), 311, 139, for this and the next two quotes.
6. C. Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1988), 15.
7. Ellul, The New Demons, 146.
8. Both cited from Ramachandra, Gods That Fail, 45.
1. The Heb. word leb has a wide range of equivalents in English, and the common translation “heart” often does not do it sufficient justice. It refers to the inner person generally, as evidenced in thought, memory, inclinations, resolutions, emotions, and passions (see BDB, 524–25).
2. Jack Bowman, “Rave on and on and on and on” website (February 1993).
1. The second part of v. 18 is best translated, not as the NIV has it (which implies that a general statement about avoiding extremes is being made, even though the word “extremes” itself does not appear in the Heb. text), but as follows: “For the person who fears God will avoid/proceed [Heb. yṣʾ ] from both” (understanding Heb. kol, “all,” in the sense of “both,” as in v. 15 and in 2:14). Heb. yṣʾ means “to go out,” and the meaning is therefore either that the God-fearer, having grasped both pieces of advice in vv. 16–17, should proceed to live life on that basis, or that he or she should avoid doing both the things mentioned.
2. The NIV’s “whatever wisdom may be” in v. 24 is in the Heb. mah-šehaya, which in 1:9; 3:15; and 6:10 refers simply to “that which has happened/has come into existence.” A more literal translation is preferable here also, for it is crucial to understand that Qohelet refers in these verses to the attempt to grasp the whole “scheme of things” rather than to individual discriminations between wisdom and folly.
3. The NIV’s “so” at the beginning of v. 25 is unfortunate if it suggests to the reader an action consequent upon the discovery in vv. 23b–24 that wisdom is beyond Qohelet. In fact, it is fairly clear that the “turning of the mind” in v. 25 is consequent upon the “determining to be wise” in v. 23a and that vv. 23b–24 represent a perspective attained by Qohelet only after the experiment was over. It is after the great effort (indicated by the accumulation of verbs in v. 25) to grasp the “scheme” or “sum” of things has been expended that Qohelet understands that the “data provided for analysis” (NIV “wisdom” in v. 24) are too complex to allow great comprehension of them.
4. See further D. A. Garrett, “Ecclesiastes 7:25–29 and the Feminist Hermeneutic,” CTR 2 (1987–88): 309–21.
5. F. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, vol. 3, The Political Order of a Free People (New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), 130.
6. I. Semeniuk, “The New Cosmology: A State of the Universe Report,” Sky News (Sept./Oct. 1999), 8–11, 14–15, 22 (quote on p. 8).
1. That it is his own particular interpretation of an already existing proverb is suggested by the enigmatic “I” (Heb. ʾ ani) at the beginning of v. 2, which is itself interpreted (rightly) by the NIV as “I say.”
2. Although the precise syntax found here is indeed awkward, the manner of usage of Heb. we found here is by no means unparalleled; see GKC, §154a, note 1.
3. Heb. bhl in the Niphal more often means “be disturbed, dismayed, terrified” than “be hasty”; see BDB, 96.
4. It is difficult in English translation to catch all the nuances of the passage, and esp. the way in which the words raʿ / raʿa, “evil,” and dabar, “word, thing, situation,” are used in vv. 3–6. It is because the king’s “word” is supreme (v. 4) that “harm” (lit., “an evil thing,” v. 5) may be experienced by the wise person who disapproves of or opposes it. That is why the wise person should leave the king’s presence rather than remain in a “bad cause [situation]” (lit., “an evil thing,” v. 3). He recognizes that in a time characterized by great “misery” (lit., “evil,” v. 6), the wise thing to cultivate is patience.
5. The connection between vv. 9 and 10 is perhaps not adequately represented by the NIV, whose “then too” in v. 10 might suggest a new observation unrelated to what has gone before. Heb. ubeken certainly connects the two verses closely, however (cf. the use of the term in Est. 4:16 as indicating consequential action: “when this is done . . .”). There is a time when the wicked oppress others, but death and burial follow.
6. I prefer the majority Heb. reading here over the minority reading accepted in the main text of the NIV.
7. Annals of Assur-Nasir-Pal, 1.33, as cited in Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, 40.
8. Ghengis Khan (1162–1227).
1. The NIV’s wording implies that a distinction is intended between “now” and some other time when God’s “favor” might be withdrawn. If the “now” of life is being distinguished from the “then” of death, then this is true. The line might better be translated, however, so as to remove any idea that particular moments within life are being distinguished from others. The combination of general context, the meaning of Heb. kebar (NIV’s “now”) elsewhere in the book (e.g., 1:10; 2:12), and the full range of meanings of Heb. rṣh and the cognate noun raṣon (BDB, 953) certainly do not suggest this. What Qohelet is saying is that those who eat and drink joyfully may be sure (always) that this is the will of God, for already “God favors what you do.”
2. The NIV’s “chance” (pegaʿ ) is an unhappy choice of translation, since this word connotes an impersonal and random force, whereas Qohelet is clear throughout the book that human fate lies ultimately in God’s hands, no matter how random and impersonal what befalls us may appear. The verbal form pgʿ means “to meet, encounter.” A pegaʿ is simply something we encounter on the path of life—a circumstance or situation over which we have no control.
3. Ramachandra, Gods That Fail, 40–42.
4. Robert McNamara, U.S. Secretary of Defense in 1963.
5. The source for this and some of the other examples cited here is the Vancouver Sun (Aug. 28, 1999).
2. The genuine “weight” of the second of these things, in particular, is suggested to the reader of the Heb. text by the similarity between the noun kabod, “honor,” and the verbal root kbd, “be heavy.”
3. It is striking that the verbs are singular, yet the subject is formally plural. One possible explanation for this, although it is not a necessary explanation, is that Qohelet’s thought is flitting between the images he is using and the reality to which he is really referring.
4. Since this is clearly the thrust of the verse in context, it should also be considered whether the terms “rich,” “princes” (lit., “leaders”), and “slaves” are meant metaphorically rather than literally, the first two referring to those who are “wealthy” in wisdom and possess obvious leadership skills, and the third referring to those who possess neither wealth nor skills of leadership. The whole passage is marked by this kind of use of language (cf., e.g., the use of “snake” in vv. 8, 11, and “town” in v. 15).
5. From the movie Atlantic City.
6. From the movie Kafka.
7. Vancouver Sun (Aug. 18, 1999).
1. Many Heb. mss. (reading bʿṣmym for kʿṣmym) suggest that it is not a comparison between “wind” (ruaḥ) and “bones” (NIV “body”) that is in mind in v. 5, but the entry of the life-breath (another meaning of ruaḥ) into the embryonic human being. Whether this reading is correct or not, there is certainly a wordplay apparent in the use of ruaḥ in vv. 4–5, as there is in the use of mlʾ, “full,” in v. 3 and meleʾa, “full (i.e., pregnant) woman,” in v. 5. The world is a mysterious place, whether at the macro- or micro-level, whether one considers full clouds and wind, or full women and the life within them. The play perhaps continues in the use of “seed” in v. 6, since Heb. zeraʿ often refers to semen or offspring.
