Love is as strong as death.… It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away” (Song of Songs 8:6-7).
So sang the bride to her bridegroom in Song of Songs, the Bible’s picture of intimacy in marriage. Their romance flourishes emotionally and physically. Their songs carry the flush of anticipation and the excitement and satisfaction of fulfillment. Their songs sink to the valley of momentary disappointment and rise to the heights of joy and pleasure. They show us how God intended women and men to enjoy the pleasures of sexual union.
Scholars have long troubled over the exact meaning of words and phrases found in this Old Testament book, many of which appear nowhere else in the Bible. One commentator has devoted 140 pages to the problems of interpretation alone and calls it a “brief sketch.” Scholars have also struggled with the poetic forms, trying to make them fit some logical outline, but Song of Songs eludes such precision. Emotions, not carefully reasoned arguments, carry these songs.
We study this book because the apostle Paul declared, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16), and because the Lord Jesus Christ said that we must live by every word from God (Matthew 4:4). Although Song of Songs is not a marriage manual, it nevertheless instructs us in the value of intimacy. It is a poetic dialogue between lovers, accompanied by occasional choruses from onlookers. In our study we must allow poetic license to overcome our natural propensity to put everything—even love—under a microscope. Song of Songs allows us to luxuriate with two people who are madly in love with each other. Their dazzling liberty with words and feelings sets our own dry relationships on fire and rebukes our maudlin, sex-as-appetite approach to lovemaking.
“No other book of the Bible is so thick with simile, metaphor, and other artful examples of language,” cites the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Ryken, Wilhoit, and Longman, general eds., Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1998, p. 806). Therefore, we are challenged to think differently and to allow our hearts and minds to roam, and we are comforted that our ideas about the meanings of these images are as valid as the next person’s. This approach will enrich group study.
In this studyguide, the thread that links each of the songs is intimacy; the structure is dialogue in poetic language. Song of Songs was not written to prove a psychological theory about love; however, when we read it as a dialogue between lovers, we learn about intimacy on various levels. Our chapter titles do not fit a Western outline of logical progression, but rather, they try to reflect some aspect of the songs that is incorporated in each chapter. Also, since the Bible was not written with chapter breaks, the songs are not confined to those boundaries.
Some commentaries on Song of Songs jump immediately from the love story to applications that can be made about the Christian’s love affair with the Lord Jesus Christ. We chose not to do that, although, as we listen to the songs, we can easily see New Testament parallels in the doctrines of Christ and the church.
Our prayer is that readers will be released to revel in the pure essence of human love, God’s magnificent gift. We cannot be squeamish as we read and study or we will miss the beauty and transparency of these love songs. Above all, may God be praised and glorified as we try to grasp the wonders of his gift of marital bliss.