Song of Songs and Lamentations, Volume 23B (23) (Word Biblical Commentary) 9780310522195, 0310522196

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WORD BIBLICAL COMMENTARY

Editorial Board O ld Testam ent Editor: Nancy L. deClaisse-W alford (2011 - ) New Testam ent Editor: P eter H . Davids (2013 - )

Past Editors Ralph P. M artin (2012 - 2013) Bruce M. M etzger (1997 - 2007) Jo h n D . W. Watts (1977 - 2011) Ralph P. M artin (1977 - 2012)

General Editors

David A. H ubbard (1977 - 1996) G lenn W. Barker (1977 - 1984)

Old Testament Editors:

Jam es W. Watts (1997 - 2011)

New Testament Editors:

Lynn Allan Losie (1997 - 2013)

Volumes 1 2 3 4 5 6a

Genesis 1 - 15 G ordon J. W enham Genesis 16 - 50 G ordon J. W enham E xodus Jo h n I. D urham Leviticus Jo h n E. Hartley N um bers Philip J. B udd D euteronom y 1:1 - 21:9, 2nd ed D uane L. Christensen 6b D euteronom y 21:10 - 3 4 :1 2 ............D uane L. Christensen 7a Josh ua 1-12, 2nd ed T rent C. B utler 7b Joshua 13-24, 2nd ed. T rent C. B utler 8 Judges T rent C. B utler 9 Ruth - Esther Frederic W. Bush 10 1 Samuel, 2nd ed Ralph W. Klein 11 2 Samuel A. A. A nderson Sim on J. Devries 12 1 Kings, 2nd ed .......... 13 2 Kings.......................... ...................T. R. Hobbs 14 1 Chronicles Roddy Braun 15 2 Chronicles Raym ond B Dillard 16 Ezra, N ehem iah . .H . G. M . W illiamson 17 Jo b 1 - 20 David J. A. Clines 18a Jo b 21 - 37 David J. A. Clines 18b Job 3 8 -4 2 David J. A. Clines 19 Psalms 1 - 50, 2nd ed P eter C. Craigie, Marvin E. Tate Marvin E. Tate 20 Psalms 51 - 1 0 0 Leslie C. Allen 21 Psalms 101 - 150, rev ed R oland E. M urphy 22 Proverbs 23a Ecclesiastes R oland E. M urphy 23b Song o f Songs/L am entations . . . .D uane H. G arrett, Paul R. House Jo h n D. W. Watts 24 Isaiah 1 - 33, rev. ed. . Jo h n D. W. Watts 25 Isaiah 3 4 - 66, rev. ed . P eter C. Craigie, 26 Jerem iah 1 - 25 Page H. Kelley, Joel F. D rinkard Jr. G erald L. Keown, 27 Jerem iah 26 - 52 Pam ela J Scalise, Thom as G. Sm others

*forthcoming as of 2014 **in revision as of 2014

28 Ezekiel 1 - 1 9 Leslie C. Allen 29 Ezekiel 20 - 48 Leslie C. Allen 30 Daniel Jo h n E. Goldingay 31 H o se a -Jo n a h * * Douglas Stuart 32 Micah - M alachi** Ralph L. Smith 33a M atthew 1 - 13 D onald A. H agner 33b M atthew 14 - 28 D onald A. H agner 34a M ark 1 - 8:26** R obert A. Guelich 34b M ark 8:27 - 16:20 Craig A. Evans 35a Luke 1 - 9:20 Jo h n N olland Jo h n N olland 35b Luke 9:21 - 18:34 35c Luke 18:35 - 24:53 Jo h n N olland 36 Joh n, 2nd ed George R Beasley-Murray 37a Acts 1 - 1 4 * Stephen J. W alton 37b Acts 15 - 2 8 * Stephen J. W alton 38a Rom ans 1 - 8 Jam es D. G. D unn 38b Rom ans 9 - 16 Jam es D. G. D unn 39 1 Corinthians* Andrew D. Clarke 40 2 Corinthians, rev. ed. Ralph P. M artin 41 Galatians R ichard N Longenecker 42 Ephesians Andrew T. Lincoln 43 Philippians, rev. ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne, rev by Ralph P. M artin 44 Colossians, Philem on** . . . Peter T. O ’Brien 45 1 & 2 Thessalonians** F. F. Bruce 46 Pastoral Epistles William D. M ounce 47a Hebrews 1 - 8 William L. Lane 47b Hebrews 9 - 13 William L. Lane 48 Jam es Ralph P. M artin 49 1 Peter J. Ramsey Michaels 50 Jude, 2 Peter** R ichard J. Bauckham 51 1, 2, 3, Joh n, rev. ed. Stephen S. Smalley 52a Revelation 1 - 5 David E. Aune 52b Revelation 6 - 16 David E. Aune 52c Revelation 17 - 22 David E. Aune

23BWORD BIBLICAL COMMENTARY Song of Songs & Lamentations DUANE GARRETT PAUL R. HOUSE General Editors: Bruce M. Metzger, David A. Hubbard, Glenn W. Barker Old Testament Editors: John D. W. Watts, James W. Watts New Testament Editors: Ralph P. Martin, Lynn Allan Losie

With much love and gratitude, to the college and young-adult congregation of St. John’s Korean United Methodist Church of Lexington, Massachusetts –D. G To Molly Elizabeth House Deuteronomy 32:47 –P. R. H.

ZONDERVAN Song of Songs and Lamentations, Volume 23B Copyright © 2004 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Previously published as Song of Songs, Lamentations. Formerly published by Thomas Nelson, now published by Zondervan, a division of HarperCollinsChristian Publishing. Requests for information should be addressed to: Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546 This edition: ISBN 978-0-310-52219-5 The Library of Congress has cataloged the original edition as follows: Library of Congress Control Number: 2005295211 By permission of Michael V. Fox, his translation of the Nakhtsobek Songs in The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1985) is reproduced in the Introduction to Song of Songs. Scripture quotations in the body of the commentary, unless otherwise indicated, are provided by the authors. The authors’ own translation of the scripture text appears under the head Translation. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. The Graeca, Hebraica, and TranslitLS fonts used to print this work are available from Linguist’s Software, Inc., P.O. Box 580, Edmonds, WA 98020-0580 USA; tel. (206)775-1130.

Contents Editorial Preface Abbreviations SONG OF SONGS Author's Preface Main B ibliography

Commentary Bibliography General Bibliography

Introduction

Song of Songs as Scripture Canonization The Text of Song of Songs Date of Composition Authorship The Structure and Unity of Song of Songs A Plurality of Songs in Song of Songs The Unity of the Song A Redacted Collection by Multiple Poets? A Unified Anthology but without Structure? A Chiastic Structure for Song of Songs The Poetic Devices of the Song Speech-Acts and Motifs Metaphors of Song of Songs Excursus: Hebrew Poetry Comparative Texts: Ancient Near Eastern Love Poetry Mesopotamian Parallels Egyptian Parallels Comparison of One Egyptian Text with Song of Songs Analogies for Song of Songs Interpretations of the Song The Allegorical Interpretations Jewish Allegorizing Early Christian and Roman Catholic Allegorizing Protestant Allegorizing Problems with Allegorizing Interpretations The Dramatic Interpretations The Three-Character Interpretations The Two-Character Interpretations Problems with Dramatic Interpretations The Cultic Interpretations The Wedding Interpretation

viii ix 1 3 5

5 7 13 14 14 15 16 22 25 26 27 29 30 30 35 36 37 40 47 47 49 54 57 59 59 60 64 72 74 76 77 79 80 81 83

VI

Contents

The Funerary Interpretation Feminist Readings of the Song Song of Songs as Subversive to the Prophets The Song as Love Poetry Excursus: Finding an Approach to Lyric Poetry Song of Songs and Christian Theology Overview of the Problem Lessons about Love and Sexuality The Song as a Rejection of the Ascetic Ideal Romantic Love Sexual Morality Tenderness and the Nurturing of a Relationship Fleeting Joys under the Sun A Sense of Yearning Prospective for a Theology: The Transformation of the Soul A Model for Transformation The Use of Myth in Relation to Song of Songs Song of Songs as a Heroic Quest and Transformation Theological Reflection Implications of the Theology of Song of Songs T ext and C ommentary

Superscript (1:1) I. Chorus and Soprano: The Entrance (1:2-4) II. Soprano: The Virgin’s Education I (1:5-6) III. Soprano and Chorus: Finding the Beloved (1:7-8) IV. Tenor, Chorus, and Soprano: The First Song of Mutual Love (1:9—2:7) V. Soprano and Tenor: The Invitation to Depart (2:8-17) Excursus: Virginity in the Ancient World VI. Three Wedding-Night Songs (3:1-4:15) A. Soprano: The Bride’s Anxiety (3:1-5) B. Chorus: The Bride Comes to the Groom (3:6-11) C. Tenor: The Flawless Bride I (4:1-15) VII. Soprano, Tenor, and Chorus: The Consummation (4:16-5:1) VIII. Three Wedding-Night Songs (5:2-6:10) A. Soprano, Tenor, and Chorus: Pain and Transformation (5:2-8) B. Chorus and Soprano: The Bride Recovers the Groom (5:9-6:3) C. Tenor and Chorus: The Flawless Bride II (6:4-10) IX. Soprano, Chorus, and Tenor: Leaving Girlhood Behind (6:11-7:1 [6:13]) X. Tenor and Soprano: The Second Song of Mutual Love (7:2 [1]—8:4) XI. Chorus and Soprano: Claiming the Beloved (8:5-7) XII. Chorus and Soprano: The Virgin’s Education II (8:8-12) XIII. Tenor, Chorus, and Soprano: The Farewell (8:13-14)

83 84 86 90 91 97 97 100 100 102 102 104 104 105 107 107 110 111 115 117 123 125 131 135 140 156 164 169 169 175 184 200 203 203 218 225 231 235 251 258 264

Contents

LAMENTATIONS Author's Preface Main B ibliography

Commentary Bibliography General Bibliography

Introduction

Considering Lamentations Text Authorship and Date Introductions to the Old Testament Commentaries, Monographs, and Articles Conclusion Liturgical Uses Place in the Canon Poetic Form and Meter Acrostic Format Poetic Meter Lamentations and Ancient Near Eastern Parallels Genre: Lament and Acrostic Theological Purposes in Lamentations God, the People of God, and Their Suffering God and Jerusalem/Zion God and the Nations God and Prayer Conclusion T ext and C ommentary

How She Dwells Alone! (1:1-22) How the Lord Has Clouded the Daughter of Zion! (2:1-22) I Am the Man (3:1-66) How the Gold Has Tarnished! (4:1-22) Remember-, O L ord (5:1-22) Indexes

vii

269 271 274 278 278 281 283 284 287 301 303 305 305 306 308 310 314 316 323 325 326 327 329 331 367 399 431 453

Editorial Preface The launching of the Word Biblical Commentary brings to fulfillment an enterprise of several years’ planning. The publishers and the members of the editorial board met in 1977 to explore the possibility of a new commentary on the books of the Bible that would incorporate several distinctive features. Pro spective readers of these volumes are entided to know what such features were intended to be; whether the aims of the commentary have been fully achieved time alone will tell. First, we have tried to cast a wide net to include as contributors a number of scholars from around the world who not only share our aims but are in the main engaged in the ministry of teaching in university, college, and seminary. They represent a rich diversity of denominational allegiance. The broad stance of our contributors can rightly be called evangelical, and this term is to be understood in its positive, historic sense of a commitment to Scripture as divine revelation and to the truth and power of the Christian gospel. Then, the commentaries in our series are all commissioned and written for the purpose of inclusion in the Word Biblical Commentary. Unlike several of our distinguished counterparts in the field of commentary writing, there are no translated works, originally written in a non-English language. Also, our commentators were asked to prepare their own rendering of the original biblical text from the original languages and to use those languages as the basis of their own comments and exegesis. What may be claimed as distinctive with this series is that it is based on the biblical languages, yet it seeks to make the technical and scholarly approach to the theological understanding of Scripture understandable by—and useful to—the fledgling student, the working minister, and colleagues in the guild of professional scholars and teachers as well. Finally, a word must be said about the format of the series. The layout, in clearly defined sections, has been consciously devised to assist readers at different levels. Those wishing to learn about the textual witnesses on which the translation is offered are invited to consult the section headed Notes. If the readers’ concern is with the state of modern scholarship on any given portion of Scripture, they should turn to the sections on Bibliography and Form/Structure/Setting. For a clear exposition of the passage’s meaning and its relevance to the ongoing biblical revelation, the Comment and concluding Explanation are designed expressly to meet that need. There is therefore something for everyone who may pick up and use these volumes. If these aims come anywhere near realization, the intention of the editors will have been met, and the labor of our team of contributors rewarded. General Editors: Bruce M. Metzger David A. Hubbard Glenn W. Barker( Old Testament: John D. W. Watts New Testament: Ralph P. Martin

Abbreviations P eriodicals , Serials, and Reference W orks ab Anchor Bible ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary. Ed. D. N. Freedman. 6 vols. New York, 1992. AbrN AJSL AJT ALUOS ANEP

Abr-Nahrain American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literature Asia Journal of Theology A nnual of Leeds University Oriental Society The Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament. Ed. J. B.

ANET

Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Ed. J. B.

AnOr AOAT ATD

AThR AUSS BASOR

BDB

BEATAJ BeO

BETL BH K BHS Bib Bibint BJRL

Pritchard. Princeton, 1969.

Pritchard. Princeton, 1969. Analecta orientalia Alter Orient und Altes Testament Das Alte Testament Deutsch

Anglican Theological Review Andrews University Seminary Studies Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Brown, E, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. 1907. Reprint, Peabody, MA, 1999.

Beitrage zur Erforschung des alten Testaments und des antiken Judentum Bibbia e oriente

Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium Biblia Hebraica. Ed. R. Kittel. Stuttgart, 1905-1906, 1973.16 Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Ed. K Elliger and W. Rudolph. Stuttgart, 1983. Biblica Biblical Interpretation Bulletin of theJohn Ry lands University Library of Manchester

BEAT

Biblischer Kommentar, Altes Testament. Ed. M. Noth and H. W. Wolff.

BZAW CahRB

Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Cahiers de la Revue biblique Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Ed.J. Sasson. New York, 1995. Cambridge Bible Commentary

BRev BSac BT BTB BZ

CANE

CBC CBQ

CCSL

CS CurTM

Bible Review Bibliotheca sacra The Bible Translator Biblical Theology Bulletin Biblische Zeitschrift

Catholic Biblical (Quarterly

Corpus Christianorum: Series latina. Turnhout, 1977-. The Context of Scripture. Ed. W. W. Hallo. Leiden1997 ‫״‬. Currents in Theology and Mission

X

DAB

DBI

DJD

A bbreviations D ic h te r d es A lten B u n d es

Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation. 2 vols. Ed. J. H. Hayes. Nashville, 1999. D iscoveries in th e J u d a e a n D esert 16 vols. Je ru sa le m , 1972.

Encjud EstBib EvJ ExpTiw

EncyclopaediaJudaica. Estudios biblicos EvangelicalJournal Expository Times

FCB FOTL GKC

F em in ist C o m p a n io n to th e Bible F o rm s o f th e O ld T estam e n t L ite ra tu re Gesenius’Hebrew Grammar. Ed. E. Kautzsch. Trans. E. A. Cowley. 2d ed. L o n d o n , 1910. G eistliche S ch riftlesu n g A lten T estam e n t

GSAT

GTJ H AL

H A LO T H AR

Grace TheologicalJournal

K o e h le r , L ., W. B a u m g a r tn e r , a n d J . J . S ta m m . Hebraisches und aramaisches Lexikon zum alten Testament. Fascicles 1-5, 1967-95 (KBL3). ET: HALOT. K oehler, L., W. B au m g artn er, a n d j . J. Stam m . The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. T rans, a n d ed. u n d e r su p erv isio n o f Μ. E. J. R ichardson. 4 vols. L eid en , 1994-99.

Hebrew Annual Review

HAT

H a n d b u c h zu m A lten T estam e n t

HCOT HKAT

H isto rical C o m m e n ta ry o n th e O ld T estam e n t H a n d k o m m e n ta r zu m A lten T estam e n t

HBT HTR HUCA IB IBC

Horizons in Biblical Theology

Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College A nnual Interpreter’s Bible. Ed. G. A. B uttrick e t al. 12 vols. New York, 1951-1957.

ICC

In te rp re ta tio n : A B ible C o m m e n ta ry fo r T ea ch in g a n d P re a c h in g W altke a n d M. O ’C onnor. W in o n a Lake, IN, 1990. In te rn a tio n a l C ritical C o m m e n ta ry

ITC

Rapids, MI, 1979-88. In te rn a tio n a l T h eo lo g ica l C o m m e n ta ry

IBHS Imm Int ISBE JAAR JANESCU JAOS JBL JCS JEA JETS JNSL JO T T Jouon

A n Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. B. K

Immanuel Interpretation International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Ed. G. W. Bromiley. 4 vols. G ran d Journal of the American Academy of Religion Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Biblical Literature Jewish Bible (Quarterly Journal of Cuneiform Studies Journal of Egyptian Archaeology Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society Journal of Jewish Studies Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages Journal of Translation and Textlinguistics J o u o n , P. A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew. T rans, a n d rev. T. M uraoka. 2 vols. S ubsidia bib lica 14.1-2. R om e, 1991.

Abbreviations JQR

JR

jsj

JSOT JSOTSup JSS JTS KAT KHC

LQ

LSJ LW NAC NCB NEchtBib NIB NICOT NIDOTTE NPNF1 NPNF2 NV OBO OCD OTE OTL Parab Per Proof PTR RA RB RHR RTR SBL SLBDS SBLMS SBLSymS SBS SBT Scr SJOT SK Sound SR SSN

xi

Jewish Quarterly Review Journal of Religion Journalfor the Study ofJudaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Periods Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series Journal of Semitic Studies Journal of Theological Studies Kommentar zu Alten Testament Kurzer Hand-Commentar zum Alten Testament Lutheran Quarterly Liddell, H. G., R. Scott, and H. S. Jones. A GreekEnglish Lexicon. 9th ed. with rev. supplement. Oxford, 1996. Luther’s Works. Ed. J. Pelikan. St. Louis, 1972. New American Commentary New Century Bible Neue Echter Bibel The New Interpreter’s Bible New International Commentary on the Old Testament New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis. Ed. W. A. VanGemeren. 5 vols. Grand Rapids, MI, 1997. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1 Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2 Nova et vetera Orbis biblicus et orientalis The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Ed. S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth. 3d ed. Oxford, 1996. Old Testament Essays Old Testament Library Parabola Perspectives Prooftexts: A Journal ofJewish Literary History Princeton Theological Review Revue d ’assyriologie et d ’archeologie orientate Revue biblique Revue de Thistoire des religions Reformed Theological Review Society of Biblical Literature SBL Dissertation Series SBL Monograph Series SBL Symposium Series Stuttgarter Bibelstudien Studies in Biblical Theology Scripture ScandinavianJournal of the Old Testament Skrif en kerk Soundings Studies in Religion Studia Semitica Neerlandica

xii

A bbreviations

S w JT

Southw estern J o u r n a l o f Theology

TBC

T o rch Bible C o m m e n ta rie s

TLOT

Theobgical Lexicon o f the O ld Testament. Ed. E. Jen n i, with C. W esterm ann.

TLZ

T heobgisch e L ite ra tu rzeitu n g

Trans. Μ. E. Biddle. 3 vols. Peabody, MA, 1997. TOTC

T yndale O ld T estam e n t C o m m en ta rie s

T R ev

T heobgisch e R evu e

TTKi

T idsskH ft f o r T eobgi og K irke

T yn B u l

T y n d a b B u lb tin

UF

UgaHt-Forschungen U g a n tic Textbook. C. H . G o rd o n . A n O r 38. R om e, 1965.

UT VT

Vetus Testam entum

V T Sup WBC

S u p p lem e n ts to Vetus T e sta m e n tu m W ord Biblical C o m m e n ta ry

ZAW

Z eitschnfl f u r d ie alttestam entliche W issenschaft

T exts, Versions, and Ancient W orks A ram . DSS E ng. ESV

Gk. H eb. K KJV

LX X MT NASB

NEB

A ram aic D ead Sea Scrolls E nglish E nglish S ta n d a rd V ersion G reek H ebrew K ethib K ing Ja m e s V ersion S ep tu a g in t M asoretic T e x t N ew A m erican S ta n d a rd Bible N ew E nglish Bible

NIV

NJB NRSV

OL

Q

REB RSV

Syr. Tg. vg. a' σ'

New In te rn a tio n a l V ersion New Je ru sa le m Bible N ew R evised S ta n d a rd V ersion O ld L atin Q e re Revised E nglish B ible Revised S ta n d a rd V ersion Syriac T a rg u m /T a rg u m im V ulgate A quila Sym m achus

H ebrew Gammar abs. acc. act. adj. adv. c. conj. const. def. art. fern., f. fut. im pf.

absolu te accusative active adjective, adjectival adverb, adverbial co m m o n c o n ju n c tio n , co n ju n ctiv e consec. consecutive c o n stru c t d efin ite article fem in in e fu tu re im p e rfe c t

impv. indie. inf. int. juss. m asc., m. pass. pf. pi. p re p . ptc. sg· suf.

im p erativ e indicative in fin ite in te rro g a tiv e jussive m ascu lin e passive p e rfe c t p lu ral p re p o sitio n p a rtic ip le sin g u lar suffix (es)

Abbreviations

xiii

B ib lica l a n d A po cry ph a l B o o k s OLD TESTAMENT G en E xod Lev N um D eu t Jo sh Judg R u th 1-2 Sam 1-2 Kgs 1-2 C h r E zra N eh Esth Jo b Ps(s) Prov Eccl

G enesis E xodus Leviticus N u m b ers D eu te ro n o m y Jo s h u a Ju d g e s R uth 1-2 S am uel 1-2 Kings 1-2 C hro n ic les E zra N eh e m ia h E sth er Jo b Psalm (s) P roverbs Ecclesiastes

S ong Isa Jer L am Ezek D an H os Jo e l A m os O bad Jonah Mic N ah H ab Z ep h H ag Z ech Mai

S ong o f Songs, C anticles Isaiah J e re m ia h L a m e n ta tio n s E zekiel D an iel H o sea Jo e l A m os O b a d ia h Jonah M icah N ahum H abakkuk Z e p h a n ia h H aggai Z ec h aria h M alachi

APOCRYPHA 1-4 Kgdm s 1-2 E sdr Tob Jdt A dd Esth 4 E zra Wis Sir

l-4 K in g d o m s 1-2 E sdras T o b it J u d ith A dd itio n s to E sth e r 4 E zra W isdom o f S o lo m o n Ecclesiasticus (W isdom o f Jesus th e son o f Sirach)

M att M ark L uke John Acts R om 1-2 C o r Gal E ph Phil Col

M atthew M ark L uke John Acts R om ans 1-2 C o rin th ia n s G alatians E phesian s P h ilip p ia n s C olossians

B ar E p je r S T h Ch Sus Bel P r A zar 1 -4 M acc

B aru ch E pistle o f J e re m ia h S ong o f th e T h re e C h ild re n (o r Y oung M en) S u san n a Bel a n d th e D ra g o n P rayer o f A zariah 1 -4 M accabees

NEW TESTAMENT 1-2 T hess 1-2 T im T itus P h ilem H eb Jas 1-2 P et 1 -2 -3 Jo h n Ju d e Rev

1-2 T h essalo n ian s 1-2 T im o th y T itus P h ile m o n H ebrew s Ja m e s 1=2 P e te r 1 -2 -3 Jo h n Ju d e R evelation

A bbreviations

XIV

M isc e l l a n e o u s B .C .E .

BM ca. C .E .

c h a p (s ) . e d (s) . esp. ET FS

1(1). lit. MS(S)

B efore th e C o m m o n E ra B ritish M useum circa C o m m o n E ra ch a p te r(s) edition; edited by, editor(s) especially E nglish tran slatio n Festschrift

lin e(s) literally m a n u sc rip t (s)

n. n.d. n.s. NT OT p (p)· S up trans. Univ. UP v(v) §

n o te n o d ate new series New T e sta m e n t O ld T e sta m e n t p a g e (s) S u p p le m e n t tra n sla te d by; tra n sla to r U niversity U niversity Press v e rse (s) s e c tio n /p a ra g ra p h

Song of Songs

Author’s Preface Writing a commentary on Song of Songs is somewhat embarrassing on two counts. First, there are already such great and erudite commentaries on the Song! One is hesi tant to submit another interpretation when we already have the works of Marvin Pope, Othmar Keel, Michael Fox, and, above all, Roland Murphy. I trust that the reader will understand that when I criticize a position taken by one of these scholars, it is never meant as a disparagement. To the contrary, I speak as one who regards them with the highest respect and who deeply admires their learning and judgment. And then there is that other embarrassing issue: the Song of Songs is so thoroughly sexual! Never, when I chose to go into biblical studies, did I imagine that I would spend so many hours digging through erotic texts from the ancient Near East, to say nothing of all the time spent trying to understand the sexual imag ery of the Bible itself. I sometimes seem to detect in commentaries and articles on the Song two attitudes that I find unhelpful. One attitude is to minimize and obfuscate the sensuality of the Song wherever possible. The other attitude is to revel in the sexuality of the Song and always to seek the most erotic explanation possible. Now to be sure, there is an enormous amount of sexuality in the Song of Songs. But I hope the reader will understand that my task in this has been to interpret the text as honestly as I knew how, with all sobriety and only a touch of well-intended humor. Having just taught a series on the Song to a group of young-adult women and men, and doing it with all the unflinching directness I could muster, I can attest that no harm was done. On the other hand, I have been doing a number of weddings for members of that group lately. I certainly owe a lot of people my thanks. First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to John Watts for inviting me to write on Song of Songs for the Word Biblical Commentary series; I especially extend gratitude to him for his patience. Many thanks to Jim Watts for his careful review of the manuscript. I would also like to thank Melanie McQuere, copyeditor for the WBC, for her help in the production of this commentary. I am ver.y grateful to the trustees and administration of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary for their granting of a sabbatical to me in order that I might complete this project. I also would like to thank my former student assistant, Mr. Wei-Hua Hu, for his help in research. Above everything else, especial thanks go to my family and especially to my wife, Patty, for their patience with a father and husband who spent too many hours plowing through research on the Song of Songs and Hebrew poetry. To Patty in particular I say, “Behold, you are fair, my companion; your eyes are doves.” I have written much of this commentary from my home in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Students of poetry will know that this was the home of one of the first and greatest of American poets, Anne Bradstreet. The original Ipswich, in the United Kingdom, is associated with the great Geoffrey Chaucer. He owned property there and visited it frequently. A central topic for both Christian poets was the love of man and woman, and both poets are cited in this commentary. I can only hope that this coincidence of my residence is matched by my having some

4

A uthor ’ s Preface

small ability to interpret the poetry of love, for it is certain that I do not have their poetic genius. ‫ אמרי־פי‬,‫יהיו לרצון‬ ‫והגיון לבי לפניך‬ ‫יהוה צורי וגאלי‬

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary May 2002

D u a n e A. G a r r e t t

Commentary Bibliography In the text of the commentary, references to commentaries on Song of Songs are by author’s name only. Abraham ben Isaac ha-Levi Tamakh. C om m en tary on the S on g o f Songs. In tro d u c tio n , vari an ts a n d c o m m e n ts by L. F eld m a n . SSN 9. Assen: Van G o rc u m , 1970. Adeney, W. F. The So n g o f Songs and the L a m e n ta tio n s o f Jerem iah. In The E xpositor's B ible , ed . W. R. N icoll. L o n d o n : H o d d e r a n d S to u g h to n , 1895. Alshich, M. S h ir H a sh irim : L o ve S on g o f a N a tio n . T rans. R. S hahar. Je ru sa le m : F eld h e im , 1993. Bergant, D. The S on g o f Songs. C ollegeville, MN: L iturgical, 2001. Bloch, A. A., a n d C. Bloch. The S on g o f Songs. N ew York: R a n d o m H o u se, 1995. Bunn, J. T. “S ong o f S o lo m o n .” In T he B ro a d m a n B ible C om m entary. N ashville: B ro a d m a n , 1971. 5:128-48. Burrowes, G. T he S o n g o f Solom on . 1860. R e p rin t, L o n d o n : B a n n e r o f T ru th T ru st, 1958. Carr, G. L. The S o n g o f Solom on: A n In tro d u ctio n a n d C om m entary. D ow ners G rove: InterV arsity Press, 1984. Delitzsch, F. C om m en tary on the S o n g o f S o n g s a n d E cclesia stes. T ra n s . M. G. E a sto n . E d in b u r g h : T & T C la rk , 1877. Dommershausen, W., a n d G. Krinetski. Ester. H oheslied. N E ch tB ib 2. W u rz b u rg : E chter, 1985. Durham, J. A n E x p o sitio n o f the Son g o f Solom on. 1840. R e p rin t, C arlisle, PA: B a n n e r o f T ru th T ru st, 1982. Ezra ben Solomon of Gerona. C om m en tary on the S on g o f Songs. Selected, ed ited , a n d tran sla te d by S. Brody. K alam azoo, MI: M edieval In stitu te P u b licatio n s, 1999. Fuerst, W. J. The Books o f R u th , Esther, Ecclesiastes, The S on g o f Songs, L a m e n ta tio n s: The F ive Scrolls. C am b rid g e: C a m b rid g e UP, 1975. Garrett, D. A. P roverbs, Ecclesiastes, Son g o f Songs. NAC. N ashville: B ro a d m a n , 1993. Gerleman, G. R u th , D a s H ohelied. N e u k irc h e n Vluyn: N e u k irc h e n e r, 1965. Giles of Rome. C om m en tary on the S on g o f Songs a n d O ther W ritin gs. Ed. J. R otelle. V illanova, PA: A u g u stin ian Press, 1998. Gill, J. A n E x p o sitio n o f the S o n g o f Solom on. 1724. R e p rin t, M a rsh a llto n , DE: N a tio n a l F o u n d a tio n fo r C h ristian E ducatio n , 1969. Ginsburg, C. D. The S on g o f Songs. 1857. R e p rin t, N ew York: Ktav, 1970. Gordis, R. T he S o n g o f Songs a n d L a m e n ta tio n s: A Study, M o d e rn T ra n sla tio n , a n d Com m enta ry . N ew Y ork: J e w ish T h e o lo g ic a l S e m in a r y o f A m e ric a , 1954. Guillaume de Saint-Thierry. E xpose su r le C a n tiq u e des C an tiqu es. T ran s. M. D u m o n tie r. Paris: C erf: 1998. Guyon, Madame (Jea n n e M arie V ouvier d e la M o th e G u y o n ). S on g o f Songs. R e p rin t, Augusta, ME: C h ristian Books, n .d . Hontheim, J. D a H ohelied: U b ersetztu n d erklart. B iblische S tu d ie n . F re ib u rg 13.4. F re ib u rg : H e rd e r, 1908. Joiion, P. L e C a n tiq u e des ca n tiq u es: C om m entaire p h ilo lo g iq u e et exegetique. 2d ed. Paris: B e au c h esn e , 1909. Keel, O. D a s H ohelied. Z u rc h e r B ib e lk o m m e n ta re AT 18. Z u rich : T h e o lo g ie Verlag, 1 9 8 6 .--- -- - -- . T he Son g o f Songs. T rans. F. J . Gaiser. M in n eap o lis: F o rtress, 1994. Knight, G. A. F. Esther, Son g o f Songs, L a m e n ta tio n s. L o n d o n : SCM Press, 1955. Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides). C om m en tary on the So n g o f Songs. T rans. M e n a c h e m K ellner. N ew H aven: Yale UP, 1998. Littledale, R. F. A C om m en tary on the S o n g o f Songs: From A n c ien t a n d M e d ia e v a l Sources. L o n d o n : M asters, 1869. Longman, T. III. S o n g o f Songs. N IC O T. G ra n d R apids: E e rd m a n s, 2001. Murphy, R. E. T he S on g o f Songs: A C om m en tary on the Book o f C an ticles or the Son g o f Songs. M in n eap o lis: F ortress, 1990. Neighbor, R. E. T he S on g o f Songs W hich Is S o lo m o n s. C leveland: U n io n G ospel Press, 1927. Origen. T he S o n g o f Songs: C om m en tary a n d H o m ilies. T ra n s. R. P. Law son. W estm inster, MD: N ew m an, 1957. Pope, M. S o n g o f Songs: A N e w T ra n sla tio n w ith In tro d u c tio n a n d C om m entary. AB 7C. G a rd e n City, NY: D oubleday, 1977. Provan, I. The N T V A p p lic a tio n C om m en tary: Ecclesiastes, S o n g o f Songs. G ra n d R apids: Z o n d e rv a n , 2001. Renan, E. T he S on g o f Songs. T ran s. W. M. T h o m so n . L o n d o n : T h o m so n , 1860. Robert, A., a n d R. Tournay, with A. Feuillet. L e C a n tiq u e des can tiqu es: T ra d u ctio n et com m entaire. Paris: L ib rairie L eco ffre, 1963. Rudolph, W. D a s B u ch R u th , d a s H oh e L ied , d ie Klagelieder.

6

C ommentary Bibliography

1962. Stadelmann, L. I. J. L o v e a n d P olitics: A N e w Com ‫־‬ 1992. Waterman, L. T he S o n g o f Songs. A n n A rb o r: Univ. o f M ic h ig an Press, 1948. Weems, R. J. “T h e S o n g o f S o n g s.” In N IB . N ashville: A b in g d o n , 1997. 5:363-434. Zlotowitz, M. S h ir haS hirim . N ew York: M esso rah , 1977. KAT

17.1-3. G u terslo h :

M ohn,

m en ta ry on the S o n g o f Songs. N ew York: P au list Press,

General Bibliography A lb rek tso n , B. “S inging o r P ru n in g ? ” B T 47 (1996) 109-14. A ld en , R. L. “τ ‫־‬π . ” N I D O T T E §8100. A lex an d er, P. S. ‘T ra d itio n a n d O rig in ality in th e T a rg u m o f th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” In The A ra m a ic Bible. Ed. D. B e attie a n d M. M cN am ara. S heffield: S h effie ld A cadem ic Press, 1994. 318-39. A lexeev, A. A. “T h e S o n g o f Songs in th e S lavonic B ible T ra d itio n .” B T 47 (1996) 119-25. A lter, R. ‘T h e P o etic a n d W isd o m B o o k s.” In T h e C am bridge Comp a n io n to B ib lic a l In terp retation . E d. J. B a rto n . C am b rid g e: C a m b rid g e UP, 1 9 9 8 .-------------------. T he A r t o f B ib lic a l Poetry. N ew York: Basic Books, 1985. A n d e rso n , A. A. 2 Sam u el. W BC 11. Dallas: W ord, 1989. A n d e rso n , R. D. “M usic a n d D an ce in P h a ra o n ic E g y p t.” In C A N E 4:2555-68. A rcher, G. A S u rvey o f O ld T estam ent In trodu ction . C hicago: Moody, 1974. A uder, J.-P. “Love a n d M arriag e in th e O ld T e sta m e n t.” T ran s. F. B u rk e. Scr 10 (1958) 6 5 -8 3 . B aars, W. “P e sh itta T ex t o f S ong o f S ongs in B a rh e b ra e u s’ A u sar R aze.” V T 18 (1968) 281 -8 9 . B akon, S. “S on g o f S o n g s. ” J B Q 22 (1994) 2 1 1 -2 0 . B a r Ila n , M. “T ex t C riticism , E ro tica a n d M agic in th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” S h n a to n 9 (1985) 3 1 -5 3 ; xvi-xvii. B ark er, A. D. “M usic.” O CD . 1003-12. B a rr, J . J . “L uis d e L e o n a n d th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” In L a n g u a g e, Theology, a n d the Bible. Ed. S. B a le n tin e a n d J. B a rto n . O x fo rd : C la re n d o n , 1994. 311-24. B ascom , R . A. “H eb rew P o e try a n d th e T ex t o f th e S ong o f S o n g s.” In D iscou rse Perspectives on H ebrew P oetry in the Scriptures. Ed. E. W e n d la n d . New York: U n ite d B ible Societies, 1994. 9 5 -1 1 0 . B eare, F. W. T he Gospel a ccordin g to M atth ew . S an F ran cisco : H a r p e r a n d Row, 1981. B ek k en k am p , J . “In to A n o th e r S cen e o f C hoices: T h e T h e o lo g ic a l V alue o f th e S o ng o f S o n g s.” In The S on g o f Songs: A F em in ist C o m pan ion to the Bible. FCB 2d ser. 6. Ed. A. B re n n e r a n d C. R. F o n ta in e . S heffield: S h effield A cad em ic Press, 2000. 5 5 -8 9 . B ek k en k am p , J ., a n d F. v an D ijk. ‘T h e C a n o n o f th e O ld T e sta m e n t a n d W o m e n ’s Cultu ra l T ra d itio n s.” In A F em in ist C om p a n io n to the S on g o f Songs. FCB 1. Ed. A. B ren n e r. Sheffield: S heffield A cad em ic Press, 1993. 6 7 -8 5 . B e rg a n t, D. “‘My B eloved Is M ine a n d I A m H is’ (S ong 2:16): T h e S o n g o f S ongs a n d H o n o r a n d S h a m e .” Sem eia 68 (1994) 2 3 40. B e rn a rd o f C lairvau x . S a in t B ern a rd on the S on g o f Songs; Serm ones in C a n tica canticoru m . T rans, a n d ed. a relig io u s o f C.S.M.V. L o n d o n : Mowbray, 1952. B lack, F. C. “W h a t Is My B eloved? O n E ro tic R e a d in g a n d th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” In T he L a b o u r o f R e a d in g : Desire, A lie n a tio n , a n d B ib lic a l In terpretation . Ed. F. C. Black, R. Boer, a n d E. R u n io n s. A tlanta: Society o f B iblical L ite ra tu re , 1999. B lack, F. C ., a n d J. C. E x u m . “S em iotics in S ta in e d Glass: E dw ard B u rn e -Jo n e ’s S ong o f S o n g s.” In B ib lic a l S tu d ie s /C u ltu r a l S tu dies: The T h ird C olloqu iu m . E d . J. E xum a n d S. D. M oore. S heffield: S h effield A cad em ic Press, 1998. 3 1 5 42. B loch, A. A ., a n d C. B loch. “F ro m I n the G arden o f D elig h ts.” J u d a is m 44 (1995) 3 6 -6 3 . B loom , H ., ed. T he S o n g o f Songs. N ew York: C h e lse a H o u se , 1988. B o y arin , D. “T h e S ong o f Songs: L ock o r Key? In terte x tu ality , A lleg o ry a n d M id ra sh .” In T he Book a n d the Text. Ed. R. Schw artz. O x fo rd : Blackwell, 1990. 2 1 4 -3 0 . B re n n e r, A. “‘My’ S o n g o f S o n g s.” In The S o n g o f Songs. FCB 2 d ser. 6. Ed. C. R. F o n ta in e a n d A. B re n n e r. S h effield : S h effield A cad em ic Press, 2000. 1 5 4 -6 8 .----------. “A N o te o n b a t-r a b b im (S o n g o f S ongs VII 5 ) .” VT 42 (1992) 1 1 3 - 1 5 .----------. “O n R e ad in g th e H e b re w B ible as a F em in ist W om an: In tro d u c tio n to th e S eries.” In A F em in ist C o m p a n io n to the S on g o f Songs. FCB 1. Ed. A. B ren n e r. S heffield: S heffield A cad em ic Press, 1993. 1 1 - 2 7 .----------. T he S o n g o f Songs. S heffield: JS O T Press, 1 9 8 9 .----------, ed . F em in ist C om p a n io n to the S on g o f Songs. FCB 1. S heffield: S h effield A cadem ic Press, 1993. B rig h t, J . Jerem iah. AB 21. G a rd e n City, NY: D oubleday, 1965. B ro ad rib b , D. “T h o u g h ts o n th e S ong o f S o lo m o n .” A b r N 3 (1 9 6 1 -6 2 ) 11-36. B rock, S. P. “M in g a n a Syr 628: A F olio fro m a R evision o f th e P e sh itta S o n g o f S o n g s.” J S S 40 (1995) 39-56. B ro o k e, G . “‫ חב ר‬.” N ID O T T E % 2489. B u d d e , K. “Das h e b ra isc h e K lag e lie d .”