2. The NIV “to the south or to the north” (v. 3) is better translated “in the south and in the north,” i.e., anywhere. The Heb. provides an example of merismus, whereby the extremes are cited as a way of including everything between. “Morning” and “evening” in v. 6 are likewise intended to communicate constant activity throughout the day.
3. W. R. Inge, Outspoken Essays (1922), cited from CDRSQ, 159.
1. See Fox, Qohelet, 281–98, for a good discussion and analysis of the history of interpretation of 12:1–8.
2. It is interesting that Heb. ḥšk, “grow dark,” is indistinguishable in an unpointed text from Heb. hśk, “refrain from doing something” (as, e.g., in Isa. 54:2; 58:1), which in turn provides a better parallel to Heb. bṭl, “cease,” in Eccl. 12:3b. One wonders if it is hśk that Qohelet intended, or whether, indeed, a deliberate play on words is present here.
3. The verb is masculine singular, but it is difficult to know why the NIV renders it “men,” since nothing in the context suggests that males to the exclusion of females are in view. This is even more the case in v. 5 (“men” again), where it seems clear that both men and women are indicated by the plural verb. Among all the many texts in the NIV crying out for revision into inclusive language, these two are prominent.
4. This is the suggestion in GKC, §73g.
5. The first verb in v. 6 is lit. “distanced” according to the Ketib, or “bound” according to the Qere—slightly curious verbs to use in either case. It should be remembered with respect to the Ketib, however, that from the perspective of the “bowl” (i.e., person) heading toward the earth, the silver cord of life is indeed moving upward and away into the distance. The text represented by the Qere, by contrast, seems to have been influenced by the use of Heb. ḥebel, “cord, rope,” in texts like Ps. 18:5; 116:3, which picture death as a captor entrapping the victim: “before he is bound (with) a silver cord.”
6. Fox, Qohelet, 279, notes the ways in which this incomprehension, or at least a fear that Qohelet might be misunderstood as advocating hedonism, already affected translation, interpretation, and discussions about canonical status in early times.
7. Gordis, Koheleth, 335–36.
8. Sara O’Leary, Vancouver Sun (Aug. 21, 1999).
9. Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings (1964), cited from CDRSQ, 167.
1. It is not easy to extract the NIV’s meaning from Heb. baʿ ale ʾ asuppot. It is much better simply to assume that the first part of the verse refers to the words of the wise and the second to the wise themselves with whom the words are closely identified: “The words of the wise are like goads, and the masters of collections like embedded nails given by one Shepherd.”
2. C. G. Bartholomew, Reading Ecclesiastes: Old Testament Exegesis and Hermeneutical Theory (AnBib 139; Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1998), 268.
3. Soren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, vol. 3 (L-R), trans. H. V. and E. H. Hong (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1975), entry 3568. Entries 3585, 3578, and 3872 are also worthy of consideration.
4. Heraclitus, Fragments (6th century B.C.), cited from CDRSQ, 120.
1. Jewish tradition has also suggested Hezekiah or Isaiah as the author.
2. M. H. Pope, Song of Songs (AB; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977), 294, provides other examples of the same kind of construction. I will repeatedly cite Pope’s work in this commentary, since it is by far the most detailed reference commentary on the Song and frequently gives excellent treatments of matters that are important in themselves but cannot be pursued at length in our own reflections on the text.
3. Thus R. Gordis, The Song of Songs and Lamentations, rev. ed. (New York: Ktav, 1974), 23, is almost right when he says of the Song of Songs (which he regards as a collection of songs): “Being lyrical in character, with no historical allusions, most of the songs are undatable.” His choice of the word “most” is dictated by his inexplicable insistence that Tirzah could only have been mentioned in a text predating 876 B.C. and that 3:6–11 could only have been composed on the occasion of one of Solomon’s marriages. Pope makes a similar kind of error when he claims that “the antiquity of at least parts of the Songs cannot be doubted in light of the Ugaritic parallels” (Song, 27). That which cannot actually be doubted is the antiquity of some of the language and imagery that the Song employs, whether reflected in Ugaritic cultic texts or in ancient Egyptian love lyrics (see M. V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs [Madison, Wis.: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1985]). It is also true, however, of modern Palestinian songs that offer parallels to the Song (Pope, Song, 56–66) that they employ language and imagery used in ancient times, and no one suggests that this makes these songs themselves ancient. See further A. Brenner, The Song of Songs (OTG; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989), 41–47, 57–61; R. E. Murphy, The Song of Songs (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 41–57.
4. See Pope, Song, 210–29, however, for a different view. Gordis, Song, 9, also points out that rabbinic discussion of the order of the Solomonic composition of Song of Songs, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes implies a literal interpretation of the Song, when it is claimed that it is young men who sing songs like the Song and older men who write proverbs and then, later, voice disenchantment with life.
5. Thus, John Wesley was of the opinion, e.g., that the description of the woman and her lover could not with decency be taken to refer to human characters (see Pope, Song, 130).
6. A recurring claim throughout the history of interpretation has been that the Song would never have been accepted into the canon of Scripture had it not been understood allegorically. This claim tells us much more about what has been conceivable to those who have made it, however, than it does about any factual historical reality that can be described. It arises not from evidence but from a refusal to believe that anything “profane” or “earthly” could be found in Holy Scripture—as if all the Scriptures were not profoundly human as well as divinely inspired, and as if creation and redemption had nothing to do with each other. An alternative view (albeit just as unproveable) is attributed by Gordis, Song, 43, to M. Jastrow: “It entered the canon not by vote, but because of its inevitable human appeal. Love is sacred even in passionate manifestations”; we may also note M. Goulder, The Song of Fourteen Songs (JSOTS 36; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1986), 86: “The Song won its way to favor and into the Canon by virtue of its message [it takes a broad view of whom Jews may rightly marry, i.e., Gentile women], its beauty, its eroticism and its false ascription.” See further the excellent discussion of all the historical uncertainties in Murphy, Song, 12–16.
7. Thus, rightly, Gordis, Song, 4: “The most modern form of the allegorical theory regards our book as the translation of a pagan litany.” The critique throughout pp. 4–10 is, though dated, still worth reading.
