Song of Solomon 1:1-17

How to love God with all your heart

Song of Songs

Commentary: Keith Simons. Translation: Mark Kirkpatrick

About the Song of Songs

The Song of Songs is a poem about love. The main speakers are a man, and the woman whom he loves.

At the start, the couple are not yet engaged. The woman is not sure about the man. She twice sends him away. She does not want to share his life.

But in the end, she learns to trust him. They marry. She is ready to become a mother. And she is glad to work with him. Her attitudes have become mature.

About the man

The man is King Solomon. Solomon was a great king, but he was not a proud man. He sincerely wanted to help his people. He worked hard to make their lives better. In fact, he liked to describe himself as a shepherd. A shepherd is a man whose job is to look after sheep. Once, Solomon’s father, David, worked as a real shepherd. Solomon was never a real shepherd. As king, he looked after people instead of sheep.

Actually, Solomon was not a good model for a husband. He had many wives. He married these women for political reasons. For example, he wanted his country to be at peace with Egypt. So he married the daughter of the king of Egypt. We do not know whether Solomon really loved all these women. But the woman in the Song of Solomon was different from these other women. Solomon loved her deeply. She really was special to him.

The Song of Songs seems to describe the man as if he were a better husband than Solomon. In fact, the man in the Song seems perfect. This is not the only place in the Bible where there is such a description. Psalms 72 is also about Solomon. But the Psalm seems to describe a king who is a better king than Solomon. Both passages are poetry. And both have the same explanation. Although the passages speak about Solomon, they were really describing God.

God is like Solomon in many ways. God is the greatest king. God looks after his people. So God is also like a shepherd (Psalms 23). (A shepherd is a man who looks after sheep. God looks after his people, rather than sheep.) And God loves the people who obey him. Especially, God loves the people who trust him completely. And these people are glad to do his work. God’s love is perfect although our love for him is often weak. This is exactly like the man in Song of Songs.

Solomon was the greatest king that the people in Israel ever knew. He was richer than any other king. The country was at peace. He achieved many great things and he built impressive buildings. So, he seemed to be the right king to choose as a description of God. But Solomon was certainly not perfect. He made terrible mistakes. At the end of his life, he even served false gods because of his foreign wives. Other books in the Bible describe these errors. But the Song of Songs does not. Instead, it gladly remembers the happy days when Solomon was a young king. At that time, he was loyal to God. And so, Solomon’s love for a young woman reminded everyone about the love of God.

About the woman

We do not know the name of the woman whom Solomon loved. The Bible simply calls her ‘the Shulamite’. This probably means that she was from a town called Shulem. This town was in the north of Israel. It belonged to the family of Issachar.

Solomon’s intentions for the woman soon become clear. He wants her to be his wife. But she hesitates to join him.

Proverbs 31:10-31 is a poem from the same time as Song of Songs. This poem lists the duties of a perfect wife. Clearly, such a woman was working very hard. Although her husband was wealthy, she was never lazy. She made sure that her husband never needed to worry about anything. So, he was able to carry out his work as a judge. This woman looked after him and their children. She also helped poor people. She impressed everyone by her hard work.

The woman in Song of Songs seems to hesitate for various reasons. At the start of the Song, she does not seem mature enough. Her words sometimes seem selfish. She may be a little lazy. But perhaps she also fears failure. In other words, she thinks that she will never be perfect enough for Solomon. Perhaps she knew the poem about the perfect wife in Proverbs 31:10-31. And she was afraid that she would disappoint Solomon.

But in the end, this woman becomes mature. She accepts Solomon’s offer of marriage. She shares with him everything that she has. And she is glad to join him in his great work. Like this woman, we often hesitate about our love for God. Our reasons are often the same as hers. We may be glad to invite God into our lives. But perhaps we are afraid to obey him completely. We may be selfish or lazy. We may be unsure about the work that God wants us to do. Or we may be afraid that we will fail. But God is always encouraging us to trust him more. He wants us to become better Christians. He wants us to become mature (Hebrews 6:1).

About marriage

We know some marriage traditions that existed at the time of the Song. We are not sure how these traditions relate to the events in the Song.

Parents would often arrange for the couple to become engaged (Judges 14:2). The man’s parents might select a wife that the man had not met (Genesis 24:4).

The woman would receive gifts when she became engaged (Genesis 24:22). The man’s family would arrange a procession to show the man’s wealth (Genesis 24:10). There would be parties (Genesis 24:28-33). The couple were not yet married. They did not live together. And they did not have sex. But they promised to marry. So they were different from people who were neither married nor engaged (Deuteronomy 22:22-29).

The engaged couple had to wait for their wedding. For example, Jacob waited 7 years for his wedding (Genesis 29:20). The man had to pay a price for his bride (1 Samuel 18:23-25).

The wedding itself would a great event. At the wedding, the man would come with his friends to his bride’s home. The man would take his wife away and lead her to his own home. The couple would be a married couple from the first night of the wedding. But the parties continued for several days (Judges 14:10-18).

About love

Our ideas about love today are often different from ancient ideas about love. Today, we often think about love as a mere emotion. For example, films always seem to show love as an emotion. Clearly, the couple in Song of Songs felt this emotion. But they did not marry merely because of this emotion. In fact, the woman twice decided to send away the man.

In ancient times, people thought above love as a decision. This still happens in some societies today. The couple decide to marry. Sometimes they may not even feel love as an emotion. But their decision is a declaration of love. For the rest of their lives, they will give themselves to each other. They will look after each other. And they will work hard to help each other. This is real love. And in the end, the couple in the Song of Songs show such real love to each other.

The meaning of the Song of Songs

The Song of Songs is, of course, a poem. It describes wonderful plants and beautiful animals. It describes special places. And it describes processions, dances and gardens. But the Song also has a more important meaning.

Parables and allegories are different types of stories. Both parables and allegories have a meaning. But there is a difference. Parables are very simple. And they are easy to understand. But allegories are very complex. Every detail in an allegory is important. And words have secret meanings.

There are many parables in the Bible. Jesus often used parables to each the people. The meaning of these parables is never complex.

Allegories became popular many centuries after the time of the Bible. People used to read allegories for entertainment, like novels today. And many people thought that the Song of Songs was an allegory. They tried to find secret meanings in its words. They thought that its real meaning must be very complex. They tried to find new meaning in every sentence.

We think that the Song of Songs is more like a parable. In other words, its meaning is simple to understand. Its meaning is:

• God loves us. His love does not change.

• But we are not always loyal to him. Perhaps we are selfish. So we do not always want to obey him.

• God wants us to trust him more. Then, in the end, we shall be glad to obey him. And we shall be perfect for him.

Chapter 1

v1 The most beautiful of songs, by Solomon.