8

G eneral Bibliography

Z A W 2 (1882) 1-52. B uss, M. J . “H o se a as a C a n o n ic a l P ro b le m : W ith A tte n tio n to th e S ong o f S o n g s.” In: P rophets a n d P a ra d ig m s. FS G. M. T ucker, ed. S. B. R eid. S h effield : S h effie ld A cad em ic Press, 1996. 7 9 -9 3 . C a m io n , I. J. “A n A nalogy o f th e S o n g o f S ongs a n d G enesis C h a p te rs Two a n d T h r e e .” S JO T 14 (2000) 2 1 9 -5 9 . C a m p b e ll, J . T h e H ero w ith a T h o u s a n d Faces. 2 d ed. P rin c e to n , NJ: P rin c e to n UP, 1968. C a rr, D. M. “R e th in k in g Sex a n d S pirituality: T h e S ong o f Songs a n d Its R e a d in g s.” S o u n d 81 (1998) 4 1 3 -3 5 . C arr, G. L. “Is th e S ong o f Songs a ‘S acred M a rria g e ’ D ra m a ?” JETS 22 (1979) 1 0 3 - 1 4 .------------. “T h e Love P o e try G e n re in th e O ld T e sta m e n t a n d th e A n c ie n t N e a r East: A n o th e r L o o k at I n s p ira tio n .” JE T S ’ 25 (1982) 4 8 9 - 9 8 .----------. ‘T h e O ld T e sta m e n t Love S ongs a n d T h e ir U se in th e N ew T e sta m e n t.” J E T S 24 (1981) 9 7 -1 0 5 . C h ild s, B. In tr o d u c tio n to the O ld T estam en t a s Scripture. P h ila d e lp h ia : F o rtress, 1979. C h riste n se n , D. L. “T h e M aso retic A c c e n tu a l System a n d R e p e a te d M e tric a l R e fra in s in N a h u m , S o n g o f S o n g s, a n d D e u te ro n o m y .” In VIII In te rn a tio n a l Congress o f the In te r n a tio n a l O r g a n iza tio n f o r M a so retic S tu d ies. Ed. E. J. Revell. A tlan ta: S ch o lars Press, 1990. 3 1 -3 6 . C ollins, A. Y. “T h e S o n g o f S ongs in C o m p arativ e P ersp e c tiv e .” In H ebrew B ible or O ld T esta m e n t? S tu d y in g the B ible in J u d a is m a n d C h n stia n ity . Ed. R. B rook, a n d J. J. C ollins. N o tre D am e, IN: Univ. o f N o tre D am e Press, 1990. 2 1 7 -1 9 . C orney, R. W. “W h a t D oes ‘L ite ra l M e a n in g ’ M ean? S o m e C o m m e n ta rie s o n th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” A T h R 80 (1998) 4 9 4 -5 1 6 . C o tto n , J . A B n e f E xpositio n w ith P ra c tic a l O b serva tio n s u p o n the W hole Book o f C anticles. 1655. R e p rin t, N ew York: A rn o , 1972. C raigie, P. C. “B iblical a n d T am il P o etry : S om e F u rth e r R e fle c tio n s.” S R 8 (1979) 1 6 9 - 7 5 .---------- . T he Book o f D euteronom y. N IC O T. G ra n d R apids: E e rd m a n s, 1976. ---------- . P sa lm s 1 - 5 0 . WBC 19. D allas: W ord, 1983. C rim , K. R. “ Your N ec k Is L ike th e T ow er o f D avid (T h e M e a n in g o f a Sim ile in th e S ong o f S o lo m o n 4 :4 ).” B T 22 (1971) 70-74. C ro ss, F. M ., Jr., a n d D. N . F re e d m a n . S tu d ies in A n c ie n t Y ah w istic P oetry. 1950. R e p rin t, M issoula, MT: S ch o lars Press, 1975. D avies, W. B., a n d D. C. A llison. T he G ospel a cco rd in g to S a in t M a tth ew . ICC. E d in b u rg h : T & T C lark, 1997. D a h o o d , M . U g an tic-H ebrew Philology: M a r g in a l N otes on R ecen t P u b lica tio n s. R om e: P o n tifica l B iblical In stitu te , 1965. D ale, A. M ., ed . E u ripedes: A lcestis. O x fo rd : O x fo rd UP, 1954. D avis, V. L. “R e m a rk s o n M ichael V. F o x ’s ‘T h e C airo Love S o n g s.’” J A O S 100 (1980) 111-14. D ijk -H em m es, F. van. ‘T h e Im a g in a tio n o f P ow er a n d th e P ow er o f Im a g in a tio n : A n In te rte x tu a l A nalysis o f Two B iblical Love S o n g s.” J S O T 44 (1989) 7 5 -8 8 . D o d d s, E. R . B acchae: E d ite d w ith In tro d u c tio n a n d C om m entary. 2d ed. L o n d o n : O x fo rd UP, 1960. D orsey, D. A. “C an T h e se B on es Live? In v estig atin g L ite ra ry S tru c tu re in th e B ib le .” E v J 9 (1991) 11-25. D river, G. R. “S u p p o sed A rabism s in th e O ld T e sta m e n t.” JBL 55 (1936) 101-20. D river, S. R. N otes on the H ebrew Text a n d Topography o f the B ooks o f Sam u el. 2 d ed. L o n d o n : O x fo rd UP, 1913. D ry b u rg h , B. L esson s f o r L overs in the S on g o f Songs. N ew C a n a a n , CT: K eats, 1975. E d m e e , Sister. ‘T h e S o n g o f S ongs a n d th e C u ttin g o f R o o ts.” A T h R 80 (1998) 5 4 7 -6 1 . E le g re H e itz m a n n , A. “El C an ta r d e los C an tares: P o esia y R itual d e la P a sc u a .” E stB ib 43 (1985) 321 -3 0 . E lliot, Μ . T. T he L ite ra ry U n ity o f the C anticle. F ra n k fu rt am M ain: L an g , 1989. E m e rto n , J . A. “L ice o r a Veil in th e S o n g o f S ongs 1:7?” In U n d e r sta n d in g P oets a n d P rophets. FS G. W. A n d erso n , ed. A. A uld. S heffield: JS O T Press, 1993. 1 2 7 -4 0 .0------------. “P rin te d E d itio n s o f th e S o n g o f S ongs in th e P e sh itta V ersio n .” V T 17 (1967) 4 1 7 -2 9 . E p ste in , I. H ebrew -E n glish E d itio n o f the B a b y lo n ia n T alm u d: Seder N a sh im . T ran s. B. D. K lein. L o n d o n : S o n cin o , 1985. E x u m , J . C. “In th e Eye o f th e B e h o ld e r: W ishing, D re a m in g , a n d D o u b le E n te n d re in th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” In T he L a b o u r o f R e a d in g : D esire, A lie n a tio n , a n d B ib lic a l In terp reta tio n . Ed. F. C. Black, R. Boer, a n d E. R u n io n s. A tlan ta: Society o f B iblical L iteratu re , 1999. 7 1 - 8 6 . ----------. “A L ite ra ry a n d S tru c tu ra l Analysis o f th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” ZAW85 (1973) 4 7 - 7 9 .-------- ‫־־‬, ed. “A buse, D esire a n d th e Body: E zekiel a n d th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” B ib in t 8 (2000) 2 0 5 -3 2 3 . F alk, M. T he S on g o f Songs: A N e w T ra n sla tio n . S an F ran cisco: H a r p e r San F ran cisco , 1993. F an g e, E. A. v o n . “B u d d e H y p o th e sis.” A B D 1:783-84. ----------. “A P o etic S tudy o f th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” C on cordia H is to r ic a l I n s titu te Q u a rterly 66 (1993) 137-43. F eu illet, A. “L a d ra m e d ’a m o u r d u C a n tiq u e d es C a n tiq u e s re m is e n son

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9

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T. “H e s h b o n .” A B D 3:181-84. Gibson, J. C. L. Textbook o f S yrian Sem itic In scription s. L o n d o n : O x fo rd UP, 1973. Glazer, H. “T h e S ong o f Songs: J u d a is m ’s D o c u m e n t o f R e v e la tio n .” C o n serva tive J u d a ism 43 (1 9 9 0 -9 1 ) 5 5 -6 0 . Gledhill, T. The M essage o f the S on g o f Songs. D ow ners G rove, IL: InterV arsity Press, 1994. Gollwitzer, H. Son g o f L ove: A B ib lica l U n d e rsta n d in g o f Sex. T rans. K. C rim . P h ilad e lp h ia : F o rtress, 1979. Goodwin, W. W., a n d C. B. Goolick. Greek G ram mar. W altham , MA: B laisdell, 1982. Gordis, R. “R o o t d g l in th e S o n g o f Songs. ” J B L 88 (1969) 2 03-4. Goulder, M. D. T he Son g o f F ourteen Songs. S heffield: JS O T Press, 1986. Graves, R. T he S o n g o f Songs. L o n d o n : C ollins, 1973. Gundry, R. H. M a tth e w : A Com m enta ry on H is H a n d b o o k f o r a M ix e d Church u n d e r Persecution. 2d ed. G ra n d R apids: E e rd m a n s, 1994. 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Wesleyan Theological Journal NIDOTTE The Sacred Marriage Rite. Greek Burial Customs. A History of the Hebrew Language. Paradoxes of Paradise: Identity and JSOT Difference in the Song of Songs. JBL CBQ Old Testament Survey. The Five Megilloth. Zamir VT Structural Anthropology. An Experiment in Criticism. The Pilgrim's Regress London Studies in Words, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses. The Transforming Moment. Theological Exegesis. Structural Models in Folklore and Transformational Essays. Affirmation and Critique 4 The Dead Sea Scrolls in English. The Voice of My Beloved. Social World of Ancient Israel. Archaeology of the Land of the Bible. SJOT " JR The Structural Analysis of Biblical and Canaanite Poetry. Christian Social Action AJT Encjud [Leaves of Grass Literature and Theology Spikenard and Saffron: The Imagery of the Song of Songs. BTB

CBQ ExpTim

Archaeology Odyssey

CBQ

Int

BTB CBQ

The Hebrew Bible Today.

BT

BT

Aeschyli septem quae

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S choville, K. N . ‘T h e Im p a c t o f th e Ras S h a m ra Texts o n th e S tudy o f th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” P h.D . diss., U niversity o f W isconsin, 1969. Schw eizer, E. The G ood N ew s acco rd in g to M atth ew . T ran s. D. E. G re en . L o n d o n : SPCK, 1976. Segal, B. J . “F o u r R e p e titio n s in th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” D o r le D o r 16 (19 8 7 -8 8 ) 2 4 9 -5 5 . Segal, Μ. H . ‘T h e S ong o f S o n g s.” V T 12 (1962) 4 7 0 -9 0 . Shippey, T. J . R . R . Tolkien: A u th o r o f the C entury. B oston: H o u g h to n M ifflin, 2000. S hults, F. L. “O n e S p irit w ith th e L o rd .” P T R 7.3 (S u m m e r 2000) 1 7 -26. S o d en , W. von. The A n c ie n t O rient. T rans. D. G. Schley. G ra n d R apids: E e rd m a n s, 1994. S ta n fo rd , W. B., ed. T he Odyssey o f Homer. 2d ed . L o n d o n : M acm illan, 1959. S te rn , E. A rchaeology o f the L a n d o f the Bible. 4 vols. N ew York: D oubleday, 2001. S tra n d , M ., a n d E. B o lan d . T he M a k in g o f a Poem . N ew York: N o rto n , 2000. S u ares, C. The S on g o f Songs: The C a n o n ica l S o n g o f Solom on D eciphered a cco rd in g to the O rig in a l C ode o f the Q abala. B erkeley: S h am b a la, 1972. Sviri, S. “T h e S ong o f Songs: E ro s a n d th e Mystical Q u e st.” In fe w is h E x p lo ra tio n s o f Sexu ality. Ed. J. M ag o n et. P ro v id en ce: B e rg h a h n Books, 1995. 4 1 -5 0 . T an n e r, J . P. ‘T h e H isto ry o f In terp r e ta tio n o f th e S ong o f S o n g s.” B S ac 154 (1997) 2 3 - 4 6 .----------. “T h e M essage o f th e S ong o f S o n g s.” B S ac 154 (1997) 142-61. T h o m a s, D . W. “Kelebh ‘D o g ’: Its O rig in a n d S om e U sages o f It in th e O ld T e s ta m e n t.” V T 10 (1960) 4 1 0 -2 7 . T h o m p s o n , H . O . “C arm el, M o u n t.” A B D 1:874-75. T o lk ien , J . R. R. “Beow ulf: T h e M o n sters a n d th e Critics.” In A n A n th o lo g y o f B e o w u lf C riticism . E d. L. E. N ich o lso n . 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12

G eneral Bibliography

tress, 1988. Turner, D. E ros a n d A llegory. K alam azoo, MI: C isterc ian , 1995. Tyloch, W. “U g aritic P o em s a n d S o n g o f S o n g s.” In S u lm u TV. E d. J. Z ab lo ck a a n d S. Z aw adzki. P o zn an : UAM, 1993. 2 9 5 -3 0 1 . Vendler, H. T he A r t o f S h akespeare’s Son nets. C a m b rid g e , MA: H a rv a rd UP, 1999 [first p a p e rb a c k e d itio n ]. Waldman, N. M. “A N o te o n C a n tic les 4 , 9 J B L 89 (1970) 2 1 5 -1 7 . Walker, L. L. “N o tes o n H ig h e r C riticism a n d th e D a tin g o f Biblical H eb rew .” In A T ribute to G leason Archer. C hicago: M oody Press, 1 9 8 6 .--------------. “‫תפוח‬.” N I D O T T E §9515. Walsh, C. E. E x q u isite Desire: R elig io n , the E rotic, a n d the S o n g o f Songs. M in n eap o lis: F o rtress Press, 2000. Walton, J. “‫גנלומים‬.” N I D O T T E §6596. Watson, W. G . E. “Love a n d D ea th O n c e M o re (S ong o f S ongs V III 6 ) .” V T 47 (1997) 3 8 5 - 8 7 . -------------------------. T ra d itio n a l Techniques in C lassical H ebrew JS O T S u p 170. S heffield: S h effield A cad em ic P ress, 1994. Webster, E. C. “P a tte r n in th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” J S O T 22 (1 9 8 2 ) 7 3 -9 3 . Wendland, E. R. “S eek in g th e P ath th ro u g h a F o re st o f Symbols: A F ig u rativ e a n d S tru ctu ra l S urvey o f th e S o n g o f S o n g s.”J O T T l (1995) 13-59. Wenham, G. “B ftu la h : A G irl o f M a rria g eab le A g e.” V T 22 (1972) 3 2 6 -4 8 . White, J. B. A S tu d y o f the L a n g u a g e o f L o ve in the S o n g o f Son gs a n d A n c ie n t E g y p tia n L iteratu re. M issoula: S ch o lars Press, 1978. Whitesell, C. J. “B e h o ld , T h o u A rt Fair, My B e lo v e d .” P a ra b 20 (1995) 9 2 -9 9 . Wright, F. A., ed. a n d tran s. Select L etters o f St. ferom e. L o eb Classical L ibrary. C a m b rid g e , MA: H a rv a rd UP, 1933. Wright, J. “S ex u ality w ith in th e O ld T e s ta m e n t.” S t M a r k ’s R e v ie w 106 (1 9 8 1 ) 3 -1 2 . Wiirthwein, E. “D as H o h e lie d .” In D ie f u n f M egilloth . E d. E. W firthw ein, K. G alling, a n d O. Ploger. T u b in g e n : M ohr, 1969. 2 5 -7 1 . Wyk, W. C. van. ‘T h e P e sh itta o f th e S o n g o f Songs (S o n g o f S o lo m o n ).” In A spects o f the E xegetical Process. Ed. W. C. van Wyk. H ercules, S o u th A frica: N. H . W. Press, 1981. 181-89. Young, E. J. A n In tr o d u c tio n to the O ld T estam ent. G ra n d R apids: E e rd m a n s, 1960. Zogbo, L. “C o m m e n ta rie s o n th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” B T 45 (1994) 3 4 3 -4 8 .

Introduction Song of Songs is a small book (eight chapters) in the Bible. It is placed as the last of the poetic books of Wisdom after Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations. In the Hebrew Bible, at least from the tenth century C.E. on, it was placed among the Wisdom books in the Writings as one of five festal scrolls with Ruth, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, and Esther. It held a fixed position in Jewish sacred tradition, as the presence of several copies among the Dead Sea Scrolls (first century B.C.E.) shows. It was known to the writers of the Mishnah and the Targums as well as the Talmud. Manuscripts of it exist today in Hebrew from the Masoretes of the tenth century C.E., in Greek from the fifth century C.E., and in other versions from this early period. The Song of Songs is unique in the Hebrew Scriptures; one is even tempted to say that it is unique in world literature. The latter statement, however, would be an exaggeration. Song of Songs is lyric poetry (see Excursus: Finding an Approach to Lync Poetry). It has roots in Egyptian love poetry and parallels in lyric poetry from all times and places, especially from the ancient world. Nothing is fully “like” the Song of Songs, but there are in other texts important analogies to its use of language, its root concepts, and even its structure. Probably no piece of poetry has been subjected to such a diversity of interpretations as has the Song. This is to a large degree because many have been unwilling to read it according to the normal “rules” of poetry. Its status as a canonical book has meant that readers through the ages have subjected it to hermeneutical reclamation and renovation projects, determined to make it into something that it is not. Song of Songs is canonical Scripture. In the Hebrew Bible, it is one of the five Megilloth, books that are read on various holy days as prescribed in the Mishnah. The other books and their associated holidays are Ruth (Pentecost), Ecclesiastes (Tabernacles), Lamentations (the Ninth of Ab, the traditional anniversary of the destruction of the first and second temples), and Esther (Purim). The Song of Songs is read on the Sabbath of Passover week. However, evidence for the use of the Song as a Passover scroll dates only to the eighth century C.E. Some scholars suggest an earlier usage in village culture where the harvest festivals were the occasions for weddings. The same would apply to the use of Ruth at the Festival of Weeks (Pentecost). Its original purpose is not clear (Fohrer, Introduction, 300). In Hebrew Scripture the Song is grouped with the other Megilloth in the third division of the canon, the Writings. In Christian Scriptures, following the Septuagint order, it is grouped with the poetic books of Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. Jews and Christians use the Song as part of their regular cycles of lectionary readings, and the Song adds a new dimension to the regular reading of the Bible. But that it is canonical does not mean that it should be forced into a role for which it is not suited or given a meaning that it does not have. Its canonical status means that one must take it seriously as poetry that focuses on the love of a man and a woman and then determine how it fits within the message of Scripture.

14

Introduction

In his classic 1936 lecture on Beowulf, J. R. R. Tolkien wrote, “I have, of course, read The Beowulf, as have most (but not all) of those who have criticized it. But I fear that... I have not been a man so diligent in my special walk as duly to read all that has been printed on, or touching on, this poem. But I have read enough, I think, to venture the opinion that Beowulfiana is, while rich in many departments, specially poor in one. It is poor in criticism, criticism that is directed to the understanding of a poem as a poem.... Beowulfhas been used as a quarry of fact and fancy far more assiduously than it has been studied as a work of art” (“Beowulf,” 51-52). Much the same is true of the study of the Song. It is a quarry for stones ready to be transformed into theological gold by the alchemy of allegorization, for gems that indulge fascination with erotica, for raw metals that can be forged and fitted together as an elaborate dramatic production, for rocks to be used as ammunition in the gender wars waged by feminists, and for verbal ore ready to be melted down in the fires of deconstruction. The commentary that follows is an attempt to understand the Song for what it is: a canonical work of lyric poetry. Song of Songs as Scripture Bibliography Brenner, A. “A ro m atics a n d P e rfu m e s in th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” JSOT 25 (1983) 7 5 -8 1 . Broyde, M. J. “D e file m e n t o f th e H a n d s, C a n o n iz a tio n o f th e B ible, a n d th e S p ecial Status o f E sther, E cclesiastes, a n d S o n g o f Songs. ”J u d a is m 44 (1995) 6 5 -7 9 . Dever, W. W h a t D id the B ib lic a l W riters K n o w a n d W hen D id They K n o w I t? G ra n d R apids: E e rd m a n s, 2001. Fox, Μ. V. ‘T h e C airo Love S o n g s.” JAOS 100 (1980) 101-9. Fredericks, D. C. Q o h eleth ’s L a n g u a g e . L ew iston, NY: M ellen , 1988. LaCocque, A. R om an ce, She Wrote. H a rris b u rg , PA: T rin ity Press In te rn a tio n a l, 1998. Rabin, C. “T h e S o n g o f S ongs a n d T am il P o e try .” S R 3 (1973) 2 0 5 -1 9 . Saeb0, M. “O n th e C a n o n ic ity o f th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” In Texts, Tem ples, a n d T ra d itio n s. FS M. H a ra n , ed. M. Fox. W in o n a L ake, IN: E ise n b ra u n s, 1996. 2 6 7 -7 7 .

Sasson, V. “K ing S o lo m o n a n d th e D ark L ady in th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” V T 39 (1989) 4 0 7 14. Segal, Μ. H. ‘T h e S o n g o f S o n g s.” V T 12 (1962) 4 7 0 -9 0 . Τον, E. Q u m ra n C a ve 4: X I. P sa lm s to Chronicles. DJD 16. O x fo rd : C la re n d o n , 2000. 197, 2 0 8 -9 . Treat, J. C. “A quila, F ield, a n d th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” In O n g e n ’s H e x a p la a n d F ragm ents: P apers P resen ted a t the R ich S e m in a r on the H ex a p la , O xford C enter f o r H ebrew a n d Jew ish S tu dies. Ed. A. Salvesen. T u b in g e n : M o h r (S ie b ec k ), 1998. 1 3 5 - 3 7 .---------- . “A F iery Dove: T h e S o n g o f S ongs in C o d ex V enetus l . " A In M u ltifo rm H eritage: S tu d ies on E a rly J u d a is m a n d C h n stia n ity . FS R. A. K raft, ed. B. G. W rig h t III. A tlan ta: S ch o la rs Press, 1999. 2 7 5 -3 0 1 . Y oung, I. D iv ersity in Pre-E xilic H ebrew. T u b in g e n : M o h r (S ie b ec k ), 1993.

C anonization

There is no certain information about the date of the admission of the Song into the canon. However, two common statements made about this matter are wrong. The first is that the Song was not admitted into the canon until very late, possibly as late as the first century C.E. Scholars are abandoning the idea that the canon was established or closed at the so-called Council of Jamnia (cf. M. Saeb0, “On the Canonicity,” 268). It is true that the Song’s status was discussed and debated by rabbis at this time (Gordis, 9). This, however, is no proof that

Introduction

15

th e S ong was n o t already lo n g re g a rd e d as can o nical. By analogy, J o h n Calvin d isp u te d with S ebastian Castellio over th e can o n ical status o f th e Song in G eneva d u rin g th e six teen th cen tu ry ; surely n o o n e w ould arg u e th a t this d isp u te shows th a t th e S ong u p u n til this tim e h a d n o t yet b e e n p lace d in th e can o n . T h e reason th a t th e can o n ical status o f th e S ong was d e b a te d a n d occasionally co n tin u es to be d e b a te d is th a t it is n o t w h at o n e w ould e x p e ct to fin d in H oly Writ. O n e c a n n o t use ra b b in ic al d isp u tes to d e te rm in e th e tim e it cam e to be re g a rd e d as S criptu re. S cholars m ay have m isu n d e rsto o d ra b b in ic al term in o lo g y in re g a rd to th e co n c e p t o f ca n o n . M any have suggested th a t S eco n d T em p le Ju d a ism d id n o t re g a rd S ong o f Songs, Ecclesiastes, a n d E sth er as can o n ical o n th e g ro u n d s o f T alm udic statem en ts to th e effect th a t these books d o n o t “defile th e h a n d s .” To “defile th e h a n d s ” was tak en by scholars to be co d e fo r “sa c re d ” a n d th u s “can o n ic a l.” T h e te rm m ay have n o th in g to d o w ith canonicity. As M. B royde 44 [1995] 6 5 -7 9 ) suggests, th e in ju n c tio n th a t a b o o k “defiles th e h a n d s ” m ay m e a n th a t o n e c a n n o t h a n d le th e b o o k a n d th e n h a n d le fo o d , o r store th e b o o k n e a r food. T h e b o o k can re n d e r fo o d u n clea n a n d th u s u n fit for eating , a n d a b o o k th a t “defiles th e h a n d s ” m u st be k ep t sep a rate fro m food. T h e ra tio n a le b e h in d this is th a t th ese books m u st n o t be su b ject to soiling a n d to d e stru c tio n by ro d e n ts a n d m u st be given special care. B ooks th a t “defile the h a n d s ” do have a sacred status, b u t it is n o t th e ir b ein g can o n ical th a t gives th em this status; it is th e fact th a t th ese books co n ta in th e divine n a m e ‫( יהוה‬Y ahw eh). Texts th a t c o n ta in th e divine n a m e m u st be given special a tte n tio n to p ro te c t th em fro m ro t, spoilage, a n d d e stru c tio n . Song o f Songs, Ecclesiastes, a n d Esther, however, d o n o t c o n ta in It is this fact, a n d n o t th e ir can o n ical status o r lack th ere o f, th a t e x e m p ts th e m fro m th e “defilin g th e h a n d s ” status. T h e re is a sec o n d e r r o r re g a rd in g th e S o n g ’s canonicity. T his is th a t th e Song was given c a n o n ic al status because o f o r u n d e r th e cover o f an allegorical in te r‫־‬ p re ta tio n . A llegorizing th e S ong (th a t is, tre a tin g it as a p a ra b le o f th e h isto ry o f Isra el’s re la tio n sh ip to G od) d id n o t pave th e way fo r can o n izatio n ; th a t it was in th e c a n o n p ro m p te d th e allegorizing o f th e Song. It is d ifficult to im ag in e why anyone w ould create th e far-fetched a n d unlikely in terp re tatio n s o f th e allegorists e x c e p t for- th e fa ct th a t th ey fe lt th eo lo g ically c o m p e lle d to d o so. F o r th e allegorizers, th e logic o f th e situ atio n was q u ite sim ple: (1) th e S ong o f Songs is in th e c a n o n ; (2) ca n o n ic al books are holy; (3) th ere fo re , th e S ong o f Songs is holy; (4) b u t th e S ong o f Songs a p p e a rs to be carnal; (5) th e re fo re , we m ust fin d an in te rp re ta tio n fo r th e S ong th a t saves it fro m its a p p a re n t carnality a n d shows it to be spiritual. I f th e S ong w ere n o t already S crip tu re, it is h a rd to im agin e why an y o n e w ould allegorize it in th e first place.

(Judaism

T h e T ex t o f S o n g o f S o n g s T h e H e b rew o f S ong o f Songs is som e o f th e m o st d ifficult in th e OT, b u t th a t difficulty a p p e a rs to be a re su lt o f th e lan g u ag e itself a n d n o t b ecau se o f textual c o rru p tio n s . T h e tex t c o n tain s an e n o rm o u s n u m b e r o f a n d occasionally th e style is so terse th a t th e sense is difficu lt to o b tain . B u t by all ap p e a ra n c e s, th e S ong has com e dow n in g o o d co n d itio n . It is gen erally supp o rte d by Q u m ra n a n d th e a n c ie n t versions.

hapax legomena,

16

Introduction

T h e Q u m ra n frag m en ts o f th e S ong are p articu larly in terestin g . T h e re are th re e m an u scrip ts o f th e S ong fro m Cave 4: these are 4 Q C anticlesa (p arts o f S ong 3 :7 -1 1 ; 4 :1 -7 ; 6:11?-12; 7 :1 -7 [early H e ro d ia n p e r io d ] ), 4 Q C an ticlesb (p arts o f S ong 2:9-17; 3:1-2, 5, 9 -1 0 ; 4:1-3, 8 -11, 14-16; 5:1 [e n d o f first centu ry B .C .E .]) , a n d 4 Q C an ticlesc (a tiny fra g m e n t o f S ong 3 :7 -8 [e n d o f first c e n tu ry B .C .E .]) . A fra g m e n t fro m Cave 6, 6Q C anticles, dates to 50 C.E. a n d contains S ong 1:1-7. A curiosity o f th e Cave 4 frag m en ts is th a t they are selective; th a t is, they d elib erately skip sections o f th e Song. T his does n o t a p p e a r to refleet a d iffe re n t “te x t b e in g c o p ie d ,” a n d is n o t significant fo r critical p u rp o se s; it m ay be th a t th e selections h a d a litu rgical p u rp o se. V ariants ag ain st th e MT are m in o r a n d pro b ab ly n o t significant. F or exam ple, at Song 3:11, w here M T h as “d a u g h te rs o f Z io n ,” 4 Q C a n ta h as “d a u g h te rs o f J e r u s a le m .” T h e se Q u m ra n frag m en ts w ould be a d o u b tfu l basis fo r e m e n d in g th e MT. T h e scribe o f 4 Q C an tb, in th e w ords o f its e d ito r E. Tov, “m ad e m any m istakes a n d h e was m u c h in flu e n c e d by th e A ram aic la n g u a g e ” (DJD 16:197, 2 0 8 -9 ). T his m an u scrip t also c o n tain s p e c u lia r scribal m arkings, possibly P aleo-H ebrew scrip t (DJD 16:205). M u rp h y (7 -1 1 ) has a g o o d survey o f th e ch aracteristics o f th e a n c ie n t versions. J. T re a t (“A F iery D ove”) provides th e in te rp re te r w ith a fascin atin g look at an O ld G re ek version o f S ong o f Songs (C o d ex V enetus 1 o r “V ”), c o m p lete w ith its o rig in al p reface a n d d e m a rc a tio n o f sin g ers’ parts, in his critical ed itio n o f this codex. T h e re are very few in stan ces w h ere th e versions a p p e a r to have a su p e rio r re a d in g to th e M T o r w h ere e m e n d a tio n o f th e MT is advisable. O n e ex am p le is at S ong 4:8, w h ere th e M T has ‫אתי‬, “w ith m e .” T h e LX X 6e0po a n d th e Vg. “c o m e !” m ak e m o re sense in co n tex t. E m e n d in g to ‫אתי‬, “co m e !” is th u s p referable to th e MT. Also a t S ong 4:8, o n e sh o u ld e m e n d ‫מהררי‬, “fro m th e m o u n ta in s o f,” to ‫מחךי‬, “fro m th e lairs o f,” o p p o site ‫מטענות‬, “from th e d en s o f.” A t S ong 7:10 (ET 7:9), it is a b it o f a stretch to m ak e g o o d sense o f th e M T ‫ שפתי ישנים‬, “lips o f sleep e rs.” A n e m e n d a tio n to ‫ שפתי ושני‬, “my lips a n d my te e th ,” w ith LXX, Syr., a n d Vg. is p re fe ra b le . By a n d large, however, th e M T is a reliab le witness, a n d it is th e basis fo r this co m m en tary , n o tw ith sta n d in g th e few e m e n d a tio n s occasionally suggested.

Vorlage,

veni,

D ate of C omposition M any scholars d ate S ong o f Songs to th e P ersian p erio d . L inguistic arg u m e n ts have b e e n th e c h ie f ju stific atio n p u t fo rw ard fo r m ain ta in in g a late d a te fo r th e Song. M. Fox 186-91) is typical o f such a view point: “L inguistic crite ria are all we can go o n in d e te rm in in g th e g en e ral p e rio d o f th e S o n g ’s co m p o sitio n . T h e lan g u ag e o f th e S ong resem bles m ishnaic H eb rew in m any ways” (187). F ox goes o n to list “ch aracteristically m ish n aic w ords a n d co n stru etio n s ” th a t d e m a n d a late d a te fo r th e Song. L inguistic a rg u m e n ts have b e e n seriously u n d e rm in e d by m o re re c e n t analyses, especially th a t o f I. Y oung ( ). O n e can a d d to this th e w ork o f D. F red e rick s ) , w hich, a lth o u g h focu sed o n Ecclesiastes, deals w ith m an y o f th e sam e issues. Previous a rg u m e n ts fo r d a tin g books o n th e basis o f lan g u ag e have co n sisted o f lists o f w ords o r g ram m atical stru c tu re s th o u g h t

(Song of Songs,

(Qoheleth’s Language

Diversity

Introduction

17

to be M ishnaism s o r A ram aism s a n d th u s p ro o f th a t th e w ork was late. M ost o f th e m u sed a sim ple, lin e a r m o d e l fo r th e h isto ry o f th e lan g u ag e o f biblical H ebrew. Y oung arg u es th a t th e o rig in o f H eb rew is fo u n d in th e c o n tin u a tio n o f a p rio r C an aa n ite lite ra ry “p restig e la n g u a g e ,” ju s t as A ram aic was an official Ianguage o f th e la rg e r pow ers. T h e D eir Alla in scrip tio n s in d icate th a t th e re cou ld be a co n sid erab le a d m ix tu re o f C an aa n ite a n d A ram aic elem e n ts in a local Ianguage, especially w h en th e two p restig e cu ltu re s w ere clashing w ith each other, as in th e e ig h th c e n tu ry . E ven a rc h a ic b ib lic a l H e b re w d e m o n s tra te s an A ram aizing tendency. In sta n d a rd biblical H ebrew , th e use o f an A ram aic-like style was c o n sid e re d “b ad fo rm ,” a lth o u g h this ru le d id n o t apply to W isdom texts. Y oung states th a t “we c a n n o t say w ith c o n fid e n c e th a t a w o rd is an ‘A ram aism ,’ th a t is, a lo an fro m A ram aic in to H e b rew ” 63). F or o u r p u rp o se s, a m o st im p o rta n t asp ect o f Y oung’s study is his analysis o f th e d istin c tio n s betw een sta n d a rd biblical H eb rew a n d M ishnaic H eb rew 7 3 -9 6 ). S cholars have g en erally assum ed th a t M ishnaic H ebrew is th e lineal d e sc e n d a n t o f biblical H ebrew , b u t Y oung suggests a m o re convin cin g m odel. B uildin g o n p rio r researc h , h e arg u es th a t a case can be m ad e fo r diglossia in a n c ie n t Israel. describes two varieties o r dialects o f a single language coexistin g in a single p lace a n d tim e, ea ch w ith its own ro le to play. Classic H ebrew co ex isted side by side w ith a collo q u ial H eb rew th a t o ften u sed A ram aism s. P reexilic H eb rew was already very diverse a n d in c lu d e d m any A ram aic elem ents. It is im possible to claim th a t a lin e a r p ro g ressio n fro m preexilic sta n d a rd biblical H ebrew , to late biblical H eb rew (m o d erately A ra m aized ), th e n to M ishnaic H ebrew (heavily A ram aized) fairly re p resen ts th e history o f th e H ebrew language to th a t p o in t. T h e p re se n c e o f A ram aism s, as we have seen, is n o t sufficient g ro u n d s for ascribin g a b o o k to a late d ate. T h ey m ay re p re s e n t a n o rth e r n dialect o r sim ply a style th a t is n o t c o n c e rn e d to m a in ta in th e p u re H eb rew o f lite rary prose. D. C. F red erick s 2 0 8 -9 ), citin g G. R. Driver, p o in ts o u t th a t p o e try in p a rtic u la r is m o re likely to c o n ta in A ram aism s; like Young, F redericks also n o te s th a t A ram aism s are likely to o cc u r in W isdom texts reg ard less o f th e ir d ate o f w riting. T h e n u m e ro u s in th e S ong h ard ly suggest a late d ate. T hey m ay re fle c t a dialect, o r they m ay suggest th a t “th e a u th o r was a g en iu s w ith an ex cep tio n ally larg e v o cab u lary ” (Young, 164). T h e h ig h n u m b e r o f unusual w ords is ch aracteristic o f lyric poetry. T h e use o f th e relative p ro n o u n ‫ ש‬in th e S ong is n o t indicative o f a late date, n o tw ith stan d in g its usage in M ishnaic Hebrew . Young 163) n o tes th at it ap p ears to re p re s e n t som e n o rth e r n Israelite dialect. It occurs twice in th e Song o f D eb o rah (Judg 5:7), w hich Young suggests has characteristics o f b o th archaic a n d n o rth e r n H ebrew. It also occurs in th e ac co u n t o f the M anassite G ideon (Judg 6:17; 7:12; 8:26) a n d in a citation o f a king o f Syria in an acco u n t th a t co n cern s th e n o rth e r n k in g d o m (2 Kgs 6:11). I w ould also observe th a t ‫ ש‬rep resen ts a colloquial o r m o re terse fo rm o f speech. In J o n a h 1:7, the sailors speak to each o th e r very direcdy a n d use th e expression ‫ בשלמי‬fo r “o n w hose a c co u n t.” In speaking to Jo n a h , however, they use a m o re fo rm al style o f speech a n d rep lace ‫ בשלמי‬with ‫( באשר למי‬Jonah 1:8). P ope (33) rejects taking ‫ ש‬as an in d icato r o f late date; he

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Introduction

d d, Qoheleth’sLanguage,

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com p ares it to th e A kkadian ία, U garitic a n d C anaanite A ram aic and Arabic See also F redericks, 147-48. T h e two m o st freq u en tly cited so-called loan w ords fo r S ong o f Songs are ‫פךדס‬, “park, o rc h a rd , p arad ise,” at 4:13 a n d ‫אפריון‬, “p a la n q u in ,” a t 3 :9 .‫ פרדס‬is som etim es th o u g h t to be a P ersian loan w ord. Young 161-62) shows th a t th e origin o f th e w ord is u nknow n, th a t it m ay be o f Sanskrit origin, a n d th a t th e re are reasons to th in k th a t Indo-A ryans w ere p re s e n t in C anaan in p re-co n q u est tim es (see also 7). T h e situation is sim ilar fo r ‫אפריון‬, “p a laq u in .” O ften said to be o f G reek origin, it, too, is an obscure w ord, possibly o f Sanskrit origin (Young, 162). See Fredericks, 245. A. B re n n e r ( 25 [1983] 75-81) arg u es fo r a P ersian origin fo r ‫כךכם‬, “saffron,” a n d ‫נרד‬, “sp ik en ard ,” b u t n o th in g is know n o f how o r w hen these w ords e n te re d th e language. A n o th e r p o in t o fte n raised is th a t th e S ong co n tain s only two form s, a n d b o th are in S ong 6:9. A lack o f is also a ch aracteristic o f M ishnaic H ebrew . Yet o n e w o u ld n o m o re e x p e c t to see th e in th e s h o rt p ieces o f lyric p o e try th a t we have in th e S ong th a n o n e w ould ex p e ct to see it in Ps 23, a n o th e r p iece o f lyric poetry. As linguistic ev id ence fo r th e d ate o f th e b ook, this d a tu m is co m p letely w orthless. T ak en to g eth er, Y oung’s w ork suggests th a t n o n e o f th e linguistic fe atu res o f th e S ong n e e d to be assigned to a late d ate. R ather, p e rh a p s because o f its g en re, th e S ong d o es n o t have a n u m b e r o f th e linguistic featu res o f th e sta n d a rd literary p ro se o f biblical H ebrew . H is c o n c lu sio n to his analysis o f th e S ong ( 165) is w o rth citing:

dii.

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Qoheleth's Language, wayyiqtols

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JSOT

wayyiqtol

wayyiqtol

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T h e S o n g o f S ongs sh a re s th e m o st sig n ific an t isoglosses w ith th e S o n g o f D e b o ra h w hich by c o n te n t stem s fro m th e N o rth e r n tribes. T h e S o n g o f S ongs d o e s n o t exh ib it th e c lu ste rin g o f a rc h aic e le m e n ts w h ich places D e b o ra h w ith A rc h aic B iblical H ebrew . T h e d istin c tio n is n o t n ecessarily o n e o f d a te , sin ce in th e early p e r io d w h ich seem s to b e e v id e n c e d fo r th e S o n g o f S ongs, th e A rch aic B iblical H e b re w style was still b e in g co m p o se d , a n d th e S ta n d a rd Style was still in its infancy. T h e S o n g o f S ongs seem s to b e an early w ork w hich is n e ith e r in th e A rch aic n o r S ta n d a rd B iblical styles. It sh ares specific d ia lec ta l fe a tu re s w ith th e N o rth e r n S o n g o f D e b o ra h . Yet it seem s to have b e e n co m p o se d in Je ru sa le m .

R ece n t b iblical sch o larsh ip has d ista n c e d itself from d a tin g th e S ong o n th e basis o f lan g u ag e . M u rp h y (4) says th a t such a rg u m e n ts “bristle w ith d ifficu lties.” See also L o n g m a n (4 -5 ) a n d P o p e (3 0 -3 4 ). A p a rt fro m linguistic issues, th e re are several lines o f evidence th a t in d icate an e a rlie r d a te fo r th e Song. First, th e S ong reflects a g eo g rap h ic consciousness o n e w o u ld e x p e c t d u rin g th e Isra elite e m p ire o f S olom on. N o rth e rn locales m e n tio n e d in th e S ong in c lu d e S h aro n , L e b a n o n , H e rm o n , a n d C arm el. Som e scho lars have b e e n so im p ressed by th e p re p o n d e ra n c e o f n o r th e r n lo catio n s in th e S ong th a t th ey have su g g ested a n o r th e r n p ro v e n an ce fo r th e w ork o n th a t basis (e.g., L aS or e t al., 6 0 2 -3 ). T his is n o t likely; th e com m o n te rm fo r th e w o m a n ’s fem ale c o m p a n io n s in th e S ong is “d a u g h te rs o f J e ru s a le m ” (1:5; 2:7; 3:5, 10; 5:8; 5:16; 8:4), in d icatin g th a t th e co m m u n ity o f th e S ong is J e ru sa le m . T h a t is, all o th e r re fe re n ces to places are allusions th a t fu n c tio n as sim iles o r m e ta p h o rs, b u t th e p e o p le o f th e S ong are actually said to b e fro m J e r u s a le m . S o u th e r n lo c a tio n s (e .g ., E n g e d i) a n d p la c e s in th e

Old Testament Survey,

Introduction

19

T ra n sjo rd a n (H e sh b o n , G ilead) also a p p e a r in th e Song. It is o f co u rse possible th a t a p o e t fro m any e ra co u ld have a llu d e d to various locatio n s in th e Levant, b u t th e to n e o f th e S ong m ig h t well be d esc rib ed as pan-Israelite. T h e idealized h e ro in e o f th e Song, w hose h e a d is like C arm el, w ho dwells in th e re m o te m o u n tains o f L e b a n o n , w ho is b o th th e “rose o f S h a ro n ” a n d a vineyard in E ngedi, draws u p o n every re g io n o f g re a te r Israel fo r h e r self-description. T h e p o em was w ritten a t a tim e w h en th ese locales w ere n o t alien places b u t w ere re g a rd e d as th e possessions of, o r w ithin th e sp h e re o f in flu en ce of, th e Israelite state. M. Segal ( VT12 [1962] 483) p o in ts o u t “Such an e x te n d e d h o rizo n fo r a Jeru salem p o e t suits b est th e age o f S o lo m o n , w hose ru le e x te n d e d far b ey o n d th e confines o f th e la n d o f Isra el.” T his evidence, a lth o u g h n o t conclusive, is at least c o n g r u e n t w ith th e im p licatio n o f th e su p erscrip t. T h e h ig h lite ra ry style o f th e S ong suggests th a t it was w ritten at a tim e w hen Israel h a d th e m ean s a n d th e m o tivation fo r lite rary p ursuits. By analogy, th e g re a t flo u rish in g o f L atin lite ra tu re cam e in th e A ugustan age, a n d th e flowerin g o f classical G re e k lite r a tu r e ca m e in th e A th e n ia n E m p ire . T h e B ible in d icates th a t S o lo m o n ’s re ig n was such a tim e. T h e n a tio n h a d w ealth, in tern a tional discourse, a n d a m o n a rc h w ho was in te re ste d in literary m atters. O f course, it is always possible th a t Israel was e x c ep tio n al in this re g a rd a n d th a t this bo o k was w ritten by an o b scu re fifth -cen tu ry figure, b u t th a t w ould n o t be th e obvious co n clu sio n to re ach . T h e re are o th e r c irc u m sta n tial in d ic a tio n s th a t th e b o o k com es fro m th e Solom onic em pire. C. R abin (SR 3 [1973] 205-19) argues th a t th e exotic spices a n d p erfu m es m e n tio n e d in th e S ong suggest a tim e o f g reat w ealth a n d com m ercial relatio n s w ith th e east, particularly India. O n e n e e d n o t accep t his thesis th at the Song was in flu en c ed by Tam il p o e try to ap p reciate th e validity o f this p oint, n o r n e e d o n e arg u e th a t this was absolutely th e only tim e th a t spices from the east w ould have m ad e th e ir way to th e Levant. T h e fact is simply th a t th e S ong reflects a tim e o f g re a t w ealth a n d o f exotic tastes, a n d th e Solom onic m onarchy, according to th e Bible, was th e fo rem o st exam ple o f this in Israelite history (e.g., 1 Kgs 10:25). M. Segal 12 [1962] 470-90) notes th a t the fre q u e n t references to gold, alabaster, sapphires, a n d jew elry in th e Song suggest a p rovenance o f g re at w ealth. H e suggests th a t th e shields o f D avid’s tow er (Song 4:4) may be th e g o ld en shields taken by Shishak (1 Kgs 10:16-17; 14:26). I have a rg u e d elsew here (G a rre tt, 352) th a t a lth o u g h it is tru e th a t a p o e t can allu d e to th in g s th a t h e has little e x p e rie n c e of, such allusions o ften te n d to be cliches. A p o e t w ho h a d only rarely seen snow m ig h t say “w hite as snow,” b u t a p o e t w ho lived in a w intry clim a te w ould m ak e m u c h m o re n u a n c e d re fere n ces to snow, ice, frost, a n d so fo rth . T h e allusions to alab aster pillars in sockets o f g old (S ong 5:15) o r to th e o rn a te ly d e c o ra te d ho rses o f th e p h a ra o h (S ong 1:911) su g g e s t th a t th e p o e t h a d a c tu a lly se e n th in g s lik e th is. T h e g a r d e n m e ta p h o rs in th e S ong are equally extravagant: ‘Y our grow th is a paradise: / p o m e g ra n a te s w ith ch o ice fru it, / h e n n a w ith sp ik en ard , / n a rd a n d saffron, / calam us a n d c in n a m o n , / w ith every in cen se tree, / m y rrh a n d alo es” (Song 4:13-1 4 ). P eo p le w ith n o g e n u in e ac q u a in ta n c e w ith g ard en s o f such astoundingly exotic variety w ould be m o re likely to use g en eric language. R eferen ces to item s o f lu x u ry in th e S ong are a n y th in g b u t cliches. T h e p o e t spoke from d irec t ex p e rien ce .