8. It is one of the rich ironies of modern biblical scholarship in general that it is precisely those who most resolutely desire to be “modern” and so roundly condemn the medieval search for Christian meanings beneath the literal sense of the text, who are so often to be found insisting that the “real” meaning of a biblical text is to be found, likewise, somewhere other than in the literal sense of the text as it stands. The thoroughgoing attempt to interpret the Bible as if it were “really” much more like the surviving literature from surrounding ancient Near Eastern cultures than is actually the case is only one spectacular example of the phenomenon, and it is scarcely any more helpful than the attempt to do the opposite (i.e., to interpret the Bible as if it had no significant points of contact with surrounding cultures). The fact is that there are indeed many echoes of other ancient Near Eastern literature to be found in biblical texts like the Song (described at length by Pope, Song, passim), esp. where the language and imagery concern fertility and sexual activity, but this does not of itself prove that, e.g., the Song is “really” about a sacred marriage rather than about an ordinary human relationship. It only means that the Hebrew poetry has been influenced in various ways, unconsciously and consciously, by its wider literary environment, which it may be echoing as much to distance itself from it (cf. the case of Gen. 1–11) as to embrace its governing ideology. We might as well suggest, with J. G. Snaith, Song of Songs (NCB; London: Marshall Pickering, 1993), 5, that “perhaps the Song was included in the canon because it was a non-mythological, non-cultic, outright, open celebration of God given sexual love.” Texts must first and foremost be interpreted in their immediate literary, cultural, and historical environments and must not simply be passed through a reductionist sieve in order to suit some prior theory about unified cultural and religious development.
9. I use the term “author” as a shorthand, without claiming any knowledge as to whether there really was one author rather than several. This question is much less important than the question as to whether the Song has any literary coherence as it stands, which I affirm (see below).
10. The great distance between a properly Christian and a gnostic view of the world is demonstrated clearly by texts such as The Acts of Thomas, 12–14, which announces the incompatibility of marriage with the bridegroom Jesus and ordinary, earthly marriage, which leads to sexual intercourse (considered dirty), the cares of life and children, and ultimately eternal damnation. Something close to the gnostic view of the world unfortunately continues to surface in the Christian mystical theology of medieval and modern times that speaks (like the Gnostics) of a mystical marriage of the soul with God. Witness the words of P. P. Parente, “The Canticle of Canticles in Mystical Theology,” CBQ 6 (1944): 142–58: “Man’s spirit in an animal body is capable, with the help of divine grace, of emancipating itself from sensual love and affections to such an extent that it can love God with a purity and ardour that resemble the love of the heavenly spirits” (143).
11. See further the discussion of literary integrity in Pope, Song, 40–54. I find in the Song neither the rigid orderliness nor the charming confusion that many other commentators have found. I find, rather, an overall coherence that is marked by the kind of sudden shifts in perspective that occur in dreams or fantasies, or indeed in some forms of drama, where scene succeeds scene in a manner that is not necessarily entirely linear.
12. The similarities between the Song and various other literature of Palestine and the ancient Near East have from time to time led to suggestions about the original use of the Song (e.g., as poetry performed at a wedding festival or as liturgy performed in syncretistic ancient Israelite worship; see Pope, Song, 141–53). Literary similarity cannot be taken necessarily to imply similarity of original social setting, however, especially since similar language and images, whatever their precise origins, can be intended to be read entirely differently in different texts. We remain entirely in the dark about how, where, and when the Song was read in pre-Christian times.
13. There has been much speculation over the centuries as to the identity of the female speaker, and yet hardly anything is told us about her that enables firm conclusions to be drawn. She is called a “Shulammite” in 6:13, which some have taken to indicate a town of origin, but the term is obscure (see comment at 6:13).
14. So, e.g., C. Rabin, “The Song of Songs and Tamil Poetry,” SR 3 (1973): 205–19, who correctly understands, in my view, that Solomon is presented in the Song as a ridiculous figure whose view of the world is to be rejected.
15. See P. Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), 144–65.
16. O. Wilde, “Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young,” Chameleon (December 1894). More sober is John Updike in his foreword to L. Boadt, ed., The Song of Solomon: Love Poetry of the Spirit (CBS; New York: St. Martin’s, 1999), 10: “Judaism recognized that the body is the person, a recognition extended in the strenuous Christian doctrine of the bodily resurrection.”
17. C. S. Lewis, Screwtape Proposes a Toast (London: Collins, 1971), 97–98.
18. R. E. Murphy, “The Canticle of Canticles and the Virgin Mary,” Carmelus 1 (1954): 18–28 (quote on p. 27). Ibn Ezra had already, many centuries before, referred to the Song as a parable; others have followed his lead.
19. E. J. Young, An Introduction to the Old Testament (London: Tyndale, 1949), 327.
1. Shift in person is also common in literature from the wider ancient Near Eastern context, which has some connection with Song of Songs; see Pope, Song, 304, for some detail in respect of sacred marriage songs.
2. See Murphy, Song, 125, for a brief discussion.
3. The NIV’s “poured out” takes Heb. turaq to be a Hophal from ryq, “empty,” which is certainly possible (even though the feminine verb does not agree with the masculine subject “oil”), since perfumed oil poured out would spread a pleasant aroma. There is some justification to be found in the tradition and in the cognate languages, nonetheless, for understanding turaq simply as a type of cosmetic oil (the Syriac translation renders the phrase as “myrrh”). See further Pope, Song, 300.
4. It is not that the phrase “daughters of Jerusalem” of itself at all implies this. It is not necessarily the case that those conceived of as “daughters” in relation to a city, which is their “mother,” are even to be understood as living in that city. Yet the woman addresses the “daughters” in the context of a clear reference to the king’s “chambers,” leading to the natural assumption that the particular “daughters” in mind are her companions in the harem. As the Song progresses it becomes even clearer that this is so (see comments on 3:10).
5. It is not easy to understand why the NIV translates the first line of v. 5 as “dark am I, yet lovely,” unless it is simply that the translators were simply so burdened by the weight of tradition or their own assumptions that they could not find any alternative plausible (see Pope, Song, 307–10, for a discussion of the history of interpretation, although I do not agree with him on the precise meaning of Heb. šḥr). There is nothing in the passage itself that implies that the “staring” of v. 6 is the result of anything other than interest and fascination, and there is therefore no reason to assume that anyone in the speaker’s (or author’s) mind would doubt that darkness and beauty were perfectly compatible. We should translate the line: “I am dark and lovely.”
6. The reference is to a tribe in northern Arabia, known from such biblical passages as Gen. 25:13; Ps. 120:5; and Isa. 21:16, as well as from Assyrian and other records. Some have wondered whether the Masoretic text’s “Solomon” in Song 1:5 provides a sufficiently neat parallel to “Kedar” and have suggested repointing the text so as to produce “Salma(h)” (cf. NIV note) or “Shalmah” (NEB)—another ancient Arabian tribe. Whether we can demand that biblical authors think and write as neatly as we might prefer is, of course, open to serious question. It would certainly be a curious coincidence to find this tribe mentioned only four verses distant from another occurrence of the same set of Heb. consonants where the name “Solomon” is clearly intended (Song 1:1).
7. The reference could be to half-brothers. More likely, however, the phrase reflects an emotional distance between the woman and these men who have been so angry with her and who exercise such dominating power over her. See further on 8:8–12 below, where the mutual relationship between lover and beloved stands in stark contrast to the other malefemale relationships described. It is, in fact, only the lover who is referred to by the woman in the Song (in aspiration) as “brother.” It is a term of intimacy that she refrains from using, for whatever reason, of these other men in her family.
