If only you were to me like a brother (8:1). The term “brother” is a common term of endearment for a woman to use of her lover in the ancient Near East. Here, however, the woman wishes her beloved actually were her brother so that she could kiss him in public. But we should not push the point being made here to absurdity (she would not want to make love to her brother). The main point is simply that she wishes she did not have to hide her affection for him.
It appears that in ancient Israel, as in many traditional societies, any public display of affection between man and woman was forbidden, even if they were married. The exception would be a kiss or holding hands among close family members, where it would be understood that no sexual relationship existed. Thus, the woman simply wishes she had more freedom to show how much she loves her beloved. In a somewhat analogous manner, the female singer in the Papyrus Chester Beatty I songs longs to be able to show affection to her “brother,” but she is held back by the watchful eyes of society.37
Place me like a seal over your heart (8:6). The “seal” was typically a piece of clay with a stamp on it that identified the owner of whatever was sealed. From ancient Jerusalem have come a number of “bulla” seals. These were clay seals placed over scrolls with markings or stamps that identified the owners (see Est. 3:12; Jer. 32:10). Some such seals still have the fingerprints of their owners, and a few have names that are known from the Bible. The woman’s point here is that she has possession of the man’s heart, and no one else should be allowed in. The seal metaphor occurs in both Egyptian and Mesopotamian literature. In an Egyptian song the wish is expressed for the lover to be a seal ring on his beloved’s finger, and in Mesopotamia it refers to the wearing of a cylinder seal, “you placed him like a seal around your neck.”38
Solomon had a vineyard in Baal Hamon (8:11). No place called Baal Hamon is known to us, and no effort to identify such a location can be called successful.39 The name can be translated “lord of uproar” or even “husband of a mob,” and it may be no more than a playful allusion to Solomon’s famous harem. The Song of Song ends with the departure of the man and woman (8:13–14).
Fox, M. V. The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1985. Contains much material on the Egyptian love songs.
Garrett, D. Song of Songs. WBC. Nashville: Nelson, 2004. Interprets the Song of Songs as a poetic portrait of a woman’s journey through the marriage event.
Keel, O. The Song of Songs. Continental Commentary. Trans. F. J. Gaiser. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994. Relates Song of Songs to ancient Near Eastern iconography.
Lapinkivi, P. The Sumerian Sacred Marriage in Light of Comparative Evidence. SAAS 15. Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2004. A recent study of the idea of sacred marriage.
Murphy, R. E. The Song of Songs. Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990. A major commentary that gives great attention to the Hebrew text of the Song of Songs.
Pope, Marvin. Song of Songs. AB. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977. A massive work; it gives great attention to the history of interpretation.
1. For a summary of the history of the interpretation of the Song, see D. Garrett, Song of Songs (WBC; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2004), 59–91.
2. G. L. Carr, “The Love Poetry Genre in the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East,” JETS 25 (1982): 489–98.
3. See D. Garrett, Song, 21–22. My own view is that the text is Solomonic.
4. The “chorus” may be another solo woman’s part, in which a female singer assumes the role of the “madam” of the brothel. Alternatively, this part could be the poet’s introduction to the songs.
5. For a full treatment of the Nakhtsobek Songs, see M. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 68–77. See also Garrett, Song, 54–57.
6. E.g., COS, 1:49.
7. COS, 1:51.
8. The text is British Museum 47507. See J. A. Black, “Babylonian Ballads: A New Genre,” JAOS 103 (1983): 25–34.
9. See J. A. Emerton, “Lice or a Veil in the Song of Songs 1:7?” in Understanding Poets and Prophets, ed. A. Auld (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 127–40. Also Garrett, Songs, 137–38.
10. See M. Pope, Song of Songs (AB; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977), 338–39, and O. Keel, The Song of Songs, trans. F. J. Gaiser (Continental Commentary; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 56.