(VT

20

Introduction

T h e n th e re is th e re fe re n c e to T irza h in S ong 6:4: ‘You are beau tifu l, my com p a n io n , like T irza h , / Lovely, like J e r u s a le m .” T h e p a irin g o f th e two cities suggests th a t they a re co m p arab ly m ag n ifice n t; th e sim ile w ou ld n o t w ork if T irza h w ere a backw ater. T irzah was a le a d in g city o f th e n o rth e r n p a r t o f th e n a tio n in th e early first m illen n iu m . It b ec am e th e capital o f th e n o r th e r n kingd o m afte r th e secession a n d ap p a re n tly re m a in e d so u n d e r Je ro b o a m I a n d his successors B aasha (1 Kgs 15:21, 33), E lah (1 Kgs 16:8), Zim ri (1 Kgs 16:15), a n d O m ri (1 Kgs 16:23-24) u n til O m ri (re ig n e d ca. 88 5 -8 7 4 B.C.E.) b u ilt Sam aria. T h e lo catio n o f T irzah has b e e n th e m a tte r o f som e d isp u te, b u t th e con sen sus is th a t it was a t Tell el‫־‬Farcah, n o r th (D ale, “T irz a h ,” 6 :5 7 3 -7 7 ; see especially d e V aux’s co m m en ts o n th e id en tific atio n o f th e site in S tern , 2:433). T h e h isto ry o f th e site re a c h e s fro m th e N eolithic p e rio d to Iro n II, b u t it en jo y ed a m ajo r flo u rish in g in Iro n I in th e p e rio d o f th e u n ite d m o n archy. F o r a full discussion o f th e h isto ry o f th e site, see th e discu ssio n by A. C h a m b o n in S tern , , 2:433-40. C o n c e rn in g th e level o f o cc u p a tio n c o rre s p o n d in g to th e u n ite d m o n a rc h y p e rio d , M azar ( , 389) writes: “T irza h (Tell el-Far'ah [ n o r th ] ) is an ex c e p tio n a l ex am p le o f a d ev elo p ed tow n— w ell p la n n e d a n d d e n se ly o c c u p ie d — in th is p e rio d . It is c h a ra c te riz e d by o rth o g o n a l p la n n in g (alm ost n o n -e x iste n t in la te r Israelite towns) a n d th e rep e a te d a p p e a ra n c e o f a typical ‘fo u r-ro o m h o u s e .’” T his p h ase o f T irz a h ’s histo ry e n d e d in th e n in th century, ap p a re n tly w h en O m ri m oved th e capital. In th e n e x t m ajo r p h ase, th e d e m o te d city c o n tin u e d to pro sp er, b u t this p h ase e n d e d w ith th e d e stru c tio n o f th e city, ap p a re n tly in th e Assyrian cam p aig n o f 723. T h e city was briefly o c c u p ie d a fte r th a t b u t was p e rm a n e n tly a b a n d o n e d by 600 B.C.E. D ever states th a t Level V ila w o u ld have b e e n th e city o f S o lo m o n ’s tim e. H e d escrib es it as follows: “T his stratu m , securely d a te d to th e 10th c e n tu ry by its pottery , in c o rp o ra te d an offset-inset city wall; a two-entryway city gate; a larg e p u blic p lace n e a r th e g ate w ith a sh rin e; a n d several co n tig u o u s blocks o f fourro o m co u rty a rd houses, so well laid o u t th a t they re flect a m easu re o f u rb a n p la n n in g . T h u s T irz a h m ay w ell h av e b e e n th e a d m in is tra tiv e c a p ita l o f 142). S o lo m o n ’s n o rth e r n district o f E p h ra im ” ( T h e p o e t o f th e S ong th e re fo re c o n sid e re d T irzah a n d J e ru sa le m to be n e a r equals, a n d a lth o u g h th e city o f th e early divided m o n arc h y m ig h t m e e t this sta n d a rd , th e e a rlie r p h ase is a b e tte r c a n d id a te. C o m m o n sense suggests th a t th e c o m p ariso n w o u ld have b e e n m ad e p rio r to secession o f th e n o r th e r n tribes, after w hich th e two cities w ere b itte r en em ies. A scribing this p a irin g o f Jeru sa lem w ith T irza h to a postexilic p o e t is o u t o f th e q u estio n . T h e city d id n o t exist at th a t tim e, a n d th e re is n o re aso n to th in k th a t th e m em o ry o f th e city’s glo ry days survived. T h e re is certain ly n o re aso n to th in k th a t was p ro v erb ial as a m e ta p h o r fo r glory. A. L aC ocque ( , 28) arg u es th a t ju s t as th e expression “P yrrhic v icto ry ” d o es n o t m ean th a t we are d ea lin g w ith a th ird -c e n tu ry B.C.E. text, so this re fe re n c e to T irzah has n o b ea rin g o n th e d ate o f th e Song. T h e analogy is ab su rd ; “P yrrhic v icto ry ” is a cliche re p e a te d th ro u g h th e cen tu ries, b u t S ong 6:4 has n o th in g o f th e cliche a b o u t it, a n d th e co m p ariso n o f T irza h to J e ru sa le m is n o w h e re else em ployed. We th u s have n o re aso n to suppose th a t th e re fe re n c e to T irzah is som e k in d o f retrospective glance a t n o rth e r n Isra e l’s g lo ry days, th e significance o f w hich a p ostexilic a u d ie n c e w o u ld supposedly have re co g n ized . T h is evidence c a n n o t be easily dism issed a n d is o f m u c h

ABD

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Archaeology

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Archaeology

What Did the Biblical Writers Know?

Romance

Tirzah

Introduction

21

g re a te r significance th a n th e m o re o r less circu m stan tial a rg u m e n ts m e n tio n e d above. In th e P ersian p e rio d , T irzah was a d e se rte d tell. M u rp h y (4) rejects d a tin g th e b o o k o n th e basis o f S ong 6:4 o n th e g ro u n d s th a t T irza h m ay have b e e n ch o sen by th e p o e t b ecause th e n a m e so u n d s sim ilar to ‫רצה‬, “to be p le a sin g .” T his a rg u m e n t is contrived; th e ro o t ‫ רצה‬do es n o t figure anyw here in this text, a n d allusion to th e m e a n in g o f th e ro o t o f a p ro p e r n am e is n o t a device em p lo y ed in th e Song. Such etym ological allusions in H ebrew p o e try inevitably involve som e k in d o f p a ro n o m a sia (as in Mic 1:10), a n d n o n e is fo u n d h ere. T h e sim ilarity o f S ong o f Songs to th e E gyptian love p o e try is also im p o rta n t fo r d a tin g th e Song. T h e affinities betw een th e two are too n u m e ro u s a n d too close to be accid en tal. T h e evidence in d icates th a t th e S ong o f Songs has borro w ed m u c h fro m th e E g y p tian m a te ria l, a lb e it ta k in g th e g e n re in a new d irectio n . I f th e H eb rew a n d E gyptian texts are n o t directly re la ted , o n e m ust say th a t it is p e c u lia r th a t so m any scholars give so m u ch a tte n tio n to analyzing c o rre s p o n d e n c e betw een th e two. Yet these very scholars will d ate th e S ong alm o st a m ille n n iu m after th e Egyptian texts. T h a t is, in stead o f d atin g th e Song n e a r th e tim e th a t th e Egyptian love p o e try o f this k in d flo u rish ed a n d to a tim e w hen, a c co rd in g to th e Bible, Egyptian in flu en c e was stro n g in Je ru sa le m , these scholars d a te th e S ong to a tim e m any h u n d re d s o f years afte r th e passing o f the E gyptian love songs a n d to a tim e w h en th e Jew ish co m m u n ity was a tiny d ep artm e n t o f th e P ersian E m pire. L andy uses th e Egyptian m aterial as a m o d el fo r , 2 1 -2 4 ) b u t says th a t th e S ong com es from a in te rp re tin g th e Song ( “very late d a te ” ( 18). H e even co n c ed es th a t p arallels to th e S ong in H ellen istic p o e try are su p erficial a n d few in n u m b e r ( 26). J. B. W hite sp end s p a r t o f a d issertatio n d e m o n stra tin g p arallels betw een th e Song o f Songs a n d th e Egyptian p o e try b u t adds, “It w ould be u n w a rra n te d d u e to p ro b lem s o f ch ro n o lo g y a n d c u ltu ra l in te rc h a n g e to p ro p o se th a t th e S ong o f Songs is o n th e a n c ie n t Egyptian love lyrics” , 153, em phasis o rig in a l). A re we to assum e, th e n , th a t th e parallels h e catalogs are co in cid en tal? Fox ( 186-93) d ates th e S ong to th e postexilic p e rio d o n th e basis o f lexical data. H e does n o t d e m o n stra te th a t th e Song a n d th e Egyptian m ateria l are o f d iffe re n t genres. To th e contrary, his w ork, like W h ite ’s, shows how m u c h th e two have in co m m o n . T h e Egyptian love poetry, h e suggests, ente re d P alestine d u rin g th e R am eside E m p ire (e ig h te e n th to tw en tieth dynasties, o r early fifte e n th th ro u g h late tw elfth c e n tu rie s ), b u t h e says th a t th e S ong was co m p o sed som e tim e afte r th e exile. H ow co u ld th e Song o f Songs have b ee n w ritten in essentially th e sam e g e n re afte r a h iatu s o f nearly a th o u sa n d years? Fox arg u es th a t th e survival o f th e so n n e t in W estern p o e try is analogous. H e also arg u es th a t th e p re sen ce o f an E gyptian fem ale singer in th e c o u rt o f Byblos, as re p o rte d in th e “R e p o rt o f W e n a m u n ” at th e b e g in n in g o f th e elev en th century, attests to th e persistence o f th e Egyptian c o u rt m usic 186-93). T h e M egiddo Ivories (ca. 1350-1150 B.C.E.) also re fe r to a “sin g er o f P ta h .” F o x ’s a rg u m e n t d o es n o t work. T h e suggestion th a t E gyptian love p o e try ente re d th e L evant in th e R am eside p e rio d is unlikely. Israel at this tim e (th e Ju d g es p e rio d ) was a c u ltu ra l backw ater, a n d it is n o t cred ib le th a t th e Israelites o f this chaotic p e rio d w ere im p o rtin g sam ples o f aristocratic m usic fro m Egypt. O n e

Paradoxes Paradoxes,

ally dependent

Paradoxes,

(Study of the Language

Song of Songs,

(Song of Songs,

liter-

22

Introduction

co u ld arg u e th a t th e C an aa n ite s im p o rte d th e g e n re a n d p assed it o n to th e Israelites, b u t this is p ilin g h ypothesis o n hypothesis. T h e Bible in d icates th a t th e D avidic-Solom onic E m p ire was th e p e rio d o f g re a t m usical a n d lite ra ry flourish in g in Israel, a n d it also suggests th a t this was a tim e w h en E gyptian c u ltu ra l in flu e n c e was p ro n o u n c e d (in th a t S o lo m o n ’s m arria g e to an E gyptian p rin cess involved b rin g in g m u c h th a t was E gyptian in to Israel; 1 Kgs 3:1; 7:8; 9:24). We d o n o t know w h en E gyptian love p o e try b ecam e p o p u la r in Israel. It p ro b ab ly o c c u rre d n e a re r to th e tim e th a t it flo u rish e d in Egypt, a t a tim e w h en E gyptian cu ltu re was b e in g d irectly im p o rte d in to th e k in g d o m a n d in te re st in all th in g s Egyptian w o u ld have b e e n h ig h . W hile n o o n e n e e d d o u b t th a t th e re w ere som e Egyptian sin g ers in C an aan in th e late sec o n d m illen n iu m , this h ard ly ju stifies th e id e a th a t th e g e n re o f E gyptian love so n g p ersisted in th e L evant u n til th e late first m ille n n iu m . C o n tra ry to Fox, th e h isto ry o f th e so n n et, as briefly o u tlin e d below, is entirely u n lik e th e h isto ry o f th e E gyptian love poetry. T h e so n n e t is a p o e m o f fo u rte e n lines w ith a fixed m e te r a n d rhym e schem e. D eveloped in Italy a ro u n d th e th irte e n th centu ry , it fo u n d ex p ressio n in g re a t m asters such as P e tra rc h a n d D a n te . I t b ec am e p o p u la r in E n g la n d in th e six teen th cen tu ry ; m o st m ode rn re a d e rs re co g n ize th e s o n n e t as a p o e tic fo rm o f S h ak esp eare. Its usage d e c lin e d in sev e n te en th - a n d e ig h te e n th -c e n tu ry E nglish p o e try (b u t it by n o m ean s d isa p p e a re d ; M ilton c o m p o sed so n n e ts in th e m id -sev en teen th century, a n d o th e r p ra c titio n e rs in c lu d e B en J o n s o n [ca. 1572-1637], J o h n D o n n e [ca. 1572 -1 6 3 1 ], a n d T h o m as Edw ards [ 1 6 9 9 -1 7 5 7 ]). T h e s o n n e t flo u rish e d in th e G e rm a n ro m a n tic m o v e m e n t in th e w ork o f G o e th e (1749-1832) a n d o th ers. In E nglish p o etry , th e s o n n e t h a d a revival in th e n in e te e n th a n d early tw en tieth cen tu ries. E xam ples fro m th e m an y s o n n e te e rs fro m this p e rio d in c lu d e E d g ar A llen P oe (1 8 0 9 -1 8 4 9 ), H e n ry W adsw orth L ongfellow (1 8 0 7 -1 8 8 2 ), a n d especially E d n a St. V in c e n t M illay (1 8 9 2 -1 9 5 0 ). U n lik e th e so n n e t, th e re is n o eviden ce th a t E gyptian love p o e try “p e rs is te d ” as a p o etic fo rm . T h e sim ilarity to th e g e n re suggests th a t th e S ong is a late-seco n d -m illen n iu m o r early-first-mille n n iu m w ork. In sum m ary, th e H eb rew o f th e S ong o f Songs in n o way d e m a n d s a P ersian o r H ellen istic p ro v e n a n c e fo r th e text. T h e im ag ery u sed in th e Song suggests a p an -Israelite view point a n d c o m p o sitio n by a p o e t w ho h a d d ire c t e x p e rie n c e w ith w e alth a n d ex o tic lu x u ries, a n d this fits well w ith a p ro v e n a n c e in th e S olo m o n ic em p ire . T h e re fe re n c e to T irza h in S ong 6:4 suggests th a t th e S ong was w ritten d u rin g th e u n ite d m onarchy, a lth o u g h o n this evidence alo n e a d ate in th e early divided m o n a rc h y is conceivable (b u t a d ate in th e postexilic p e rio d is o u t o f th e q u e stio n ). T h e ev id en ce th a t th e Song draws u p o n th e E gyptian love p o e try o f th e late sec o n d m ille n n iu m d e m a n d s a d ate relatively close to th a t p e rio d a n d suggests a tim e w h en Israelite h ig h cu ltu re was o p e n to Egyptian in flu en c e. T h u s, th e evidence converges o n this conclusion: th e b o o k was w ritten d u rin g th e u n ite d m onarchy.

A uthorship T h e s u p e rsc rip t tells us th a t this is th e S ong o f Songs “b e lo n g in g to ” o r “writte n by” o r p e rh a p s “f o r ” o r “d e d ic a te d to ” S o lom on. T h e p re p o sitio n a l p h ra se

Introduction

23

Comment

‫( לשלמה‬lit. “to S o lo m o n ”) is am b ig u o u s (see o n 1:1 fo r fu rth e r discus‫־‬ sion o f th is ). O n e co u ld in te rp re t th e su p e rsc rip t to m ean e ith e r th a t th e b o o k is an o n y m o u s b u t sp o n so re d by S o lo m o n o r th a t it claim s S olom onic a u th o rsh ip fo r th e Song. In e ith e r case it in d icates th a t th e b o o k cam e fro m th e S olom onic p erio d . It was w ritten e ith e r by o r fo r him . (T h e id ea th a t a b o o k w ould be dedicated to a lo n g -d ead m o n a rc h is w ith o u t analogy in th e a n c ie n t o r m o d e rn w orld a n d can b e dism issed.) T raditionally, th e title has always b e e n tak en to m ean th a t S o lo m o n w rote th e S ong o f Songs. O r o n e co u ld h o ld th a t it m ean s th a t the b o o k b elo n g s to a co llectio n ca ta lo g u ed u n d e r S o lo m o n ’s n am e. Few contem p o ra ry scholars take th e su p e rsc rip t o f S ong o f Songs to be evidence o f a d ate in th e u n ite d m onarchy. R ead ers fam iliar w ith re c e n t d eb ates over th e historicity o f th e early m o n arc h y a n d over th e ch ro n o lo g y o f sites such as G ezer a n d H azo r will know th a t th e historicity o f th e D avidic-Solom onic E m pire is a hotly d e b a te d topic. I believe th a t th e biblical p ic tu re o f th e early te n th th ro u g h early n in th ce n tu rie s (2 S am uel‫־־‬l Kgs 11; 1 C h r 11-2 C h r 9) as a cu ltu ra l a n d political hig h w ater m a rk in Isra e l’s h isto ry sh o u ld be ac c e p te d as accurate. W. D ever ( 131-57) has d esc rib ed a samp lin g o f ev id en ce fro m arch aeo lo g y th a t c o rro b o ra te s this perspective (Dever, as h e is a t p ain s to tell us, has n o th eo lo g ical c o m m itm e n t to th e reliability o f th e B ible). A c co rd in g to 1 Kgs 9:15-17, an u n n a m e d p h a ra o h c a p tu re d G ezer from th e C an aan ites, b u rn e d it dow n, a n d gave it to S olom on as a dowry; S olom on th e n u sed th e corvee to re b u ild H azor, M egiddo, a n d Gezer. In th e re ig n o f S o lo m o n ’s successor, R eh o b o am , P h a ra o h S hishak (o r S heshonk) in v a d e d ju d a h a n d to o k away a significant pay m en t o f trib u te (2 C h r 2:1-9; 1 Kgs 14:25). Shishak d estro y ed a n u m b e r o f fo rtress cities in his cam p aign (2 C h r 2:4), a lth o u g h th e Bible d o es n o t specify w hich cities h e sacked. H e also c a m p a ig n ed th ro u g h th e N egev to th e so u th a n d Israel to th e n o rth . A co m m em orative re lie f a n d tex t o f Shishak o n th e walls o f th e tem p le o f A m u n at K arnak lists over 150 cities th a t S hishak claim ed to have destroyed. E xcavation o f H azor, M egiddo, a n d G ezer c o rro b o ra te s th e biblical story a n d sheds a d d itio n a l lig h t o n this p e rio d . Y. Yadin n o tic e d th e sim ilarity o f th e gates a n d casem ate walls o f th ese th re e sites a n d c o n c lu d e d th a t all w ere c o n stru c te d by a co rp s o f en g in e e rs u n d e r S o lo m o n ’s ad m in istratio n . T h e casem ate wall o f G ezer sig n ifican t fo r o u r p u rp o se s was b u ilt above a d e stru c tio n layer a n d d a te d by p o tte ry to th e m id -ten th century. T h e fo u rth entryw ay gate to th e city was “ex cep tio n ally well e n g in e e re d a n d beautifully p re se rv e d ” (Dever, 132). T his level, G ezer S tratu m VIII, was itself destroyed p rio r to th e n in th c e n tu ry (d a te d e te rm in e d ag ain by p o tte ry ). D ever was th u s able to d a te this as th e city th a t was re b u ilt by S o lom on b u t soon afterw ard destroyed by S hishak a n d lo cate it w ithin th e d ates o f ca. 970 to 925. A. M azar com es to sim ilar co n clu sio n s ( , 3 8 0 -9 8 ). D ever adds: “I w ould stress again th a t th e city d efen ses a n d all th e re st are p a r t o f a d ram atic, large-scale process o f o rg an izatio n a n d cen tralizatio n th a t u tterly tran sfo rm ed th e landscape o f m o st o f P alestine in th e p e rio d fro m th e early 10th to early 9th c e n tu ry ” ( 137). D ever also sum m arizes evidence in d icatin g th a t th e tem p le o f S olom on, as d esc rib e d in 1 Kings a n d 1 C hronicles, accu rately reflects tem p le arc h ite c tu re fro m this p e rio d . H e states, “we now have d ire c t B ronze a n d Iro n Age parallels

What Did the Biblical Writers Know?

What Did the

Biblical Writers Know?

Archaeology

Did the Biblical WHters Know?

What

24

Introduction

every single feature

fo r o f th e ‘S o lo m o n ic T e m p le ’ as d esc rib ed in th e H eb rew Bible; a n d th e p arallels com e fro m , a n d only from , th e C an aan ite -P h o en ician w orld o f th e 1 5 th -9 th c e n tu rie s ” ( 145, em p h asis o rig in al). Specific ex am p les o f such p arallels in clu d e th e trip a rtite p la n o f th e tem p le , th e use o f ash lar (m aso n ry o f square-hew n stones) a n d re in fo rc in g w ood beam s, th e use o f two b ro n z e co lu m n s to flan k th e entryway, a n d th e use o f carv ed “c h e ru b s ” (this is only a p a rtia l list). T h e im p o rta n t p o in t is th a t th e bib lic al p ic tu re o f th e S o lo m o n ic e ra as Is ra e l’s day o f g lo ry is n o t fictio n . S o lo m o n a n d his ach iev em en ts w ere real. T his d o es n o t prove th a t th e m an him self w ro te S o n g o f Songs, b u t th e id e a c a n n o t b e d ism issed as a p o ste x ilic fantasy— o r as th e d o g g ed fu n d a m e n ta lism o f a few conservatives. Som e scholars re je c t S olom onic a u th o rs h ip o f th e S ong fo r in te rn a l reasons. M urp h y (3) states, “this tra d itio n a l claim o f S olom onic a u th o rsh ip finds little s u p p o rt in th e w ork itself. S o lo m o n is n o w h e re d esig n ate d a m o n g th e speakers, w ho a re r a th e r an o n y m o u s in d iv id u a ls.” T h is a rg u m e n t im p lies th a t a p o e t sh o u ld always give h im self a p ro m in e n t ro le as a sp eak er in his poem s, a n d even explicitly n a m e h im self in such a role. N o te th a t th e n a m e o f S o lo m o n d o es a p p e a r five o th e r tim es in th e b o o k (S ong 1:5; 3:7, 11; 8:11, 12). L o n g m a n ( 5 7 ‫ )־־‬re p e a ts M u rp h y ’s a r g u m e n t a n d a d d s two o th e rs : th a t S o lo m o n was m orally u n fit to have w ritten S ong o f Songs (after all, S o lo m o n h a d an e n o rm o u s n u m b e r o f w om en, a n d m any o f these w ere fo reig n w om en w ho e n tic e d th e king a n d his k in g d o m in to apostasy) a n d th a t th e su p e rsc rip t to th e S ong is like th e o n e a tta c h e d to P roverbs (Prov 1:1), a b o o k th a t explicitly has various subdivisions a n d m u ltip le a u th o rs (e.g., Prov 30:1; 31:1). A gainst th e n o tio n o f m oral unfitness, o n e sho u ld realize th a t an en o rm o u s a m o u n t o f g re a t lite ratu re o n love a n d even o n virtue, in clu d in g b o th p o e try a n d p h ilo so p h ical o r theological texts, was w ritten by p eo p le whose p erso n al lives d id n o t fully reflect th e hig h ideals th a t th e ir w ords expressed. V irtuous lives a n d virtuous w ords d o n o t always go h a n d in h an d . S olom on was, by th e biblical account, a com p lex m an. Like his father, h e was said to be wise a n d pious, b u t also p ro n e to lechery. H e was d evoted to Israel, b u t h e was also a m ajor figure in th e in tern a tional discourse o f his age a n d was willing to in d u lg e th e religious desires o f his foreign wives (see 1 Kgs 4:29-34; 8:1-66; 10:1-10; 11:1-8). B eyond th at, we are told virtually n o th in g o f S olom on th e m an. We are in n o position to describe his in n e r ru m in atio n s, reflections, o r regrets, a n d we have n o basis for describ in g his m en tal state o r attitu d es a t various stages o f his life (th at is, unless Ecclesiastes is ad m itte d as evidence in this re g ard ). We c a n n o t say th a t “a m an like S o lo m o n ” co u ld n o t have w ritten Song o f Songs because we do n o t know w hat S olom on was like. We are to ld in th e Bible th a t h e was very fo n d o f w riting songs (1 Kgs 4:32). T h e a rg u m e n t from th e su p erscrip t is th a t since Proverbs is ascribed to S olom on b u t is in fact a diverse work, so also th e h e a d in g to Song o f Songs does n o t necessarily m e a n th a t it is a u n ifie d w ork o f S o lo m on alone. O n e can g ra n t th a t a su p ersc rip t is n o t certain p ro o f o f unity a n d o f au th o rsh ip by a single writer. A t th e sam e tim e, S ong o f Songs a n d Proverbs are two entirely d iffe ren t books. P roverbs tells us th a t it has a lo n g “red actio n h isto ry ” (e.g., Prov 25:1); it also has m ark e d divisions a n d subdivisions (e.g., Prov 22:17-19, 20-21) a n d texts stated to have b een w ritten by o th e r p eo p le (Prov 30; 31). S ong o f Songs is a single block o f text. T h e Song has n o dividers like Prov 25:1 at all, a n d certainly n o in te rn a l indica-

What Did the Biblical Writers Know?

Introduction

25

tions o f m u ltip le au th o rsh ip . We can only speak o f it as having m ultiple au th o rs if th e re is specific evidence to th a t effect. S ong 1:1 is m o re like Prov 30:1 o r Ps 8:1 th an it is like Prov 1:1-7, a com plex h e a d in g to a com plex book. In sum m ary, the only in te rn a l in d icatio n we have co n c e rn in g th e p ro v en an ce o f Song o f Songs is at 1:1, w hich states th a t it is “o f S o lo m o n .” If we can prove th a t in reality the Song has a com plex re d actio n history a n d th a t it includes individual songs w ritten by d ifferen t poets, well a n d good, b u t we c a n n o t claim th at th e su p erscrip t som ehow suggests this conclusion. T hus, th e evidence tells us th a t S ong o f Songs was w ritten in S o lo m o n ’s tim e a n d at his co u rt. W h e th e r it was w ritten “by S o lo m o n ” o r “fo r S o lo m o n ” by a c o u rt p o et, we can n ev er know, a n d any a tte m p t to d iscern th e circum stances su rro u n d in g th e co m p o sitio n o f th e S ong is o f necessity speculative. V. Sasson 39 [1989] 4 0 7-14) suggests th a t th e w om an o f th e S ong is P h a ra o h ’s daughter, w hom S olom on m a rrie d (1 Kgs 3:1), b u t this is m ere guesswork. O n linguistic g ro u n d s, Y oung’s suggestion th a t th e Song was by a n o rth e r n p o e t resid in g in S o lo m o n ’s c o u rt c o u ld be co rrec t.

(VT

The Structure and Unity of Song of Songs Bibliography D orsey, D. A. “L ite ra ry S tru c tu rin g in th e S o n g o f Songs. ”J S O T 46 (1990) 8 1 -9 6 . E lliot, Μ. T. L ite ra ry U n ity o f the C anticle. E x u m , J. C. “A L ite ra ry a n d S tru c tu ra l Analysis o f th e S ong o f S o n g s.” Z A W 85 (1973) 4 7 -7 9 . F ox, Μ. V. Son g o f Songs a n d the A n c ie n t E g y p tia n L o ve Songs. G ro b e r, S. F. “T h e H o sp ita l L otus: A C lu ster o f M e ta p h o rs. A n In q u iry in to th e P ro b le m o f T ex tu al U n ity in th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” Sem itics 9 (1984) 8 6 -1 1 2 . M urphy, R. E. “C a n t 2 :8 -1 7 — A U n ifie d P o e m ? ” In M elan ges bibliques et o n e n ta u x en V h o n n e u rd e M . M a th ia s Delcor. Ed. A. C a q u o t. N eukirchen-V luyn: N e u k irc h e n e r V erlag, 1985. 305 -1 0 . ----------. “T h e U n ity o f th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” V T 29 (1979) 4 3 6 -4 3 . S h ea, W. H . “T h e C hiastic S tru c tu re o f th e S ong o f S o n g s.” Z A W 9 2 (1980) 3 7 8 -9 6 . W ebster, E. C. “P a tte rn in th e S ong o f Songs. ”J SOT 22 (1982) 73 -9 3 .

T h e S ong o f Songs, o n a surface re ad in g , is a chaos o f n o n seq u itu rs a n d u n re la te d p o em s ju x ta p o s e d in th e space o f e ig h t ch ap ters. T h e c h a p te r divisions are m eaningless. T h e (‫ ס‬as a p a ra g ra p h m ark er) a p p e ars at various p o in ts in th e S ong (a n d th e re is o n e [‫ ] פ‬at Song 8:10), usually a t obvious breaks in th e text, b u t this is n o h e lp in d e te rm in in g any g u id in g p lan fo r the book. Every in tro d u c tio n to th e S ong says so m e th in g a b o u t th e stru c tu re o f th e book, even if it is only th a t th e S ong is a ra n d o m collection o f love p o em s a n d has n o d iscern ib le s tru c tu re (Keel, 17; P o p e, 4 0 -5 4 ). M ost scholars pro v id e an o u tlin e th a t describes how they believe th e stru c tu re o f th e Song works, b u t a larg e n u m b e r o f th ese have little ju stificatio n o r evidence to sup‫־‬ p o rt th e m a n d a p p e a r to be n o m o re th a n im pressionistic analyses. Even am o n g those w ho believe th a t th e tex t is ju s t an an th o lo g y o f love songs, th e re is n o a g re e m e n t a b o u t how m any songs th e re are. O n K eel’s analysis ( 18), th e re a re forty-two in dividual p o em s in th e Song. M urphy (65-67) has n in e divisions in th e Song. L o n g m an (viii) says th a t th e re are tw enty-three poem s, a n d G o u ld e r ( says th a t th e re are fo u rte e n poem s. T h e p la c e m e n t o f th e p a ra g ra p h m ark ers in th e M T suggests th a t th e re are n in e te e n

sethuma

petucha

Song of Songs,

Song of Songs,

Song of Fourteen Songs)

26

Introduction

poem s. P o p e refuses to divide th e w ork in to in dividual p o em s a t all a n d sim ply co m m e n ts o n ea ch verse in seq u en ce. T h e average re a d e r has n o re a so n to p refe r o n e analysis above a n o th er. In th e discussion th a t follows, I will e n d e a v o r to establish th re e p o in ts, alth o u g h n o t necessarily in th e follow ing o rd er. First, a lth o u g h a co llec tio n o f songs, th e S ong o f Songs is a single p iece w ith a u n ifie d stru c tu re b ase d o n an a rra n g e m e n t o f th irte e n poem s. S eco n d , th e re are analogies fo r this k in d o f o p u s th a t m ay h e lp us to ap p re c ia te th e n a tu re o f S ong o f Songs. T h ird , th e S ong is th e w ork o f a single p o et. A

P lurality of Songs in Song of Songs

T h e diversity o f th e m ateria l o f S ong o f S ongs suggests th a t it is exactly w h at its n a m e im plies: a so n g o f m any songs. T h e n a m e m ay be a k in d o f d o u b le e n te n d re : it is th e fin est o f S o lo m o n ’s songs (in th e superlative sense o f “so n g o f so n g s”) , a n d it is also a single m usical w ork co m p o sed o f m any songs. T h e S ong o f Songs is a co m p o sitio n o f m any in d iv id u al songs th a t have b e e n fa sh io n e d to w ork to g e th e r as a u n ifie d o p u s th a t is th e fin est o f songs. In d iv id u al songs m ay be re co g n ized in a p re lim in a ry fash io n by u n ity o f sub‫־‬ je c t m a tte r as w ell as by s tru c tu ra l unity. F o r e x a m p le , S ong 1 :5 -6 h as th e follow ing song: I am d a rk yet lovely, O d a u g h te rs o f J e ru sa le m , like th e te n ts o f K edar, like th e c u rta in s o f S o lo m o n . D o n o t stare a t m e, th a t I am sw arthy a n d th a t th e su n h as g azed u p o n m e. It was m y m o th e r ’s sons! T h e y b u r n e d w ith a n g e r to w ard m e. T h ey fo rc e d m e to b e a k e e p e r o f th e vineyards, w hile my v ineyard — th e o n e th a t was m in e — I c o u ld n o t k ee p .

N o th in g b e fo re o r a fte r this so n g c o n c e rn s th e w o m an ’s skin co lo r o r h e r re la tio n sh ip w ith h e r b ro th e rs. It is a self-co n tained u n it in th e S ong a n d is m ad e u p o f two stro p h e s m ak in g a to tal o f e ig h t lines (see fo r Song 1 :5 -6 ). T h is d o es n o t m e a n th a t any m a c ro stru c tu ra l fu n c tio n fo r this te x t is im possible, b u t it d o es m ean th a t it, in som e sense, can stan d alone. If th e S ong o f Songs is co m p o sed o f in d iv idual poem s, th e n it is e ith e r an an th o lo g y o f love songs o r a series o f in d iv id u al songs th a t are set w ithin th e stru c tu re o f a u n ifie d book. T h e fo rm e r suggests th a t S ong o f Songs is sim ply a co llec tio n o f various songs by o n e o r several p o ets a n d th a t it has n o co n tro llin g stru c tu re , th e m e , o r c o h e re n c e b e y o n d th e g e n e ra l topic o f m ale-fem ale love. T h e la tte r re q u ire s a single p o e t o r e d ito r a n d suggests th a t all th e songs are woven in to a single opus. T h u s, th e re a re actually th re e issues o n e m u st re ck o n w ith h ere. First, is th e S ong sim ply a d isp ara te co llectio n o f love p o etry, o r does it have som e k in d o f lite ra ry u n ity a n d co h e re n c e ? S eco n d , if it is a unity, d oes it have a g o v ern in g m a cro stru c tu re ? T h ird , is S ong o f Songs by o n e p o e t o r m any poets? A lth o u g h o n e c o u ld re g a rd th e issue o f a u th o rs h ip a n d th e issue o f s tru c tu re to be u n re -

Form/Structure/Setting

Introduction

27

lated, th e q u estio n o f how m any p o ets are b e h in d th e Song inevitably com es up in discussions o f its u n ity o r lack th ereo f. T ry in g to answ er these th re e questio n s, o n e can easily m ix a n d m atch options. T h e S ong c o u ld have n o u n ity w hatsoever a n d be a loose co llection o f w orks by various p o ets (G ordis, 16—18; W hite, 163). Or, it co u ld be an a n th o lo g y o f p o em s with th em atic u n ity a n d som e in te rre la te d texts b u t m in im al stru c tu re . M urphy (64-67) sees a loose a rra n g e m e n t o f th e Song in to seq u e n tia l sections based o n th e c o n c e p t o f d ialo g u e b u t leaves th e questio n o f a u th o rs h ip o p en ; G ledhill ( , 37-39) arg u es th a t it has a m e a n d e rin g style b u t is a rra n g e d in six “cycles”; L o n g m an (55) says th e re are “c e n trip e ta l a n d c e n trifu g a l” forces in th e Song b u t n o m a c ro stru c tu re . O n this view, th e b o o k is m o re o r less an an th o lo g y th a t deals w ith th e single th e m e o f sexual love b etw een a m an a n d a w om an. F o r m any scholars, this suggests th a t it is by a m u ltitu d e o f p o ets b u t th a t som e o rd e r a n d th em atic unity have b ee n im p o sed o n it by a re d a c to r (L o n g m an , 55 n. 161; Keel, 17). O n e co u ld suggest th a t it is fro m o n e p o e t b u t is an an th o lo g y having basic th em atic unity b u t lacking stru c tu re . Or, S ong o f Songs c o u ld be a co llectio n by a single p o e t w ith th em atic unity a n d g o v ern ed by a la rg e r stru ctu re . S o m eo n e m ig h t arg u e th a t it has b o th u nity a n d s tru c tu re b u t th a t th e u n ified stru c tu re is redactional; this, I shall arg u e below, is m o st unlikely.

Study of the Language,

Message of the Song

Song of Songs,

T he U nity of the Song T h e S ong o f Songs has u n ity o f style. M urphy does n o t insist th a t it is the w ork o f a single p o et, b u t h e does stress th a t m arks o f unity are ev id en t (see M urphy, 29 [1979] 436-43, a n d also his “C an t 2:8-17— A U n ified P o em ?” 310, w h ere h e u rg e s th a t th e S ong c a n n o t seriously be called “a m e re anthology, a co llectio n o f d isp ara te p o e m s”). Fox 202-22) has d e m o n stra te d th a t th e S ong co n tain s stro n g signs o f unity. V arious arg u m e n ts ag ain st th e unity o f th e S ong (fo r ex am p le, th a t it has a variety o f life-settings a n d g eo g rap h ical referen ces, th a t it co n tain s d o u b lets, th a t th e Egyptian songs su p p o rt th e anthology view) all fail (Fox, 20 3 -4 ) . R eg ard in g th e g eo g rap h ical diversity 'o f th e Song, fo r ex am p le, Fox co m m en ts, “By th e sam e a rg u m e n t we m ig h t say th a t th e b o o k o f J o n a h was w ritten p artly in N ineveh, partly in Jaffa, a n d partly a t se a ” (203). Fox fu r th e r observes th a t th e re p e te n d s, associative seq u en ces, c h a ra c te r p o rtrayal, a n d n arrativ e fram e all suggest th a t th e p o em is a unity (2 0 9 -1 8 ). An associative seq u e n ce occurs w hen w ords or m otifs a p p e a r in th e sam e ord e r even th o u g h c o n te x t does n o t d e m a n d this o rder. A g o o d ex am p le o f this is S ong 8 :2 -5 c o m p a re d to 2 :6 -7 a n d 3:4b-6a. T h e c o m m o n seq u en ce fo u n d in all th re e texts in d icates stro n g stylistic unity. A g o o d ex am p le o f n arrativ e fram e is 8:6-7, w h ere th e S ong is by all ap p e a ra n c e s co m in g to a conclusion. T h ese verses d o n o t fit well anyw here else in th e Song. T h e c h a ra c te r p o rtray al o f th e S ong is certain ly u n ified . M ost in te rp re te rs today ag ree th a t th e S ong has th re e identifiable sin g in g p arts— a m ale solo, a fem ale solo, a n d a fem ale ch o ru s. E ach p a rt is co n sisten t th ro u g h all o f S ong o f Songs. O n e n ev er gets th e sense th a t th e fem ale solo in o n e son g a n d th e fem ale solo in a n o th e r song are two d iffe re n t p eo p le. Even c o m m en tarie s th a t take th e an th o lo g y view ro u tin ely speak o f “the

VT

(Song of Songs,

Song of Songs,

28

Introduction

w o m a n ” o f th e S ong as a single c h a ra c te r w ho ap p e a rs th ro u g h o u t th e collection. Μ. T. E lliot arg u es th a t th e follow ing m ark ers in d ic a te th e u n ity o f th e Song. (T his is a sam ple o f th e ev id ence she has am assed in o rd e r to illu stra te th e p o in ts she m akes; I a d d a few c o m m en ts o f my own afte r p ag e citations.)

(Literary Unity)

1. T h e se ttin g o f th e S ong, th r o u g h o u t th e b o o k , is sp rin g tim e . O n e ca n c o m p a re S o n g 2:1 0 -1 3 to 7 :1 2 -1 4 (E T 7 :1 1 -1 3 ) to see th is p ersp e ctiv e at e ith e r e n d o f th e b o o k (L ite ra ry U nity, 237). 2. T h e focus o f th e S ong is o n th e w o m an th r o u g h o u t (L ite ra ry U nity, 2 3 7 -3 8 ). T h is is n o t always th e case in a n c ie n t N e a r E a ste rn love p o etry . 3. T h e th e m e o f th e S o n g is love (‫ )אהבה‬th r o u g h o u t (L ite ra ry U nity, 240). T h is m ay seem a trite o b se rv a tio n , b u t th e fact th a t it is obvious d o e s n o t m ak e it u n im p o rtan t. If o n e am asses all th e E gyptian “lo v e” po etry , o n e discovers a variety o f th e m es. T h e N a k h tso b e k S ongs are really a b o u t a m o ra l fall a n d an ob sessio n , n o t love in th e sense th a t th e te rm is u se d in th e S ong. 4. D ialo g u e is a stylistic device. T h ro u g h o u t all o f th e S ong, th e w ords c o m e fro m th e in d iv id u als w ith in th e S o n g a n d n o t fro m a n e x te rn a l, th ird -p e rso n n a rra to r-p o e t (L ite ra ry U nity, 240). 5. S im ilar im ages a n d m otifs o c c u r th ro u g h o u t th e S ong. F o r ex a m p le , th e re a re th e kiss (S o n g 1:2; 4:10; 8:1), fra g ra n c e (S o n g 1:3, 12-14; 2:13; 3:6; 4:6; 4 :1 0 -5 :1 ), a n d th e lily o r lo tu s (S ong 2 :1 -2 , 16; 4:5; 5:13; 7:3). W h e n th e d is trib u tio n o f all th e im ages is c h a rte d o u t (as E lliot h as d o n e ), a c o m p e llin g case fo r th e u n ity o f th e te x t em e rg e s (L ite ra ry U nity, 2 4 1 -4 6 ). 6. A “m irro rin g d y n a m ic ” is e m p lo y e d th r o u g h o u t th e S ong, in w h ich so m e q u ality is a ttrib u te d first to o n e lover a n d th e n to th e o th e r (L ite ra ry U nity, 2 4 6 -5 1 ). F o r exam p le, eyes are like doves in S o n g 1:15 (o f w o m an ) a n d 5:12 (o f m a n ), a n d love is b e tte r th a n w ine o r fra g ra n c e s in S o n g 1:2 (o f m a n ) a n d 4:10 (o f w o m a n ). 7. L a n g u a g e a b o u t th e w o m an fre q u e n tly em p lo y s an e n c lo s u re te c h n iq u e w h e n view ed across th e w h o le Song. F o r ex a m p le , in S o n g 1:4 th e w o m an is ta k e n to th e c h a m b e r (‫ ) חד ר‬o f h e r b elo v ed a n d in 2:4 sh e is ta k e n to th e h o u se (‫ )בי ת‬o f w ine, b u t in 3:4 a n d 8:2 sh e w ants to tak e h e r b elo v ed to th e ‫ חדר‬a n d ‫ בית‬o f h e r m o th e r (L ite ra ry U nity, 2 5 1 -5 2 ). 8. C h a ra c te riz a tio n is co n siste n t th ro u g h o u t th e S o n g (L ite ra ry U nity, 2 5 2 -5 3 ). 9. T h e sam e e p ith e ts a re u se d by a n d fo r th e lovers th r o u g h o u t th e Song. E x am p les are ‫ דו די‬, “my lo v e,” as a s o b riq u e t fo r th e m a n a n d ‫רעיתי‬, “m y c o m p a n io n ,” as a so b riq u e t fo r th e w om an. See L ite ra ry Unity, 2 5 3 -5 6 , fo r a c o m p le te survey o f th e u sage a n d d istrib u tio n o f th e se ep ith e ts. 10. L ike Fox, E llio t sees associative se q u e n c e s in th e S ong. E x am p les are se en in com p a rin g S o n g 1:15 to 4:1 a n d 2 :1 6 -1 7 to 4 :5 -6 (L ite ra ry U nity, 2 5 6 -5 8 ). 11. Finally, E lliot suggests th a t th e r e p e a te d lin es a t S o n g 2:6 a n d 8:3 a n d a t 2:7; 3:5; a n d 8:4 have a m a c ro stru c tu ra l fu n c tio n (L ite ra ry U nity, 2 5 8 -6 0 ).