8. See Pope, Song, 329, for some relevant information on siestas in warm climates.
9. See ibid., 338–40, for a helpful discussion and some historical examples.
10. Although I do not believe that the king and the lover in the Song are the same person, it should be noted that the mere fact that the lover is characterized as a “shepherd” by no means, of itself, proves that he is not also a “king.” The king in the ancient Near East was often described as a shepherd of his “flock” (note biblical examples in, e.g., 2 Sam. 5:2; Ezek. 37:24).
11. The contrast would be still greater if Heb. bimsibbo (“at his table”) were rendered in the light of the occurrence of the noun in 1 Kings 6:29; 2 Kings 23:5; and Job 37:12 as “round about himself, in his vicinity,” rather than understood as referring to a round table or a low couch beside a dining table. The line would make perfect sense (pace Snaith, Song, 22–23) as emphasizing the distance of the king from the woman (he occupied his own space), in contrast to the intimate closeness of the lover.
12. See Pope, Song, 348–49, 350, 352–53, for details on nard, myrrh, and henna (cypress).
13. It is far from clear, however, that her original home is outside the city: Both the dreams of 3:1–4 and 5:2–7 and the associated passage in 8:1–2 imply otherwise.
14. That the lover is associated with the countryside in the Song does not necessarily mean, of course, that his residence is to be found there. If the shepherd imagery of ch. 1 is any indication, we may well imagine that he is not a city dweller, although we must weigh against this the implication of the dreams of 3:1–4 and 5:2–7, which imply that he can (at least in a dream) be found in the city.
15. See further P. Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (OBT; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 93–116.
16. Dr. James Bennett, 1838, cited in Pope, Song, 135.
17. It is to be fervently hoped that the reader will not seek to defend Western culture at this point by noting that such laws also discriminate against multitudes of men (e.g., slaves, Catholics, Jews)—as if this were truly any defense at all.
18. Cited from C. C. Kroeger and J. R. Beck, eds., Women, Abuse and the Bible: How Scripture Can Be Used to Hurt or Heal (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 33.
19. Gordis, Song, xi.
1. See Pope, Song, 367–68, for an extensive discussion of the flowers.
2. The context of plea in Ps. 20:1–5 seems to me to require that the “shout” in v. 5 should not be one of joy after victory but one of entreaty and supplication in pursuit of victory: “We shall cry out for your victory, and fight in the name of our God” (pers. trans.).
3. These latter references make it difficult to accept Gordis’s view that the degel of 2:4 is to be understood on the basis of Akkadian dagalu, “to see, look,” as referring to a look or a glance (Song, 81–82)—an interpretation followed with different nuances by later commentators such as Murphy, Song, 132; Pope, Song, 375–77.
4. It is conceivable that the man speaks here, yet the same aside appears in 3:5, where the context certainly favors the female voice, which has spoken of the (silent) man in the third person throughout vv. 1–4; an abbreviated version of it in 8:4 is also best taken as spoken by the woman, whose words are found in 7:9b–8:3.
5. The NIV’s “peering through the lattice” (v. 9) is an intelligent guess at the meaning of some unusual Heb. on the basis of the preceding “gazing through the windows.” There is no other case in the Old Testament, however, of Heb. ṣwṣ meaning “to peer,” and its normal meaning of “to blossom” fits well the general context of spring and new growth (cf. Heb. niṣṣan, “blossom,” in v. 12, comparing also the verbal nṣṣ in 6:11; 7:12). It seems better to understand the line as indicating how the man appears to the woman as she returns his gaze through the window. He is the herald of spring, “blossoming” in front of her eyes.
6. There may also be an allusion to pruning in Heb. zmr, which can also mean “to cut.” The objection to the idea rests on the allegedly later date of pruning in July–August, whereas the remainder of the imagery suggests that we are in March–June. Whether we can truly press such a pedantic point in a poem of this nature is unclear, however, and it is not entirely clear in any case that pruning was indeed restricted to the later summer (cf. Isa. 18:5 and the discussion in Pope, Song, 395–96).
7. See Pope, Song, 399–400.
8. Cited from Pope, Song, 403. I had occasion in 1976 to speak with a vineyard owner near Bordeaux who knew his Bible well, and he claimed some immediate modern knowledge of the same kind of activity.
9. Pope, Song, 410, cites an interesting if indirect ancient Near Eastern parallel, in which a goddess invites a king to prance on her bosom like a calf.
10. See ibid., 75.
11. Ayesha, wife of the prophet Muhammad, cited in CDRSQ, 136.
12. D. B. Allender and T. Longman III, Intimate Allies (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale, 1995), 97.
1. Murphy, Song, 151.
2. See Pope, Song, 441–42, for a discussion.
3. The “bed” of v. 7, being a feminine noun, could itself in principle be connected with the pronoun zoʾt, and v. 7 could be the answer to the question in v. 6: “Who is this? . . . the bed!” We might then understand Heb. mi (normally “who?”) as meaning “what?” following Akkadian usage, or we might simply think of the bed itself as personified. It is by far the most natural reading of v. 6, however, when both normal Heb. grammar and syntax and the similar question in 8:5 are considered, to understand the question as referring to a woman on the bed rather than to the bed itself.
4. See L. Ryken et al., eds., Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1998), 315–17, 948–51.
5. It should be noted that the women in v. 11 are only invited to view the crown, not a wedding. The word ʿ aṭara is itself ambiguous and could refer to a royal crown or a wedding garland (cf. the picture of the wedding in Isa. 61:10). Given the satirical edge to the passage, it is possible that the intended picture is of Solomon reposing on his ridiculously overstated bed wearing nothing but his crown (cf. Amos 6:1–7; also Ezek. 23:40–41, with its interesting association of illicit sexual conduct and misuse of sacrificial incense and oil). The invitation is, in essence, to view a pathetic spectacle.
6. On this and other aspects of the ambiguous presentation of Solomon’s reign in 1-2 Kings, see I. W. Provan, 1 and 2 Kings (NIBC; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1995), 23–102.
7. R. E. Watts, “Women in the Gospels and Acts,” Crux 35 (1999): 22–33.
8. B. Keenan, An Evil Cradling (London: Hutchinson, 1992), 272.
9. Ibid., 188–89.
10. Ibid., 188.
11. My source here is the Vancouver Sun (May 21, 1999); the figures are in Canadian dollars.
12. It is evident that some women, at least, would claim to be exercising freedom of choice in participating in prostitution or pornography. The director of Romance was indeed a woman, Catherine Breillat.
1. Snaith, Song, 58, argues that, because she is veiled, she cannot be the same woman of whom we hear in 1:6, who is bronzed by the sun. It is not entirely clear, however, why we must imagine that a woman in ancient Palestine must always have been either veiled or unveiled, rather than varying her dress code according to time and circumstance.
2. The precise meaning of the unique Heb. glš (found only in Song 4:1; 6:5) is not known, but the NIV’s “descending” is a good guess. For a longer discussion see Pope, Song, 458–60.
