TEXT [Commentary]

  XIX.   Nineteenth Love Poem: Yearning for Love (8:1-4)

Young Woman

1 Oh, I wish you were my brother,

who nursed at my mother’s breasts.

Then I could kiss you no matter who was watching,

and no one would criticize me.

2 I would bring you to my childhood home,

and there you would teach me.[*]

I would give you spiced wine to drink,

my sweet pomegranate wine.

3 Your left arm would be under my head,

and your right arm would embrace me.

4 Promise me, O women of Jerusalem,

not to awaken love until the time is right.[*]

NOTES

8:2 to my childhood home. Lit., “to the house of my mother.” The NLT’s idiomatic translation in this case loses sight of the fact that it is specifically the mother who is mentioned, and this may be important in light of the social customs of the day. The mother was likely responsible for teaching young girls how to behave in love relationships—that is, how to be a mother and wife (cf. 3:4; 6:9).

there you would teach me. The Heb. verb is grammatically ambiguous and could mean “you will teach” or “she will teach.” The rendering in the NLT mg, “there she will teach me,” is preferable to that in the text and gives the idea that the mother teaches the daughter in the ways of love and sexuality.

COMMENTARY [Text]

The first poem of the final chapter of the book begins with the woman expressing a desire that is hard for modern interpreters to explain for a couple of reasons. She says she wishes her lover could also be her brother so they could publicly display their affection for one another. In the first place, if we are honest, we really do not know the social customs of the Old Testament time period very well; and further, such things as marriage and dating customs surely developed and changed over the near millennium during which the Old Testament came into existence. What was the relationship like between a husband and wife, between a boyfriend and girlfriend, or between a brother and sister? A second difficulty in understanding the woman’s desire is our uncertainty about the status of her relationship with the man. Are we to think of them as married or courting? The rest of this poem expresses an intensity of physical relationship that would make us think the former, but was it really the case that a man and a wife could not be seen kissing in public? We simply do not have conclusive information regarding these questions.

Even with our remaining questions, we can surely appreciate that this poem is a strong expression of the woman’s love for the man and her desire to give herself to him completely.

Once we get beyond these initial difficulties presented by our lack of knowledge of social relationships at the time the poems were written, we are struck with another question. Why does she want to bring her lover back to her childhood home, literally “the house of her mother” (see note on 8:2)? I doubt that many modern readers could resonate with this expression. In the context of seeking physical intimacy, she wants to go home to her mother’s house and embrace him! Though there is much we cannot explain due to our lack of knowledge about ancient social customs, it appears that the mother was the one who instructed her daughter in matters of love and relationships (see note on 8:2). The inclusion of the girl’s mother in the setting, then, is fitting for the romantic situation.

The woman next expresses her intention of giving her lover spiced wine—sweet pomegranate wine—to drink. By this point in the Song, we are well acquainted with wine as a cipher for love (as early as 1:2). Wine intoxicates, as does love and the physical touch between two people who are in love. That a physical embrace is meant here may be seen plainly in the next verse (8:3), which repeats a refrain that has served to bind Song of Songs together as a whole (2:6). This refrain is followed by the third and last admonition to the chorus of young girls not to move toward love prematurely (8:4; cf. 2:7; 3:5). As they look on the relationship between the man and the woman, they will desire its passion; but they must beware, because love is a dangerous emotion, not to be initiated prematurely (Schwab 1999).