A lth o u g h o n e m ig h t d iffer a t this o r th a t p o in t, th e evidence E lliot p re se n ts is m assive a n d objectively verifiable to prove h e r conclusion: “A p o etic analysis o f th e te x t o f th e C anticle disclosed eleven m a jo r elem e n ts o f style w hich p erv a d e th e w ork, unify it, a n d strongly arg u e in favor o f a single p o e t” 260). S. G ro b e r ( 9 [1984] 8 6 -1 1 2 ), m oreover, has show n th a t th e m e ta p h o r o f th e lo tu s /lily (‫ )שושנה‬fu n c tio n s co h e re n tly th ro u g h th e Song. H is analysis, like

(Literary Unity,

Semitics

Introduction

29

F o x ’s a n d E llio t’s, suggests th a t im ages a n d m e ta p h o rs in th e S ong are consisten t, th a t th e tex t has a circ u lar m odality, a n d th a t th e re are “co n flu en ces o f im ages . . . in w hich th e sam e e lem e n ts re ‫־‬a p p e a r,” lead in g to th e co n clu sio n th a t this is “a u n ifie d text, th e w ork o f a single p o e t” ( 9 [1984] 108). T h e n o tio n th a t these are p o em s by d iffe re n t p o ets ra n d o m ly b ro u g h t tog e th e r w ith n o th em atic u n ity w hatsoever can be su b stan tiated only if o n e can p o in t o u t sig n ifican t stylistic in co m p atib ilities in th e Song. Fox ( 205) gives a list o f signs o f disunity o n e m ig h t ex p e ct to fin d in such a text. Tested by these stan d ard s, th e S ong o f Songs is a u n ified piece.

Semitics

Song of Songs,

A

R edacted C ollection by M ultiple P oets ?

Biblical scholars speak o f m u ltip le a u th o rs a n d o f re d acto rs even w here th ere is n o re a so n a t all to th in k th a t a w ork is th e p ro d u c t o f m o re th a n o n e m ind. T h e id e a th a t p o em s o f d isp ara te p o ets have b e e n re d a c te d in to a loosely unifled w ork is especially a rb itra ry fo r S ong o f Songs. P oets w rite in a distinctive idiom . It is g ra tu ito u s to suggest th a t th e S ong o f Songs has m any p o ets b e h in d it w ho all h a p p e n e d to w rite th e sam e k in d o f m aterial u sing th e sam e lan g u ag e a n d m etap h o rs. A re d a c to r is equally unlikely. W hy w ould th e re d a c to r take m any d iffe re n t p o em s a n d rew rite th e m in th e sam e style? W ould th a t n o t m ake him a p o e t w ho b o rro w e d ideas fro m e a rlie r poets? T h e Song is n o t a massive work; it is n o t in co n ceiv ab le th a t o n e p e rso n co u ld have w ritten it all. N o o n e has dem o n stra te d th a t any single p o e m has a style o r vo cabulary th a t sets it a p a rt from th e rest o f th e book. Keel 17) suggests th a t re p e titio n in th e Psalter a n d in P roverbs shows th a t p o ets co u ld b o rro w fro m each other. T h a t p o in t is a given fo r th e a n c ie n t w orld, b u t th e analogy is m isleading. Proverbs is a collectio n o f in d iv id u a l sayings, a n d som e re p e titio n a m o n g th e sayings is to be ex p ected . B u t it d o es n o t follow th a t th e re p e titio n itself is an in d ic a to r o f plurality o f au th o rs; o th erw ise, a single a u th o r co u ld n ev er re p e a t him self! T h e P salter is a co llectio n o f individual songs th a t are by d iffe re n t p o ets co m p o sin g songs in diverse p erio d s o f th e ir lives a n d in d iffe re n t eras in th e h isto ry o f Israel. S om e psalm s are very similar, a n d som e are very dissim ilar. B ut th e S ong o f Songs is a 'u n ifie d book. N e ith e r style n o r c o n te n t gives re aso n to po sit m u ltip le a u th o rsh ip . In c o m p ariso n to th e Psalm s, w h ere re p e titio n is a m a tte r o f stock m e ta p h o rs a n d fo rm u laic expressions (o r full-scale b o rro w in g ), th e re p e te n d s a n d associative seq u e n ces in th e S ong are d iffe ren t. In th e Song, th e re p e te n d s are refrain s; this is n o t th e case in th e Psalter. T h e P salter is a o f songs a n d n o t a u n ifie d o f Songs. Fox 2 22-24) suggests th a t th e S ong u n d e rw e n t p rio r to e n te rin g th e c a n o n in its p re s e n t fo rm . T his is a process w hereby an o riginal p o e t com p o ses a p iece a n d su b se q u e n t g e n e ra tio n s o f p o ets o r tro u b a d o u rs rep e a t th e w ork th ro u g h th e years, m odifying its o rd er, w ording, a n d so fo rth . Fox adm its th a t we c a n n o t know if this h a p p e n e d in th e case o f Song o f Songs; the versions closely follow th e M T a n d d o n o t attest to such a process. T h e th e o ry is n o t like co n v e n tio n a l re d a c tio n th eo ries; it p re su p p o ses an o rig in al a u th o r b u t also suggests th a t w h at we now have is th e version o f som e o th e r single p o e t o r singer. As such, this a p p ro a c h is p u rely h y p o th etical a n d has n o h eu ristic value.

(Song of Songs,

Song (Song of Songs,

collection Zersingen

30

Introduction

A U nified Anthology but w ithout Structure ? S om e sch o lars a rg u e th a t th e S ong o f Songs has som e k in d o f lite ra ry u nity b u t little o r n o s tru c tu re (e.g., L o n g m an , 5 5 -5 6 ). A rg u m en ts ag ain st a m acros tru c tu re fo r th e S o n g a re n a tu ra lly n eg a tiv e in n a tu re : th ey asse rt th a t n o a rg u m e n t in favor o f a m a c ro stru c tu re works a n d th a t th e various p ro p o s e d m acre s tru c tu re s d o n o t ag ree w ith each o th e r a n d th e re fo re cancel each o th e r out. Saying th a t th e re is n o m a c ro stru c tu re is a b it like cu ttin g th e G o rd ia n kn o t; it d o es n o t solve a n y th in g b u t only claim s th a t th e search fo r stru c tu re in th e S ong is futile. O n e is left w ith a b o o k w ith som e th em atic co h esio n a n d linguistic u n ity b u t n o s tru c tu re . B u t this view d o es have p ro b lem s o f its own. S cholars w ho call th e S ong an an th o lo g y g en erally d o so w ith o u t b o th e rin g to co m p are th e S ong to re al antholo g ies, w h ich are n o t a t all like S ong o f Songs. T h e G reek A n th o lo g y was c re a te d by M eleag er (first c e n tu ry B.C.E.), w ho co llected th e ep ig ram s o f som e fifty p o e ts in to his o r g a rla n d o f flowers. An an th o lo g y is th u s also called a o r flow er collection. P oetic a n th o lo g ies have re m a in e d p o p u lar th ro u g h th e ce n tu ries. In classical texts, we have co llections o f o d es (P in d ar‫״‬ O vid). We also have s o n n e t collections (such as S h ak esp e are’s so n n ets). M ore recently, we have m an y p u b licatio n s o f an th o lo g ies by o n e o r m any poets. M ost an th o lo g ie s are ra n d o m co llectio n s w ith n e ith e r u n ity n o r stru c tu re , a lth o u g h th e re a re c o lle c tio n s o f p o e m s by a sin g le p o e t th a t are fo rm a lly th e sam e (S h a k e sp e a re ’s so n n ets) o r follow a co m m o n th e m e by E dg ar L ee M asters). Even w hen th e p o em s in an anthology are o f th e sam e g en re, such as a c o llec tio n o f n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry A frican-A m erican sp irituals o r th e p o e try o f th e “b e a t” g e n e ra tio n , o n e sees a m u ch w ider variety o f styles, o f types o f m etap h o r, o f subject m atter, a n d o f th em es th an o n e sees in th e S ong o f Songs. P apyrus H a rris 500 is a tru e anth o lo g y o f Egyptian love songs; th e th ree gro u p s o f songs d o n o t relate to o n e a n o th e r in any way ex cep t th a t they are all in th e sam e g en re. T aken together, they have n e ith e r unity n o r stru ctu re b u t d o have a co m m o n subject m a tte r a n d a co m m o n p oetic tro p e (th at e ith e r th e m ale o r th e fem ale sings o f his o r h e r love for th e o th e r). T h ere is n o reaso n to suppose, fo r exam ple, th a t all these songs co n c ern o n e co u p le (cf. Fox, 16). T hese songs have n o closure, unity o f character, o r associative sequence. By contrast, th e S ong has stro n g unity o f ch a ra c te r portrayal, closure, co h e ren c e, a n d associative sequences. In short, if o n e actually co m p ares S ong o f Songs to real anthologies, th e d ifferen ces betw een th e Song a n d th e an th o logies are obvious a n d significant. T h is c o m m e n ta ry will arg u e th a t th e re is a m ac ro stru c tu re . I c o n te n d th a t Song o f Songs is a chiasm us a n d th a t th e S ong has 4:16-5:1 as its c e n te r o r pivot p o in t. A t th a t text, th e c o n su m m a tio n o f th e w ed d in g o f th e m an a n d w om an, th e ir first sexual u n io n , occurs.

florilegium,

Stephanos,

(Spoon River Anthology

Song ofSongs,

A

C h ia stic S t r u c t u r e fo r S o n g o f S o n g s

(ZAW

Several sch o lars have su g g ested th a t th e S ong is chiastic. E x u m 85 [1973] 4 7 -7 9 ) a rg u e d fo r a chiastic s tru c tu re th a t m any review ers a p p re c ia te d b u t th a t few fully ac cep ted . Less successful w ere th e chiastic stru c tu re s su g g ested by S h ea [1980] 37 8 -9 6 ) a n d W ebster [1982] 7 3 -9 3 ). B oth

(ZAW92

(JSOT 22

Introduction

31

scholars discovered chiastic elem en ts, b u t b o th a ttem p ts b ro k e dow n o n careful ex am in a tio n . I p u b lish e d a chiastic analysis o f th e Song suggested by th e late R. A lden (G a rre tt, 376). A ld e n ’s analysis d o es a g o o d jo b o f show ing th a t m any w ords a n d p h ra ses are d istrib u te d in th e Song in a chiastic m an n er, b u t h e does n o t d e m o n stra te a full chiastic s tru c tu re fo r th e book. T h e re are a n u m b e r o f gaps in his analysis, a n d h e focuses o n individual w ords ra th e r th a n o n p o em s o r stanzas. D. D orsey 46 [1990] 8 1 -9 6 ) suggests th a t n u m e ro u s elem e n ts in th e Song are chiastically a rra n g e d , a lth o u g h a w eak p o in t in his p re se n ta tio n is th a t h e has th e five verses o f S ong 3:1-5 set in parallel to all o f 5:2-7:11 (ET 7:10), w ith th e b u lk o f th e la tte r section having n o parallel in th e fo rm e r section. P ro p o se d chiastic stru c tu re s have so fa r c o n tra d ic te d each o th e r a n d b reak dow n at som e p o in t o r o th er. B ut o n o n e p o in t they agree. In E x u m ’s analysis, S ong 4:12-5:1, th e g ard en m etap h o r, is th e clim ax o f th e w hole p o em . T his is hardly su rp risin g since it is h e re th a t th e m a n a n d w om an c o n su m m ate th e ir relatio n sh ip . E xum begins by suggesting th a t 2:7-3:5 p arallels 5 : 2 6 : 3 ‫־־‬. In a d d itio n , she suggests th a t 3:6-5:1 parallels 6:4-8:3. S hea a n d A lden w ere even m o re explicit a b o u t this p o in t, structu rin g th e ir e n tire chiastic o u tlin e s a r o u n d 4:16-5:1. S h ea suggests th a t th e chiastic u n its are l:2 -2 :2 w ith 8:6-14; 2:3-17 w ith 7:11 (ET 7:10)-8:5; a n d 3 :1 4:16 w ith 5:1-7:10. A ld e n ’s chiastic analysis is n o t b u ilt a ro u n d co m p lete texts b u t is b ased o n re p e a te d w ords a n d phrases. F o r exam ple, Song l : l - 4 a has “take m e away,” a n d 8:14 has “com e away”; 1:5-7 a n d 8:10-12 b o th have “my own viney ard ”; 3:1-5 a n d 5 :2 -9 b o th have “th e w atch m en fo u n d m e .” A t th e c e n te r o f his chiasm us is “in to his g a r d e n ” a t 4:16 a n d “in to my g a rd e n ” a t 5:1a (G arrett, 376). D orsey 46 [1990] 94) also describes 4:16-5:1 as th e “d ram atic clim ax” o f th e Song. By m y lin e c o u n t, th e re are fo u r h u n d re d lines o f p o e try in th e Song, an d 4:16 b eg in s a t lin e 200. T h u s, a lth o u g h n o p ro p o se d chiasm us 44w orks” perfectly, it is w o rth n o tin g th a t n e a r th e c e n te r o f th e p o em a d ram atic sexual u n io n occurs b etw een th e m a n a n d th e w om an a n d th a t n u m e ro u s elem en ts are rep e a te d o n e ith e r side o f th e ev en t in chiastic seq uence. B iblical scholars o ften have an overly m ath em atical n o tio n o f how a literary chiasm us works; th a t is, they d e m a n d p e rfe c t symmetry. C hiastic p e rfe c tio n is ra re u n less th e te x t is q u ite sm all. P erh a p s th o se w ho see chiastic stru ctu re s are guilty o f try in g to m ake th e m p erfec t, w ith th e re su lt th a t they force th e data. Reviewers, likewise, suggest th a t an e n tire p ro p o sal has b e e n in v alid ated w hen so m eth in g is show n to be asym m etrical. T h is is m isguided. F or exam ple, I suggest th a t J o n a h 2 is an asym m etrical chiastic p o em (G arrett, 3 0 6 -7 ). T h e asym m etry is p re s e n t b ecau se th e p o e t devotes ex tra lines to describin g th e d ro w n in g ex p e rien ce ; this m akes fo r a m o re d ram atic p o em , b u t th e chiasm us is still fu n c tio n a l. In th e Song, ev idence at m any levels suggests th a t 4:16-5:1 is th e c e n te r o f th e work. T h e S ong rep eats o r loosely ech o es m any w ords, im ages, a n d lines, a n d m u c h o f this, th o u g h n o t all, is chiastically cente re d o n 4:16-5:1. T h is asym m etry is n o t an im p e rfe c tio n ; it p o in ts o u t th e com plexity a n d so p h isticatio n o f th e work. A p o etic o p u s in w hich everything, from th e in d iv id u al p o em s, to th e stanzas, to th e im ages a n d individual w ords, fu n c tio n e d as p a r t o f o n e perfectly sym m etrical chiasm us m ig h t be im pressive to biblical scholars, b u t it w ould be p o o r poetry. I suggest th a t th e Song o f Songs is a u n ified w ork with chiastic stru ctu re a n d is com p o sed o f th irte e n individual songs, o r for p resen tatio n by a m ale a n d a

(JSOT

(JSOT

Modern Grammar,

cantos,

32

Introduction

fem ale soloist w ith a chorus. W hen re fe rrin g to th e p arts o f th e Song, I speak o f a “so p ra n o ” fo r th e w o m an ’s p art, a “te n o r” fo r th e m a n ’s p art, a n d a “c h o ru s ” for th e girls o f Jeru sa lem . I fin d this m o re pleasing th an “m a n ” a n d “w o m an ,” b u t it also m akes th e p o in t th a t these are p arts in a song, n o t parts in a dram a. E ach can to is m a rk e d with ro m a n n u m era ls a n d has o n e o r m o re , these b ein g th e m ajo r divisions o f each canto. T hus, ca n to I (1:2-4) has th re e stanzas. I also divide each ca n to in to T h e te rm h ere is basically synonym ous with th e trad itio n al te rm b u t m y stro p h es are n o t always th e sam e len g th as th e n u m b e re d verses o f th e MT. T hus, in th e MT, Song 1:2-4 has th ree biblical b u t o n my re ck o n in g it has seven S trophes are n u m b e re d consecutively w ith arab ic n u m erals. E ach stro p h e is also b ro k e n dow n in to in d ividual lines m ark e d w ith u p p ercase ro m a n letters; thus, “6B” in canto I is stro p h e 6, line B. C h ap ters a n d verses are d esig n ated in th e trad itio n al m a n n e r (e.g., 3:2). If I atte m p t to d em o n strate som e stru ctu ral p a tte rn in a stro p h e o r stanza, in o rd e r to avoid con fu sio n w ith o th e r symbols I use G reek letters to dem arcate th e stru ctu re (see th e discussion o f S ong 1:2-3, fo r an ex am p le). See figure 1 for a d iag ram o f th e chiastic stru c tu re o f th e th irte e n cantos. T his analysis shows re p e titio n , allusion to p rio r texts, a n d som etim es co n tra st w ith p rio r texts in th e p aire d songs.

stanzas

strophes. verse,

strophe

strophes.

verses,

S u p e rsc rip t (1:1) A I. C h o ru s a n d so p ra n o : th e e n tra n c e (1 :2 -4 ) B II. S o p ra n o : th e v irg in ’s e d u c a tio n I (1 :5 -6 ) C III. S o p ra n o a n d ch o ru s: fin d in g th e b elo v ed (1 :7 -8 ) D IV. T enor, ch o ru s, a n d so p ran o : th e first so n g o f m u tu a l love (1:9-2:7) E V. S o p ra n o a n d te n o r: th e in v itatio n to d e p a rt (2 :8 -1 7 ) F VI. T h re e w ed d in g -n ig h t songs (3 :1 -5 ; 3:6-11; 4 :1 -1 5 ) Fa a. S o p ra n o : th e b r id e ’s an x iety (3 :1 -5 ) Fb b. C h o ru s: th e b rid e co m es to th e g ro o m (3 :6 -1 1 ) Fc c. T en o r: th e flawless b rid e I (4 :1 -1 5 ) G VII. S oprano, tenor, a n d chorus: th e co n su m m a tio n (4:16-5:1) F' VIII. T h re e w ed d in g -n ig h t songs (5 :2 -1 6 ; 6:1 -3 ; 6 :4 -1 0 ) Fa' a. S o p ra n o , te n o r, a n d ch o ru s: th e b r id e ’s p a in (5 :2 -8 ) Fb' b. C h o ru s a n d so p ran o : th e b rid e recovers th e g ro o m (5:9-6:3) F c' c. T e n o r a n d c h o ru s: th e flawless b rid e II (6 :4 -1 0 ) E' IX. S o p ra n o , c h o ru s, a n d te n o r: leav in g g irlh o o d b e h in d (6 :1 1 7:1 [ET 6:13]) D' X. T e n o r a n d so p ran o : th e se co n d so n g o f m u tu a l love (7:2 [ET 7:1 ]-8 :4 ) C' XI. C h o ru s a n d so p ra n o : claim in g th e b e lo v e d (8 :5 -7 ) B' X II. C h o ru s a n d so p ra n o : th e v irg in ’s e d u c a tio n II (8 :8 -1 2 ) A ' X III. T enor, c h o ru s, a n d so p ra n o : th e farew ell (8 :1 3 -1 4 )

Fig. 1. Chiastic structure o f Song o f Songs

C an to I (1 :2 -4 ) focuses o n a n d glorifies th e m an , w hile ca n to X III (8:13-14) laud s th e “lady w ho in h ab its th e g a r d e n .” C an to I co m p ares th e m a n ’s love to w ine a n d p e rfu m e s, w hile c a n to X III co m p ares th e w o m an ’s b reasts to “m o u n tains o f b alsam .” In S ong 1:4, th e w om an sings, “Take m e w ith you! L et us r u n ! ” a n d in 8:14 she says, “H a ste n away, m y lo v er!” B o th ca n to II (1:5-6) a n d c a n to X II (8:8-12) c o n c e rn th e q u estio n o f th e tre a tm e n t o f th e “little siste r” in th e family. In ca n to II, th e w om an p ro tests th a t

Introduction

33

she is d a rk b ecau se h e r b ro th e rs m ad e h e r w ork u n d e r th e sun, a n d in ca n to XII th e c h o ru s sings, “We have a sister, a little girl / (she has n o b re a sts). / W hat shall we d o fo r o u r sister / o n th e day th a t she is en g a g ed ?” In a d d itio n , in S ong 1:6 she co m p lain s th a t she was fo rced to te n d vineyards th a t w ere n o t hers, while in 8:12 she celeb rates th a t a lth o u g h S olo m o n has his th o u san d , h e r own vineyard is h ers to k eep a n d ten d . C anto III (1:7-8) begins w ith th e w om an asking a series o f q u estions a n d wantin g to know w h ere h e r lover is (“W h ere d o you graze your flocks? / W h ere do you re st th e m a t n o o n ? ”); th e c h o ru s answ ers h e r (see for 1:7-8), a n d they suggest th a t she m u st go o u t am o n g th e sh e p h e rd s a n d fin d him . C an to XI (8:5-7) begins w ith th e c h o ru s asking a b o u t th e w om an, “W ho is this / co m in g u p fro m th e w ilderness, / le a n in g o n h e r lover?” T h a t is, th e ir q u estio n in c a n to XI co n trasts w ith h ers in ca n to III, a n d th e two songs to g e th e r in d icate th a t she has g o n e o u t a n d fo u n d h e r lover in th e “w ild ern ess” (8:5), “in th e tracks o f th e flocks” (1:8). Also, a t Song 1:7 th e w om an expresses co n c e rn a b o u t b e in g a r o u n d o th e r m en ; she is ill at ease if n o t frig h te n e d a b o u t b ein g a ro u n d th em . A t S ong 8:6 she sees h e rse lf as b o u n d to h e r m an: “Set m e like a seal u p o n y o u r h e a rt, / like a seal u p o n y our arm . / F or love is strong, like d eath . / Jealo u sy is severe, like th e g rav e.” In b o th songs, th e c o n c e rn o f th e w om an is th a t she a n d h e r lover exclusively b elo n g to each oth er, b u t in can to III she is seeking h im a n d u n c o m fo rta b le a r o u n d m en , w hereas in c a n to XI she is leanin g o n h im a n d claim s his exclusive devotion. C an to IV (1:9-2:7) a n d ca n to X (7:2 [ET 7:1 ]-8 :4 ) b o th have th e m an an d w om an fulsom ely ex p ressin g th e ir love a n d d esire fo r each other. C anto IV begins w ith a d e c la ra tio n th a t th e w om an is a stu n n in g beau ty in all h e r jew elry (see fo r 1:9-2:7); Song 1:10 even adds th a t they (th e chorus) will m ak e m o re jew elry fo r her. C an to X begins w ith p raise fo r th e w o m a n ’s ap p a re n tly n a k e d body, b u t it o p e n s by stating, “T h e curves o f y o u r hips are like rings, / th e w ork o f an artist!” T h u s, h e r “jew e lry ” in can to X is h e r body itself. T h e two songs co n c lu d e w ith two n early id en tical strophes. First, th e w om an asserts th a t th e m a n h o ld s h e r in his arm s: “H is left h a n d is u n d e r my h e a d / a n d his rig h t h a n d em b races m e ” (2:6; 8:3). S econd, th e w om an ad ju res th e girls, “I calf o n you to swear, d a u g h te rs o f J e ru sa lem , / th a t you will n o t arouse o r aw aken / th e passions o f love u n til they are re ad y ” (8:4; th e a d ju ra tio n in 2:7 is slightly lo n g e r). B etw een th ese sim ilar in tro d u c tio n s a n d conclusions, b o th songs have th e m a n a n d w om an e x c h an g in g w ords o f love. F o r exam ple, in Song 2:3 th e w o m an sings, “Like an ap p le tree am o n g th e trees o f th e w oods, / so is my lover am o n g th e y o u n g m en . / In his sh ad e I take p leasu re a n d sit, / a n d his fru it is sw eet in m y m o u th .” In S ong 7:8-9 (ET 7 :7 -8 ), th e m an sings, “T his is w h at yo u r full physique is like: a p alm tree. / A n d y o u r breasts are its clusters. / I said, T will clim b th e p alm tree, / I will h o ld its p anicles o f dates, / th a t your breasts m ay be like th e clusters o f g rap es / a n d th e frag ran c e o f y o u r n ip p le like a p p les.’” T h e two songs d o n o t use th e sam e m e ta p h o rs th ro u g h o u t, a n d th e re are diffe ren c es betw een th em , b u t b o th essentially focus o n m u tu al love. C an to V (2:8-17) a n d ca n to IX (6:11-7:1 [ET 6:13]) b o th have as th e ir central th e m e th e d e p a rtu re o f th e w om an fro m th e life o f th e single girl a t hom e. C anto V begins w ith th e w om an p ro c la im in g th e arrival o f h e r m an , w ho is like a gazelle b o u n d in g across th e hills. T h e m an th e n calls o n h e r to com e away with him fro m h e r d o m estic w orld; his in v itatio n focuses o n th e arrival o f sp rin g

Form/Structure/Setting

Form/Structure/Setting

34

Introduction

(2:12-13): “The flowers appear in the land, / the time of pruning arrives, / the sound of the dove is heard in our land! / The fig tree ripens its figs, / and the vines from blossoms give their fragrance.” Canto IX opens with the woman sing­ ing (6:11-12), “I came down to the nut grove / to see the young plants by the river, / to see if the vines were budding, / the pomegranates blooming.” The heart of canto V is Song 2:13b: “Arise! Come, my companion, my beautiful one! / Come along!” The dramatic outcry of canto IX is Song 7:1 (ET 6:13): “Come back, come back, O Shulammite! / Come back, come back, that we may gaze on you!” In addition, the difficult Hebrew of Song 6:12 also seems to allude to the departure of the woman. I have rendered it, “I do not know my own soul, / It has set me among the chariots of Ammi-nadiv!” (see Comment on 6:12). Thus, in canto V the man calls her to come away with him, and in canto IX the girls wish she would come back. Canto VIa (3:1-5) and canto Villa (5:2-8) are the most obviously related pieces in Song of Songs. Both describe surreal accounts of the woman seeking her beloved in the streets. Song 3:2b-3 reads, “‘I will seek whom my soul loves.’ / I seek him and do not find him. / The guards find me, / those who go about in the city. / ‘Have you seen whom my soul loves?’” Song 5:7 reads, “The guards that go about the city find me. / They beat me, they wound me, / they take my veil from me, / the guardians of the walls.” Canto VIa, this commentary sug­ gests, concerns the bride’s anxiety about her wedding night; canto Villa describes her actual suffering on her wedding night. Canto VIb (3:6-11) and canto Vlllb (5:9-6:3) relate to one another in a way that is not obvious on a superficial reading. Canto VIb begins with a question from the chorus (“Who is this / coming up from the wilderness?” [3:6]); canto Vlllb is in two parts, but each beginning with a question from the chorus (“What makes your lover better than other lovers, / most beautiful of women?” [5:9] and “Where has your lover gone, / most beautiful of women?” [6:1]). Canto VIb is a wedding procession; the bride is brought to the groom in his palanquin with his honor guard. The palanquin is described in luxuriant but awesome terms. Among other things, it is surrounded by sixty warriors (3:7) ; it is made of “the wood of Lebanon” (3:9); it has “pillars of silver,” and “its canopy” is a “frame­ work of gold” (3:10). It is important to realize that although the bride is being brought in the palanquin (see Explanation for 3:6-11), the palanquin itself is a projection of the power and glory of the man—it is the palanquin of “Solomon” (3:9). Canto Vlllb describes the man himself (apparently naked), but his body has all the glory of the palanquin, and more. To say nothing of sixty warriors, the man himself is “outstanding among ten thousand” (5:10); his head, arms, and legs are gold (5:11, 14, 15); he is like the cedars of Lebanon (5:15). In their exuberance, the girls had proclaimed the palanquin to be “love” itself (3:10; see Comment on v 10). By contrast, the woman proclaims, “Every part of him is desir­ able! / This is my lover, this is my companion, / O daughters of Jerusalem!” (5:16). In addition, canto VIb sings of the meeting of the bride and groom in the wedding ceremony; canto Vlllb sings of their metaphorical reunification. To understand this, one must recall that canto Villa had ended with the woman plaintively singing, “I call upon you to swear, daughters of Jerusalem, / if you find my lover, / what should you say to him? / That I am wounded by love” (5:8). But in Vlllb, the couple is reunited: when the chorus asks where her lover

Introduction

35

is, she re sp o n d s, “My lover w en t dow n to his g a rd en / to bed s o f balsam , / to graze in his g ard e n s / a n d to g a th e r lotuses. / I am my lo v er’s a n d my lover is m ine; / h e w ho grazes a m o n g th e lo tu ses” (6 :2 -3 ). T h a t is, h e is w ith her. In sh o rt, c a n to V Ib describes th e ce re m o n ia l u n io n o f th e m an a n d w om an w hereas V lllb d escribes th e e n d o f all th a t sep arates th em . C an to VIIIc (6:4-10) is an ab b rev iated version o f can to VIc (4:1 -1 5 ). E ach is a (from A rabic, a so n g o f ad m ira tio n o r o f p raise fo r th e b e lo v e d ), a n d they have a n u m b e r o f lines in co m m o n . C an to VI c begins, “H ow b eau tifu l you are, my co m p a n io n , / how b ea u tifu l you a re !” (4:1), a n d ca n to VIIIc begins, “You are b eau tifu l, m y c o m p a n io n , like T irzah, / lovely, like J e ru s a le m ” (6:4). T h e two songs have several lines th a t are alm o st v erb atim equivalents: “Your h a ir is like th e flock o f goats / sk ip p in g fro m M o u n t G ilead ” (4:1; 6:5), ‘Y our te e th are like a s h o rn flock / th a t com es u p fro m w ashing / in w hich every o n e has a tw in” (4:2; 6:5), a n d ‘Y our c h e e k is like a split p o m e g ra n a te b e h in d yo u r v eil” (4:3; 6:7). O f co u rse, th e re are d ifferen ces in th e m e ta p h o rs em ployed, b u t th e sim ilarity b etw een th e two is so g re a t th a t it n e e d s little d em o n stratio n . C an to VII (4:16-5:1) is th e c e n te rp ie c e o f th e chiasm us a n d describes the sexual u n io n o f b rid e a n d g ro o m o n th e ir w ed d in g n ig h t. It is an ap p ro p riately b a lan c e d set o f twelve lines, w ith stro p h es o f fo u r lines, two lines, fo u r again, a n d two again (see fo r 4:16-5:1). T his is n o t to claim th a t th e re are n o in te rre la te d passages th a t d o n o t follow this chiasm us. However, m any passages revolve a ro u n d th e ce n tral pivot a t S ong 4:16-5:1. F o r ex am p le, a t 2:16 (can to V) th e w om an sings, “My lover is m in e a n d I am his, / h e w ho grazes am o n g th e lo tu ses,” a n d a t 6:3 (can to V lllb ) she sings, “I am m y lo v er’s a n d m y lover is m in e, / h e w ho grazes am o n g th e lo tu ses.” In th e first o c c u rre n c e , she is a c cep tin g his inv itatio n to com e away a n d accep t his love. In th e se c o n d in stan ce, she is reco v erin g h im a n d his love. T h e events o f th e ir first u n io n (see o n 6:3) are w h at lie b e h in d h e r n e e d to recover him . T h e fact th a t th ese parallels d o n o t fall w ithin th e stru c tu re I suggest does n o t invalidate th e stru ctu re ; it only shows th a t th e elem en ts th a t b in d th e S ong o f Songs to g e th e r are n u m e ro u s a n d com plex. T his co m m e n ta ry arg u es th a t th e S ong develops a d ra m a tic tra n sfo rm a tio n o f th e b rid e; m any texts th ro u g h o u t th e S ong, n o t on ly th o se in a ch iastic p a tte rn , d esc rib e o r sug g est th a t tran sfo rm a tio n .

wasf

Form/Structure/Setting

Comment

The Poetic Devices of the Song Bibliography B lack, F. C. “U nlikely Bedfellow s: A llegorical a n d F em in ist R ead in g s o f S o n g o f Songs 7 .1 -8 .” In T he S o n g o f Songs. FCB 2d ser. 6. E d. C. R. F o n ta in e a n d A. B re n n e r. S heffield: S h e ffie ld A ca d em ic P ress, 2000. 1 0 4 -2 9 . B re n n e r, A. ‘“ C o m e B ack, C o m e B ack th e S h u la m m ite ’ (S ong o f S ongs 7 :1 -1 0 ): A P aro d y o f th e w a s f G e n re .” In A F em in ist C om pan ‫־‬ io n to the S o n g o f Songs. FCB 1. E d. A. B ren n e r. S heffield: S h effield A cad em ic Press, 1993. 2 34-57. D avis, E. F. “R o m an c e o f th e L a n d in th e S ong o f S o n g s.” A T h R 80 (1998) 5 3 3 46. Falk, M. ‘T h e W a sf.” In T he S on g o f Songs. Ed. H . B loom . N ew York: C h e lse a H o u se, 1988. 6 7 -7 8 . G o o d , E. M. “E zek iel’s S hip: S om e E x te n d e d M e ta p h o rs in th e O ld Testam e n t.” Sem itics 1 (1970) 7 9 -1 0 3 . M eyers, C. “G e n d e r Im a g e ry in th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” H A R 10 (1986) 2 09-23 . M urphy, R. E. “D an c e a n d D e a th in th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” In L o ve

36

Introduction

& D ea th in the A n c ie n t N e a r E ast. FS Μ. H . P o p e, ed. J. H . M arks a n d R. M. G o o d . G u ilfo rd , CT: F o u r Q u a rte rs, 1987. 117-19. S o u len , R. N . ‘T h e W asfs o f th e S o n g o f S o n g s a n d H e r m e n e u tic . ”J B L 86 (1967) 183-90. V endler, H . Poem s, Poets, Poetry. B oston: St. M a rtin ’s, 1997. W atson, W. G. E. “S om e A n c ie n t N e a r E a ste rn P arallels to th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” In W ords Rem em bered, Texts R enew ed. FS J. F. A. Sawyer, ed. by J. Davies, G. H arvey, a n d W. G. E. W atson. S heffield : S h effie ld A cad em ic Press, 1995. 253-71 .W h ed b ee, J . W. “P a ra d o x a n d P aro d y in th e S ong o f S o lo m o n : T ow ards a C om ic R e a d in g o f th e M ost S u b lim e S o n g ." In A F em in ist C om p a n io n to the S on g o f Songs. FCB 1. E d. A. B re n n e r. S h effield : S h effield A cad em ic Press, 1993. 2 6 6 -7 8 .

Speech -A cts and M otifs

wasf

O n e m ig h t rig h tly re g a rd th e te rm (a so ng o f a d m ira tio n o r o f p raise fo r th e beloved) as a leg itim ate fo rm a l lab el fo r texts such as S ong 4 :1-15 o r 5 :1 0 16, b u t m o s t so -c alle d fo rm s in th e S o n g a re m o re p ro p e rly d e s c rib e d as “speech -acts.” A speech-act is a classification o f w ords in a p o etic tex t ac co rd in g to th e ir m a n n e r o f ex p ressio n (V endler, 108). E xam ples o f such speechacts a re as follows:

Poems,

A d ju rin g (2:7; 5:8; 8:4) A d m ira tio n , o r (l:2 b - 3 a ; 4 :1-15; 5 :1 0 -1 6 ; 6 :4 -9 ) A n n o u n c e m e n t o f arrival (2:8; 3:6; 6:10; 8:5a) B oast (1:5; 8:12) C laim (2:1, 16; 6:3) C o m m a n d (8:6a) C o n c e it (1 :9 -1 1 , 12-14) D esc rip tio n (3 :7 -1 0 ) E x clam a tio n (4:1a) E x h o rta tio n (1:4a; 2:15; 3:11; 7 :1 2 -1 3 [ΕΤ 1 1 -1 2 ]) F irst-p erso n n arra tiv e (1:6b; 3:1-5; 5 :2 -7 ) In s tru c tio n (1:8; 8 :6 b -7 ) In v ita tio n to love (2:14, 17; 8:14) P lea (2:14b; 5:2; 7:1 [ET 6:13]) P ro h ib itio n (1:6b) Q u e stio n (1:7; 5:9; 6:1) R eso lu tio n (3:4b; 4:6; 7:9 [E T 7:8]) Y earn in g (3:1; 8 :1 -2 )

wasf

In a d d itio n to th e speech-acts, th e re are a n u m b e r o f m otifs in S ong o f Songs. M any o f th ese m otifs are fo u n d in th e E gyptian p o e try a n d in o th e r love p o e try o f th e a n c ie n t o r m o d e rn w orld. H owever, th e p lace m en t, em p lo y m en t, a n d sign ific a n c e o f th e se m otifs in th e S o n g o f S ongs are so m etim es u n p a ra lle le d . E xam ples o f m otifs are as follows: T h e m ale lover is p o rtra y e d as k in g (1:12), s h e p h e rd (1:7), b ro th e r (8:1), g a rd e n e r (6:2), p rin c e (6:12), gazelle (2:9), a n d tree (2:3). T h e fem ale lover is a v in ed re sser (1:6), sh e p h e rd e ss (1:8), h e ro in e o n a q u est (3 :1 -2 ), sem idivine figu re (4:8), flow er (2:1), g a rd e n (4:12), a n d city (6:4). By analogy, th e girl in th e P ap y ru s H a rris g ro u p B songs takes o n th e ro le o f th e bird-catcher. O n e som etim es h ea rs th e “h u m a n ” p arts played by th e lovers (king, sh e p h e rd , v inedresser) called a “travesty,” b u t th a t te rm im plies a m o re elab o rate, co stu m ed piece o f

Introduction

37

ro le playing th a n we have in S ong o f Songs. O n e co u ld d istinguish th e h u m a n roles fo r th e c h a rac te rs fro m th e n o n h u m a n im ages fo r th em by d escrib in g th e fo rm e r as p e rso n a e a n d th e la tte r as sym bolic m e ta p h o rs (e.g., th a t th e m ale lover is a gazelle). o f these are m e ta p h o rs, b u t it is h elp fu l to distin g u ish th e p erso n a e th e lovers take o n fro m th e n o n h u m a n m e ta p h o rs th a t th e S ong uses to b rin g o u t d iffe re n t facets o f th e m ale a n d fem ale lovers. A n o th e r m o tif o f th e Song is th a t o f b ein g sick o r w o u n d ed by love (2:5; 5:8). This is a fre q u e n t m o tif in th e Egyptian songs, b u t th e lovesickness o f th e Egyptian songs is th e ad o lescen t p in in g o f a boy for a girl o r a girl fo r a boy. T h e w ou n d in g o r trau m a o f th e Song co n c ern s th e w o m an ’s ex p erience, a n d it is o f a m u ch m ore p ro fo u n d a n d m ysterious n a tu re th an is fo u n d in th e Egyptian texts. A th ird m o tif is th a t o f th e m an ex c lu d e d by th e d o o r to th e w o m an ’s house (th e ) . T his m o tif occurs in S ong 5:2 -8 an d , in various form s, in all kinds o f tre a tm e n ts o f love (Ovid, 1.6; L ucretius, 4). T h e m o st sig n ifican t p arallel to th e S ong o f Songs tex t is in th e Egyptian Papy‫־‬ ru s C h ester B eatty g ro u p C text. T h e use o f a sim ilar m o tif does n o t im ply sim ilar m ean in g . In th e E gyptian texts, th e ex c lu d e d lover is a m an a t th e h o u se o f a p ro stitu te . In L u cretiu s, th e ex c lu d e d lover illustrates th e pow er o f passion in th e co n te x t o f an ex p o sitio n o f E p icu re an p h ilo so p h y a n d is a c o n d e m n a tio n o f irra tio n a l sexual passion. T h e use o f th e m o tif in th e S ong is en tirely d iffe re n t a n d is m o re co m p lex th a n e ith e r o f these. A n o th e r m o tif is th a t o f e n tra p m e n t, in w hich o n e lover com plains playfully th a t th e o th e r has ca p tu re d him o r her. In S ong 7:6 (ET 7:5), th e m an says th a t he is cau g h t in th e h air o f th e w om an. C h ester Beatty I g ro u p C has a sim ilar im age, a n d Papyrus H arris 500 describes a girl as ca u g h t by h e r lover. T h e re are also various m in o r m otifs th a t o ften a p p e a r in an c ie n t love poetry, such as th e fragrance o f th e beloved, th e sweetness o f th e beloved’s lips, a n d th e color o f th e b eloved’s skin (see also W atson, “Som e A n cien t N ear E astern Parallels,” 258-63). A c u rio u s m o tif is th e a u th o rity figure in th e Song in c o n tra st to th a t in the E gyptian poetry. In th e E gyptian poetry, a g irl’s m o th e r o ften stands betw een th e two lovers. In th e Song, th e only a u th o rity fig ure is th e b ro th ers, w ho really have n o th in g to d o w ith th e two lovers b u t are only re p re s e n te d as having fo rced th e w om an to te n d th e fam ily vineyard (1:6). T h e g o v ern an ce o f th e y o u n g er sister com es u p a t Song 8:8-9, b u t th e a u th o rity figure is anonym ous a n d a fo rced sep a ra tio n o f lovers is n o t d escrib ed . T h e m o th e r o f th e w om an o r occasionally o f th e m an is m e n tio n e d several tim es, b u t n e ith e r m o th e r causes sep aratio n betw een th e lovers o r d o es a n y th in g at all. A m o tif th a t has n o parallel a t all in th e S ong o f Songs is the fre q u e n t prayer for success in love e n c o u n te re d in th e Egyptian a n d o th e r a n c ie n t love poetry. In th e Egyptian texts, a boy o r girl o ften asks H a th o r (or a n o th e r god) to cause the o b ject o f his o r h e r affection to recip ro cate, o r to cause th e au th o rity figure to yield a n d allow th e two to com e together. T his n ev er h ap p e n s in Song o f Songs.