3. Heb. raqqa must presumably refer in Judg. 4:21–22; 5:26, to the higher part of the side of the head, perhaps the temple, although much depends on the angle at which the tent peg was driven into the vital area so as to cause death. It is conceivable that it was driven through the cheek. It is not entirely clear in Song 4:3 why the beloved’s temples would be singled out for attention, particularly since the man’s eyes seem to be moving downward at this point from the eyes to the area of the mouth. It may be, then, that here at least the reference is to the cheeks.
5. For a full discussion, see Pope, Song, 465–68. The allusion is perhaps to multiple necklaces placed one above the other in the way that the stones of a tower may have been built on top of each other, each level of the tower being decorated with weaponry.
6. It is perhaps not a coincidence that one thousand “shields” (Heb. magen) are mentioned in 4:4, given the various associations between 1 Kings 1–11 and Song 3:6–11 noted above, for 1 Kings 10 tells us of five hundred gold shields placed in Solomon’s palace (1 Kings 10:16–17), in the midst of its general description of the opulence of the place. The doubling in the Song of a number given in the narrative of David and Solomon stands in intriguing parallel to the doubling of the number of warriors in Song 3:7. We might speculate (although it is only speculation) that the “tower” of David was a striking architectural feature of the royal palace, whether external (cf. Neh. 3:25) or internal (and possibly inlaid with ivory, cf. Song 7:4; also Ps. 45:8; Amos 6:4).
7. Snaith, Song, 61, says it well: “Her mouth is . . . cleverly portrayed as a fertile oasis.”
8. The precise sense of the Heb. verb lbb, which is obviously connected with the noun lebab, “heart,” is unclear. It could be that the woman has stolen his heart, but equally it could be that the vision standing before him has given him heart (courage) for the dangerous journey among lions and leopards. The conjunction of “eye” and “jewel” suggests a twinkling, attractive preciousness. The light illumines her eyes and neck as it comes into contact with them and draws him on in pursuit of her.
9. For a brief description of the plant life, see Snaith, Song, 68–69.
10. The Heb. of the MT is gal, lit., “heap (of stones), wave,” which is difficult; many have therefore taken their lead from the variant gan, “garden,” found in various Heb. mss and read by LXX. It is difficult to understand, however, how the readily comprehensible gan could have become the difficult gal, given that another gan sits at the beginning of the line. It is more easily understood how gal could have become gan. As to the meaning of gal in the context, our best lead is perhaps found in Eccl. 12:6, where Heb. gulla refers to a vessel that holds water, in much the way that a spring “holds” water within it. Yet it is possible that the imagery of a mound of stones could itself be intended to speak of the vaginal area, in advance of the evident sexual consummation in 5:1 (so Goulder, Song, 38). The water imagery probably continues in the difficult Heb. word šelaḥayik that follows in 4:13 (NIV “plants,” from the verb šlḥ, “send,” which is used of trees sending forth roots and branches in Ps. 80:11; Jer. 17:8), since Heb. berekat haššelaḥ appears in Neh. 3:15. The Nehemiah phrase certainly refers to a pool (Heb. bereka), associated, interestingly enough, with a royal garden. The šelaḥ in the phrase may simply be a variant for šiloaḥ (Siloam, as in NIV), but it has been argued that it refers rather to a conduit that carried water from the Gihon spring to the pool by the royal garden (so, e.g., Goulder, Song, 38). If this is so, then we may have a further allusion here in Song 4:13’s šelaḥayik to the vagina.
11. Arthur Taylor Bledsoe, “Liberty and Slavery: or, Slavery in the Light of Moral and Political Philosophy” (1860), as quoted in W. M. Swartley, Slavery, Sabbath, War and Women: Case Issues in Biblical Interpretation (Scottdale, Pa.; Herald, 1983), 49–50.
12. C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (London: Fontana Book, 1976), 88.
13. Allender and Longman, Intimate Allies, 97.
14. R. B. Laurin, “The Song of Songs and Its Modern Message,” CT 6 (1961–1962): 1062–63 (quote on p. 1062).
15. Ibid., 1062.
1. There is a double meaning in the use of Heb. ʿwr here, which is the verb that also lies behind “awake” in 4:16, “arouse” and “awaken” in 2:7; 3:5; 8:4, and “rouse” in 8:5. Her heart is “awake” in the sense both that it is dreaming and that it is sexually receptive.
2. The “hole” (Heb. ḥor) is presumably (at least when considered literally, see further below) an aperture in the door, probably a keyhole large enough to accommodate a man’s hand (see Pope, Song, 518–19). The real difficulty is to know whether the man is at this point persisting in his advances and is thrusting his hand through the hole in a vain attempt to reach his beloved, or whether he is already discouraged by the woman’s response and is removing his hand from the hole. Is he sending his hand from the door and into the room (cf. the Heb. preposition min in 2:9, where the lover looks “from” the windows/lattice and into the house, with min almost having the sense of “through”), or sending his hand away from the door altogether (so Goulder, Song, 41–42)? I prefer the latter explanation in the context of his disappearance in v. 6.
3. Many Heb. MSS read at the end of v. 4 “my innards seethed within me” (Heb. ʿalay) for MT’s “my innards seethed because of him” (Heb. ʿalaw). The sense of the verse is not much altered by the variant, however.
4. Some commentators prefer, in view of the reference in Gen. 35:18 to the “soul going out” (Heb. nepeš yṣʾ ) from Rachel in her death, to understand the same phrase here in Song 5:6 also to refer to a deathlike distress: e.g., “my soul sank” (Pope, Song, 501); “I swooned” (Murphy, Song, 164–65). It is not to be doubted that there is indeed an allusion to the woman’s severe distress in the phrase, but to understand its primary sense in this way involves reading the following Heb. bedabbero, in the light of Akkadian and Arabic, as a verb meaning “turn, flee,” which is otherwise unattested in Heb. By far the most natural reference of bedabbero in context, however, is to the words that the lover has spoken in v. 2, and by far the most natural understanding in context of Heb. yṣʾ, “go out,” is to the woman’s exit from the house and into the city to “look” and to “call.”
5. Heb. redid only otherwise appears in Isa. 3:23 (also of female clothing: NIV “shawls”) and is of uncertain meaning. “Cloak” is, however, a good guess; “nightdress” is also a possibility.
6. See M. Delcor, “Two Special Meanings of the Word yd in Biblical Hebrew,” JSS 12 (1967): 230–40.
7. It is possible, but not entirely certain, that the taking of the garment is supposed to signify that the watchmen regard her as a sexually wayward woman (cf. Ezek. 16:37–39, and the comments below on the significance of Song 8:1).
8. The NIV’s “outstanding” probably captures the overall sense, but it is important to note that the Heb. dagul probably carries a military connotation (see comments on dgl at 2:4), as the LXX translation “picked out of a military unit” correctly understands. He is one among ten thousand warriors.