11. See ANEP, 60.
12. Keel, Song, 70–71.
13. See W. von Soden, The Ancient Orient, trans. D. G. Schley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 102–3. Apples are common in classical Greek artwork. For the use of apples as an aphrodisiac in love poetry from the ancient Near East, see S. Paul, “The Shared Legacy of Sexual Metaphors and Euphemisms in Mesopotamian and Biblical Literature,” Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 47th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale ed. S. Parpola and R. M. Whiting (Part II; Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2002), 489–98.
14. Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.10.5.
15. Song of Songs uses many metaphors that occur as sexual metaphors in the literature of the ancient Near East. These metaphors function as euphemisms that obscure the erotic language, unlike the love literature from the ancient Near East that can be blatantly erotic. For a survey of the metaphors, including the animal metaphors, see S. Paul, “The Shared Legacy of Sexual Metaphors and Euphemisms.”
16. AEL, 2:187. See discussion in S. Paul, “The Shared Legacy of Sexual Metaphors and Euphemisms,” 490.
17. Thus Keel, Song, 101.
18. See J. C. L. Gibson, Syrian Semitic Inscriptions, Volume I: Hebrew and Moabite Inscriptions (London: Oxford, 1971), 1–4.
19. In my view, the woman’s quest is a metaphorical presentation of her struggle with her virginity as she yearns for intimacy with her beloved. For a presentation of this interpretation with an account of the understanding of virginity in the ancient world, see Garrett, Song, 164–74.
20. AEL, 2:182.
21. See Keel, Song, 155–57.
22. AEL, 2:192.
23. See COS, 1:51 (Papyrus Chester Beatty I), where the woman calls upon Hathor as the “Golden One” (“golden” was also an epithet of Aphrodite).
24. COS, 1:169b.
25. UT, 52:33–35.
26. S. F. Grober, “The Hospital Lotus: A Cluster of Metaphors. An Inquiry into the Problem of the Textual Unity of the Song of Songs,” in Semitics 9 (1984): 88.
27. See Garrett, Song, 148–49, 221–22.
28. See Pope, Song, 210–29.
29. A. Chambon, “Farʾah, Tell El- (North),” NEAEHL, 2:439.
30. W. Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 142.
31. See discussion in W. Watson, “Some Ancient Near Eastern Parallels to the Song of Songs,” 261.
32. See P. King and L. Stager, Life in Biblical Israel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 298–300. A series of articles on dance in the ancient world can be found in NEA 66 (2003), featuring individual treatments of Mesopotamian, Phoenician, Egyptian, and Israelite textual material as well as iconographic and archaeological artifacts. Of particular interest is T. Ilan, “Dance and Gender in Ancient Jewish Sources,” 135–36.
33. I. Jacob and W. Jacob, “Flora,” in ABD, 2:803–17.
34. Keel, Song, 245, 248–49.
35. Jacob and Jacob, “Flora,” 2:803–17.
36. Keel, Song, 257, and R. Murphy, The Song of Songs (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 187.
37. AEL, 2:182–85.
38. W. Watson, “Some Ancient Near Eastern Parallels to the Song of Songs,” 263.
39. See, for example, the suggestion in Pope, Song, 686–88.
A-1. For a full description, see Fox, Song, 7–77. Additional information can be found in W. Watson, “Some Ancient Near Eastern Parallels to the Song of Songs,” in Words Remembered, Texts Renewed, ed. J. Davies, G. Harvey, W. G. E. Watson (JSOTSup 195; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 253–71.
A-2. A survey can be found in W. Watson, “Some Ancient Near Eastern Parallels to the Song of Songs,” 253–71.
A-3. COS, 1:169.
A-4. Ibid.
A-5. Ibid., 1:128. See M. Nissinen and H. Jacobson. “Love Lyrics of Nabû and Tašmetu: An Assyrian Song of Songs?” Und Mose Schrieb Dieses Lied Auf, ed. O. Loretz and M. Dietrich (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1998), 585–634. An additional example of lyric poetry similar to Song of Songs from Sumerian poetry occurs in “The Message of Ludingira to his Mother,” see J. S. Cooper, “New Cuneiform Parallels to the Song of Songs,” JBL 90 (1971): 157–62.