All

paraklausithyron

M etaphors

of

So n g

Amores

of

De rerum natura

So n g s

S ong o f Songs c o n tain s som e seem ingly o u tra g e o u s m e ta p h o rs a n d similes. T his is how th e m a n praises th e w om an in S ong 4:1-5·

38

Introduction Y our eyes a re doves b e h in d y o u r veil. Y our h a ir is like th e flock o f g o ats sk ip p in g fro m M o u n t G ilead. Y our te e th a re like a s h o rn flock th a t co m es u p fro m w ashing in w hich every o n e h as a twin: n o t o n e a m o n g th e m is b e re ft o f its p a rtn e r. Y our lips a re like sc arlet th re a d , a n d y o u r sp e ec h is lovely. Y our c h e e k is like a sp lit p o m e g ra n a te b e h in d y o u r veil. Y our n e c k is like th e to w er o f David, b u ilt in courses. A th o u s a n d sh ield s h a n g u p o n it, all o f th e m th e a rm a m e n ts o f w arrio rs. Y our b rea sts are like two fawns, twins o f a gazelle, th a t fe e d a m o n g th e lotuses.

In S o n g 7:5 (ET 7:4), h e tells h e r th a t h e r n o se is like th e tow er o f L eb a n o n . W h at is o n e to m ake o f this? T h e re are several ways o n e could u n d e rs ta n d it. (1) O n e m ig h t suggest th a t th e p o e try is iro n ic or, to use a favorite w ord o f conte m p o ra ry critics, th a t th e p o e t is “su b v ertin g ” th e g e n re o f love p o e try (th u s W hed b ee, “P ara d o x a n d Parody,” 2 66-78). I see n o reason to im agine th a t this is th e case. To th e contrary, o n e n ever suspects th a t th e p o e t is w inking a t th e audien ce o r playing a gam e b e h in d th e ir backs. A. B re n n e r attem p ts to re a d th e as a com ic p aro d y (“C om e B ack,” 2 3 4 -5 7 ), b u t th e re su ltan t in te rp re ta tio n is a failure. She arg u es th a t Song 7:1-10 (ET 6:13-7:9) describes th e d an ce o f th e “S h u la m m ite,” w hich in m ale eyes is seen to be b o th com ical a n d erotic. T h e com edy, in h e r in te rp re ta tio n , includes th e fact th a t th e d an c in g girl is fat (on h e r re ad in g o f 7:3 [ET 7:2]) a n d th a t “h e r breasts m ove fast, m u ch like two frolicking fawns” (o n th e basis o f 7:4 [ET 7:3]; “C om e B ack,” 248). T h e re is n o re aso n to believe th a t th e w om an is d ancing. To th e contrary, “W hy w ould you gaze o n th e S hulam m ite, / as o n th e D ance o f th e Two C om panies?” suggests th a t th e dancin g is a h y pothetical com parison. M urphy (“D ance a n d D e a th ,” 117-18) shows th a t th e w om an is n o t d an c in g in this text. Song 7:3 (ET 7:2) does in d icate th a t th e w om an is fat, a n d 7:4 does in d icate th a t h e r breasts are b o u n cin g ab o u t (cf. 4:5). B re n n e r also cites S h ak esp eare’s S o n n et 130 to illustrate h e r po in t, b u t this, too, does n o t work. In th e S h ak esp earean son n et, conventions o f lovelang u ag e are b ein g tu rn e d o n th e ir h ea d , b u t in Song 7:1-10 we see n o p aro d y o f co nv en tio n al language. Also, a lth o u g h S hakespeare was a m aster o f com edy, Sonn e t 130 is m anifestly n o t funny a n d obviously was n o t in te n d e d to be, a n d th u s it does n o t exem plify th e g en re B re n n e r is p roposing. A variation o n this is to see th e m e ta p h o rs as g ro tesq u e— n o t praisin g th e ir subjects a t all b u t deliberately ridiculin g th e m as m onstrosities (F. Black, 8 [2000] 302-23; idem , “U nlikely B edfellow s,” 104-29). Black argues th a t th e m ale is ill at ease w ith th e w o m an ’s body a n d h e r sexuality a n d so resorts to such language, a n d th a t th e language generally re p re se n ts a d a rk e r side o f love a n d sexuality. Such a re a d in g is driven by fem in ist ideology a n d has little to su p p o rt it in th e text. (2) T h is love p o etry , in w hich th e w o m an is d esc rib ed in term s th a t m ig h t be c o n sid e re d “m a sc u lin e ” (e.g., m ilitary lan g u ag e, such as w hen h e r n e c k is de-

wasfs

not

Bibint

not

Introduction

39

scrib ed as a tow er in 4:4), d e m o n stra te s th a t in this aren a, love, th e w om an is at least e q u a l if n o t d o m in a n t (M eyers, 10 [1986] 209-23; b u t see also a re fu ‫־‬ tatio n o f M eyers in F. Black, “U nlikely B edfellow s,” 121-24). W ould an a n c ie n t Israelite w om an be fla tte re d by b ein g p ra ise d in m ascu lin e term s? If n o t, why is it u sed h ere? It is precisely a t this p o in t th a t “re a d in g s” o f th e S ong as subversive a n d a fe m in ist te x t are m o st obtuse. S uch re ad in g s are so in te n t o n fin d in g political, social, a n d sexual criticism in th e tex t th a t they fo rg e t w h at it actually is: love poetry. W h en a m an tells his beloved o f th e p ow er she h o ld s over him , h e is n o t d e c o n stru c tin g th e social o rder. N o lover (with any sense) praises his w om an by suggesting th a t she is m asculine. (3) T h ese h a rsh m e ta p h o rs m ay have b e e n culturally accep tab le ways o f describ in g physical beauty. H ow ever g arish it seem s to us, p e rh a p s th e a n c ie n t Israelites fe lt th a t d esc rib in g a w o m a n ’s nose as a tow er a n d h e r h a ir as a flock o f goats ru n n in g dow n a m o u n ta in was en tirely a p p ro p ria te . T h e re is som e evid en c e in b e h a lf o f this view. In th e E gyptian co rp u s, th e w om an describes h e rse lf as a field a n d says h e r b o y frien d has sco o p e d o u t th e canal w ith his h a n d (Papyru s H a rris 500 g ro u p C ). O n th e o th e r h a n d , o n e finds little m ateria l in th e E gyptian o r o th e r a n c ie n t N e ar E astern texts th a t has th e k in d o f su stain ed extravagance o n e sees in th e Song. (4) A n o th e r possibility is th a t this p o e try does in som e resp ects re fle c t an actual visual sim ilarity b etw een th e m e ta p h o r an d th e th in g it re p resen ts. A w o m a n ’s n o se m ay give sym m etry to h e r face in th e sam e way th a t a tow er o r m o u n ta in gives sym m etry to a h o rizo n . A cascade o f d a rk h a ir dow n a w o m an ’s h e a d a n d sh o u ld ers m ay actually resem b le a flock o f goats g o in g dow n a hillside (th u s M. Falk o n th e in ‘T h e 67-78; b u t Falk achieves h e r objective only via a fairly e x tre m e p a ra p h ra se , so th a t ‘Yo u r h a ir is like th e flock o f goats / sk ip p in g fro m G ilead ” becom es ‘Y our h a ir— as black as goats / w in d in g dow n th e slo p es”) . (5) P erh ap s th e sp eak er is describin g his m o re th a n h e is th e th in g itself (S o u len 86 [1967] 183-90). W hen h e looks a t h e r neck, h e is as aw estruck as w h en h e looks a t th e tow er o f David. (6) It m ay be th a t th e ex trav ag an t m e ta p h o rs are sim ply driven by th e logic o f th e descriptive p raise fo rm , o r As th e sp eak er m oves th ro u g h th e list o f h e r body p a rts (a n d as she w orks th ro u g h h is ), h e is b o u n d by th e fo rm to say so m e th in g a b o u t ea ch p art. T h e re fo re , th e ex trav ag an t a n d p e c u lia r m etap h o rs a re sim ply a fu n c tio n o f th e fo rm .T h e descriptive praises in th e Egyptian texts are co n sid erab ly sh o rte r th a n th e ir biblical co u n te rp a rts. (7) Finally, th e m e ta p h o rs m ay tell us th a t th e re al su b ject o f th e p o em is n o t a w om an b u t the la n d itself, a n d th a t th e real m essage o f th e S ong is G o d ’s love fo r Israel (th u s E. Davis, 80 [1998] 5 3 3 -4 6 ). T h is last possibility, a p a rt fro m lead in g back dow n th e p a th o f allegorism , is in v alid ated b ecau se m any o f th e m e ta p h o rs are n o t g eo g ra p h ic a n d n o t distinctively Israelite (eyes like doves, arm s like gold, a g a rd e n w ith saffron a n d c in n a m o n , etc.). Possibilities 3 th ro u g h 6 are n o t m utually exclusive. E ach co u ld be a n d probably is to a d e g re e tru e . A t th e sam e tim e, th e re is so m eth in g p e c u lia r a b o u t this m o d e o f d esc rip tio n . It suggests th a t th e th in g d escrib ed is la rg e r th a n life o r o f g re a t significance. Biblical apocalyptic lite ra tu re uses lan g u ag e in a sim ilar way. C o m p are w ords fro m Rev 1:13-16 to sim iles o f S ong 5:11-15: “In th e m id d le o f th e lam p stan d s was so m eo n e like a son o f m an . . . . H is h e a d a n d his h a ir w ere w hite like wool o r like snow; a n d his eyes w ere like a flam e o f fire. H is fe et w ere

HAR

wasf

feelings

tJBL

wasf.

AThR

Wasf”

40

Introduction

like b u rn is h e d b ro n z e, w h en it glows in a fu rn a c e , a n d his voice was like th e so u n d o f m any waters. In his rig h t h a n d h e h e ld seven stars, a n d o u t o f H is m o u th cam e a sh a rp d o u b le-e d g ed sword; a n d his face was like th e sun sh in in g in its p o w e r” (m y tra n sla tio n ). A n d fro m th e Song: “H is h e a d is p u re gold. / H is h a ir is like th e sp ath e, / black as a raven. / H is eyes are like doves / b esid e stream s o f water, / w ash ed in m ilk, / sitting o n basins filled w ith water. / . . . / H is arm s are ro d s o f g o ld / set w ith th e g o ld e n topaz. / . . . / H is thighs are alab a ster p illars / set o n p ed e sta ls o f p u re g o ld .” E x trav a g an t o r u n e x p e c te d m e ta p h o rs also o c c u r in p ro p h e tic sp ee ch , alth o u g h they are g en erally n o t e x te n d e d in th e m a n n e r th a t we see in th e S ong (b u t see E. G o o d , 1 [1970] 7 9 -1 0 3 ). F o r ex am p le, J e r 46:18 says o f N eb u ch ad n ezzar, “H e will com e like T ab o r am o n g th e m o u n tain s, o r like C arm el by th e sea” (m y tra n sla tio n ). O n e m ig h t a d d to this list, a lth o u g h th e re are distin c t d ifferen ces, th e visions o f th e w o rld em p ire s in D an 7 as series o f co m p o site beasts, o r G o d ’s c h a rio t in E zek 1, w hich is c a rrie d by co m p o site beasts. T h e re are exam ples o f am azing im ag ery in apocalyptic a n d p ro p h e tic speech. T h e oversized visions fo rce th e re a d e r to sto p a n d reflect o n w hat is b ein g co m m u n icated . T h e p ro b le m w ith th e m e ta p h o rs a n d sim iles o f S ong o f Songs is th a t we exp e c t to fin d love p o e try o f th e so rt o n e fin d s in ro m a n tic a n th o lo g ie s a n d g re e tin g cards. S ong o f Songs is love po etry , b u t it is a distinctive k in d o f love poetry. It is n o t sen tim en tal, a n d it is n o t h e re to allow us to “p u t o u r feelings in to w o rd s,” like C yrano d e B erg erac c o m p o sin g seductive w ords fo r C hristian to re c ite to R o x an n e. T h e m e ta p h o rs o f th e S ong express th e affectio n s o f th e lovers fo r o n e an o th e r, b u t th ey also express th e m e a n in g o f love fo r th e re a d e r o r au d ien c e. T h ey draw us in to reflectio n o n th e qualities o f th e m an , th e w om an, a n d th e ir love as an id eal arch ety p e. T h e lovers in th e S ong a p p e a r to be la rg e r th a n life b ecau se they are la rg e r th a n life; they are idealizations. T h is c o m m e n ta ry will arg u e th a t S ong o f Songs is a u n ified w ork o f indiv id u al songs th a t tell th e story o f th e sexual co m in g o f age a n d tra n sfo rm a tio n o f a y o u n g w om an. T h e S ong focuses o n h e r m a rria g e as a cru cial life event, a n d it has a c o n c e n tric s tru c tu re th a t c e n te rs o n h e r m o m e n t o f sexual u n io n w ith h e r h u sb a n d . It uses a w ide variety o f su rp risin g a n d pow erful im ages th a t m ake th e re a d in g e x p e rie n c e a su rp risin g p leasu re. Its lan g u ag e is b o th ex tra v ag an t a n d co m p act. A p p re ciatin g th e poetry, we m ay eventually fin d tru th .

Semitics

Excursus: Hebrew Poetry Bibliography Alter, R. A r t o f B ib lica l Poetry. Berlin, A. The D yn a m ics o f B ib lica l P arallelism . B lo o m in g to n : I n d ia n a UP, 1985. Christensen, D. L. “N arra tiv e P o etics a n d th e In te r p r e ta tio n o f th e B o o k o f J o n a h .” In D irectio n s in B ib lic a l H ebrew Poetry. E d. E. R. Follis. JS O T S u p 40. S heffield: S h effield A cad em ic P ress, 1987. 2 9 -4 8 . Collins, T. L ine-F orm s in H ebrew Poetry. R om e: B iblical In stitu te P ress, 1978. Cross, E M., Jr., a n d D. N. Freedman. S tu d ies in A n c ie n t Y ahw istic Poetry. Freedman, D. N. P ottery , Poetry, a n d Prophecy: S tu d ies in E arly H eb rew Poetry. W in o n a L ake, IN: E ise n b ra u n s, 1980. Gray, G. B. T he F orm s o f H ebrew P oetry C on sidered w ith S pecial Reference to the C riticism a n d In terp reta tio n o f the O ld Testam ent. 1915. R e p rin t, N ew York: Ktav, 1972. Haik-Vantoura, S. T he M u sic o f the B ible R evea led : T he D ecip h erin g o f a T h o u s a n d Year O ld N o ta tio n . T ran s. D. W eber. 2d ed ., rev.

Introduction

41

Paris: D essain e t T o lra, 1987. H o llad ay , W. L. “H ebrew Verse S tru ctu re R evisited (I): W hich W ords ‘C o u n t’?” J B L 118 (1999) 1 9 - 3 2 .----------. “H ebrew Verse S tru ctu re Revisite d (II): C o n jo in t C ola, a n d F u rth e r S u g g estio n s. ”J B L 118 (1999) 4 0 1 -1 6 . H o o p , R. d e . “T h e C o lo m etry o f H eb rew Verse a n d th e M aso retic A ccents: E v alu atio n o f a Rec e n t A p p ro a c h , P a rt I . ” J N S L 26.1 (2000) 4 7 - 7 3 .----------. “P a rt I I ” J N S L 26.2 (2000) 65-100. H ru sh o v sk i, B. “Prosody, H ebrew . ” E n c ju d 13:1200-1202. Ja k o b so n , R. “G ram m atical P arallelism a n d Its R ussian F a c e t.” In R o m a n Jakobson : Selected W ritin g s III. Ed. S. Rudy. T h e H ag u e : M o u to n , 1981. 9 8 -1 3 5 . K o rp e l, M. C. A., a n d J . C. d e M oor. “F u n d a m e n ta ls o f U g aritic a n d H e b re w P o e try .” In T he S tru c tu ra l A n a ly sis o f B ib lica l a n d C a n a a n ite Poetry. Ed. W. van d e r M e er a n d j . C. d e M oor. JS O T S u p 74. S heffield: S h effield A cad em ic Press, 1988. K ugel, J . L. T he Id e a o f B ib lica l P o etry: P a ra llelism a n d Its H isto ry. N ew H aven: Yale UP, 1981. L ow th, R . L ectu res on the Sacred P oetry o f the H ebrews. T ran s. G. G regory. A n d o v er: C ro c k e r 8c B rew ster; N ew York: L eavitt, 1829. O ’C onnor, M. The C ontours o f B ib lica l H ebrew Verse. W in o n a Lake, IN: E ise n b ra u n s, 1997. ----------. H ebrew Verse Stru ctu re. W in o n a Lake, IN: E ise n b ra u n s, 1980. P a rd e e , D . U g a n tic a n d H ebrew P oetic P arallelism . L eid en : Brill, 1988. P ric e , J . D. T he S y n ta x o f M a soretic A ccents in the H ebrew Bible. L ew iston, NY: M ellen , 1990. S chokel, L. A. A M a n u a l o f H ebrew Poetics. R om e: B iblical In stitu te Press, 1988. S endrey, A. M u sic in A n c ie n t Israel. N ew York: P h ilo so p h ic a l L ibrary, 1969. S tu a rt, D . K. S tu d ies in E a rly H ebrew Meter. M issoula, MT: S cho lars Press, 1976. V ance, D. R. T he (Question o f M eter in B ib lica l H ebrew P oetry. L ew iston, NY: M e lle n , 2001. W atso n , W. G. E. C la ssic a l H ebrew P oetry. JS O T S u p 26. S heffield: S h effie ld A cad em ic Press, 1 9 8 4 .----------. T ra d itio n a l Techniques in C la ssica l H ebrew Verse. W illiam s, J . M. Style: T ow ard C larity a n d Grace. C hicago: Univ. o f C h icag o Press, 1990. T h e easiest way to re c o g n iz e p o e try in th e H eb rew B ible is w h en th e te x t tells th e re a d e r it is a p o em : ‘T h e S o n g [‫ ]שיר‬o f Songs th a t is S o lo m o n ’s ” (1:1) o r ‘T h e n D avid c h a n te d this la m e n t [‫ ]קינה‬over Saul a n d J o n a th a n his s o n ” (2 Sam 1:17 [m y translatio n ]). By im p lica tio n , every p salm [‫ ]מזמור‬is a p o em . B eyond th a t, it is o fte n d ifficu lt to d istin g u ish p o e try fro m p ro se in th e H eb rew B ible. T h e so-called p o e tic acce n ts u se d in Psalm s, J o b , a n d P ro v erb s a re o f little use since th ey are n o t u se d in tex ts th a t clearly are p o e tic (su ch as th e S o n g ) b u t a re u se d in texts th a t, by m ost p e o p le ’s u n d e rs ta n d in g , a re n o t p o e tic (P ro v 1 0 -2 9 ). T h e edito rs o f th e B ib lia H eb ra ica S tu ttg a rten sia have d istin g u ish e d p o e try fro m p ro se by laying o u t p o e tic texts w ith lin e b reak s, b u t th e ir co n c lu sio n s a re n o m o re th a n th e o p in io n s o f in d iv id u al sch o lars a n d sh o u ld n o t b e given special c o n sid e ra tio n . T h e study o f b ib lical H eb rew p o e try sin ce th e e n lig h te n m e n t h as b e e n d o m in a te d by two co n cep ts: p ara llelism a n d m eter. M o d e rn aw areness o f p ara llelism in H eb rew p o e tr y b e g in s w ith B ish o p R o b e rt L o w th ’s d isc u ssio n o f it in h is D e sa c ra p o e si H ebra eo ru m (C o n c e rn in g the Sacred P oetry o f the H ebrew s) in 1753. F o r L ow th, p ara llelism was th e “c o rre s p o n d e n c e ” o f o n e lin e w ith a n o th e r. H e a n d g e n e ra tio n s o f sch o lars w ho follow ed h im essentially a rg u e d th a t th e p rim a ry u n it o f th e H e b re w p o e m was th e tw o-line stro p h e (th e b ic o lo n ) a n d th a t b ic o la cam e in th re e basic v arieties: syno n y m o u s p a r a lle lis m , a n t ith e tic a l p a r a lle lis m , a n d s y n th e tic p a r a lle lis m . In synonym ous parallelism , th e se c o n d lin e m o re o r less re p e a ts th e first lin e , as in P rov

2 : 11: D iscretio n will w atch over you;

u n d e rs ta n d in g will g u a rd you. (RSV)

42

Introduction In a n tith e tic a l para llelism , th e se c o n d lin e , u sin g a n to n y m s o f c e rta in w o rd s th a t are in th e first lin e, c re a te s a s ta te m e n t th a t c o rre s p o n d s to th e first lin e as its co m p lem e n t, as in P rov 3:33:

T h e L o r d ’s cu rse is o n th e h o u se o f th e w icked, b u t h e blesses th e a b o d e o f th e rig h te o u s. (RSV) In sy n th etic p ara llelism th e c o r re s p o n d e n c e o f th e two lin es is artificial in th a t th e re is little o r n o tr u e p a ra lle l p re se n t; even so, th e b ic o lo n s tru c tu re m im ics th e p a tte r n o f tr u e parallelism . A n e x a m p le is P rov 4:2: F o r give you g o o d te a c h in g . D o n o t a b a n d o n m y in stru c tio n ! (m y tra n sla tio n ) T h is analysis is overly sim p le a n d raises im p o rta n t q u estio n s. (E.g., is sy n o n y m o u s parallelism p rim a rily se m a n tic o r syntactic?) E ven so, it is th e fo u n d a tio n o f m u c h o f th e re se a rc h in to H eb re w p o e try th a t h as b e e n u n d e r ta k e n to th e p re s e n t day. T h e q u e s t to d iscover th e m e te r o f H e b re w p o e try h as a lo n g a n d o n e m ig h t say * o rtu re d history. Even in a n tiq u ity sc h o lars a n d w riters w ere try in g to d e s c rib e o r discover so m e k in d o f m e trica l p a tte rn in H e b re w p o e try th a t c o rre s p o n d e d to th e m e te r o f G re ek a n d L atin p o etry . S ince th e n in e te e n th ce n tu ry , how ever, th e q u e s t fo r th e m e te r o f H eb rew p o e try h as p rim a rily follow ed a n a c c e n tu a l o r stress system , in w hich th e m e te r o f a lin e o f p o e try is d e te rm in e d by th e n u m b e r o f ac cen ts, o r stresses, it co n tain s. Early ad vocates o f various v ersio n s o f th is system in c lu d e E rn st M e ier (1 8 1 3 1 8 6 6 ), J u li u s L ey (1 8 2 2 -1 9 0 1 ) , K arl B u d d e ( 1 8 5 0 -1 9 3 5 ) , a n d E d u a r d S ie v e rs (1 8 5 0 -1 9 3 2 ). K arl B u d d e was especially successful in p e rsu a d in g sc h o lars th a t th e H eb rew d irg e o r la m e n ta tio n c o n siste d o f a 3:2 stress-m eter p a tte r n (th a t is, e a c h b ic o lo n c o n siste d o f a lin e w ith th re e stresses follow ed by a lin e w ith two stre s se s). S ch o la rs w ho w ere c o n v in c e d o f th e e x iste n ce o f th is m e tric a l p a tte r n (ca lled q in a h m e te r) n atu ra lly drew th e c o n c lu sio n th a t a n a c c e n tu a l m e tric a l system was valid fo r H e b re w p o etry . T h e m o d e rn analysis o f H e b re w p o e try is m u c h m o re c o m p lic a te d th a n sim ply lo o k in g fo r p ara llelism o r fo r stress m e ter, a n d m an y sc h o lars ad v o c ate system s th a t m odify o r o u tr ig h t re je c t th e two m o d e ls d e s c rib e d above. S o m e seek to c o m b in e th e two, a n d so m e have e n tire ly d iffe re n t m o d e ls. T h e situ a tio n is m a d e even m o re com p lic a te d by th e fact th a t sc h o lars d o n o t co n siste n tly e m p lo y te rm in o lo g y su c h as lin e , s tro p h e , o r verse w h en d e sc rib in g th e basic e le m e n ts o f a H e b re w p o e m . J. K ugel ex a m in e s th e h isto ry o f th e c o n c e p t o f p a ra lle lism in th e H e b re w B ible, a n d h e m akes so m e p rovocative s ta te m e n ts a b o u t its sig n ifican ce. H e re je c ts L o w th ’s sc h e m a in favor o f a m o re ca refu l d e s c rip tio n o f th e su b tleties a n d v arie tie s o f “seco n d in g .” H e m akes it c le a r th a t “s e c o n d in g ” d o es n o t m e a n “sy nonym ous p a ra lle lism ,” statin g : “F ro m th e b e g in n in g o u r w h o le p re s e n ta tio n h as b e e n p itc h e d a g a in st th e n o tio n th a t it is a c tu a l p a ra lle lin g o f an y so rt th a t is th e p o in t” (Id e a o f B ib lic a l Poetry, 51, italics o rig in a l). F o r K ugel, th e se c o n d lin e basically a d d s so m e th in g th a t m ay o r m ay n o t e c h o th e first lin e as in: “A is so, a n d w h a t’s m o re , B .” M ost significantly, h e d e m o n s tra te s th a t se m an tic p ara llelism o cc u rs fre q u e n tly in H e b re w p ro se a n d th a t it is by n o m e an s c o n fin e d to p o etry . H e th e re fo re suggests th a t th e d iffe re n c e s b e tw e e n p o e try a n d p ro se are n o t sh a rp ly d raw n. H e d o es n o t d e n y th e e x iste n ce o f p o e try in th e H eb re w B ible, b u t h e re g a rd s it as sig n ific an t th a t th e re is n o w o rd fo r “p o e tr y ” in bib lical H eb rew ( Id e a o f B ib lic a l P oetry , 69) a n d states th a t to so m e d e g re e th e u se o f th e te rm re p re s e n ts th e im p o sitio n o f an alien c o n c e p t o n th e tex t. M any sc h o lars have re a c te d stro n g ly ag a in st K u g el’s b lu rrin g o f th e lin e s b e tw e e n p o e try a n d p ro se a n d in p a rtic u la r have ta k e n e x c e p tio n to th e n o tio n th a t it is sig-

Introduction

43

niflcant that Hebrew lacks a word for poetry. Kugel’s model seems to leave us in complete subjectivity with regard to the existence and nature of poetry in the Bible. But some of the reaction against his work is overstated. Kugel’s analysis suggests that in Hebrew (as in English) there are degrees of difference from the simplest, most ordinary prose, to high rhetoric, and finally to poetry and song; this is surely correct. One might add that even in poetry there are gradations of how “poetic” a work is; I would suggest that Wisdom poetry (Prov 1-9) tends to be very simple, with an obvious structure and “parallelism,” but that other poetry is much more lyrical and subtle (such as Song of Songs or Ps 23). Many poems fall between these two extremes. Still, I believe that scholars are correct to maintain a distinction between prose and poetry. The term as applied to biblical Hebrew is not an anachronism unless by one means a nonprose text that is to be spoken and not sung, as is the case with m odern English poetry. In the ancient world, by all indications, poetry was not read in a norm al speaking voice. It was sung. That is, for the ancients, a poem was a song. Musical instruments are associated with ancient poetry (as is done in many psalm superscripts) precisely for that reason. And biblical Hebrew most certainly does have a word for “song” (‫ ! )שיר‬More than that, Hebrew has a great many terms for different kinds of songs ( [“lam ent”], etc.). The problem is that both Kugel and his critics share a fundamental assumption about Hebrew poetry; to cite Kugel’s starting point again: “the basic feature of biblical songs . . . is the recurrent use of a relatively short sentence-form that consists of two brief clauses.” That is, the basic feature of a song is the bicolon. This starting point flies in the face of the evidence: the Song of Songs does not by any means have the bicolon with seconding as its “basic feature.” O f course, many psalms and songs do employ the bicolon (and seconding) a great deal. But many do not, and the data indicate that the Hebrews had songs, knew when they were singing songs, and could distinguish songs from prose, but sometimes did, and sometimes did not, stick to the bicolon. In grouping Hebrew lines into strophes, one should not begin with the assumption that the bicolon is to be preferred. Furtherm ore, in seeking for some kind of parallelism to link lines together, one should be guided by the principle that in the strophic divisions of a poem, “strong” parallelism wins out over “weak” parallelism. The following example will illustrate these guidelines. At the very beginning of Song of Songs (1:2-3), according to the MT verse divisions, there are two strophes (verses), which are usually rendered something like the following:

etry

poetry

po-

qinah

mizmor, maskil,

First Strophe (v 2)

a

Second Strophe (v 3)

b a b c

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine, Your oils are good for fragrance, Your name is like perfum e poured out; That is why the girls love you.

a

It is peculiar that line of strophe 1 (v 2) speaks of the beloved in the third person while line the same strophe speaks of him in the second person. Both Kugel ( 22) and Berlin 40) point to this verse as proof that parallelism allows for a shift in person, but in fact the parallelism here is minimal, and the verse hardly proves their point. Syntactically the two lines could hardly be more different. The common ground is, first, that line speaks of " kisses" and line b speaks of “love” (or, “caresses”), albeit in entirely different constructions, and second, that line depends on line a. One could also argue that both lines have the deep-level meaning “I like his/your lovemaking,” although this equivalence depends on translating line a with a jussive meaning. As impressive

bof of Biblical Poetry,

Idea

(Dynamics ofBiblical Parallelism,

a

in the above translation

b

44

Introduction as all th is m ay so u n d , it m ak es fo r e x tre m e ly w eak p ara llelism ; o n a casual re a d in g th e se lin es are n o t p a ra lle l a t all. O n th e o th e r h a n d , th e lin es o f stro p h e 2 (v 3), like lin e b o f th e first stro p h e , sp e ak o f th e b elo v ed in th e se c o n d p e rso n . In a d d itio n , s tro p h e 1 lin e b a n d s tro p h e 2 lin e s a a n d b all c o m p a re th e b e lo v e d in so m e way to aro m a tic liq u id s (p e rfu m e s o r w in e). T h is is n o t d o n e in stro p h e 1 lin e a o r s tro p h e 2 lin e c. P rim a fa c ie , this stro p h ic division o f th e M T d o e s n o t m a k e m u c h sense. It a p p e a rs th a t v 2 is set fo rth as a b ic o lo n sim ply o n th e assu m p tio n e ith e r th a t th e b ic o lo n is th e n o rm o r th a t a m o n o c o lo n is to b e av o id ed . T h e se c o n d s tro p h e (v 3 ), curiously, is a tric o lo n , u n less th is, to o , sh o u ld b e re g a rd e d as a b ic o lo n in th e M T o n th e g ro u n d s th a t th e only lin e -b re ak is at th e ‫י‬a tn a h (in th is case, th e verse w o u ld b e, “Y our oils are g o o d fo r fra g ra n c e , y o u r n a m e is like p e rfu m e p o u r e d o u t; / th a t is why th e girls love y o u ”) . W ith o u t a tte m p tin g to lay o u t th e ev id en c e fo r an a lte rn a tiv e tra n sla tio n a t th is p o in t (see C om m ents o n 1:2 a n d 1:3), I su g g est th a t a b e tte r re n d e rin g is: First Strophe Second S trophe

a b c

H e will kiss m e with th e kisses o f his m outh, In d eed your caresses are b etter th an wine, b etter th an th e fragrance o f your perfum es, Your very nam e is like perfum es p o u re d out.

So u n d e rs to o d , S on g o f S ongs b eg in s w ith a m o n o c o lo n follow ed by a tric o lo n . (T h e fin al lin e o f v 3, ‘T h a t is why th e girls love y o u ,” p ro b a b ly is a s e p a ra te m o n o c o lo n .) T h e r e is obvious syntactic a n d se m an tic p a ra lle lism b e tw e e n lin e a a n d lin e b in m y se c o n d s tro p h e ; this m akes a m u c h s tro n g e r case fo r p ara llelism th a n d o e s th e trad itio n a l v ersification. B u t even my se c o n d stro p h e is n o t a b ic o lo n . It is a tric o lo n , a n d th e th ir d lin e rela te s to th e first two b u t d o e s n o t have th e sam e k in d o f p ara llelism . L in e c takes “y o u r p e rfu m e s ” (‫ )שמניך‬fro m lin e b a n d , in a re m a rk a b le w o rk o f co n so n a n c e a n d a sso n an c e , b rea k s it in to two p arts: “p e r f u m e ” (‫ )שכון‬a n d “y o u r n a m e ” (ηρφ). Even if o n e o p ts fo r a m o re tra d itio n a l tra n sla tio n ( “F o r y o u r love is b e tte r th a n w ine / Y our oils a re g o o d fo r fra g ra n c e / Y our n a m e is like p e rfu m e p o u r e d o u t ”), th e s tro p h ic division p ro p o s e d h e re still m ak es m o re sense th a n th e verse divisio n o f th e MT. B ut I believe th a t w h en o n e rec o g n ize s th a t v 2b b e lo n g s w ith v 3a, th e tra n sla tio n su g g ested h e re is fairly obvious. T h e above ex a m p le in d ic ates th a t H e b re w p o e m s o fte n have two c o n tig u o u s lin es th a t p a ra lle l ea ch o th e r, b u t th e se two lin e s m ay o r m ay n o t fo rm a b ic o lo n ; very ofte n th ey will sim ply b e two lin es th a t a re p a r t o f a la rg e r s tro p h e (verse). S o n g 2:5 is a n o th e r illu stratio n o f this. W ith th e MT, I tak e th is to b e a sin g le s tro p h e o f th re e lines: a b c

Lay m e o n a b e d o f raisins; s tre tc h m e o u t o n a c o u c h o f ap p les, fo r I am w o u n d e d by love.

L ines a a n d b are syntactically a n d se m an tically p a ra lle l, b u t th e re is n o p ara lle lism (in th e tra d itio n a l sense) lin k in g th e se two to lin e c; ra th e r, lin e c syntactically dep e n d s o n lin es a a n d b. I m u st insist, m o reo v er, th a t lin e c is every b it as p o e tic as th e first two lines; it is n o t m e re ly a s u p p le m e n ta l lin e , w ith lin es a a n d b b e in g th e rea l po etry . In sum m ary, w hile it is tr u e th a t th e b ic o lo n is very c o m m o n in H e b re w p o etry , it is n e ith e r u n iversal n o r n o rm ativ e. If w h at we a re lo o k in g fo r in a p o e m is sim ilarity su p e rim p o s e d o n contiguity, th e n th a t sim ilarity m ay a p p e a r a t any level, a n d n o t ju s t

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o n th e level o f th e tw o-line verse. In d e e d , in so m e cases th e sim ilarity m ay b e invisible e x c e p t at th e level o f th e stan za o r in d e e d o f th e full p o em . In th e se c o n d h a lf o f th e tw en tieth c e n tu ry ca m e a g re a t u p su rg e in stu d ies in H eb rew poetry . N o lo n g e r d e p e n d e n t o n H eb rew S c rip tu re s as a so u rc e fo r w ork, C ross a n d F re e d m a n devised a m e th o d o f c o u n tin g syllables to d e fin e th e c h a ra c te r o f th e o ld e st H eb rew verse by ig n o rin g th e M asoretic a c c e n tu a tio n a n d d raw in g on p arallels w ith newly d isco v ered . U g aritic texts. T h ey are follow ed by th e ir stu d e n ts, S tu art, C h risten se n , a n d o th e rs. C h riste n se n m o v ed o n to a system o f c o u n tin g follow ing th e S o u th A frican sc h o la r C a sp er J. L ab u sc h ag n e . A g ro u p o f D u tc h scholars (th e K am p en sch o o l le d b y j. C. d e M o o r) p ro p o s e d a m o re c o n v in c in g system o f c o u n tin g co lo n s in a n c ie n t H eb rew a n d U g aritic p o etry . W atson e v a lu a te d a n d disc o u n te d all th e “c o u n tin g ” m e th o d s. S om e scholars, A m eric an a n d E n g lish , drew th e discussion o f a n c ie n t H eb rew p o e try in to th e b ro a d e r d iscu ssio n o f p o e try in c u r r e n t E nglish a n d o th e r m o d e rn la n g u ag e s (K ugel). O th e rs a re analyzing a n c ie n t H eb rew p o e try in co m p ariso n w ith m edieval a n d m o d e rn (Israeli) H eb rew p o e m s (H rushovski a n d his Tel-Aviv sch o o l). N o co n sen su s h as d e v e lo p e d c o n c e rn in g th e rig h t a p p ro a c h to H eb rew poetry. O ’C o n n o r ’s m e th o d is th e m o st u sefu l a n d a c c u ra te to o l avan ao ie to su m m arize th e p re s e n t status o f sc h o larsh ip re g a rd in g H e b re w p o etry . H e arg u e s th a t a H eb rew p o etic lin e is g o v e rn e d by th e follow ing co n stra in ts ( H ebrew Verse S tru ctu re , 8 6 -8 7 ):

morae

1. A lin e m ay have fro m zero to th re e “clause p re d ic a to rs .” A clause p re d ic a to r is usually a fin ite verb, an infinitive a b so lu te fu n c tio n in g as a verb, a n infinitive c o n s tru c t fu n c tio n in g verbally (e.g., w h en it h as a p ro n o m in a l suffix fu n ctio n in g as th e su b je c t o f th e a c tio n o f th e infinitive a n d h as a d ire c t o b je c t), o r a p a rtic ip le fu n c tio n in g verbally (e.g., n o t as a su b sta n tiv e ). A few o th e r classes o f w ords m ay b e clause p re d ic a to rs, su ch as ‫ יש‬o r ‫ אי ך‬. T h u s, a lin e n e e d n o t have a clause p red ic ato r, b u t at m o st it m ay have th re e . 2. A lin e m ay have b etw e en o n e a n d fo u r “c o n s titu e n ts .” A “c o n s titu e n t” is a w ord o r p h ra se su ch as a n u n b o u n d n o u n , a c o n s tru c t ch a in , a n o u n a n d a ttrib u tiv e adjective, a clau se p re d ic a to r, o r a p re p o sitio n a l p h ra se . A c o n s titu e n t fills a g ram m atic al slot in a lin e , a n d it is o fte n in d ic a te d w ith h y p h e n s in tra n sla tio n . F o r ex a m p le , th e lin es o f 2 Sam 1:20 have two c o n s titu e n ts each : a. T ell-it-not in-G ath, b. a n n o u n c e -it-n o t in-the-streets-of-A shkelon; c. ‫ ־‬lest-they-rejoice th e -d au g h ters-o f-th e-P h ilistin es, d. lest-they-exult th e -d a u g h ters-o f-th e -u n c ircu m c ise d . 3. A lin e m ay have b etw e en two a n d five “u n its. A “u n it” is a w o rd su ch as a v erb o r n o u n o r p re p o sitio n w ith a p ro n o m in a l suffix, b u t n o t a p a rtic le , su c h as th e negative ‫ א ל‬. T h a t is, p article s are n o t n o rm a lly c o u n te d as u n its. 4. A c o n s titu e n t m ay have on ly fo u r u n its. 5. If a clause c o n ta in s th re e clause p red ic ato rs, it c a n n o t c o n ta in a d e p e n d e n t n o u n o r n o u n p h ra se (th a t is, it can c o n ta in n o th in g e ls e ). [See m y division o f S ong 5:7, w hich, in th e MT, c o n ta in s th re e verbs a n d a d e p e n d e n t n o u n p h ra se .] If a c o lo n has two clause p re d ic a to rs, o n ly o n e m ay have a d e p e n d e n t n o u n o r n o u n p h rase . 6. A co lo n m u st have syntactical integrity. If it h as o n e o r m o re clau se p re d ic a to rs, it c a n n o t have a n o u n c o n s titu e n t n o t d e p e n d e n t o n o n e o f th e m . A sig n ifican t p ro b le m h e re is d e te rm in in g w h at co n stitu te s a “u n it.” T h u s, p ro clitic a n d en clitic p article s are e x c lu d e d (e.g., a p re p o sitio n su ch as ‫ על‬w ith o u t a p ro n o m in al suffix, o r ‫)־נא‬. O n th e o th e r h a n d , so m e a c c e n te d p a rtic le s d o n o t c o u n t as u n its in th e O ’C o n n o r m o d e l, a n d in O ’C o n n o r’s m o d e l th e p re se n c e o r ab sen c e o f a

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Introduction is irre le v an t. W. H o lla d ay (JB L 118 [1999] 2 3 -3 2 ) h as in v e stig a ted th is p ro b le m in d e ta il a n d pro v id es a g re a t d e a l o f h e lp w ith this issue. In his analysis, p a rtic le s th a t d o n o t c o u n t as u n its in c lu d e th e neg ativ es ‫ לא‬a n d ‫ א ל‬, a n d m o st sm all p a rtic le s su ch as ‫כי‬, ‫אם‬, ‫גם‬, a n d ‫אף‬. C o m b in a tio n s o f p article s, su c h as ‫גם כי‬, p ro b a b ly d o c o u n t as a sin g le u n it. ‫ כל‬is m o re d ifficu lt; it n o rm a lly sh o u ld b e c o u n te d , b u t in so m e cases it m akes a lin e to o lo n g a n d p e rh a p s d o e s n o t c o u n t. A dverbs su c h as ‫פזם‬,‫ כן‬, a n d ‫ עוד‬d o c o u n t as u n its; so d o es th e relativ e ‫אשר‬. T h e in te rro g a tiv e ‫ מי‬c o u n ts as a u n it, b u t ‫ מה‬is m u c h m o re d ifficu lt. In H o lla d a y ’s analysis, it c o u n ts w h en it is th e o b je c t o f a d ire c t q u e s tio n o r is th e su b je ct o f a n o m in a l q u e stio n , yet d o e s n o t c o u n t w h e n it is th e su b je ct o f a v erb a n d im m ed ia te ly follow ed by th e v erb o r is th e su b je c t o f a n o m in a l clause th a t is an in d ire c t q u e stio n . As c o m p lic a te d as th is so u n d s, it o fte n a p p e a rs to involve little m o re th a n d e te rm in in g if th e ‫ מה‬h as a n a c c e n t o r is a p ro c litic . F o r exam p le, in J o b 34:4, w h ere it is p a r t o f a n o m in a l in d ire c t q u e stio n , it is p ro c litic a n d n o t c o u n te d . In J o b 7:17, w h ere it is th e su b je ct o f a n o m in a l d ire c t q u e s tio n a n d is c o u n te d , it is an a c c e n te d foot. Even w ith th e se c o n stra in ts in p la ce , d e te rm in in g th e c o lo n divisions in a s tro p h e is n o t a n a u to m a tic p rocess. S o m etim es e ith e r a sin g le lo n g e r lin e o r two s h o r te r lin e s will eq u ally fit all th e c o n stra in ts fo r co lo m etry . In th e se cases, o n e m ay lo o k fo r o th e r in d ic a to rs o f co lo n le n g th (e.g., d e te rm in e w h ich a lte rn a tiv e w orks b e tte r w ith th e s tru c tu re o f th e s tro p h e ). As su g g e sted above, th e c o lo m e try su g g e ste d by th e M T m ay h e lp to resolve a d ifficu lt case. B u t a d e g re e o f subjectivity still re m a in s. N o systern can g u a ra n te e a flawless a n d self-evident m e th o d o f co lo m etry . In a d d itio n to th e c o n stra in ts o f th e p o e tic lin e, O ’C o n n o r h as su g g e ste d several tro p e s th a t fu n c tio n in H eb rew p o etry . T h e se a re as follow s ( O ’C o n n o r, H ebrew Verse S tru ctu re , 109-32; m y tra n sla tio n s o f S c rip tu re ): 1. R e p e titio n o f a w o rd o r p h ra se , as in Ps 106:10, “H e saved th e m fro m th e p o w e r (‫ )י ד‬o f o n e w ho h a te d th e m / h e r e d e e m e d th e m fro m th e p o w e r (‫ )י ד‬o f th e en em y .” T h e re p e titio n n e e d n o t b e in c o n tig u o u s lines. 2. C o lo ra tio n o f a w o rd o r p h ra se , w h ich co m es in th re e varieties: a. B in o m a tio n , in w hich two a lte rn a tiv e n a m e s a re u se d in successive lin es, as in N u m 22:23, “N o o n e ca n cu rse J a c o b / n o o n e ca n h e x Is r a e l ‫״‬ b. C o o rd in a tio n , w hich involves fre q u en tly p a ire d n am es o f two d iffe re n t en titie s r a th e r th a n two n a m e s fo r th e sam e entity, as in Ps 106:16, ‘T h e y v ex e d M oses in th e cam p , / (th ey v exed) A a ro n , th e h o ly o n e [or, ‘s h r in e ’] o f Y ahw eh.” c. C o m b in a tio n , in w hich a p h ra se is sp lit in to two p a rts a n d d is trib u te d o v er two lines, as in Ps 106:43, “th e y w ere re b e llio u s in th eir counsels; th e y w ere b r o u g h t low in th eir in iq u ity .” H e re , a sin g le p h ra se , “in th e ir co u n se ls o f in iq u ity ,” h as b e e n sp lit a p a rt a n d d is trib u te d o v er two lines. T h e sa m e th in g m ay b e o c c u rrin g in th e lin es fro m Ps 106:16 c ite d in th e above p a ra g ra p h . T h e re , “holy o f Y ahw eh” m ay b e n o t a n e p ith e t o f A aro n b u t a c o m b in e d p h ra s e th a t h as b e e n sp lit a p a rt: “in th e c a m p o f th e s h rin e o fY a h w e h .” 3. M a tch in g o f th e syntax o f two c o n tig u o u s lin es (syntactic p a ra lle lism ), as in Ps 106:22, “W on d ers in th e la n d o f H a m , / te rro rs n e a r th e R e e d S e a .” 4. G ap p in g , in w hich a w o rd o r p h ra se in o n e lin e is also u n d e r s to o d to fu n c tio n in a se c o n d lin e ( “d o u b le -d u ty ” w o rd s), as in Ps 78:47, “H e w ip ed o u t w ith h ail th e ir vines, / th e ir sycam ores w ith fro st.” 5. D ep en d en cy , in w hich o n e lin e syntactically d e p e n d s o n a n o th e r, as in Ps 106:2, “W h o e v er can re c ite th e stre n g th s o f Y ahweh, / le t h im m ak e k n o w n h is p ra is e .” H e re , th e n o m in a l p h ra se in th e first lin e d e p e n d s o n th e clau se in th e se c o n d . 6. M ixing, in w h ich two d e p e n d e n t a n d two in d e p e n d e n t lin e s o c c u r in s e q u e n c e a n d b o th d e p e n d e n t lin e s d e p e n d o n b o th in d e p e n d e n t lines, as in Ps 106:47, “Save us, Yahweh o u r G od, / g a th e r us fro m th e n atio n s, / to p ra ise y o u r h o ly

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n a m e , / to w o rsh ip in a d o ra tio n o f you! ” H e re , two in d e p e n d e n t lin es p re c e d e two d e p e n d e n t lines. T h e lin e c o n stra in ts o f M. O ’C o n n o r are th e m o st re a so n a b le s ta rtin g p o in t availab le at this tim e fo r th e study o f H e b re w p o etry . A lth o u g h o n e m ay q u e s tio n th is o r th a t p o in t, a n d th e m a tte r o f w h at p article s “c o u n t” as u n its ca n b e so m e w h at tro u b le som e, th e system itself a p p e a rs to b e valid a n d fru itfu l. As a p ra c tic a l m a tte r, this c o m m e n ta ry te n d s to follow th e lin e divisions su g g e sted by th e M T as lo n g as they co n fo rm to O ’C o n n o r’s lin e co n strain ts, u n less o th e r c o n c e rn s p e rsu a d e m e to ch o o se an altern ativ e c o lo m e try w ith in th e c o n fin e s o f O ’C o n n o r ’s lin e c o n stra in ts.