9. The Heb. is the unique taltallim, which is used in later rabbinic literature to refer to curly hair. It is possibly related, however, to Heb. tel, “mound, hill” and talul, “exalted, lofty,” in which case the allusion is perhaps to a full head of hair, sitting majestically on top the head. There is also an Akkadian taltallu that refers to part of the date plant that is black, leading some to think that the allusion is to palm branches (cf. LXX, Vulg.).
10. The NIV reads the plural “beds” with a few Heb. MSS and the LXX (cf. 6:2), and also accepts a common repointing of Heb. migdelot, “towers,” to megaddelot, “yielding” (LXX). Little depends on one’s decisions here.
11. The Heb. behind the NIV’s “chrysolite” in v. 14 is taršiš, which is often in the Old Testament a place rather than a jewel (e.g., Isa. 66:19; Ezek. 27:12, 25)—a port far to the west that has exotic overtones (and whose geographical location is unknown to us). The identity of the gems mentioned here is likewise unknown to us (“chrysolite” is one guess among many—rubies? topaz?), but they are clearly exotic and precious. The Heb. word sappirim, which lies behind the NIV’s “sapphires,” in the same line probably refers to the azure blue stone lapis lazuli (see NIV note).
12. The plural “gardens” later in the verse is not intended to refer to other, different locations (pace Goulder, Song, 46, 51), but to the same place. The one garden is simply being thought of in terms of its various parts through which the lover wanders.
13. The Heb. verb rhb is relatively rare. Thus it is unclear how precisely to translate its Hiphil form here. It is associated in the Qal in Isa. 3:5 and Prov. 6:3 with violent uprising and importunate supplication respectively, giving the impression of strength or force brought to bear upon another. Its only other Hiphil use in Ps. 138:3 is in a context where strength is produced in another by God. All of this helps us to see that the woman’s eyes are portrayed in Song 6:5 as having an overpowering effect on the man, but none of it in itself helps us to settle definitively which kind of effect that is. Does she overwhelm him with terror, in the manner of an army or even a sea monster (note that the noun rahab is the name of a mythical sea monster in verses like Ps. 89:10; Isa. 51:9)? Or does she excite him to passion, so that he is drawn on to desire her (and yet wishes her, not entirely seriously, to refrain from inflaming him)? The history of interpretation points in both directions (see Pope, Song, 564–65), and the context does not help, since v. 5a stands at the transition between the military imagery of v. 4 and the familiar pastoral imagery of vv. 5b–7 (which reminds us of the intimacy of 4:1–5:1). Perhaps rhb is deliberately ambiguous, capturing in itself the paradoxical feelings of awe and desire that the man expresses here.
14. The Heb. is bara, lit., “pure, clear, clean,” a word also used in 6:10 of the sun (cf. Ps. 19:8 of the “commands of the LORD,” but with the imagery of the sun in the background in 19:4–6). The language is intended in context to emphasize how special she is to her mother (she is the one sun around whom the mother’s world revolves), but the translation “favorite” is unfortunate, since it implies what is not necessarily implied by bara in itself, namely, that she is specially favored over other children the mother might have.
15. The numbers differ from those in 1 Kings 11:3, where Solomon is said to have had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. In neither case, however, is it clear that the number is intended literally. Both the total of 1000 in Kings and the sequence 60–80–unlimited number in Song 6:8 are probably intended simply to communicate the idea of “endless numbers of women.”
16. See Pope, Song, 133–34, for some interesting insights from a practicing psychiatrist.
17. Lewis, The Four Loves, 111–12.
18. N. Murphy and G. F. R. Ellis, On the Moral Nature of the Universe: Theology, Cosmology and Ethics (Theology and the Sciences; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), xv.
19. L. Shaw, “I gave this day to God”—an unpublished poem cited with the gracious permission of the author.
20. W. Wangerin Jr., “An Advent Monologue,” in Ragman, and Other Cries of Faith (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1984), 9–12.
21. J. Gray, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: A Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships (New York: HarperCollins, 1992).
22. Wangerin, “Advent Monologue,” 10–11.
23. From the movie The War of the Roses.
1. For a generally interesting discussion of nuts and sexuality in particular, see Pope, Song, 574–82, from whom the detail about the Kidron Valley is also drawn. The fertile wadi evokes the area of the vagina (as does the “conduit” of 4:13—see comments in the footnote on 4:13 relating to the NIV’s “plants”).
2. The preposition behind “among” in this translation is not actually present in the Heb., but is probably to be understood. Words commonly appear in Heb. poetry merely in apposition to each other, inviting the reader to supply the obvious connection. The yod in the Heb. ʿammi, which the NIV takes as a first person suffix, is understood in my translation as an archaic ending indicating a genitival relationship between ʿammi and nadib (GKC, §90k-m).
3. Heb. maḥanayim is a dual form meaning “two camps,” and it is also a place name in passages like Gen. 32:1–2, where the location is called “Mahanaim” because Jacob thinks it is “the camp of God.” We are perhaps meant to think of the dance’s origin (it is a famous type of dance, associated with this town or with a victory in battle and thus with military camps), of its spectacular nature (it is “divine”—the woman herself has sometimes been described in such terms in the Song), or of the manner of its presentation (the people gather in two “camps,” male and female, to watch it or even to join in with antiphonal singing and musical accompaniment). It is also not beyond possibility, given the frequent reference thus far in the Song to the two female breasts, that the “two camps” are breasts here also and that attention is being drawn by the name of the dance to that which is most noticed by the men (the “dancing” of the breasts) during its performance. If the following description of the woman is any guide (and it may not be, since the mind’s eye can see things that the eye cannot), it does not appear as if the dancer wears much clothing during the performance; and if breasts are the focus of attention, it may help to explain why the men plead with the woman in 6:13 to “turn round.” For a full discussion, see Pope, Song, 601–12.
4. See Pope, Song, 596–600, for a full discussion.
5. The NIV’s “legs” (yerekayim) are in reality the upper part of the legs, the thighs (as in 3:8, where each soldier had a sword “at his side”). These are described as “turned” (ḥmq, as in 5:6; NIV “graceful”) like ḥalaʾim. The ḥalaʾim (NIV “jewels”) are ornaments of some kind (cf. the similar ḥali in Prov. 25:12 and ḥelya in Hos. 2:13), which we presume to have a rounded quality (since they appear in the Proverbs and Hosea contexts alongside nezem, “ring”). Her thighs are rounded, then, like these ornaments.