Comparative Texts: Ancient Near Eastern Love Poetry Bibliography B lack, J . A. “B abylonian Ballads: A N ew G e n re .” J A O S 103 (1983) 2 5 -3 4 . C o o p e r, J . S. “N ew C u n e ifo rm P arallels to th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” J B L 90 (1971) 1 57-62. F o ster, J . L. A n c ie n t E g y p tia n L itera tu re: A n A nth ology. A ustin: Univ. o f T exas Press, 2001. F o x , Μ. V. “T h e C airo Love S o n g s. ”J A O S 100 (1980) 1 0 1 - 9 .----------. “Love, P assion a n d P e rc e p tio n in Israelite a n d E gyptian Love P o e try .”/ 5 L 102 (1983) 2 1 9 - 2 8 .---------- . S on g o f Songs a n d the A n c ie n t E g y p tia n L o v e Son gs. H e rm a n n , A. A lta g y p tisc h e L ieb esd ich tu n g . W ie sb a d e n : H arrassow itz, 1959. Ja c o b se n , T . T he H a r p T h a t O n c e . . . . L ic h th eim , M. A n c ie n t E g y p tia n L itera tu re. Vol. 2, The N e w K in g d o m . Berkeley: Univ. o f C a lifo rn ia Press, 1976. O ’C o n n o r, D. “E ros in E gypt.” A rchaeology Odyssey 4.5 (S e p t./O c t. 2001) 4 2 -5 1 . S a s s o n ,J . M. “A Furth e r C u n e ifo rm P arallel to th e S o n g o f S ongs?” Z A W 8 5 (1973) 3 5 9 -6 0 . W atson, W. G. E. “S om e A n c ie n t N e a r E astern P arallels to th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” In W ords R em em bered, Texts R enew ed. FS J. F. A. Sawyer, ed . J. Davies, G. H arvey, a n d W. G. E. W atson. S heffield: S h effield A cad em ic Press, 1995. 2 5 3 -7 1 . W estenholz, J . G. “Love Lyrics fro m th e A n c ie n t N e a r E ast.” In CAN E, 4 :2471-84. W hite, J . B. S tu d y o f the L a n g u a g e o f L o v e in the S on g o f Songs a n d A n c ie n t E g y p tia n L iteratu re.

T h e discovery o f love p o e try fro m a n c ie n t M esopotam ia a n d Egypt has revolu tio n iz e d th e study o f S ong o f Songs. A t th e very m in im u m , this p o e try has d e m o n s tra te d o n ce a n d fo r all th a t S ong o f Songs is n o t som e lite rary oddity o r o rp h a n b u t is p a r t o f a len g th y h isto ry o f a n c ie n t p o e try o f love. T his has n u m erous rep erc u ssio n s fo r th e study o f th e Song, th e m o st obvious b e in g th a t o n e m u st take its status as love p o e try seriously a n d n o t use it as a vehicle fo r som eth in g else. Several scholars have d escrib ed sim ilarities am o n g am o ro u s texts from M esopotam ia, Egypt, a n d th e B ible (see, fo r ex am ple, W atson, “Som e A n c ie n t N ear E astern P arallels”).

Mesopotamian Parallels A n c ie n t M eso p o tam ian texts have a n u m b e r o f parallels to th e S ong o f Songs, b u t u n lik e th e Song, M eso p o tam ian love p o e try a lm ost always c o n c e rn s th e love affairs o f th e gods a n d ten d s to be hym nic o r liturgical (see W estenholz, “Love Lyrics”). F o r ex am p le, th e A kkadian love song o f N ab u (N ebo) a n d T ash m etu 1:445) is hym nic in n a tu re . N a b u was th e A kkadian g o d o f scribes, a n d T ash m etu was his co n so rt. B o th h a d som e significance in th e A kkadian panth e o n ; th e N eo -B aby lo n ian clay cy lin d er o f N a b o p o la ssar invokes th e se two

(CS

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Introduction

d eities alo n g sid e M ard u k a n d o th e r h ig h gods. T h e p o e m d o es have som e elem en ts th a t are m o re o r less sim ilar to th e S ong o f Songs. F o r ex am p le, th e N ab u a n d T ash m etu so n g refers to th e lovers e n te rin g a g a rd e n to g e th e r (cf. S ong 6:11; 7 :1 3 -1 4 [ET 7 :1 2 -1 3 ]); it also has descriptive praise in w hich o n e o f th e lovers is said to have th ig h s like gazelles (cf. S ong 7:4 [ET 7:3 ]). A n A kkadian love in c a n ta tio n also bears som e re se m b la n c e to Song o f Songs (J. Sasson, 85 [1973] 3 5 9 -6 0 ). A n o th e r so n g w ith a sexual m o tif is a S u m erian tex t th a t T. Ja c o b se n calls “T h e B ridal S h e e ts” (Jacobsen, . . . , 13-1 5 ). In this song, th e g o d U tu co m es to his sister In a n n a to tell h e r th a t h e has a rra n g e d fo r h e r to m a rry A m a-ushum gal-anna. R a th e r th a n tell h e r directly, h e begins by tellin g h e r th a t he will b rin g h e r g re e n flax. She asks w ho will r e t it fo r h e r (i.e., m o isten th e flax so th a t th e fib ers will se p a ra te ), a n d h e re sp o n d s th a t h e will b rin g it alread y re tte d . A series o f sim ilar q u estio n s a n d answ ers follow; she asks w ho will spin it fo r her, a n d h e says h e will b rin g it alread y sp u n, a n d in like m a n n e r h e says h e will b rin g it alread y dyed, woven, a n d b le a c h e d . Finally, she asks h im w ho will lie dow n w ith h e r o n it. U tu says th a t sh e will lie dow n w ith h e r g ro o m , A m au sh u m g al-an n a , a n d she rejoices b ecau se h e is th e m an o f h e r h ea rt. A series o f love songs fo r D um uzi a n d In a n n a (T am m uz a n d Ish tar) has survived in th e S u m erian texts o f th e T h ird Dynasty o f U r a n d th e O ld B abylonian p erio d s. A gain, th ese are essentially hym ns, a n d they w ere re c ite d as a liturgy. T h ey m ay have b e e n c h a n te d antip h o n ally , o r a c c o m p an ied by d ru m s, a n d they possibly w ere u sed in a New Year’s festival 1:540-43). O n e can fin d ce rtain parallels to th e S ong o f Songs. In a n n a is so m etim es called “sister,” h e r eyes are beau tifu l, a n d h e r m o u th is sweet. D um uzi is d escrib ed as an ap p le tree (cf. Song 2:3). O f co u rse, m u c h o f this k in d o f la n g u ag e is so c o m m o n in love p o e try th a t th e value o f th ese parallels is lim ited (e.g., calling th e beloved “sister” is com m o n in th e a n c ie n t N e ar E a st). T h e th ird D um uzi a n d In a n n a song, called “Love by th e L ig h t o f th e M o o n ” by its tra n sla to r (Y. Sefati in 1:542-43), d escribes th e c o u rtsh ip o f In a n n a by D um uzi. It o p e n s w ith th e gods d esc rib ed as a p a ir o f y o u n g lovers staying o u t to o late in th e n ig h t; D um uzi tells In a n n a to lie to h e r m o th e r (th e g o d d ess N ingal) a n d say th a t she was o u t d a n c in g w ith a g irlfrie n d . T h e ru se was ap p a re n tly successful; a fte r a b re ak in th e tab let, N ingal d eclares th a t D u m u zi is w orthy o f I n a n n a ’s “la p ”! A n o th e r te x t w ith p arallels to th e S ong o f Songs is th e “M essage o f L u d in g ira to H is M o th e r,” a S u m e rian p iece e x ta n t in several O ld B abylonian a n d trilingual (S um erian-A kkadian-H ittite) tablets. T h is w ork has m ateria l th a t resem b les th e type o f p o e m o f descriptive p raise fo r th e b eloved (called th e afte r th e A rabic) fo u n d in S ong o f Songs. T h e p ecu liarity o f th e S u m erian p iece is th a t L u d in g ira uses this e la b o ra te lan g u ag e o f p raise n o t fo r his c o n so rt b u t fo r his m o th e r. It m ay be th a t th e “m o th e r ” h e is re fe rrin g to is actually th e go d d ess In a n n a ( s e e j. C ooper, 90 [1971] 162). A M iddle B abylonian text, B ritish M useum 47507, also d escribes th e love o f Is h ta r /I n a n n a fo r T am m u z /D u m u z i. T h is fra g m e n ta ry tex t has som e sim ilarities to th e Song; fo r ex am p le, Ish ta r d escrib es h e r beloved as a s h e p h e rd . Ish ta r also refers to a d o o r b etw een h e r a n d T am m uz a n d expresses th e wish th a t it will o p e n o f its own accord. J. B lack 103 [1983] 25-3 4 ) d escribes th e tex t a n d calls it a “b a lla d ,” b u t th a t is n o t a w ell-chosen te rm fo r th e song.

ZAW

Harp That Once

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E gyptian Parallels T h e love p o e try o f Egypt is m u c h closer to th e S ong o f Songs in c o n te n t a n d form . Follow ing th e w ork o f H e rm a n n in G erm an , re c e n t E nglish tran slatio n s a n d analyses o f this co rp u s in c lu d e L ich th eim 2:181-93), W hite Fox a n d F oster 17-31). S tu d e n ts o f S ong o f Songs a re especially in d e b te d to F ox fo r th e m o st co m p lete analysis o f th e Egypd a n m ateria l to d ate. T h e follow ing su m m ary is b ased o n his tran slatio n s a n d to som e d e g re e o n his co m m en ts, a lth o u g h th e co m p ariso n s to S ong o f Songs are my own. T h e E gyptian love songs com e fro m th e n in e te e n th a n d tw en tieth dynasties (respectively, ca. 1305-1200 B.C.E. a n d ca. 1200-1150 B.C.E.). T h ey are secular in th a t they are n o t hym ns o r litu rg ies a n d in th a t th e lovers are n o t gods b u t ordin a ry y o u n g p e o p le . T h e y d o so m etim e s call o n a g o d fo r assistan ce— th ey especially invoke H a th o r, th e E gyptian A p h ro d ite — b u t th e gods play n o ro le in th e songs, w ith th e possible e x c ep tio n o f an en ig m atic figure called M ehi. O therw ise, th e re is n o relig io u s e le m e n t in th e songs a t all. T h e m ain p u rp o se o f th e songs is e n te rta in m e n t; they d escrib e y o u n g love, in fatu a tio n , p in in g fo r th e b e‫־‬ loved, a n d o th e r reco g n izab le th em es. F o r th e m o st p a rt, they are n o t especially bawdy in co m p ariso n to th e M eso p o tam ian texts, b u t they are a t tim es enigm atic a n d p ro b ab ly c o n ta in e d sexual allusions a n d w ordplays th a t th e a u d ien c e was e x p e c te d to catch. T h e first m a n u sc rip t is P apyrus H a rris 500 a n d is fro m th e early n in e te e n th dynasty. It is h o u se d in th e B ritish M useum . T h e tex t is som ew hat d am ag ed , b u t it seem s to co n tain an anth o lo g y o f th re e sep arate “e n te rta in m e n t songs” (groups A, B, a n d C in Fox, 7 -2 9 ). G ro u p A is a fairly straig h tfo rw ard erotic text. Like th e S ong o f Songs, it has p arts fo r a m ale a n d a fem ale singer, b u t— again like th e S ong— th e two are n o t in tru e d ialo g u e b u t are sim ply singing love songs in an a n tip h o n a l fashion. T h e girl calls o n th e boy to co m e back to h e r a n d caress h e r thighs; she u rg es h im to h a ste n back like a h o rse d ash in g to a battlefield ; she d eclares th a t his lovem aking is like b e e r to her. T h e boy in tu rn says th a t th e girl (“sister”) is a lotus a n d th a t h e r breasts are like som e k in d o f fru it o r v eg e ta tio n (Fox, 9, suggests th a t it is “m a n d ra g o ra s” o r m an d ra k e s). T h e boy also wishes h e c o u ld be a d o o rk e e p e r a t th e g irl’s h o u se (th e d o o rs b e in g a tra n s p a re n t d o u b le e n te n d r e ). Every e le m e n t m e n tio n e d h e re has an a n a lo g u e in th e S ong o f Songs. In th e Song, th e w om an longs to m ake love to th e m an a n d calls h im to h asten to h e r like a y o u n g stag (e.g., 8:14); she says th a t his love is b e tte r th a n w ine (1:2); th e m an calls his beloved “sister” a n d co m p ares h e r breasts to clusters o f dates (4:9; 7:8 [ET 7:7]); she is a flow er (2:1); th e d o o rs o f th e w o m a n ’s h o u se are also sexual m e ta p h o rs (5:2-7; see o n w 4 -5 ). P apyrus H a rris 500 g ro u p B (Fox, 16-25) has few er p arallels in S ong o f Songs. It is su n g exclusively by a girl; she describes how she w e n t o u t to trap b ird s b u t was h e rse lf e n s n a re d in h e r b elo v ed ’s lovem aking a n d th u s failed to catch any birds— a lth o u g h she d o es d escrib e ca tch in g a b ird (re fe rrin g to h e r lover) w ith th e frag ran c e o f P u n t (th e p arad ise o f Egyptian m ythology) a n d claws th a t are full o f b alm . Later, she y earns fo r h e r lover to com e to h e r b u t is con-

(Altagyptische Liebesdichtung) cient Egyptian Literature, (Study of the Language ofLove), of Songs), (Ancient Egyptian Literature,

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Introduction

v inced th a t h e has fo u n d a n o th e r girl, so she ru n s o u t afte r h im w ith h e r h a ir only h a lf styled. T h e use o f b alm o n th e b ir d ’s claws to signal a sexual m e ta p h o r has a p ara lle l in th e m y rrh o n th e d o o r-b o lt in S ong 5:5, a n d th e girl d a sh in g o u t half-dressed a fte r h e r lover has an analogy in th e w om an o f th e S o n g ro a m in g th e streets in sea rch o f h e r b eloved (S ong 3 : 1 7 ‫ ־‬5 ; 5:2 ‫) ־‬. T h e songs o f g ro u p C (Fox, 2 6 2 9 ‫ ) ־‬are again su n g by a girl. She decla res th a t h e r h e a rt has b e e n b o u n d to h e r lover ever since she lay w ith him . She says th a t she is a tre e ex a lte d above th e o th e r trees (th a t is, she is his favorite) a n d th a t she is a field p la n te d w ith flow ers th a t has a canal in it, w hich th e m an sc o o p e d o u t w ith his h a n d (th a t is, h e d eflo w ered h e r ) . To her, his voice is like p o m e g ra n a te w ine. T h e m e ta p h o r o f th e o n e tre e b e tte r th a n all o th e r trees a p p e a rs in S ong 2:3, e x c e p t th a t th e re it is th e m a n w ho is b e tte r th a n all o th e r trees. T h e w o m an is a flow er in S ong 2 :1-2, a n d she describes his d eflo w erin g o f h e r w ith his “h a n d ” in 5:4 (see o n 5 :4 -5 ). T h e w om an is ex c ite d a t h e r lo v er’s voice in S ong 2:8. T h e se c o n d m a jo r so u rce fo r E gyptian love p o e try is th e C airo Love Songs. T h ese w ere ‘W itte n o n a vase o f 36.5 cm . h ig h a n d 43.0 cm . in d iam eter, inscrib e d o ver an effaced copy o f th e W isdom o f A m e n e m h e t” (Fox, 29). T h e vase is b ro k e n , a n d som e frag m en ts are m issing, m ak in g fo r som e larg e lacu n a e. T h e re a re two g ro u p s o f songs, b o th p ro b ab ly w ritten by th e sam e p o et. T h e first g ro u p (Fox, 3 1 -3 7 ) o p e n s w ith a fem ale solo. She speaks o f how she y earn s fo r h e r beloved, w hose love is like oil, in cen se , a n d b e e r to h e r (cf. S ong 1:2-3). She calls h im h e r g o d a n d h e r lo tus an d , in a brok en fra g m e n t, speaks o f th e n o r th w ind (cf. S ong 4:16). S he desires to b a th e b efo re h e r lover a n d enigm atically speaks o f c a rry in g a re d fish. T h e re m a in d e r o f th e lyrics a re su n g by a m ale. H e d ec la res th a t she is o n th e o th e r side o f a river a n d th a t a cro co d ile is b etw een th em . N evertheless, h e w ades in to th e wate r a n d crosses as if by m agic; th e cro co d ile was like a m o u se to him . H e th e n speaks o f e m b ra c in g her, kissing her, a n d e n te rin g h e r b ed ro o m . H e is like a m an in P u n t, a n d h e co m p ares h e r sce n t to balm . S ong o f Songs, too, speaks o f th e w o m an as th o u g h in an u n a tta in a b le lo catio n (S ong 4:8, w h ere she is in a m o u n ta in lair s u rro u n d e d by lions a n d le o p a rd s). B ut in S ong o f Songs, th e m an d o es n o t clim b u p to th e w om an; ra th e r, h e ap p eals to h e r to co m e dow n. T h e se c o n d C airo g ro u p consists e n tire ly o f songs o f a boy w ho w ishes h e co u ld b e n e a r his beloved; th e songs express seven fantasies o f intim acy w ith her. First, h e w ishes h e w ere h e r m aid , so th a t h e co u ld see h e r n a k e d in h e r ro o m . S eco n d , h e w ishes h e w ere h e r la u n d ry m a n , so th a t h e co u ld h a n d le h e r clothes. T h ird , h e wishes h e w ere h e r rin g , so th a t h e co u ld be w ith h e r every day. F o u rth , h e a p p a re n tly wishes th a t h e w ere h e r m irro r (th e tex t is o b scu re), so th a t h e c o u ld see h e r every m o rn in g . F ifth, h e w ishes th a t she w ere a b o u t him like a g a rla n d o f flowers, a n d h e d escrib es h e r as a lush g a rd e n . Sixth, m o re literally, h e wishes th a t she w ould co m e to him , a n d h e p rom ises th a t h e will h o ld a festival to h o n o r th e g o d w ho gives h e r to him ; h e also declares th a t h e is b ec o m in g ill fro m u n fu lfilled d esire fo r her. T h e seventh stanza is b ro k e n a n d o b scu re, b u t it seem s to c o n tin u e th e sixth. M aterial such as. this is n o tab ly abse n t fro m S o n g o f Songs, w h ere th e re a re n o idle, a d o lesc en t fantasies a b o u t h a n d lin g a g irl’s clothes; n o r are th e re any vows o f th a n k o fferin g s to G o d in re tu r n fo r giving to a boy th e girl o f his h e a r t’s desire. T h e re are, how ever, two

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n o ta b le p arallels betw een this E gyptian so n g g ro u p a n d S ong o f Songs. T h e lovesickness o f th e boy has an ec h o in S ong 2:5, alth o u g h th e re it is th e w om an w ho is ill, a n d h e r c o n d itio n is o f a m u c h m o re p ro fo u n d n a tu re th a n . th a t o f th e E gyptian. In th e fifth stanza o f th e E gyptian song, th e girl is d esc rib ed as a profusely lush g a rd e n , an alo g o u s to th e p raise o f th e w om an in Song 4:13-14. T h e th ird m ajo r co llectio n is th e T u rin Love Song, fo u n d in a tw entieth-dynasty p ap y ru s (Fox, 4 4 -5 1 ). It is a lto g e th e r u n lik e th e o th ers. It has th re e m a jo r stanzas, a n d in each stanza a d iffe re n t tree addresses a y o ung couple. T h e first tree , o n F o x ’s analysis, is th e p e rse a (an ev erg reen , fruit-bearin g tre e cu ltiv ated in p h a ra o n ic E g y p t). T his tre e declares th a t its pits resem b le th e w o m a n ’s te e th a n d its fru it resem b les h e r breasts, b u t th e n it boasts th a t it is b e tte r th a n all o th e r trees a n d th re a te n s to reveal w h at th e lovers have b e e n u p to. T h e sec o n d stanza is sp o k en by a “fig-sycam ore” tree, a n d it co m p lain s th a t th e co u p le has failed to give it th e h o n o r it is d u e a n d also th re a te n s v en g ean ce against th em . T h e th ird stanza o p e n s w ith w ords, ap p a ren tly co m in g fro m th e p o et, p ra isin g th e “little sycam ore” tree. T h e tre e is said to be co lo rfu l, ric h in fru it, a n d a b u n d a n t in shade. T h e tree itself th e n calls o n th e y o u n g co u p le to ce le b ra te th e ir love a n d sings hap p ily o f th e ir b e e r d rin k in g a n d lovem aking b e n e a th its shade; it co n clu d es by p ro m isin g n o t to tell w hat it has seen. A lthough S ong o f Songs has n o th in g in this g en re, th e re are p arallels to be fo u n d . T h e n o tio n o f lovem aking u n d e r th e trees ap p e a rs in th e Song also (8:5; see o n v 5). T h e w o m a n ’s body is c o m p a re d to a d ate p alm tree, w ith its clusters re sem b lin g h e r b reasts (S ong 7:8 [ET 7:7]). T h e fo u rth m ajo r co llectio n is th e C h ester B eatty Papyrus I love songs (Fox, 5 1 -7 7 ). T h e p ap y ru s itself is fro m th e tw en tieth dynasty; it is qu ite len g th y a n d co n tain s religious a n d business texts in ad d itio n to th e love poetry. T h e love songs are in th re e g ro u p s. C h ester B eatty I g ro u p A (Fox, 52-66; W hite, 177-81) is a song o f seven stanzas in w hich a boy a n d a girl sing a lte rn a te stanzas, th e boy singing first a n d last. T h e first stanza o p e n s w ith th e boy d e c la rin g th a t his “sister” is u n iq u e a n d has n o eq u al am o n g o th e r w om en (cf. Song 6 :8 -9 ). H e th e n m oves in to a d e sc rip tio n o f h e r skin, eyes, lips, neck, breast, hair, arm s, fingers, buttocks, waist, a n d thighs. H e says th a t h e r arm s surpass gold. T h e S ong o f Songs has several sim ilar descriptive songs o f th e w o m an ’s body (e.g., S ong 6 :4 -7 ). In th e sec o n d stanza, th e E gyptian girl is p in in g w ith lovesickness over h e r m o th e r’s d e te rm in a tio n to keep th e two ap a rt. T h e th ird stanza is o b scu re. T h e boy a p p e ars to b e g o in g to th e h o m e o f his g irlfrie n d w hen h e passes by M ehi in his ch ario t. T h e id en tity o f this figure is u n c e rta in ; Fox 64-6) suggests h e is a cu p id lik e deity w ho m akes y o u n g m en co n fu sed a n d lovesick. In th e fo u rth stanza, th e girl is d istracte d w ith love a n d desire. She c a n n o t p ro p e rly dress h e rse lf o r p u t o n eye m ak eu p , a n d she is struggling to m a in ta in h e r co m p o su re . In th e fifth stanza, th e boy prays th a t H a th o r will give h im success in love. H e says th a t w h en h e last saw her, all m e n bow ed in awe o f her, b u t it has b e e n five days since h e saw her. In th e sixth stanza, th e girl recalls th a t she p assed by th e boy’s h ouse; she lo o k ed at him a n d saw th a t all w ho know h im love him . She also prays to H a th o r fo r success: “If only m o th e r knew m y h e a rt— / S he w ould go in sid e fo r a w hile / O G o ld en O n e , p u t th a t in h e r heart! / T h e n I c o u ld h u rr y to (my) b ro th e r / a n d kiss h im b efo re his com -

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ment

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guage of Love,

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Introduction

Song of Songs,

pany, / a n d n o t be ash a m e d because o f a n y o n e ” (Fox, 55). T h is is strikingly sim ilar to S ong 8:1-2, a lth o u g h th e re are significant d ifferen ces as well. In th e sev en th stanza, th e boy ru efu lly says th a t it has b e e n seven days since h e saw th e girl a n d th a t h e now is b ec o m in g ill. P riests a n d physicians will d o h im n o g o o d ; h e will n o t revive u n til h e sees her. C h e ste r B eatty I g ro u p B (Fox, 6 6 6 8 ‫ ;־‬W hite, 181-82) expresses th re e w ishes o f a yo u n g girl. First, she w ishes th a t h e r lover w ould h asten to h e r w ith th e sp e e d o f a royal m essen g e r w ho has fresh h o rses a t th e way stations a n d w ho will n o t rest u n til h e is at th e h o u se o f th e “sister.” S eco n d , she wishes th a t h e r lover w ould be like a w ar h o rse ra c in g to th e h o m e o f his “sister.” T h ird , she w ishes h e w ere like a gazelle, b o u n d in g away fro m th e h u n te r a n d his d o g a n d tak in g n o re st till h e com es to th e “cave” o f his “sister.” In S ong o f Songs, th e m an com es b o u n d in g like a gazelle over th e hills to his b elo v ed (2 :8 -9 ). C h ester B eatty I g ro u p C (Fox, 68-77; W hite, 183-85) is q u ite distinct; it is called th e N ak h tso b ek Songs after th e scribe w ho co p ie d th e w ords. It has seven stanzas. T h e first two stanzas are su n g n o t by a y o u n g lover b u t by som e p e rso n o r p erso n s d e c la rin g th at, if a y o u n g m a n will b rin g to th e “h o u se m istress” an an im al fo r sla u g h te r a n d an am p le supply o f w ine a n d ale, h e will be able to d elig h t h im self in th e sexual p leasu res o f th e “sister.” It is ev id en t th a t th e “h o u se m istress” is n o t th e g irl’s m o th e r b u t th e k e e p e r o f a b ro th e l. T h e lan g u ag e o f these two stanzas is thorough ly ero tic , a n d it re ad s like a p ro s titu te ’s ad v e rtise m en t fo r th e ecstasy th a t th e y o u n g m an will e x p e rie n c e if h e is w illing to pay th e price. A close biblical p arallel to this is Prov 7. In th e th ird stanza o f th e Egyptian song, th e boy sings th a t h e has b e e n c a p tu re d by th e g irl’s h a ir as by a lasso; h e is p u lle d to h e r like a bull in a n o o se a n d is b ra n d e d w ith h e r seal; th e sim ilarity to Prov 7:22 is strik in g ( “h e walks rig h t b e h in d her, h e goes like a b u ll to th e s la u g h te r”). In th e fo u rth stanza, a girl boldly u rg es h im to e m b ra c e h e r a n d com es after h im w ith little o r n o th in g o n . In th e fifth stanza th e girl says th a t th e yo u n g m an has b ro u g h t th e req u isite p rice , an an im al fo r a feast a n d a supply o f beer, a n d com es to h e r aro u se d fo r sexual u n io n . In th e sixth song, th e y o u n g m an co m p lain s th a t th e girl is in sid e h e r h o u se a n d will n o t le t h im in. T his is c o n tin u e d in th e sev en th stanza, w h e re th e boy passes by h e r h o u se in a daze a n d knocks o n th e door, d e m a n d in g e n tra n c e . H e d ec la res th a t h e will sacrifice o x en a n d geese to th e d o o r a n d th a t h e will pay to have th e d o o r c o n v e rted in to a d o o r o f grass (th a t is, in to a d o o r th a t c a n n o t ex c lu d e h im ). T h e n , h e says, anytim e h e com es th e d o o r will be o p e n to h im a n d a fine b e d a n d p re tty m aid serv a n t will be p re p a re d fo r h im . All in all, th e N a k h tso b e k Songs a p p e a r to speak o f th e e n tra p m e n t o f a y o u n g m a n by a b ro th e l. First, h e is e n tic e d to co m e in w ith p rom ises o f sexual bliss; th e n h e is ab ru p tly se d u c e d by a p ro stitu te a n d pays th e price. B ut afte r h e beco m es a d d ic te d to this p leasu re, h e m u st b rin g ever g re a te r gifts a n d p aym ents if h e is to c o n tin u e to enjoy th e e n te rta in m e n t th e re . As suggested above, Prov 7 m ay draw o n this fo r its p o rtray al o f th e seductive ways o f th e p ro stitu te . Still, th e re are e c h o es o f this tex t in th e S ong o f Songs, alb eit in an en tirely d iffe re n t co n te x t w ith d iffe re n t significance. Like th e y o u n g m an o f stanza 3, th e m a n o f S ong o f Songs says h e is c a p tu re d in th e h a ir o f his beloved (7:6 [ET 7:5 ]). T h e S ong also h as th e m o tif o f th e m an ex c lu d e d a n d stan d in g o u tsid e th e d o o r o f

guage of Love,

guage of Love,

Song of Songs,

Song of Songs,

Study of the Lan-

Study of the Lan-

Introduction

53

th e w o m an in 5:2-6. T h e im p o rta n c e o f th e N ak h tso b ek Songs fo r S ong o f Songs is e x p lo re d m o re fully below in this In tro d u c tio n . T h e re are also a series o f sm all m iscellan eo u s texts in th e Egyptian love poe try co rp u s, b u t th ey are fra g m e n ta ry a n d o f litt l e use h ere. W h a t is o n e to m ake o f a co m p ariso n b etw een th e S ong o f Songs a n d th e Egyptian m aterial? T h e E gyptian co rp u s has in flu e n c e d th e lan g u ag e a n d m otifs o f th e S ong o f Songs. B o th have sh o rt stanzas su ng by a m ale o r fem ale lover, b o th use a sim ilar set o f m e ta p h o rs (th e w om an as a tree w ith h e r breasts as its fru it, th e w o m an as a g a rd e n , th e w om an e n tra p p in g th e m an w ith h e r hair, th e m an b o u n d in g to th e w om an like a gazelle, a n d so fo rth ), a n d b o th use th e sam e m otifs (such as th e e x c lu d e d lover o r lovesickness, a lth o u g h th ese a n d o th e r m otifs are u sed in d iffe re n t ways in th e two bodies o f lite ra tu re ). B oth draw o n a co m m o n stock o f m e ta p h o rs, as is ap p a ren tly th e case w ith th e Song o f Songs a n d th e M eso p o tam ian texts. B u t co m p ariso n to th e M esopotam ian texts m akes th e p o in t th a t w h at is seen in th e S ong a n d th e Egyptian co rp u s was n o t m erely “co m m o n sto ck .” T h e sim ilarities are too close a n d to o n u m e ro u s to be e x p la in e d as a n y th in g o th e r th a n th e in flu en c e o f th e Egyptian songs o n the Israelite p o em . T h e E gyptian co rp u s is, a p a rt fro m th e difficulties involved in re c o n stru c tin g a n d tra n sla tin g th e texts, m u c h sim p ler love p o e try th a n th e biblical m aterial. F or th e m o st p a rt, th e E gyptian c h a rac te rs are th o ro u g h ly ad o lescen t. T h ey are in to x ic a te d w ith love, re a c t w ith m elo d ra m a tic flo u rish a t th e th o u g h t o f separation, are plainly n o t m a rrie d , a n d sp eak in a m a n n e r th a t is fo r th e m o st p a rt straig h tfo rw ard . W hile h id d e n m e ta p h o rs m ay be fo u n d , th e re is little m ystery o r p ro fo u n d sym bolism in th em . A girl is u p se t b ecause h e r m o th e r disapproves o f h e r boyfriend; a boy is u p se t b ecause th e d o o r to his p ro stitu te is shut. T h ese im ages a re p lain a n d d irect. By co n trast, th e w om an in th e S ong o f Songs speaks m u c h m o re m ysteriously o f h e r m o th e r a n d h e r m o th e r’s h o u se (as in S ong 8 :1 2). T h e exclu sio n a t th e d o o r in S ong 5 :2 -6 is fa r m o re co n fu sin g a n d , I suggest, m u c h m o re p ro fo u n d th a n its E gyptian c o u n te rp a rts. It is precisely becau se o f th e ad o lesc en t, sim ple quality o f th e E gyptian p o em s th a t these lovers are called “boys” a n d “girls.” T h e lovers in th e m u c h m o re co m p lex w orld o f S ong o f Songs are a m a n a n d a w om an. C o m p ariso n b etw een th e two texts in d icates th at, alth o u g h they m ay have th e sam e m o tif o r m eta p h o r, they m ay n o t have th e sam e in te rp re ta tio n . Som etim es a m e ta p h o r th a t is u se d o f th e m an in th e E gyptian texts is u sed o f th e w om an in th e Song. S im ilar m otifs a n d co n cep ts, such as th e m o th e r o f th e girl, can be u sed in en tirely d iffe re n t ways w h en o n e m oves fro m th e Egyptian m aterial to th e Bible. T h a t th e boys a n d girls in th e E gyptian texts are n o t m a rrie d does n o t m ean th a t th e sam e is tru e fo r th e m an a n d w om an o f th e Song. We sh o u ld finally n o te th a t in ad d itio n to w ritten texts, an e n o rm o u s n u m b e r o f g ra p h ic a l re p re se n ta tio n s o f sexuality (bas-relief sculptures, to m b pain tin g s, figurin es, a n d so fo rth ) have co m e dow n to us fro m th e a n c ie n t N e ar East. Som e o f this is re stra in e d , b u t m u c h is luridly erotic. M uch o f th e ero tic m aterial is religio u s in n a tu re , b u t som e, su ch as th e T u rin p o rn o g ra p h ic papyrus, is apparently secular. T h e c o m m en tarie s o f P o p e a n d K eel co n tain m any p h o to g ra p h s o f th ese im ages, a n d so m etim es they are h elp fu l in in te rp re tin g th e im ag ery o f th e Song. T h e T u rin p o rn o g ra p h ic p ap y ru s is d escrib ed by D. O ’C o n n o r 4.5 [2001] 4 2 -5 1 ).

chaeology Odyssey

(Ar-

54

Introduction

C omparison of O ne E gyptian T ext w ith Song of Songs As alread y in d ic a te d , th e E gyptian love p o e try is closer to th e p o etic m e th o d o f S o n g o f Songs th a n is any o th e r p o e try o f th e a n c ie n t w orld. Analysis o f o n e o f th ese w orks, th e N ak h tso b ek S ongs (P apyrus C h ester B eatty I g ro u p C ), shows th a t it is sim ilar to S ong o f Songs in u n e x p e c te d ways a n d h elp s to clarify issues in th e in te rp re ta tio n o f th e Song. T h e text, F o x ’s tran slatio n 6877), is h e r e p re s e n te d in full. However, Fox has “p o e t” as th e p o stu la te d sin g er fo r nos. 41 a n d 42, a n d h e has “g irl” fo r th e sin g er in nos. 44 a n d 45; m y d escrip ‫־‬ tions o f th e singers (in brackets) are so m ew h at d ifferen t.

(Song of Songs,

41. (A)

(B)

(C) 42. (A)

(B)

(C) 43. (A) (B)

44.

Female Singer(s) as Poet(s) [Prostitute(s)] W h e n you b rin g it to th e h o u se o f (your) sister a n d blow (?) in to h e r cave, h e r g ate(?) will b e ra ise d u p (? ) th a t h e r h o u se-m istress m ay sla u g h te r it. S upply h e r w ith so n g a n d d a n c e a n d w ine a n d ale, w hich sh e set aside, th a t you m ay in to x ic a te h e r sen ses(?), a n d c o m p le te h e r in h e r n ig h t. A n d s h e ’ll say to you: ‘T a k e m e in y o u r e m b ra c e , a n d w h en daw n b rea k s th a t’s how w ill b e .”

Female Singer(s) as Poet(s) [Prostitute(s)]

W h e n you b rin g it th e h all o f (your) sister, w hile you a re a lo n e , w ith o u t a n o th e r, you m ay d o y o u r d e sire in h e r sn a re , a n d th e h alls(?) will blow lig h tly (?). T h e h eav en s will d e s c e n d in a b re e z e , (yet) blow it away. It (only) b rin g s y o u h e r fra g ra n ce : a n in u n d a tin g a ro m a th a t in to x ic a te s th o se w ho a re p re se n t. T h e G o ld en O n e it is w ho se n d s h e r to y o u as a gift, to m a k e you fulfill y o u r days.

Male Singer as Boy

H ow skilled is sh e— (my) sister— a t ca stin g th e lasso, yet s h e ’ll n o cattle! W ith h e r h a ir sh e lassos m e, w ith h e r eye sh e p u lls (m e) in, w ith h e r th ig h s sh e b in d s, w ith h e r seal sh e sets th e b ra n d .

Female Singer as Girl [Prostitute]

W hile yo u (yet) a rg u e d w ith y o u r h e a r t— “A fter h er! E m b ra c e h e r ! ”— as A m o n lives, it was I w ho ca m e to you, my tu n ic o n my sh o u ld e r.

45.

Female Singer as Girl [Prostitute]

My b r o th e r is a t th e w ate rco u rse, his fo o t p la n te d o n th e riv erb an k . H e p re p a re s a festival a lta r fo r s p e n d in g th e day w ith th e ch o ice st(?) o f th e b eers.

Introduction

55

H e “g ra n ts (m e) th e h u e ” o f loins. It is lo n g e r th a n b ro a d . 46. M a le S in g er as Boy As fo r w h at sh e — (my) sister— d id to m e, sh o u ld I k e e p sile n t to h er? S h e le ft m e s ta n d in g a t th e d o o r o f h e r h o u se w hile sh e w en t in sid e, a n d d id n o t say to m e, “W elco m e!” b u t b lo c k e d h e r ea rs in m y n ig h t. 47. M a le S in g er as Boy (A) p assed by h e r h o u se in a daze, I k n o c k e d , b u t it was n o t o p e n e d to m e. A fin e n ig h t fo r o u r d o o rk e e p e r! (B) B olt, I will o p e n (you)! D oor, yo u a re my fate! You are m y (very) sp irit, O u r ox will b e sla u g h te re d in sid e. (C) O D oor, e x e rt n o t y o u r stre n g th , so th a t o x e n m ay b e sacrificed to (your) b o lt, fa d in g s to (your) th re sh o ld , a sto u t g o o se to (your) ja m b s, a n d a n o rio le to (your) lin te l(? ). (D) B u t every ch o ic e p ie c e o f o u r ox will b e (saved) fo r th e c a rp e n te r lad th a t h e m ay fa sh io n us a b o lt o f ree d s, a d o o r o f g rass(?). (E) (T h e n ) at any tim e th e b r o th e r can co m e a n d fin d h e r h o u se o p e n , a n d fin d a b e d sp re a d w ith fin e lin e n , a n d a p re tty little m a id se rv a n t too. (F) T h e little m a id will say to “. . . th e m ay o r.”