6. It does not seem likely, having viewed the thighs (which already have associations with fertility and procreation, in view of the sexual organs that lie between them; cf. Gen. 46:26; Ex. 1:5; Judg. 8:30) and just prior to viewing the belly (see below), that we should be asked at this point to contemplate the navel (Heb. šor). The NIV translation arises from the use of the word šor in Ezek. 16:4 of the umbilical cord, which suggests to some that it can be used by extension of the navel; but if this is true, it is presumably also possible that it might be used by extension for other parts of the body with which the umbilical cord is associated, i.e., the womb and every other area through which the cord passes on the way to the baby’s navel. In Prov. 3:7–10 the healing of the šor (NIV “body”) is associated with the liquid refreshment of the bones and with fertility more generally—a reference, perhaps, to the removal of barrenness. The level of usage of the word in the Old Testament makes certainty impossible, but the context in Song of Songs 7 undoubtedly speaks in favor of a translation here, at least, in terms of the vaginal area. It is with this area, after all, that water and fertility have been closely associated already in 4:1–15, and to consider the matter from a biological rather than a literary perspective, it is in respect of this area (rather than the area of the navel) that it makes sense to say that there is ever-present liquid. The metaphorical liquid in question is of uncertain identity, although “blended wine” is a good guess (Heb. mezeg being thought of as an Aramaism for Heb. mẹśek, which refers to wine mixed with water or spices). The precise nature and shape of the metaphorical utensil that contains the liquid is also uncertain (but see Pope, Song, 618–19, for a more optimistic view).
7. One assumes that the NIV means to refer to the whole front and lower part of the body in using “waist,” but it is a strange word to employ. Heb. beṭen is the belly or the womb, here nicely rounded like a mound of wheat (the association of flat bellies and beauty is an entirely modern phenomenon, as the history of Western art, among other things, demonstrates). The lilies probably have no function other than to associate the belly with the breasts, which are referred to in v. 3, and to remind us of the lover’s previous “browsing” in the field that is his beloved (cf. 2:16; 4:5; 5:13; 6:2–3).
8. The NIV’s translation of v. 5 is right in understanding Heb. ʾargaman as a reference to a purple cloth of some kind (“tapestry”), since to say the hair is “like purple” does not make much sense. To remove the color from the text altogether is, however, unjustified. See Pope, Song, 629–30, for ancient evidence touching on the dyeing of hair—a practice that continues to this day, at least in the use of henna to dye the hair red, among women in this area of the Mediterranean (e.g., in southern Tunisia). The “purple” mentioned here could in practice vary in shade. We might paraphrase the first two lines of the verse thus: “Your head sits atop your body like purple Carmel; the threads [Heb. dalla, as in Isa. 38:12, where the NIV has ‘loom’] which are your hair remind me of purple cloth.”
9. Heb. rehaṭim appears in Gen. 30:38, 41; Ex. 2:16 of watering troughs for animals, and we perhaps imagine that its use here is meant to evoke the streams that run down a mountainside, in much the same way that hair is associated with goats coming down a mountainside in Song 4:1; 6:5. It is intriguing nevertheless that the same word appears in 1:17 in what looks like a dialectical variant (with a het for a he, as also in the Samaritan Pentateuch at Ex. 2:16), the Qere inviting us to read the word in the same way as in Song 7:5. The imagery in 1:17 is that of housing, and the NIV translates the word as “rafters.” It is not impossible, therefore, that Mount Carmel only appears in 7:5 because of the play on “purple” and that the dominating imagery throughout all of vv. 4–5 is architectural—towers, pools, gates, and now a magnificent royal palace with impressive rafters and hangings, in which the king is held captive.
10. Heb. yph has frequently appeared by itself in both verbal and adjectival forms in the Song, always otherwise in reference to the woman: 1:8, 15; 2:10, 13; 4:1, 7, 10; 5:9; 6:1, 4, 10; 7:1.
11. The “fragrance of you breath” in v. 8 is lit. “the fragrance of your nose” (Heb. ʾap). The NIV may be correct in interpreting this as a reference to the beloved’s “breath,” since the nose is clearly an organ of breathing and is often referred to in the Old Testament, in addition, when both human and divine anger are described (BDB, 60). Breath exits the nose as well as entering it in Heb. thought, esp. in cases where passion is involved, and it is natural that any such breath would be, to the lover, fragrant—as the whole world of love that the Song describes is suffused with “fragrance” (cf. reaḥ also in 1:3, 12; 2:13; 4:10–11; 7:13). Yet it is also possible that it is the scented nature of the face itself (including the nose) that is in view here. The nose has already been highlighted in 7:4 as being like “the tower [migdal] of Lebanon,” and we recall that earlier in the Song the man’s cheeks (or jaw) were referred to (lit.) as “towers [migdelot] of ointment” (5:13). We cannot allow the fact that we might not refer to the female nose in this way to influence us overly in our reading of the Heb., which frequently refers to the human body in ways that are unfamiliar to us. A safer translation is, therefore, “the fragrance of your nose like apples”—or perhaps, recognizing that the part can often stand for the whole in Heb. poetry, “the fragrance of your face like apples” (as the dual form ʾappayik in some Heb. MSS at v. 8 explicitly indicates). There is no justification, since the man is moving upward in vv. 8–9a and thinking in the end of kisses on the mouth, and since the normal sense of Heb. ʾap fits the overall context, for Pope’s speculative “vulva” or his (in principle) more defensible “nipples” (Pope, Song, 636–67). This is esp. the case given the fondness in the ancient world for the “nose kiss” (involving nose contact and smell) as well as the “mouth kiss” (involving mouth contact and taste; see Snaith, Song, 108).
12. The phrase “flowing gently over lips of sleepers” (NIV note) is a difficult one, and the NIV therefore follows other ancient versions at this point. It is the unique verb dbb, however, and not the reference to the “lips,” that presents the real difficulty in the verse. We are forced to make an intelligent guess from the context here, mainly on the basis of Heb. mešarim (NIV “straight”), which refers in Prov. 23:31 to the passing of wine smoothly down the gullet. The “sleeping lips,” clearly, cannot but belong to the lovers. The wine of the woman’s mouth is pictured as passing smoothly into his as they lie together (not lit. asleep) in bed. In English, too, we can use “sleep” as a verb indicating activity in a bed that does not literally involve unconsciousness.
13. In spite of the long interpretative tradition that favors the translation “villages” here, it provides an unsatisfactory parallel to “countryside.” If it is not a poetic plural or a plural of generalization (GKC, §124 c, e), it also provides an unnecessary enigma for the interpreter, who must then explain how and why the lovers wish to “spend the night” in various locations rather than one. It makes much more sense to understand Heb. keparim as the scented “henna bushes” from which derives henna (Heb. koper, 1:14; note keparim itself in 4:13).
14. See further Pope, Song, 648–49.
15. See L. Ryken et al., eds., Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, 315–17.
16. Part of a hymn written by John Greenleaf Whittier, 1807–1892.
1. The play on kissing/drinking that is already found in places like 1:2 and 7:9 becomes explicit wordplay in 8:1–2: “I would kiss you [ʾeššaqeka] . . . I would give you to drink [ʾašqeka] spiced wine.”
2. It is not clear whether this is the reality of public life only in the city (of which the mention of the mother’s house reminds us, cf. 3:4) or also out in the countryside. Our lack of certainty here is allied to our lack of certainty as to whether the couple are “husband and wife” only in their own eyes or also in the eyes of at least some other people (see comments on 4:1–5:1). To add uncertainty to uncertainty, we do not know whether it is the public nature of the demonstration of affection that is societally problematic (even if they were man and wife) or the fact that they would not be regarded by the observers as having sufficiently close family ties with each other. Gen. 26:8; 29:11 do not help us at all here (in spite of some claims to the contrary), since in the first case the caress was certainly not intentionally public and in the second case it was certainly not sexual.