It is fairly obvious th a t this set o f p o em s co n c ern s a young m an a n d a house o f prostitu tio n . H e is to ld to b rin g in all m a n n e r o f fo o d a n d d rin k fo r th e privilege o f enjoying th e ecstasy she has to offer (tios. 41 a n d 42). In ad d itio n , in no. 41 A, h e is to ld to b rin g it to th e “h o u se m istress,” w ho is obviously th e m a tro n o f a b ro th el. Fox 69-71) ascribes nos. 41-42 to th e “p o e t,” b u t th ere does n o t seem to be any reaso n to co n sid er these lines anonym ous in th e songs, m u ch less as th e advice th a t th e p o e t is giving to th e boy. T hey are b e tte r taken to be th e w ords o f th e pro stitu te h e rse lf o r p erh ap s o f a ch o ru s o f girls re p resen tin g th e w om en o f th e b ro th el. T h e fact th a t these p o em s speak o f th e “sister” in th e th ird p e rso n (no. 41A) is n o reaso n to th in k th a t th e p ro stitu te co u ld n o t h erself be th e speaker. T h e boy knows th a t h e is b ein g e n sn a red like a bull in a lasso an d th a t h e is a b o u t to be b ra n d e d , b u t h e is able to m o u n t little resistance to th e en ticem e n ts o ffered h im (no. 43). W hen h e does hesitate, th e p ro stitu te com es after h im a n d brazenly shows h erself to h im (no. 44; she is evidently n ak e d o r n e a r n a k e d ). In no. 45, th e p ro stitu te first describes th e boy as having com e to the w atercourse (p erh ap s th e location o f th e b ro th el) w ith th e requisite paym ent: “My b ro th e r is at th e w atercourse, / his fo o t p la n te d o n th e riverbank. / H e p re p are s a festival altar fo r sp en d in g th e day / w ith th e choicest(?) o f th e b eers.”

(Song of Songs,

56

Introduction

She th e n speaks o f his private parts: “H e ‘grants (m e) th e h u e ’ o f loins. / It is lo n g er th a n b ro a d .” W hite 184) translates these two lines as “H e b ro u g h t skin to my thighs / H e is taller th an h e is b ro a d .” F or o u r purposes, we can accept e ith er translation, b u t F ox’s explanation o f these lines is surely w rong: ‘1 surm ise th a t th e girl is saying—in a suggestive, ‘n au g h ty ’ fashion— th a t as h e r b o y frien d b e n d s over w hile m ak in g p re p a ra tio n s fo r th e ir p rivate festivities, she sees his nakedness u n d e r his lo in clo th ” (Fox, 74). First o f all, h e is h e r client, n o t h e r boyfriend. Also, in light o f how th e selling o f sexual pleasure is th e th em e o f this text, it m akes little sense for h e r to slip in to a girlish, “nau g h ty ” m ode, as th o u g h she were surprised o r em barrassed at th e sight. Instead, this text uses a fam iliar device o f graphically taking the audience u p to th e m o m e n t o f a crucial event w ithout describing th e event itself. By analogy, if a m o d e m p o em ends w ith th e words, "H e placed th e pistol to his h e a d ,” it n e e d n o t spell o u t for us the fact th a t h e com m itted suicide. T hus, no. 45 ends with the boy taking th e sexual favors h e was prom ised. As a literary device, h e r language is cru d e b u t effective. H e r w ords are decidedly n o t words o f playfulness o r surprise; the young m an is n o th in g to h e r b u t a sexually aroused m ale. T h e re is n o intimacy, passion, o r im agery here, only a plain description o f th e anatom y o f th e aroused m ale’s penis. Sexuality has b een re d u c e d to biology. In contrast to th e a rd e n t language o f the girls o f Papyrus H arris 500, th e prostitute has n o em o tio n in h e r language at all. W h eth er o n e follows W h ite’s o r F ox’s translation, h e r rem arks are a b lu n t description o f an aspect o f sexual arousal a n d tell th e re a d e r th a t intercourse takes place. In th e n e x t p o em s (nos. 4 6 4 7 ‫)־‬, however, th e boy is su d d en ly o u tsid e th e g irl’s d o o r a n d fru stra te d th a t she will n o t le t h im in. It is ev id en t th a t this is a su b se q u e n t occasion a n d th a t this tim e h e has co m e em pty-handed. We are th erefo re a t a new ep iso d e. In n o . 45 h e h a d a gift in h a n d , b u t h e re h e says th a t h e passed by “in a d a z e .” A fter h e recovers fro m th e shock o f b ein g ex c lu d e d , h e p ro claim s th a t h e will b rin g every m a n n e r o f m e a t a n d d rin k to gain access to h e r (th a t is, h e d o es n o t have m e a t a n d d rin k a t th e m o m e n t). T h e situ atio n is n o t d ifficu lt to unravel. T h e y o u n g m an , h aving e x p e rie n c e d intim acy w ith th e p ro stitu te , now th in k s o f h e r as his lover a n d goes back to h e r e x p e c tin g to be receiv ed a n d given th e sam e favors th a t h e en jo yed before. F o r her, how ever, h e is ju s t a clien t, a n d having n o p ay m en t, h e gets n o service. T h e boy is at first simply angry a n d bew ildered (no. 46), b u t th en h e realizes th at he m u st com e with paym ent in h a n d (no. 47). T h e language h e uses is th e exaggerated bravado o f a young m an. First, h e says th at h e will glut th e doorw ay with every kind o f feast. Fox 77) cites th e B ook o f the D ead h ere (spell 125c), w here th e parts o f th e H all o f Two T ru th s refuse to allow passage to th e recently d eceased u n til th e deceased gives th e ir p ro p e r nam es. This is a false lead. T h e N akhtsobek Songs are differen t in every way; m ost significantly, the d o o r parts in the love p o em d o n o t speak to the young m an. R ather, the young m a n ’s claim th at he will b rin g a g re at feast to the d o o r is simply his way o f saying th a t n e x t tim e he will have m o re th an e n o u g h paym ent for th e g irl’s services. Similarly, his prom ise to pay a c a rp e n te r to p u t a grass d o o r o n h e r house is m erely an o th e r boastful assertion th a t h e will b ear w hatever cost to g et reg u lar access to h e r services. T h e se songs la m p o o n th e folly o f th e y o u n g m an w ho know ingly lets h im self be tie d a n d b ra n d e d by th e p ro stitu te . T h e sim ilarity o f this tex t to P rov 7 has alread y b e e n n o te d . In a d d itio n , a n d d esp ite th e d iffe re n t su b ject m a tte r (g o in g to a p ro stitu te in th e N ak h tso b ek Songs; m a rria g e in Song o f S ongs), this m ate-

(Study of the Language ofLove,

Song of Songs,

(Song of Songs,

Introduction

57

rial p arallels S ong o f Songs in sig n ifican t ways b ey o n d th e sim ilar im ag ery (a w om an e n sn a rin g a m a n w ith h e r hair, S ong 7:6 [ET 7:5]; a m an e x c lu d e d by a d o o r fro m his lo v er’s h o u se, S ong 5 :2 -6 ). B oth works are a series o f sm aller songs th a t to g eth er m ake u p a u n ified piece. N e ith e r can be called a story, a n d it w ould be a m istake to dram atize e ith e r o r co n co ct elab o rate “stage” instructions. A t th e sam e tim e, b o th co n tain th e germ o f a story, o r are b u ilt o n an im p lied b ac k g ro u n d story, a n d th e individual songs cap tu re m o m en ts in th e b a c k g ro u n d story. In b o th cases, th e songs m ove abruptly fro m im ag e to im ag e w ith n o tra n s itio n o r e x p la n a tio n . T h e im ag es in th e N akhtsobek Songs are th e g en e ral ap p eal o f th e p ro stitu te (nos. 4 1 -4 2 ), th e hesitation o f th e boy (no. 43), th e aggressive e n tic e m e n t o f th e p ro stitu te (no. 44), th e m o m e n t o f p ro stitu tio n (no. 45), a n d th e exclusion o f th e young m an, with his bo ast th a t n e x t tim e h e will b rin g m o re th a n e n o u g h p ay m en t (nos. 46-47). B oth w orks have th e sexual u n io n o f th e m an a n d w om an as th e cru cial tu rn in g p o in t (no. 45 in th e Egyptian song; I will arg u e th a t S ong 4:16-5:1 is the c e n tra l te x t in S ong o f S o n g s). T h e N ak h tso b ek Songs have so m e th in g o f a concen tric p a tte rn . In nos. 4 1 -4 2 , th e y o u n g m an is p ro m ised sexual ecstasy if he b rin g s th e e x p e c te d paym ent. H e do es so, a n d in nos. 4 6 -4 7 h e claim s th a t he will again b rin g a p ay m en t, a n d h e an ticip ates sexual ecstasy. T his c o m m en tary will suggest th a t S ong o f Songs has a sim ilar stru c tu re . In ad d itio n , th e N a k h tso b e k Songs d escrib e th e sexual tran sfo rm atio n o f th e y o u n g m an , a lb eit in very negative term s. H e is e n sn a red , b ra n d e d , a n d finally a slave o f th e b ro th e l, p ro m isin g to b rin g to th e m w hatever it takes so th a t h e m ay have th e w om an h e im agines is his lover, his “sister.” T his co m m e n ta ry will arg u e th a t th e re is also a tra n sfo rm a tio n in S ong o f Songs, b u t th a t h e re it is o f th e w om an — a n d it is a far m o re positive tran sfo rm atio n . C o m p ariso n to th e N a k h tso b ek Songs shows how S ong o f Songs takes a m o d el from lyric p o e try a n d re sh ap es it significantly. It fu rth e r illustrates th a t th e m o d el u sed in th e co m m en tary , a co m p lex o p u s co m p o sed o f m any s h o rte r songs arra n g e d in to a u n ifie d a n d s tru c tu re d w hole, has e a rlie r analogies.

Analogies for Song of Songs “I a c q u ire d singers, m ale a n d fem ale, a n d every h u m a n lu x u ry .” So saying, Q o h e le th tells us a little a b o u t m usic in th e a n c ie n t N e ar E ast (Eccl 1:8). Anc ie n t m usicians em p lo y ed fem ale singers a n d n o t boy so p ran o s, as was co m m o n in th e m edieval era. E gyptian a rt co n firm s this w ith its d ep ictio n s o f fem ale m usicians w ho n o t only sang b u t also played in stru m e n ts a n d d an c ed . O nly th e rich a n d po w erfu l co u ld enjoy p ro fessio n al m usical p e rfo rm an c es, as only they co u ld affo rd e ith e r to h ire p rofessional m usicians o n a re g u la r basis o r to acq u ire slaves w ho specialized in m usic. T h e S ong o f Songs a p p e a rs to b e w ords to m usic th a t w ould have b e e n sung by pro fessio n als— individuals w ho w ere skilled e n o u g h to m aster a w ork o f this com plexity. W h a t strikes th e re a d e r m o st a b o u t this m ateria l is th a t it is stunnin g ly in tric a te . Even th o u g h it has re p e titio n , this re p e titio n is n o t o f th e m echan ically r e d u n d a n t k in d o n e o ften sees in m any a n c ie n t songs (witness th e U garitic epic o f K eret). W h en re p e titio n do es o c c u r in th e Song, it is o ften with m in o r (o r m ajo r) variations. T h e S ong co n stan tly ch an g es its focus; at o n e mo-

58

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m e n t th e w o m an is d e fe n d in g h e r d a rk skin, a n d a t th e n e x t she is seeking h e r beloved. As a c o m p le te o pus, it is m u c h lo n g e r th a n th e average psalm . Songs o f ex tre m e le n g th are m a d e som ew hat easier to m aster if they follow th e sam e patte r n th r o u g h o u t, w h e th e r it b e th e acro stics o f L a m e n ta tio n s , th e d actylic h e x a m e te r a n d re p e a te d e p ith e ts o f H o m er, o r th e rhym e sch em e o f a series o f sonn ets. It is d ifficu lt fo r p e rfo rm e rs to m aster such w orks if they have n o m em orizatio n aids. S ong o f Songs is n o t ex trem ely long, b u t it offers n o obvious aids fo r m a ste rin g th e lyrics. A q ib a’s c o m p la in t a b o u t p e o p le w ho sang th e S ong w ith a b u rle sq u e trill d o es n o t c o n tra d ic t this; n o d o u b t m any p e o p le w ho w ere attra c te d to th e S o ng by its ero tic lyrics c o u ld sing individual p arts o f th e work. Even assu m in g th a t A qiba is sp eak in g o f lay singers, his co m p lain t does n o t m e a n th a t th ese p e o p le m a ste re d th e w hole S ong, o r th a t it is originally folk m usic. S o n g o f S ongs has th re e voices: th e fem ale lead , th e m ale lead , a n d th e chorus. T h ey p a rtic ip a te a t m an y d iffe re n t p o in ts th ro u g h o u t th e Song, a n d th e vocalists w o u ld have to b e tra in e d a n d c o o rd in a te d . T his practically d e m a n d s w h a t o n e c o u ld call a p ro fessio n al p ro d u c tio n . Finally, th e te x t says as m u ch ; it is "T h e S o n g o f Songs th a t b elo n g s to S o lo m o n .” In o th e r w ords, it is c o u rt poetry. Music o f m o re re c e n t vintage co m p o sed fo r c o u rt o r ca th e d ral m ay h elp us u n d e rs ta n d th e Song. Like m any o f th e works o f Bach, H an d el, a n d M endelssohn, th e S ong is a collection o f sm aller songs th a t to g e th er fo rm an in te g ra te d opus. As in th e W estern exam ples, th e individual songs co u ld be fo r m ale o r fem ale voices, for solos, duets, ch o ral groups, o r co m b in atio n s o f several o f these. Like th e oratorio, th e Song m ay have b ee n p e rfo rm e d with an in stru m en tal overture, voluntaries, a n d interm ezzi. T h e psalm superscripts a n d E gyptian p o rtra itu re tell us th a t anc ie n t m usic was p e rfo rm e d w ith in s tru m e n ta tio n , a lth o u g h th e n a tu re o f th e in stru m e n ts obviously indicates th a t th e style o f m usic w ould have b e e n very diffe re n t fro m , fo r exam ple, th e o v ertu re to L ike th e o ra to rio , th e lyrics o f a single so n g m ay have b e e n su n g m an y tim es in th e co u rse o f th e p e rfo rm a n c e o f th e S o n g o f Songs. O n e d iffe ren c e betw een th e S o n g a n d som e o ra to rio co m p o sitio n s is th a t th e S ong d o es n o t have any recitative (b rie f p ro se n a rra tio n in s e rte d b etw een songs to ex p lain th e settin g fo r a so n g to th e a u d ie n c e ). T his is im p o rta n t b ecause it re in fo rce s th e fact th a t th e S o n g o f Songs d o es n o t tell an y th in g like a full story. N o n arrativ e is necessary a n d , fo r th a t m atter, n o ch a n g es o f scen e n e e d be d escrib ed . By d e sc rib in g th e S o n g as an a lo g o u s to th e , th e re fo re , we m u st take p ain s to p o in t o u t th a t it is n o t a n It ce le b rate s th e e x p e rie n c e o f a m an a n d w om an passing th ro u g h th e ev en t o f m arria g e, a n d it p ro fo u n d ly expresses th e em o tio n s a n d significance o f th e ex p e rie n c e . O n c e again th e analogy o f H a n d e l’s m ay h e lp us. T h o se w ho know th e gospel o f C h rist perceive th e p e rfo rm a n c e o f as a w o rsh ip fu l p ro c la m a tio n o f th e o f C h rist a n d o f th e g re a t m essianic events o f th e C h ristian faith , in c lu d in g his b irth , cru cifix io n , re su rrec tio n , ascen sio n , a n d re tu rn . S o m e o n e w ho knew n o th in g o f th e gospel, however, w ou ld b e h a r d p re sse d to d escrib e th ese events if h e only h a d H a n d e l’s o ra to rio . d o es n o t th e sto ry o f Jesus; it th e sto ry o f Jesu s fo r th o se w ho already know th e story. T h e S ong o f Songs, if o n e m ay p u t it this way, d eals w ith so m e th in g th a t is m u c h m o re o f a nonstory th a n is W hile d eals specifically w ith Jesu s C hrist, th e S ong only deals w ith a n anonym ous, id ealized m a n a n d w o m an w ho an tic ip a te th e ir m arria g e, co n su m m ate

Messiah.

opera.

oratorio

Messiah

siah

Messiah

Messiah

meaning

tell

celebrates the meaningoi

Messiah.

Mes-

Introduction

59

th e ir m a rria g e , a n d b eg in th e ir m a rrie d life. It c o m m em o ra te s a n d idealizes th e a n d n o t any p a rtic u la r perso n s. B ut ju s t to m ake th e p o in t th a t th e k in d o f so n g co llectio n suggested h e re is n o t c o n fin e d to b a ro q u e m usic, we m ay also th in k o f th e A ndrew Lloyd W ebber m usical B ased o n th e p o em s o f T. S. E lio t’s this m usical celeb rates th e p erso n alities o f ‘Jellicle cats” by describ in g th em in term s th a t are a t th e sam e tim e b o th h u m a n a n d feline. T h e re is a series o f individ u al songs by various singers a n d g ro u p s, b u t som e lines a n d m otifs are re p e a te d th ro u g h o u t th e m usical. is n o t a story, b u t its songs are n o t random ly th ro w n to g eth er. It has a shadow o f a story line. Finally, to u n d e rs ta n d th a t th e n o tio n o f a u n ifie d co llectio n o f songs is n o t a W estern in n o v atio n , o n e sh o u ld realize th a t m any o f th e books o f th e p ro p h e ts are co llections o f poem s a rra n g e d in to single, c o h e re n t m essages (e.g., H osea, M icah, A m os). To be sure, th e p o e try o f th e p ro p h e ts is n o t th e lyrical p o e try o f th e Song o f Songs, b u t th e id e a th a t th e S ong co u ld be a stru ctu rally u n ifie d p iece c o m p o sed o f individual songs by a single a u th o r is n o t an a ch ro n istic. A n even closer analogy, however, is in th e N a k h tso b e k Songs o f P apyrus C h ester B eatty I discussed above.

marriage event itself, Cats,

Cats.

Old Possum’s Book of Practical

Cats

Interpretations of the Song de rigueur

It is alm o st fo r a co m m e n ta ry o n S ong o f Songs to review th e histo ry o f th e in te rp re ta tio n o f th e Song. T h e re is an im p o rta n t p o in t to this; o n e ’s in te rp re ta tio n o f th e te x t will b e d riven fro m b e g in n in g to e n d by w hat positio n o n e takes w ith re g a rd to th e b o o k ’s g e n re (L o n g m an , 21). T h e history o f th e in te rp re ta tio n o f th e S o n g also raises q u estio n s a b o u t w h at co n stitu tes a legitim ate h e rm e n e u tic . I f o n e re g ard s it as a sym bolic po rtray al o f th e love th a t exists b etw een C h rist a n d th e soul a n d if o n e accepts th e validity o f allegorizing a text, th e n every lin e will b e e x p lo re d allegorically. T h e follow ing b rie f sam ples from th e m ass o f lite ra tu re o n th e S ong sh o u ld e n a b le th e re a d e r to g e t a sense o f how various in te rp re te rs have h a n d le d th e S ong th ro u g h th e cen tu ries.

T he Allegorical I nterpretations

Bibliography A lex an d er, P. S. *The S o n g o f Songs as H isto ric al A llegory: N o tes o n th e D e v e lo p m e n t o f an E x eg etical T ra d itio n .” In E d. K. C a th c a rt a n d M. M aher. S heffield: S h effie ld A cad em ic Press, 1996. 1 4 - 2 9 .---------- . ‘T e x tu a l C riticism a n d R a b b in ic L ite ra tu re : T h e C ase o f th e T a rg u m o f th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” 75 (1993) 159-73. A lshich, M . T ran s. R. S h ah ar. Je ru sa le m : F eld h e im , 1993. A stell, A. W. Ith a c a , NY: C o rn e ll UP, 1990. B row n, P. N ew York: C o lu m b ia UP, 1988. B u rro w s, M . S. “F o u n d a tio n s f o r a n E ro tic C hristology: B e rn a rd o f C lairv au x o n Je su s as ‘T e n d e r L over.’” 80 (1998) 4 7 7 -9 3 . C ahill, J . B. ‘T h e D ate a n d S ettin g o f G re g o ry o f N yssa’s C o m m e n ta ry o n th e S o n g o f Songs. ”/T S 32 (1981) 4 4 7 -6 0 . C h au cer, G. E d. V. A. Kolve a n d G. O lson. N ew York: N o rto n , 1989. D ove, M . “Sex, A lleg o ry a n d C e n so rsh ip : A R econside ra tio n o f M edieval C o m m e n ta rie s o n th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” 10 (1996) 31 7 -2 8 . E ld er, D . M a rin a d e l Rey,

Targumic and Cognate Studies.

tianity.

BJRL Shir Hashirim: Love Song of a Nation. The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages. The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early ChnsAThR The Canterbury Tales. Literature and Theology The Song of Songs: A Metaphysical Interpretation.

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CA: D eVorss, 1988. G o p p e lt, L. Typos: T he T ypological In te rp reta tio n o f the O ld T estam en t in the N ew. G ra n d R apids: E e rd m a n s, 1982. G ro ssfe ld , B. T h e T argu m to the F ive M egilloth . N ew York: H e rm o n , 1973. J o h n o f F o rd . Serm ons on the F in a l Verses o f the S o n g o f Songs. T ran s. W. M. B eckett. K alam azoo, MI: C isterc ian , 1977. K elln er, Μ . M. “I n tro d u c tio n to th e C o m m e n ta ry o n S o n g o f S ongs C o m p o se d by th e Sage Levi B en G e rsh o m — A n Ann o ta te d T ra n s la tio n .” In From A n c ie n t Isra el to M o d e rn J u d a ism . Vol. 2 , J u d a is m in the M id d le A ges. FS M. Fox, ed. J. N eu sn e r, E. S. F re ric h s, a n d N. M. S arn a. A tlan ta: S ch o la rs P ress, 1989. 187-205. K im elm an , R . “R abbi Y o h an an a n d O rig e n o n th e S o n g o f Songs: A T h ird C e n tu ry Jew ish -C h ristia n D isp u ta tio n .” H T R 73 (1980) 5 6 7 -9 5 . Lew is, C. S. T h e A lleg o ry o f L o ve. L o n d o n : O x fo rd UP, 1 9 3 6 .--------- . O n Stories a n d O th er E ssays on L itera tu re. E d. W. H o o p e r. N ew York: H a rc o u rt B race a n d Jo v a n o v ich , 1966. L oew e, R . “A p o lo g e tic M otifs in th e T a rg u m to th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” In B ib lic a l M o tifs: O rig in s a n d T ra n sfo rm a tio n s. E d. A. A ltm a n n a n d P. W. Low n. S tu d ies a n d Texts 3. W alth am , MA: In s titu te o f A d v an c ed J u d a ic S tu d ies, B ra n d e is U niversity, 1966. 1 5 9 -9 6 . M a tte r, E. A. Voice o f M y B elo ved . M cC am bley, C. “St G re g o ry o f N yssa’s C o m m e n ta ry o n th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” C optic C hu rch R e v ie w 3 (1982) 145-52. M iller, P. C. “P le a su re o f th e T ext, T ex t o f P lea su re : E ro s a n d L a n g u a g e in O r ig e n ’s C o m m e n ta ry o n th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” J A A R 54 (1986) 2 4 1 -5 3 . N ew b erry , T. T he S o n g o f Solom on. K ilm arn o ck : R itch ie, n .d . N ew to n , A. L. T he S o n g o f Solom on: C om pared w ith O th er P a r ts o f Scripture. N ew York: C a rte r 8c B ros., 1858. N o rris , R. A ., J r . ‘T h e Soul T akes F light: G re g o ry o f Nyssa a n d th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” A T h R 80 (1998) 5 1 7 -3 2 . P h ip p s, W. E. ‘T h e P lig h t o f th e S o n g o f S o n g s.”/A A R 42 (1974) 8 2 -1 0 0 . S im on, M ., tran s. M id ra s h R a bbah : S o n g o f Songs. L o n d o n : S o n c in o , 1983. T h o m s o n , R . W. “G re g o ry o f N a re k ’s C o m m e n ta ry o n th e S o n g o f Songs.” JT S 34 (1983) 4 5 3 -9 6 . T o u rn ay , J . R . “A b ra h a m e t le C a n tiq u e d es c a n tiq u e s .” V T25 (1975) 5 4 4 - 5 2 .---------- . W ord o f God, S on g o f L ove. T ran s. J . E. Crowley. N ew York: P aulist, 1988. T u rn e r, D. E ros a n d A llegory.

B o th C h ristian s a n d Jew s have a lo n g h isto ry o f tre a tin g S ong o f S ongs as an allegory. Jew s have o fte n tak en it to be an alleg o ry e ith e r o f th e h isto ry o f Isra e l’s re d e m p tio n o r o f th e love fo r w isdom . C h ristians typically re g a rd it as a portrayal o f th e love b etw een C h rist a n d th e c h u rc h , o r C h rist a n d th e ind iv id u al b eliev e r’s soul. O ccasionally o th e r elem e n ts, such as th e v e n e ra tio n o f Mary, are also in s e rte d in to C h ristian in te rp re ta tio n s o f th e Song. T h e follow ing rem ark s will sam p le th e views o f various alleg o rizers o f th e S ong in o rd e r to e n a b le th e re a d e r to a p p re c ia te th e diversity o f view points. W h ere practical, I will cite variou s in te rp re ta tio n s o f th e sam e verse o r sim ilar verses in o rd e r to illu strate how d iffe re n t in te rp re te rs d ea l w ith sim ilar texts.

Jewish Allegorizing T h e o rig in o f Jew ish allegorism is u n k n o w n . R abbi A qiba is said to have utte re d th e cu rse, “H e w ho trills his voice in th e c h a n tin g o f th e S ong o f Songs a n d trea ts it as a secu lar song, has n o sh are in th e w orld to c o m e !” ( . 12.10, c ited in R. K. H a rriso n , , 1051, a n d in virtually every m a jo r c o m m e n ta ry o n th e S o n g ). T h is suggests th a t in th e late first o r early se c o n d c e n tu ry C.E. th e re w ere th o se w ho sang it in a bawdy m a n n e r as an ero tic song. T h e T arg u m o n th e S o n g (c o m p o sed afte r th e sixth c e n tu ry b u t n o d o u b t w ith m ateria l draw n fro m e a rlie r p erio d s) p re se n ts it as an o u tlin e o f th e h isto ry o f Isra e l’s sin a n d re d e m p tio n in five m ovem ents: th e ex o d u s, Sinai, a n d c o n q u e s t (1 :2 -3 :6 ); th e te m p le o f S o lo m o n (3 :7 -5 :l); Isra e l’s apostasy a n d exile (5 :2 -6 :l); th e r e tu r n a n d th e re b u ild in g o f th e tem p le (6:2-7:11); a n d th e dis-

Introduction to the Old Testament

t Sank.

Introduction

61

p e rsio n a n d m essianic e ra (7:12-8:14). (For a su m m ary o f th e T argum , see P ope, 95-96; fo r a tran slatio n , B. G rossfeld, 171-252.) T h e T arg u m was n o t sim ply a re c a p itu la tio n o f th e h istory o f Israel; it also ex to lled th e w ritten a n d o ral T orah. R. Loew e ( “A pologetic M otifs”) argues th a t elem en ts in th e T a rg u m ’s in te rp re ta tio n are polem ic against e ith e r C hristian allegorization o f th e S ong o r Jew ish eso teric m ysticism. P o p e cites th e T arg u m th r o u g h o u t his co m m en tary ; an ex am p le will give the re a d e r so m e th in g o f th e flavor o f targ u m ic exegesis. O n Song 2:4 (“H e takes m e to th e h o u se o f w ine / a n d his b a n n e r tow ard m e is love”), th e T arg u m has, “T h e assem bly o f Israel said: YHW H b ro u g h t m e in to th e A cadem y o f R esearch o n Sinai to le a rn th e Law fro m th e m o u th o f M oses, th e g re a t Scribe, a n d the re g im e n o f H is C o m m a n d m e n ts I received in love a n d I said: ‘All th a t YHWH has c o m m a n d e d I will d o a n d I will o b ey ’” (P ope, 377). P. S. A lex a n d er (“S ong o f Songs as H isto rical A llegory”) gives a full h isto ry o f th e historical-allegorical in te rp re ta tio n o f th e S ong fro m its b e g in n in g in th e T argum to its m o st re c e n t revival a m o n g F re n c h C atholic in te rp re te rs o f R o b e rt’s school (see discussion b elo w ). T h e M idrash R ab b ah o n Song o f Songs seem s to d ate from th e early m idrashic p e rio d , ca. 500 C.E. T h e te x t illustrates ra b b in ic in te rp re ta tio n s o f th e Song o f Songs, b u t they n ev e r stray far fro m a h istorical-allegorical m o d e. T h e follow ing ex c e rp t (S im o n ’s tran slatio n , 102-3) illustrates this (sm all caps a n d italics o rig in a l).

Targum to the Five Megilloth,

Midrash Rabbah,

H e HATH BROUGHT ME TO THE HOUSE OF WINE. R. M eir a n d R. J u d a h gave d iffe re n t e x p la n a tio n s o f this. R. M eir said: T h e C o m m u n ity o f Isra el said: ‘T h e Evil In clin atio n o b ta in e d m a ste ry o v er m e like w ine, a n d I said to th e calf, T h is is thy god, O Israel (Ex. X X X II, 4). W h e n w ine g o es in to a m a n it co n fu ses h is m in d .’ S aid R. J u d a h to him : E n o u g h o f th a t, M eir; we d o n o t e x p o u n d th e S o n g o f S ongs in a b a d sense b u t on ly in a g o o d o n e , sin ce th e S o n g o f Songs was c o m p o se d o n ly fo r th e p raise o f Israel. W h a t th e n is m e a n t by H e HATH BROUGHT ME TO THE HOUSE OF WINE? S aid th e C o m m u n ity o f Israel: ‘T h e H oly O n e , b le ssed b e H e, b r o u g h t m e to a g re a t c e lla r o f w ine, n am ely Sinai. T h e re H e gave m e b a n n e rs o f T o ra h a n d p re c e p ts a n d g o o d d eed s, a n d in g re a t love I a c c e p te d th e m .’ R. A b b a said in th e n a m e o f R. Isaac: T h e C om m u n ity o f Israel said: ‘T h e H oly O n e , b le ssed b e H e, b r o u g h t m e to a g re a t c e lla r o f w ine, n am ely Sinai, a n d fro m th e re gave m e th e T o ra h w hich is e x p o u n d e d w ith fortyn in e rea so n s fo r d e c la rin g clea n a n d fo rty -n in e rea so n s fo r d e c la rin g u n c le a n , th e n u m e ric a l value o f th e w o rd w ediglo (a n d his b a n n e r ). A n d w ith g re a t love I a c c e p te d it, as it says, A n d HIS BANNER OVER ME IS LOVE.’

T h e n e x t significant Jew ish in te rp re ta tio n still e x ta n t is th a t o f S aadia (ca. 8 9 2 -9 4 2 ), th e sp iritu al le a d e r o f a Jew ish co m m u n ity in Babylon. A cco rd in g to P o p e (1 0 1 -2 ), h e also re a d th e S ong as an allegorical h isto ry o f Israel, b u t his exegesis d id n o t follow th e T arg u m . R abbi S o lo m on b en Isaac (ca. 1040-1105), also called R ashi, tre a te d th e S ong as an allegory o f th e sin a n d re d e m p tio n o f Israel m o re o r less alo n g th e lines o f H os 1-3. O th e r m edieval Jew ish scholars (R ashbam , ib n Ezra) alleg o rized th e S ong in various ways. A m o re p h ilo so p h ical re ad in g was in itiated by M aim onides (1135-1204) , w ho suggested th a t th e Song re fe rre d n o t to th e n a tio n o f Israel b u t to th e love betw een G od a n d th e individual. Several o f his disciples p ro d u c e d co m m en taries in

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this m o d e, in c lu d in g jo s e p h b e n J u d a h b en Ja c o b ibn A knin, Sam uel ib n T ibb o n , Moses ib n T ibbon, a n d J o se p h ib n Kaspi. T h ese in terp re ters generally saw th e Song as a m ystical alleg o ry o f th e intellect. In th e late six teen th c e n tu ry D o n Isaac A bravanel tre a te d th e S ong as an allegory o f S o lo m o n ’s love fo r W isdom , a n d this in te rp re ta tio n subsequently was d ev elo p ed by a n u m b e r o f Jew ish in te rp re te rs (Pope, 102-12). A Kabbalistic in te rp re ta tio n , w ith n u m ero u s referen ces to th e S hek in ah , is fo u n d in th e co m m en tary o f Ezra b en Solom on o f G e ro n a (d ied ca. 1238). A n English version a p p e a re d in 1999 (see P e rh a p s th e g re a te st in te rp re te r o f th e S o n g in th e tra d itio n o f M aim o n id es was Levi b e n G e rsh o m (G e rso n id e s), w ho lived fro m 1288 to 1344. T h is m o d e o f analysis b ro u g h t a decisive b re a k fro m th e d o m in a n t Jew ish trad itio n . F or G erso n id es, S ong o f Songs is essentially a w ork o f epistem ology! M. K ellner, in his in tro d u c tio n to G e rso n id es’ c o m m e n ta ry (Levi b e n G ershom , xviii-x x ), says th a t G e rso n id es is c o n c e rn e d w ith th e p ro b le m o f how know ledge is a c q u ire d a n d th e im p e d im e n ts to a tta in in g tru e know ledge. T his is a m a tte r o f g re a t imp o rta n c e since e rro rs in speculative know ledge actually take th e p h ilo s o p h e r fu r th e r fro m p e rfe c tio n . T h e T o rah , th e n , gives g u id an ce in th e ac q u isitio n o f tru e know ledge, a n d th e S ong o f Songs is an allegory o f epistem ology. T h e structu re o f th e S o n g is as follows: (1) in tr o d u c tio n to th e p u rp o s e o f th e S o n g (1 :1 -8 ); (2) im p e d im e n ts to know ledge th a t re la te to m o ral im p e rfe c tio n (1 :9 2:7); (3) im p e d im e n ts to kn o w led g e th a t re la te to im a g in a tio n a n d o p in io n (2:8 -1 7 ); (4) m ath em atics (3:1-4:7); (5) physics (4:8-8:4); (6) m etaphysics (8 :5 14). G e rso n id e s’ a p p ro a c h is illu stra te d by his in te rp re ta tio n o f S ong 4:5, ‘Y our breasts are like two fawns, twins o f a gazelle, th a t graze am o n g th e lo tu ses” (Levi b en G e rsh o m , 56—57; italics o rig in al, b ra c k e te d item s ad d e d ):

Commentary Bibliography).

S ince b rea sts serv e to n u rse h e c o m p a re d th a t w h ich e m a n a te s to h e r b rea sts. H e allegorically c o m p a re d h e r to tw o f a w n s th a t are tw in s o f a gazelle b e c a u se o f th e ir fle e t‫־‬ ness. H e said this b ec au se o f h e r d ilig e n c e to p re p a re fo r h im w h at h e n e e d s fro m h e r in th e se sciences [m a th e m a tic s]. H is s ta te m e n t w hich fe e d a m o n g the lilies is c le a r o n th e basis o f w hat we said in o u r in tro d u c tio n [th a t fra g ra n c e s sym bolize th e stim u latin g o f th e in te lle c t]. T h is verse ac co rd s w ith th e a lle g o ry alo n e. H e b e g a n p raisin g h e r fro m h e r h e a d a n d d e s c e n d e d ste p by ste p to h e r b rea sts since in th is scien c e o n e always p ro c e e d s fro m th e p r io r to th e p o s te rio r w h en we ju d g e th e ex iste n ce o f o n e th in g b e c a u se o f th e ex iste n c e o f a n o th e r th in g . T h is is clear. O n th e w ho le, few th in g s escap e this.

A t this p o in t, G erso n id es m oves in to an ex cu rsus o n w h e th e r astro n o m y is an e x c e p tio n to this ru le . It sh o u ld co m e as n o su rp rise th a t this a p p ro a c h to th e S ong is eso teric a n d n o t in te n d e d fo r th e Jew ish masses. I f n o th in g else, it vividly illu strates th e fact th a t th e alleg o rist can see w hatever h e w ants to see in S ong o f Songs. O n e sh o u ld n o t suppose th a t th e rise o f philosophical, mystical, a n d Kabbalistic in terp re ta tio n s o f th e S ong m e a n t th e e n d o f Jew ish co m m en taries th a t focused o n Israel’s history. T h e m ysterious R abbi A b rah am b en Isaac ha-Levi T am akh, app aren tly a th irte e n th -c e n tu ry Spanish Jew, w rote a co m m en tary th a t treats every passage in two parts: its n a tu ra l m e a n in g a n d its h id d e n m ean in g . In d ealin g w ith th e n a tu ra l m ean in g , R abbi A b rah am is very straightforw ard in describ in g it as love poetry, a n d h e does n o t shy away fro m its erotic n atu re . A t th e sam e tim e, h e

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does n o t ex p lo re th e significance o f th e m e tap h o rs o r symbolism, from a sexual stan d p o in t, in any detail a t all. T h ro u g h o u t th e Song he sees allusions to th e history o f Israel. O n th e two breasts in S ong 4:5, h e says, ‘T h e breasts are th e king a n d h ig h priest. J u s t as th e breasts are a w o m an ’s glory an d beauty as th e source o f h e r in flu en ce o n h e r babes, so are th e fo rm e r th e p e o p le ’s glory a n d beauty a n d th e source o f th e in flu en ce u p o n th e m o f th e U rim an d T um im , as stated in the M ishn ah ” (A braham b e n Isaac ha-Levi T am akh, 115). R abbi M oshe A lshich (ca. 1502-1591) w rote a c o m m e n ta ry in flu e n c e d by mystical theology. N evertheless, h e focused o n th e love relatio n sh ip betw een G od a n d Israel th a t persists even in Isra e l’s d iaspora. H is m o re tra d itio n a l re a d in g o f th e S ong is illu stra te d by his in te rp re ta tio n o f S ong 4:5 (Alshich, 166-67 [emphasis o rig in a l]): Israel was blessed w ith a n o th e r m e rit, f o r y o u r tw o breasts , M oses a n d A a ro n , w ho susta in e d you, e n a b le d you to d raw n o u ris h m e n t fro m th e heav en ly in flu e n c e . T h ey w ere like tw o f a w n s w ho r u n e x tre m ely fast, fo r th e y h a s te n e d th e r e d e m p tio n fro m slavery in Egypt, as th e Sagfes say (S h e m o th R a b b ah 15:3), th a t in th e ir m e rit Israel w ere [sic ] re d e e m e d at th a t tim e. H ow can we m e a su re th e g re a tn e ss o f th e ir piety? T h e y w ere so closely a tta c h e d to o n e a n o th e r th a t we w ere r e d e e m e d in th e ir m e rit. L ike twins o f a gazelle , th e ir souls w ere b o u n d u p w ith ea ch o th e r to su ch a n e x te n t th a t o n e c o u ld n o t exist w ith o u t th e o th e r, a n d if o n e w ere to d ie , th e o th e r w o u ld likewise d ie o f a b ro k e n h e a rt. A aro n was o rigin ally Isra e l’s le a d e r a n d p ro p h e t. Yet his h e a r t re jo ic e d w h en h e h e a rd o f M oses’ rise to g rea tn ess. A n d w h en M oses was c o m m a n d e d by G o d to tak e o ver th e m a n tle o f le a d e rsh ip , h e d e c lin e d a t first, saying, Sen d by the h a n d o f w hom You w ill sen d (E x o d u s 4:13). F o r seven days h e p e rsiste d in h is refu sal, fe a rin g th a t h e was in frin g in g o n his b r o th e r ’s au th o rity , as th e Sages c o m m e n t o n th e above verse in E x o d u s (S h e m o th R a b b ah 3:16): “S e n d by th e h a n d o f th e o n e w h o m You usually sen d , a n d th a t is A a ro n .” A lternatively, th e m e a n in g ca n b e e x p la in e d as follows: T w in s o f a gazelle. T h e T a lm u d (Bava B a th ra 16b) re p o rts th a t a g azelle o nly gives b irth o n c e h e r w om b o p e n s a fte r it is b itte n by a snake. Sim ilarly, th e b irth o f M oses a n d A aro n also cam e a b o u t by th e b ite o f a sn ak e, so to speak. As we have said, th e re a so n fo r th e exile in E gypt was to p u rg e Israel o f th e m o ra l im p u ritie s in je c te d in to m a n k in d by th e snak e b e c a u se o f A d a m ’s sin. T h is m o ra l c lea n sin g p r e p a re d th e m fo r th e giving o f th e T o ra h a n d e n try in to th e L a n d o f Israel. T o h e lp Isra el to w ard this aim , G o d fu rn is h e d th e m w ith g re a t le a d e rs, M oses a n d A aro n . H e n c e th e b ro th e rs ’ e x iste n ce was, in p a rt, d u e to a snake.

A lsh ich ’s in te rp re ta tio n is d riv en in p a r t by re a d in g ‫ הרועים בשושנים‬n o t as “th a t graze a m o n g th e lo tu ses” b u t as “th e s h e p h e rd s o f th e lo tu s e s /ro s e s .” T his view is n o t o rig in al to him ; M idrash R ab b ah a n d R ashi also id e n tifie d th e two breasts as M oses a n d A aro n (a lth o u g h R ashi also suggested th a t th e two breasts are th e two tables o f th e D ecalo g u e). T h e T arg u m , however, was som ew hat m o re nua n c e d (cited in P o p e, 471): Y our two c o m m a n d e rs w ho will save you, M essiah Son o f D avid, a n d M essiah S on o f E p h ra im , rese m b le M oses a n d A aro n , sons o f J o c h e b e d , w ho a re lik e n e d to two y o u n g a n te lo p e s, tw ins o f a gazelle. By th e ir m e rit th e p e o p le o f th e H o u se o f Israel w ere fed fo r fo rty years in th e w ild ern ess o n m a n n a a n d p lu m p fowl, a n d w ate r o f M iria m ’s well.