3. The mother, it seems, not only provides the accommodation for the union (3:4) but has also been the girl’s mentor in preparing her for sexual experience (she has “taught” her daughter).
4. The verb rpq is otherwise unknown in Old Testament Heb., but its meaning in postbiblical Heb. fits the context here well. A related later noun marpiq means “elbow” (see Pope, Song, 662–63).
5. The speaker is not clearly identified in v. 5b, and some have argued that it is the man (whose mother is not otherwise mentioned in the Song). The context certainly favors the woman, however, who clearly speaks in vv. 6–7 (as the gender of the suffixes indicates). She has previously asked the wind to “awake” (ʿwr) in 4:16 and to blow the fragrances of her garden abroad so that her lover may be aroused and come into that garden. Now she claims similarly to have “awoken” him to sexual desire in 8:5 (also ʿwr; NIV “roused”). It is because she has done so, indeed, with all the difficulties (as well as the ecstasies) that have ensued, that she knows enough to warn the daughters of Jerusalem not to “arouse or awaken” love before its time (ʿwr twice in 8:4 and earlier in 2:7; 3:5). The panic-in-loss of the dream associated with the awakening of her own heart (ʿwr in 5:2) is perhaps still fresh in her mind.
6. The imagery of the “seal” might lead us to expect a reference to the hand rather than the arm in v. 6. “Arm” is, in fact, regularly explained as a poetic synonym for “hand.” This may be so, but it is also likely that the imagery is being influenced not only by the idea of the seal but also by the idea of the embrace in which the lover clasps his beloved with his arms to his heart. The general idea of carrying important things around the neck and close to the heart is also found in Prov. 6:20–23, where the young man is to remain in intimate relationship with his parents’ advice—advice that concerns, in particular, relationships with women.
7. The sense of the NIV’s “for” before “love” in v. 6 is unclear. How, precisely, does the request “place me . . .” lead on to the statement “love is as strong as death . . .”? It might be better to understand Heb. ki at this point simply as asseverative: “Surely love is as strong as death . . .”
8. The translation “jealousy” is perhaps not the best, given the almost entirely negative connotations this word has come to have in English usage. Heb. qinʾa refers to passionate love that acts in protection of the loved one and of the covenant relationship constituted in the love relationship. It is used, e.g., of God’s love for Israel, which leads him to fight on Israel’s behalf and to direct his anger against her enemies. It is evidently a good thing in itself, although it can lead mortal beings, touched by sin, to actions that must be judged as wrong in the context of the Bible’s ethical teaching as a whole (e.g., Prov. 6:34). A better translation, therefore, is “passion,” which does not carry the same baggage in modern English usage as “jealousy” does.
9. The Heb. is šalhebetya, in which the final ya appears to be the short form of the divine name “Yahweh,” which is known from such passages as Ps. 118:5. Since divine names can sometimes indicate a superlative (e.g., Ps. 36:6, where the NIV renders “mountains of El” as “mighty mountains”), the word can be translated “mighty flame” or “most vehement flame,” but the context, with its various allusions to the cosmic forces of death and chaos that Yahweh elsewhere in the Old Testament is regularly described as overcoming, favors the more literal translation.
10. Note, e.g., Gen. 1:1–31; Isa. 43:1–2, 16–17; 51:9–10; also Ps. 69:1–2.
11. It is possible to translate: “it [the wealth] would be utterly scorned.” The scorning of the man is a better match for the scorning of the woman in v. 1, however.
12. The NIV seems to be thinking of still further decoration in v. 9b, with its “panels of cedar.” If this is indeed what the NIV means, one can only say that, while the beautification of the woman as “wall” is comprehensible, it is not clear why these men would be desirous of making the woman as “door” attractive to others. The imagery is better understood as indicating the boarding up of the “city” rather than the beautifying of it. The contrast is then more clearly seen between the woman-as-fortified (but also beautiful)-city in v. 9 and the woman-as-city-at-peace-with-the-enemy in v. 10 (see below).
13. The NIV appears to be suggesting that it is the keepers of the vineyard who bring the money, but this makes little sense (esp. since they only receive back two hundred silver pieces in v. 12—a poor return on their investment). The keepers only look after the vineyard; it is the visitors who are charged money for access to its fruit.
14. The point is that the brothers prepared for war, fortifying the sister against prospective enemies (lovers), while the sister has offered terms of peace. The “towers” (albeit not the ones built by the brothers) have indeed proved attractive to the conquering army, but the fortification of the door has quietly been dispensed with, so that the wall is not so impregnable as previously.
15. Solomon is thus apparently portrayed both as owner of the vineyard and also as prospective, fee-paying consumer of the fruit. It is a complex image, but it is difficult otherwise to know how to make sense of the verse. Nothing in the Song encourages us to adopt the only other plausible interpretation—that Solomon himself did not visit the vineyard but simply allowed others to use it for a fee (cf. 1:4, 12; 3:6–11). In all likelihood the reference to the “fee” is simply a means of emphasizing that the woman was an exceedingly precious possession as far as the king was concerned and at the same time beyond all other men’s grasp (who could afford one thousand silver pieces?). This fiction is developed in order to make one main point: that even Solomon, who could afford the fee, was not for that reason allowed access.
16. The question remains in all of this as to what, precisely, the relationship is between Solomon and the brothers. The implication seems to be that it is the brothers who have first intervened to prevent their sister’s relationship with her lover and who have then later arranged for her to enter the royal harem.
17. The word is ḥaberim, which appeared also of the shepherds in 1:7. In this context in 8:13, however, it presumably refers only to the female companions and confidantes of the woman, rather than also to the broader male group who characteristically appear in the Song associated with the man.
18. W. G. E. Watson, “Love and Death Once More (Song of Songs 8:6),” VT 47 (1997): 385–86, makes the act of love itself “a defiant act against death because, in effect, the possible product of such a union is life.”
19. It is for this reason impossible to agree with M. Sadgrove, “The Song of Songs as Wisdom Literature,” Studia Biblica 1978 I: Papers on Old Testament and Related Themes, E. A. Livingstone, ed. (JSOTS 11; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1979), 245–48, on p. 248, when he says: “In this exploration of the complex psychology of erotic love . . . and in the climactic conclusion that ‘love is strong as death,’ wisdom is indeed to be found.” It is not at all clear within the frame of the Song taken by itself that there is any wisdom to be found here at all.
20. See Provan, 1 and 2 Kings, 132–35.
21. M. Mason, The Mystery of Marriage (Portland: Multnomah, 1985), 68.
22. A sonnet of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861).
23. Wesley in the movie The Princess Bride.
24. Poem by George Herbert (1593–1633).