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As we have seen , how ever, G erso n id es to o k this tex t in an a lto g e th e r d iffe re n t d irec tio n . A llegorism has ce rtain ly n o t p e ris h e d a m o n g th e Jews. A lsh ich ’s tran slato r, R. Shahar, says, “T h e S ong o f Songs has n o literal in te rp re ta tio n ; th e verses are e ith e r sym bolic o r alleg o ric al” (A lshich, 13) . A re c e n t Jew ish c o m m e n ta ry o n th e S ong, M. Zlotow itz (1977), really an an th o lo g y o f th e h isto ry o f Jew ish in terp re ta tio n , celeb rates th e m o d e o f in te rp re ta tio n o f th e T argum , M idrash R abbah, a n d R ashi. In th e “O verview ” to this co m m en tary , N. S ch erm a n says, ‘T h e r e are tim es w h e n to u n d e r s ta n d a verse ac c o rd in g to th e sim ple tra n sla tio n o f th e w ords is n o t to u n d e rs ta n d it a t all. S ong o f Songs is surely a song o f love, b u t n o t o f o n e h u m a n ’s love fo r a n o th e r ” (Zlotowitz, lx). T h e song o f h u m a n love is m erely th e alleg o rical vehicle w h ereb y G o d co n d e scen d s to reveal h im self to us in lan g u a g e we can u n d e rs ta n d . W hy is su ch an alleg o ry necessary? It h elp s us to su b lim ate ea rth ly desires in o rd e r to achieve victory over ca rn al lusts: “B u t w hatever th e p o in t o f stru g g le, m a n m u st m ake use o f his h u m a n desires fo r heavenly e n d s ” (S c h e rm a n , in Zlotowitz, liv). T h e re se m b la n ce to C hristian m o n astic theology is so s tro n g h e re th a t o n e w o n d e rs w ho is b o rro w in g fro m w hom .

Early Christian and Roman Catholic Allegorizing E arly C h ristian in te rp re te rs w ho alleg o rized th e S ong in clu d e H ip p o ly tu s o f R om e (d. 235), O rig e n , J e ro m e , G re g o ry o f Nyssa, G reg o ry th e G reat, a n d Aug ustin e. T h ey alleg o rized th e S ong in d iffe re n t ways. F o r H ippolytus, th e S ong d e sc rib e d salvation history: it was S o lo m o n ’s p ro p h e c y o f th e e n d o f th e o ld cove n a n t a n d th e b e g in n in g o f th e n ew (M urphy, 15). In th e fra g m e n ts o f th e c o m m e n ta ry o f H ip p o ly tu s th a t re m a in , th e two breasts o f S ong 4:5 are th e O ld a n d New T estam en ts th a t C h ristian s suck u p o n (P hipps, 42 [1974] 87). O rig e n (ca. 185-254) ta u g h t th a t th e S ong ce leb rates th e love b etw een C h rist a n d th e soul, o r C h rist a n d th e c h u rc h , a n d this a p p ro a c h cam e to d o m in a te C h ristian exegesis. O rig e n ’s c o m m e n ta ry was a m assive w ork o f te n volum es p ro d u c e d in 2 4 0 245 C.E. U n fo rtu n a te ly , e x c e p t fo r e x c e rp ts in la te r w riters, th e only p a r t to survive was his p ro lo g u e a n d ex p o sitio n o f S o ng 1:1-2:15. A lth o u g h rig h tly reg a rd e d as th e fo u n ta in h e a d o f C h ristian allegorism , h e describes th e S ong as an “e p ith a la m iu m ” (w ed d in g song; see discussion below ) in th e fo rm o f a d ram a. T h a t is, h e c o u ld b e claim ed as fa th e r o f th re e d iffe re n t m o d e rn schools o f inte rp r e ta tio n — alb e it w ith to n g u e in ch eek . O rig e n gives far m o re a tte n tio n to th e lite ral m e a n in g o f th e w ords th a n his h e rm e n e u tic a l h eirs do. M ost allegoriz in g i n t e r p r e t e r s sim p ly p ass o v e r th e “p la in s e n s e ” o f th e te x t w ith o u t c o m m e n t, b u t h e always b eg in s th e re . A n ex a m p le o f his w ork, u sin g th e Law son tran slatio n (O rig en , 179-85), illustrates his m e th o d . O n S ong 2:3 ( “Like an ap p le tree a m o n g th e trees o f th e w oods, / so is m y lover am o n g th e y o u n g m en . / In his sh ad e I take p le a su re a n d sit, / a n d his fru it is sw eet in m y m o u th .”), h e b eg in s by sim ply a sse rtin g th a t it was fittin g fo r th e b rid e to re s p o n d to th e g ro o m ’s w ords (in S o n g 2:2) w ith p raise d ire c te d tow ard him . H e n o te s th a t she co m p a re s th e m a n favorably to all o th e r m en . As an aside, O rig e n m oves in to so m e th in g o f a p asto ra l co n c e rn ; h e d o es n o t w an t his L atin a u d ie n c e to th in k th a t th e “a p p le tr e e ” ( is an “evil tr e e ” ( so h e says th at, afte r th e G re ek μήλον, h e will call it th e “m e lu m tre e ” (O rig en , 179).

JAAR

arbor malt)

arbor mala)y

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65

A t this p o in t, his search fo r th e d e e p e r sense o f th e w ords begins. First, th e su p erio rity o f th e g ro o m to o th e r m e n suggests C h rist’s su p erio rity to th e heavenly m in isters, a n d h e cites Ps 82:6 to clin ch th e p o in t. M oving o n , h e says th a t th e taste a n d sm ell o f th e a p p le suggest th a t C h rist is th e b re a d o f life, th e w ord m ad e flesh. H e concludes: We can , th e n , take th e tree s o f th e w o o d as m e a n in g th o se an g e ls w ho have b e e n th e a u th o rs a n d p ro m o te rs o f every heresy; so th a t in th is passage, w h en th e C h u rc h com p are s th e sw eetness o f C h rist’s te a c h in g w ith th e so u rn e ss o f h e re tic a l d o g m a s a n d th e ir b a r r e n a n d u n fru itfu l d o c trin e , sh e d escrib es as “a p p le s ” th e sw eet a n d p le a sa n t d o c trin e s p r e a c h e d in th e C h u rc h o f C hrist, b u t as “tree s o f th e w o o d ” th o se th a t are asserte d by th e various h e re tic s. (O rig e n , 181)

T h e “trees o f th e w o o d ” suggest to h im M att 3:10, th a t th e axe is laid to th e ro o t, a n d every tre e th a t d o es n o t yield g o o d fru it will be th row n in to th e fire. T h e b rid e th u s sits in his shade; th a t is, th e c h u rc h o r th e soul clings to G od. B ut th e te rm “sh ad o w ” suggests to h im L am 4:20, “U n d e r his shadow we shall live a m o n g th e G e n tiles,” w hich in d icates th a t th e G ospel o f C h rist sh o u ld com e to th e G entiles. It also suggests L uke 1:35, th a t th e H oly S pirit w ould “overshadow ” Mary. T h u s th e c h u rc h desires to dwell in th e shadow o f G od, w h ere th e re is life; in th e shadow s o f th e o th e r trees th e re is only d e a th (Ps 23:4). O rig e n finally seem s to trip h im self u p w ith his ru m in a tio n s o n shadows. H e goes o n to say, A n d fu rth e r, in o r d e r to m ak e th e passage b e fo re us p la in e r still, le t us also lo o k in to w hat th e A postle m e a n s w h en h e speaks o f the L a w h a v in g a sh a d o w o f the good th in gs to come, a n d calls all th e th in g s th a t are w ritte n a b o u t feast days a n d S ab b ath s a n d new m o o n s a sh a d o w o f the good th in gs to come —m e a n in g , o f co u rse , th in g s th a t w ere d o n e a c c o rd in g to th e le tte r; a n d in w h at sen se h e d ec la re s th a t th e rite s o f th e a n c ie n ts w ere a n exam ple a n d sh a d o w o f heaven ly things. If th a t is so, c e rta in ly it follow s th a t all w ho w ere u n d e r th e Law a n d h a d th e sh ad o w r a th e r th a n th e su b sta n c e o f th e tru e Law, sat u n d e r th e shadow o f th e Law. We, how ever, are stra n g e rs to th e ir shadow ; fo r w e are n o t u n d e r the L aw , b u t u n d e r grace. (O rig e n , 182-83; italics o rig in a l, r e p re s e n tin g bib lical q u o te s)

A t this p o in t, it is n o t clear to us w h e th e r th e “shadow ” is a g o o d th in g o r a b ad th in g , a n d O rig e n d o es n o t seem to know either. H e is, as it w ere, chasing shadow s. B u t h e is n o t yet d o n e. H e d eclares th a t C hrist is th e tru th , a n d th a t if we p ersev ere, we shall see h im face to face. P a ra p h rasin g (p erh ap s) J o b 8:9, he th e n says th a t a m a n ’s w hole life is a shadow! H e finally pulls it all together, m o re o r less, a n d says th a t th e Law affo rd e d som e p ro te c tio n fro m th e h e a t o f th e day, b u t now C h rist is o u r tru e sh ad e as we aw ait th e e n d o f this age, an age th a t itself is a shadow o f th e heavenly reality! Finally, c o m m e n tin g o n th e clause “his fru it is sweet in my m o u th ,” h e contrasts th a t w ith th e false teach ers, w hose “th ro a t is an o p e n grav e” (R om 3:13 RSV). O f th e tru e G ospel, h e n o tes th a t th e Bible says, “O u r m o u th is o p e n to you, C o rin th ia n s ” (2 C or 6:11 RSV). A few o b serv atio n s o n O rig e n ’s a p p ro a c h are in ord er. H e does reco g n ize a n d d ea l w ith th e “p lain sen se” o f th e text, a lth o u g h h e seem s to see n o theological value in it. A llegorizing is only p a r t o f his m eth o d ; o ften h e engages in w h at is so m etim es loosely called th e m id rash -p e sh er m e th o d o f exegesis o f be-

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in g p u lle d fro m te x t to te x t by catchw ords a n d associations. H e is alm o st rabbinical in this re g ard . H is exegesis is p ro b a b ly a C h ristian v ariatio n o n m id rash ic ex eg esis; R. K im e lm a n 73 [1980] 5 6 7 -9 5 ) d e m o n s tra te s th a t R ab b i Yohanan a n d O rig e n alm o st certain ly knew ea c h o th e r's exegetical te n d e n c ie s a n d th a t Yohanan was a tte m p tin g to c o u n te r O rig e n ’s christological e x p ro p ria tio n o f th e S ong. T h e n o tio n th a t O rig e n is sim ply a lleg o riz in g is th u s n o t a lto g e th e r accu rate. O rig e n is u n c o n c e rn e d a b o u t any logical s tru c tu re to th e c o n n e c tio n s h e m akes; h e p u ts to g e th e r a c a te n a o f biblical q u o tes o rg a n iz ed a ro u n d th e followin g o f a w ord, c o n c o rd a n c e fash io n , th ro u g h th e Bible. T h e e n d re su lt is a series o f biblical q u o te s th a t cover a vast array o f topics b u t have n o real c o h e re n c e in th e te x t a t h a n d . T h e re is o ften n o m ea n in g fu l tie betw een th e associative ch ain s h e fo rg es a n d th e te x t o f th e S ong h e is in te rp re tin g — o r even w ith an allegorized in te rp re ta tio n o f th a t text. W h en h e m oves in to his discussion o f th e Law as th e “sh ad o w ” o f C hrist, h e ap p a re n tly has n o c o n c e rn w ith th e fact th a t his o rig in al te x t spoke positively o f sitting u n d e r “his shadow .” T h e te x t o f th e S ong seem s to b e little m o re th a n th e first lin k in his w ord-chains. L ate r allegorists w o u ld n o t b e n ea rly as th o ro u g h as O rig e n , b u t w o uld m o re consistently a n d c o h e re n tly allegorize. R M iller 4 [1986] 241-53) suggests th a t O rig e n ’s h a n d lin g o f th e te x t is ro o te d in a P lato n ic lin k in g o f E ros a n d lan g u ag e. T h a t is, th e te x t a ttra cts a n d incites th e re a d e r to c o n tem p latio n . F o r th e C h ristian c h u rc h , O rig e n is th e o f allegorism in a t least two respects. H e d o es n o t sim ply ig n o re th e n a tu ra l significance o f th e te x t in th e way th a t la te r allegorists will. A n d his w ork m ig h t be b e tte r d esc rib ed as a biblical w ord-associative process th a n as full-fledged allegorization. H is successors will te n d to d o sim ple, straig h tfo rw ard alleg o rizatio n. G reg o ry o f Nyssa w orked from a sim ilar theological a n d philo so p h ical fou n d ation; in fact, his hom ilies o n th e S ong are so heavily in d e b te d to O rig en th a t they co u ld b e called a revision o f O rig e n ’s w ork (see R. N orris, 80 [1998] 5 1 7 32; C. M cCambley, 3 [1982] 145-52). His hom ilies are also anagogical, using th e Song o f Songs to draw th e re a d e r u p from th e ca rn al to th e spiritual (J. Cahill, 32 [1981] 447-60) in a theological co n stru c t th a t is influe n c e d by n e o p la to n is t th in k in g . In h is te n th h o m ily o n S o n g 5:2, h e says, ‘T h e r e fo r e w h en th e soul only enjoys th e co n tem p latio n o f th e divine B eing, it will n o t rise fro m sleep fo r th a t w hich o p erates according to th e senses’ pleasure. It will p u t to re st all bodily m ovem ent, a n d by a n ak e d a n d p u re th o u g h t, this soul will receive in sig h t in to G o d ’s vision th ro u g h w atchfulness” (M cCambley, 3 [1982] 49). Discussing th e “d ro p s o f th e n ig h t” in th e sam e verse, h e says th a t they are d ro p s o f tru th th a t com e from th e w ords o f th e saints to th e contem plative soul (M cCambley, 3 [1982] 150). O rig e n is n o t solely re sp o n sib le fo r th e rise o f allegorism in th e C h ristian c h u rc h . In a d d itio n to his A lex a n d rian colleagues, sig nificant th eo lo g ian s o f th e W estern c h u rc h also ad v o c ated th e use o f allegory. A ug u stin e, in su g g ested fo u r levels o f m e a n in g in th e biblical text: histo rical (w hat was w ritten o r d o n e ), etiological (th e cause fo r w hich a th in g is d o n e ), analogical (show ing th a t th e two testam en ts d o n o t co n flict), a n d allegorical (th in g s to be u n d e rs to o d figuratively r a th e r th a n lite rally ). Eventually th e fo u rfo ld way o f th e fifth -c en tu ry m o n k J o h n C assian w ould d o m in a te exegesis (th e fo u r ways

(HTR

(JAAR5

beginning

Coptic Church Review JTS

AThR

Coptic

Church Review

Coptic Church Review

credendi,

De utilitate

Introduction

67

are th e h isto rical [Jerusalem as a h isto rical city], allegorical [Jerusalem as th e c h u rc h ], an ag o g ical [Jerusalem as th e celestial city], a n d tro p o lo g ical [Jerusalem as th e h u m a n so u l]); see E. A. M atter, 53-54. J e ro m e illustrates th e a ttra c tio n th e c h u rc h fa th ers h a d to th e allegorical inte rp re ta tio n o f th e Song, a n d h e fairly clearly states why they clu n g to this view. In a le tte r to his disciple L aeta c o n c e rn in g th e e d u c atio n o f h e r d a u g h te r Paula, h e o u tlin e s a cu rric u lu m fo r P au la th a t focuses o n biblical studies. O nly after she co m p le te d an in te n se study o f alm o st all o f th e O ld a n d New T estam en ts was she to be allow ed to re a d th e S ong 6:194): “W hen she has d o n e all these she m ay safely re a d th e S ong o f Songs b u t n o t before: for, w ere she to re a d it at th e b e g in n in g , she w o u ld fail to p erceive th at, th o u g h it is w ritten in fleshly w ords, it is a m a rria g e so n g o f a sp iritu al b rid e. A n d n o t u n d e rs ta n d in g this she w ould suffer fro m it.” Like O rig e n , J e ro m e was tra in e d in H eb rew by rabbis a n d also te n d e d to cite th e Song in a c a te n a fash io n th a t a t tim es seem s to m ake n o sense. F o r exam ple, in his tra c t o n Ps 80 (CCSL 78:76), h e devotes a g re at d eal o f tim e to th e superscript, w hich in th e L atin re ad s “fo r th e w in ep resses” . H e th u s cites n u m e ro u s texts th a t re la te to w ine a n d w inepresses, as follows:

Voice of My Beloved,

(NPNF2

(pro torculanbus)

W in ep resses a re fo u n d n o w h e re else b u t w h ere th e re a re v ineyards a n d b o u n d le ss vintages. F or the winepresses. T h e re fo re th e L o rd a n d Savior says: T have tr o d d e n th e w in ep ress a lo n e , a n d o f th e G en tiles n o m a n is w ith m e ‫[ ״‬Isa 63:3]. T h e re fo re h e c a rrie d a vineyard fro m E gypt a n d p la n te d it. A n d h e says in J e re m ia h : T p la n te d a vineyard o f all tru e a n d ch o sen seed. H ow th e n a re y ou c h a n g e d to w ard m e in to som eth in g b itter, stra n g e v in e?” [Jer 2:21]. A n d N o a h d ra n k w ine, a n d b e c a m e d ru n k . A n d it was said by S o lo m o n — it was said in th e fo rm o f a m ystery ( d ic itu r in m ysterio ) — “D rink, frie n d s, a n d b e c o m e d r u n k ” [S ong 5:1].

J e ro m e th e n m oves in to an e x te n d e d discussion o f th e d ru n k e n n e ss o f N o ah a n d th e feastin g o f J o s e p h (G en 43). F o r h im th e S ong spoke “in th e fo rm o f a m ystery,” a n d h e, too, freq u en tly g ro u p e d o th e r biblical texts to g e th e r w ith th e S ong fo r a p p a re n tly n o m o re re aso n th a n th e p re se n c e o f sim ilar w ords. As th e C h ristian c h u rc h e m b ra c e d celibacy a n d sexual re n u n c ia tio n as th e sp iritu al ideal, an alleg o rizin g in te rp re ta tio n o f th e Song becam e inevitable. N o t everyo n e w ho alleg o rized th e S ong also ex a lte d th e life o f celibacy; Jew ish rabbis an d , m u c h later, P ro te sta n t m in isters w ould also allegorize th e S ong even th o u g h th ey d id n o t re g a rd m a rria g e as c o n tra ry to th e ir religious calling. Still, th e E m erg in g id eal o f th e C h ristian m an o r w om an w ho n o t only re n o u n c e d all sexual activity b u t also was free o f sexual d esire m ad e a “p lain sen se” in te rp re ta tio n o f th e S ong inconceivable. F o r a th o ro u g h h isto ry o f th e rise o f th e id eal o f celibacy in th e c h u rc h , see P. Brow n, a n d fu r th e r rem ark s below o n th e th eo lo g y o f th e Song. T h e affair o f th e m o n k Jo v in ian (d ie d ca. 409) illustrates how th e a ttitu d e tow ard sexuality in th e c h u rc h a t th a t tim e g u a ra n te e d th e triu m p h o f th e allegorizin g in te rp re ta tio n . T h is m a n stated th a t a m a rrie d w om an was spiritually eq u al to a virgin, a n d h e also re je c te d th e n o tio n o f th e p e rp e tu a l virginity o f Mary. J e ro m e b itterly o p p o se d him ; Jo v in ian was d e c la re d to be a h eretic a n d ex iled by E m p e ro r T h eo d o siu s. In J e ro m e re le g a te d m arriage to a licit b u t second-class status in th e c h u rc h , a n d even p illag ed classical

Body and Society,

Adversus Jovinianum

68

Introduction

history and literature for examples of shrewish and unfaithful wives to better make the point that happiness is best found in celibacy (i.48). This work be­ came the mainstay of the church’s arguments in favor of clerical celibacy, and it was widely known in Western Christendom for the next thousand years. Its influ­ ence can be measured by Chaucer’s inclusion of these lines in the Prologue of the Wife of Bath (lines 669-72, Canterbury Tales, 121), in which the Wife of Bath protests against the recorded history of the evils of women. She here describes a habit of one of her previous husbands: He hadde a book that gladly, night and day, For his desport he wolde rede alway. He cleped it Valerie and Theofraste, At which book he lough alwey ful faste. And eek ther was somtyme a clerk at Rome, A cardinal, that highte Seint Jerome, That made a book agayn Jovinian; In which book eek ther was Tertulan.

In other words, her husband would read and chuckle over learned books by Jerome and others that describe the folly of women and of marrying them. Jerome’s attitude toward sexuality emerged in his translation of Song of Songs. Song 8:5b reads in translation from the Hebrew (see Comment on 8:5), “Under the apple tree I aroused you. / That is where your mother conceived you, / that is where she conceived, she gave you birth.”Jerome translates it, “Under the apple tree I raised you up; there your mother was corrupted, there she who bore you was violated” (sub arbore malo suscitavi te ibi corrupta est mater tua ibi violata est genetrix tua). In his translation, Jerome has exploited two homonyms from tan; the one means to “ruin” and the other “to conceive” or to “give birth.” In reality, there should be no confusion here; context (which also has the verb “to give birth”) implies that procreation and not ruination is in view, and the LXX renders the verb as “she went into labor/gave birth.” ButJerome rendered the verb as a passive of , “ruin,” and in one case translated it corrupta and in the other violata. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that his own tortured attitude toward sexuality markedly influenced his translation at this point (see Brown, Body and Society, 374-76). For him, even the sexual act that led to the conception of the beloved is both a defiling (corrupta) and deflowering act, if not a rape (violata). There is great opportunity for allegorizing here—the “apple tree” or “evil tree” suggests the cross. Using the Latin text, one could take the speaker to be the vir­ gin-born Christ and the one to whom he speaks, who is born of corruption, to be the woman (i.e., the church, first found by Christ in its natural state of idolatry and wickedness). This is in fact precisely the interpretation that Giles of Rome (ca. 1243-1316) gives it (p. 167). In the Hebrew, however, it is clear from the gen­ der of the pronouns that the woman is the speaker. FollowingJerome’s translation, this would imply that it is the man who was born of a corrupt, deflowered mother— a theological catastrophe for a Catholic allegorist. The tendency both to allegorize and to link unrelated texts on the basis of su­ perficial correspondence caused a good deal of trouble for early exegetes, but it also allowed them to exercise their creativity to the fullest. Augustine, when preach­ ing on the washing of the disciples’ feet in John 13 (Tractate 57; NPNF1 1:303-4),

Introduction

69

observes that baptism washes away all sin but that Christians still defile themselves and need to seek forgiveness, the washing of their feet. But then he almost inevita­ bly cites Song 5:3, “I have washed my feet, how can I dirty them again?” The problem for Augustine is that in his understanding of the Song, the woman (that is, the church) is here addressing her beloved (that is, Christ) and making an excuse for why she cannot let him inside her home. Augustine can solve this only with a homiletical tour de force. “O lofty mystery!” he shouts. The hidden mes­ sage is that ministers would prefer to be in heaven, with Christ, but that they must serve Christ here in the defiling world instead (citing Phil 1:23-24). One can find countless citations of this sort among the Fathers. They are spon­ taneous, often linked to other passages in what to us seems a tenuous and artificial manner, and built on an approach that regards the validity of allegorizing the Song to be a given. M. Dove (Literature and Theology 10 [1996] 319-20) argues that in Augustine’s mind the fact that Song of Songs had Christ and the church as its subject matter was not allegorizing at all but was the plain meaning of the text! The medieval period witnessed strong interest in the Song. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) famously preached eighty-six sermons on the first two chapters of Song of Songs. One should not assume, however, that this mass of material is in any sense a commentary on the Song. Passages in the Song are starting points for sermons on the love between the Christian soul and God. Still, typical examples of allegorizing are everywhere evident. On Song 1:6, he comments that the mother of the woman is the heavenly Jerusalem and her brothers are the apostles, who fought to tear her (that is, the Gentiles) away from paganism. Bernard’s sermons are powerful, clear, and stirring, and his place in Christian history should not be taken away because of his role in the Crusades. At the same time, his use of the Song is arbitrary, and his sermons are not grounded in the text of the Song, except as heavily filtered by a theological model of divine Eros drawing the soul from the love of the carnal to the love of the spiritual (cf. M. S. Burrows, AThR 80 [1998] 477-93). The sermons of John of Ford (late twelfth century) are similar. Based on se­ lected passages from the Song, these sermons, although clearly relying on a long tradition of an allegorical hermeneutic, do not attempt anything like a sustained interpretation of the Song. Verses from the Song are again simply the occasion for various sermons. For example, on Song 5:10, taking his cue from “my be­ loved is radiant and ruddy,” he preaches two sermons (John of Ford, 97-124). The first, based on radiant, describes the fourfold nature of whiteness (of milk, lilies, snow, and light, symbolizing the sanctity of children, adults, the penitent, and the resurrected). The second, based on ruddy, describes the fourfold na­ ture of redness (of vermilion, the rose, blood, and the ruby, symbolizing the blush of penitents, the chaste, the martyr, and those burning with a love for Christ). These sermons could be considered profound (depending on one’s the­ ology) , and they were certainly pious, but they can hardly be said to be based in the Song. He could have preached the same two sermons with virtually no changes had he made no reference to Song of Songs at all. A fairly straightforward piece of allegorizing interpretation comes from the tenth-century Armenian monk Gregory of Narek (died ca. 1010). On Song 1:4, where the bride says she is black and beautiful, Gregory says that she represents Gentile Christians. On Song 2:9, where the man is described as a roe behind a

70

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wall a n d lo o k in g th ro u g h a w indow a n d a lattice, h e says th a t th e ro e is C hrist, th e wall is th e b ody h e to o k fro m th e v irgin, th e w indow is th e p ro p h e ts, a n d th e lattice is th e Law. O n S ong 4:5, h e says th a t th e two breasts re p re s e n t th e body a n d soul o f m an . F o r a full su m m ary o f G re g o ry o f N a re k ’s co m m en tary , see R. T h o m so n , 54 (1983) 453-96. M edieval C h ristian in te rp re te rs fre q u e n tly saw M ary in th e S ong o f Songs. T h e logic is straightforw ard: th e w om an o f th e S ong re p resen ts th e c h u rch ; M ary is th e e m b o d im e n t o f th e p u re c h u rc h ; th e re fo re , th e S ong p o in ts us to Mary. H o n o riu s A u g u sto d u n en sis, a prolific w riter o f th e early tw elfth cen tu ry , says th e follow ing a b o u t th e S ong o f Songs (E. A. M atter, , 59):

JTS

Voice of My Beloved

T h e re fo re , th is b o o k is re a d o n th e feast o f B lessed M ary, fo r it show s th e type o f th e C h u rc h , w h ich is v irg in a n d m o th e r. V irg in , b e c a u s e u n c o r r u p te d by all h ere sy ; m o th e r, b ec au se th ro u g h g rac e it always b e a rs sp iritu a l c h ild re n . A n d th e re fo re eve ry th in g w hich is said a b o u t th e C h u rc h ca n also b e said a b o u t th e V irgin, u n d e rs to o d as b o th b rid e a n d m o th e r o f th e b rid e g ro o m .

A n o th e r in te rp re te r in this vein was R u p e rt o f D eutz (b o rn ca. 1075), w ho p ro d u c e d a su stain ed m ario lo g ical ex p o sitio n o f th e Song. F o r R u p ert, th e S ong p ro c la im s M ary as th e saving c o u n te r p a rt to Eve. S ong 1:11 (“m y n a rd gives o ff its fra g ra n c e ”), fo r ex am p le, re fers to Eve’s “stink o f p rid e ” a n d to M ary’s frag r a n t h u m ility (M a tte r, , 1 6 2 ). A la te tw e lfth -c e n tu ry co m m e n ta to r, A lan o f Lille, also u sed th e S ong to glorify Mary. O n “th e beam s o f o u r h o u se are o f c e d a r,” in S ong 1:16, h e a rg u e d th a t a lth o u g h th e w ords prim arily d escrib e th e in c o rru p tib le n a tu re o f J e su s’ physical body, they also suggest th a t M ary ’s physical body, too, d id n o t u n d e rg o any decay (M atter, , 166). M ore th a n th at, fo r A lan o f Lille, th e k in g ’s h o u ses re p re s e n t c h u rc h b uildings, all o f w hich are M ary’s ho m es. Astell , 46) explains, “S he is th e p a tte r n fo r th e ir c o n stru c tio n as th e w om blike h o m e o f C h rist (‘d o m u s C h risti’). Even h io re , she is th e m a te rn a l ‘in fo rm a tio ,’ th e g u id in g id ea, th e p a tte rn fo r th e C h u rc h , th e w hose fe atu res a p p e a r in all th e c h ild re n o f G od, even as they d o in Jesus, h e r firs tb o rn .” T h e c o m b in a tio n o f allegorizing, M arian d evo tio n , a n d th e S ong o f Songs co u ld p ro d u c e in te rp re ta tio n s th a t we c o u ld have d o n e w ithout. F o r ex am p le, D enys th e C a rth u sian (ca. 1402-1471), as h e ru m in a te d over various ways to take S ong 1 :2-3 as it a p p e a rs in th e Vg. ( ; “le t h im kiss m e w ith th e kisses o f his m o u th , b ecau se y o u r b reasts are b e tte r th a n w in e ” [cf. L X X ]), cam e u p w ith an a sto u n d in g suggestion. H e said th a t “L e t h im kiss m e ” re p re se n ts M ary ’s w ords a t th e a n n u n c ia tio n (“H e re am I, th e se rv a n t o f th e L ord; m ay it b e w ith m e ac co rd in g to y o u r w o rd ” [L uke 1:38]) a n d th a t “b ecau se y o u r b re asts” re p re s e n ts th e w ords o f Jesu s, as b o th b rid e g ro o m a n d baby, to Mary. T h a t is, th e “kissing” is th e baby Jesu s suck in g a t th e b reasts o f Mary: “A gain, it m ay b e said o f tho se bodily breasts o f th e m o st divine V irgin th a t they, m o st blessed as they are, are m ad e alm o st divine by th e c o n tin u a l c o n ta c t o f th e ad o rab le, in c a rn a te b rid eg ro o m w ho sucked fro m th em ; , m o re frag ran t, th a t is to say, th a n th e m o st d elicio u s virginal m ilk, w hich th e L o rd o f all th ings to o k a n d su ck ed fro m th e m a g a in st th a t h u n g e r a n d th irst w hich h e freely in his p ro v id en c e to o k u p o n h im se lf a n d su ffe re d fo r o u r sakes” (italics o rig in al, re p re s e n tin g S ong 1:3a;

Voice of My Beloved

Voice of (Song of Songs in the Middle

My Beloved Ages

genetnx

ubera tua vino

Osculetur me osculo ons sui quia meliora sunt

they are morefragrant than thefinest ointments

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breasts

T u rn e r, , 442). In th e H ebrew , th e w ord is n o t p re sen t, a n d th e g e n d e r o f th e p ro n o u n s in d icates th a t th e m an is n o t th e speaker. O f co u rse, n o t every co m m e n ta ry o f this tim e was M arian in exp o sitio n . In fact, th e w hole p ro g ra m o f M arian exegesis in th e S ong seem s to be have b ee n re g a rd e d as a d u b io u s novelty. G uillaum e d e S aint-T hierry (W illiam o f SaintT h ie rry ), an early tw elfth-century m o n k a n d mystic, p ro d u c e d an allegorical c o m m e n ta ry o n th e S ong th a t avoided M arian theology. M arian expo sitio n s o f th e Song c o n tin u e d in to th e tw en tieth century. T h e S ong c o n tin u e d to fin d allegorical in te rp re te rs in th e C atholic C h u rch th ro u g h th e ce n tu ries. T re a tin g th e Song as an allegory o f love betw een C hrist a n d th e soul a p p e a le d to th e ascetic a n d q u ietist M adam e G uyon (1648-1717), w ho in te rp re te d S ong 7:9 ( “I said, T will clim b th e p alm tree, / I will h o ld its p anicles o f dates, / th a t y o u r breasts m ay be like th e clusters o f g rap es / a n d th e frag ran c e o f y o u r n ip p le like a p p le s’”) in a m a n n e r th a t re fle c te d h e r own experien c e o f seek in g sp iritu al d ire c tio n in a co n v e n t (G uyon, 4 8 0 -8 1 ): T h e y o u n g virgins hav in g h e a rd th e co m p a riso n m a d e by th e K ing o f Glory, a n d transp o r te d w ith a d esire to p a rta k e o f th e graces o f th e S p o u se, cry o u t w ith o n e voice, o r ra th e r, o n e , ex p ressin g th e fee lin g s o f th e rest, exclaim s . . . I will b e c o m e a p u p il o f th is m istress o f p e rfe c tio n , a n d if o n e so wise a n d so ric h will c o n d e sc e n d to b e c o m e a m o th e r to m e I will b e h e r d a u g h te r, th a t I m ay e x p e rie n c e th e effects o f th e an o in tin g o f th e B rid e g ro o m , w hich is in her. T h e fru it o f h e r w ords will b e c o m e to m e like a clu ste r o f g rap e s o f a n ex q u isite sw eetness, a n d th e p u rity o f h e r te a c h in g will em balm m e in its p e rfu m e .

As P o p e (1 79-83) p o in ts o u t, m o re re c e n t C atholic in te rp re ta tio n s have alleg o rized th e S ong in a h isto rical m an n er. A m o n g th ese is th e co m m e n ta ry o f th e d istin g u ish ed H eb rew sch o lar P au l J o u o n [1909]), w hich suggests th a t th e S ong was co m p o sed to e n c o u ra g e Jew s to re tu r n to th e ir hom eland. H is analysis is th u s in th e tra d itio n o f th e T argum , a n d h e asserts th a t the S ong is p rim arily fo r Jew s a n d th a t a p p lica tio n o f th e Song to th e c h u rc h o r to M ary is secondary. T his a p p ro a c h was fu r th e r d ev elo p ed in th e w ork o f A. Rob e rt (1883-1955) a n d his stu d en ts, A. F euillet a n d R. Tournay. F or these scholars, signs th a t th e S ong re fers to Isra e l’s history, lan d , a n d relig io n are everyw here to be seen. T h u s, fo r T o u rn a y 25 [1975] 5 4 6 -4 7 ), th e d o u b le call o f th e m an to th e w o m an to “c o m e ” (S ong 2 :1 0 ,1 3 ) recalls th e d o u b le c o m m a n d o f Yahweh to A b ra h am to “g o ” (G en 12:1; 22:2), a n d th e b eau tiful a p p e ara n ce o f th e w om an o f th e S ong (2:14) recalls th e b ea u tifu l a p p e a ra n c e o f S arah (G en 12:11). T h e re are m an y o th e r such exam ples. Follow ing th e T argum , T o u rn ay ( 87) arg u es th a t th e “m o u n ta in o f m y rrh ” a n d “hill o f in c e n se ” in Song 4:6 allude to th e in cen se offerin g s o f th e tem p le; th e very w ord fo r m y rrh (‫ )מור‬b rings to m in d th e n am e o f th e tem p le hill, M o u n t M oriah. In S ong 6:12, th e n a m e Am m inadiv calls to m in d th e A b in ad ab o f 1 Sam 7:1, w ho h a d th e ark o f th e co v e n an t statio n e d a t his h o m e. T his, to T o u rn a y ( 1 0 1 -2 ), suggests th e w hole h isto ry o f th e ark o f th e c o v e n an t a n d especially th e lan g u ag e o f 1 C h r 29:5—6! An a n a lo g o u s in te rp re ta tio n fro m a re c e n t R o m an C atholic ex p o sito r is th a t o f L. S ta d elm an n . H e re ad s th e te x t as an allegory th a t uses “p olitical p ru d e n c e so as to cover Jew ish n atio n alism fro m th e eyes o f th e P ersian a u th o ritie s since they m ig h t su sp ect a b u rg e o n in g in s u rre c tio n ag ain st th e ir d o m in a tio n over

(Cantique des cantiques

(VT

Word of God,

Word of God,

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J u d a h ” (S tad elm an n , 1). T h e b o o k is a k in d o f disguised p atrio tic tra c t w ritten by p ostexilic Jews. S ong 4 :1 -7 “d eals w ith th e n a tio n , in te g ra tin g social g ro u p s fro m b o th th e ru r a l a n d u rb a n area, h a rm o n io u sly in c o rp o ra te d so as to constitu te a p o litical com m unity. . . . T h e n a tio n is p o rtra y e d as a y o u th fu l w o m an , w hose fig u re fro m th e h e a d d o w n to th e ch e st is re n d e re d w ith eleg a n ce a n d clever sim plicity” (S tad elm an n , 115). W h e n v 6 speaks o f th e b rid e g ro o m g o in g to th e m o u n ta in o f m y rrh a n d hill o f fra n k in c e n se , it refers to th e k ing c o m in g to th e hills a ro u n d Je ru sa le m to re-establish a Jew ish m o n arc h y (S tad elm an n , 114, 116).

Protestant Allegorizing T h e p o sitio n o f L u th e r o n alleg o rizin g th e S ong o f Songs is som ew hat am b ig u o u s a n d d e b a te d . O n th e o n e h a n d , h e d istru ste d th e alleg o rism o f th e m ediev al c h u rc h a n d o b serv ed th a t “it takes n o e ffo rt to in v en t [allegories] ” 15:200). A t th e sam e tim e, m an y in d iv id u al co m m en ts follow typical allegorical m odels: “kisses” (S ong 1:2) a re th e w ord o f G od (LW 15:196); “d a rk sk in ” (S ong 1:5) is th e sinfulness o f th e c h u rc h (LW 15:201-2); “my b elo v ed is like a y o u n g stag ” (S ong 2:9) re fers to th e w ord o f G od le ap in g fro m o n e city to ano th e r 15:217—18); th e “tu rtle d o v e ” (S ong 2:12) is godly p e o p le le a rn in g th e w o rd o f G o d (LW 15:219); a n d so fo rth . In d e e d , c o n tra ry to E. Kallas [1988] 3 2 3 -4 1 ), th e S ong is alleg o rized fro m b e g in n in g to e n d in L u th er, alth o u g h p ro b a b ly n o t in any c o h e re n t m a n n e r. B ut L u th e r has a m o st in te re stin g c o m m e n t o n S ong 4:5, a tex t th a t I have u sed as so m eth in g o f a test case fo r alleg o rizin g in te rp re te rs:

(LW

(LW

(LQ2

B u t w h at is th e c o n n e c tio n b etw e en b re a sts a n d tw in fawns? P e rh a p s h e is su g g e stin g th a t th e y are n o t b rea sts like th o se o f w h o re s b u t c h a ste a n d d e lic a te b reasts. . . . Yet th e y fe e d in th e w oods. B u t th is is p a r t o f th e sam e d e s c rip tio n , th a t h e m e a n s d e lig h tfu l a n d m o re d e lic a te breasts, nam ely, su ch as d eriv e th e ir fu lln ess n o t fro m th e c r u d e p a s tu re o f grass b u t fro m roses. H e re I will issue n o w a rn in g c o n c e rn in g th o se im p u re th o u g h ts w hich b efa ll y o u th w h en th ey h e a r such d escrip tio n s. F o r th e H oly S p irit is p u re a n d so m e n tio n s w o m e n ’s b o d ily m e m b e rs th a t H e w ants th e m to b e re g a rd e d as g o o d c re a tu re s o f G od. A n d in d e e d , th e re is n o th in g in th is b o o k th a t p leases m e m o re th a n th e fac t th a t I see S o lo m o n sp e ak in g in su ch sw eet fig u re s a b o u t th e h ig h e st gifts w h ich G o d h as conf e r re d o n H is p e o p le . (LW 15:230-31)

Still, h e co n sid ers this, too, to have alleg o rical significance. H e was aw are o f th e “n a tu r a l” sense o f th e w ords a n d c o u ld n o t h e lp b u t c o m m e n t in th a t vein fro m tim e to tim e. T h e v iew p o in t o f Calvin is also o p e n to som e d isp u te, a n d in his case we have little ev id en ce to w ork w ith. F o r th e vast m ajority o f P ro testan ts, th e S ong was strictly an alleg o ry o f th e love b etw een C h rist a n d th e c h u r c h /p io u s soul. Sevente e n th -c e n tu ry divines such as J. Flavel a n d J. C o tto n a b a n d o n e d taking S crip tu re in its n a tu ra l sense w h en it cam e to S ong o f Songs, a n d this tre n d d o m in a te d P ro te s ta n t exegesis u n til th e rise o f th e d ra m a tic in te rp re ta tio n s in th e n in ete e n th ce n tu ry . Even th e n th is m o d e o f re a d in g th e S ong d id n o t d ie o u t; P ro te s ta n t alleg o rizin g c o n tin u e d in to th e tw en tieth century. T h e S cottish divine J. D u rh a m (1622-1658) is exceedingly th o ro u g h in his analysis o f S o n g 4:5 (212). To him , two breasts e n h a n c e th e “com elin ess o f th e

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body,” are “useful to give suck,” a n d “signify w arm ness o f a ffe c tio n .” T hey symb o lize b e lie v e rs ’ fitn ess to n u r tu r e o th e rs as w ell as th e ir “w a rm lin e ss a n d k indlin ess to C h rist” since they have tak en h im “in to th e ir b o so m .” A m a m m o th P ro te s ta n t alleg o rizin g o f th e S ong is th a t o f J o h n Gill (1697 -1 7 7 1 ), w ho finds an e n o rm o u s variety o f tru th s in S ong 4:5 (1 4 8 -5 0 ). F o r him , th e two breasts are first m in isters o f th e G ospel, in th a t they n u rtu re th e c h u rch . T h ey are like twin roes in th a t they are loving a n d p leasan t, sharp-eyed in w atch in g o u t fo r th e tru th , a n d swift to sp re ad th e gospel. T h a t th e re are two o f th e m im plies th a t they are su fficien t in n u m b e r to d o th e jo b re q u ire d o f th e m (as two breasts are e n o u g h to fe e d a b a b y ). T h ey are twins, th a t is, are in harm ony, a n d they fe ed am o n g th e lilies, m e a n in g th a t they fe e d o n th e S criptures a n d w ork am o n g th e saints. In a d d itio n , Gill co n tin u e s, th e two breasts are th e O ld a n d New Testam ents. T h ey a re alike in th e ir p rom ises a n d d o ctrin es. T h e two b reasts are also th e two o rd in a n c e s o f b aptism a n d th e L o rd ’s Supper. In sh o rt, th e two breasts are an y th in g in th e C h ristian faith th a t com es in a pair. T h e analysis o f R ich ard F. L ittledale 1833-1890) is sim ilar (156-57). H e takes th e two breasts to be M o th e r C h u rc h n u rtu rin g h e r c h ild re n w ith th e O ld a n d New T estam ents. To A. L. N ew ton, th e two breasts o f Song 4:5 suggest th e unity o f C h rist’s c h u rc h , a n d she cites 1 C o r 1:10 a n d n u m e ro u s o th e r N T texts to d escrib e this v irtu e (A. L. N ew ton, 118-19). A n o th e r n in e te e n th c e n tu ry in te rp re te r, T. N ew berry 45), takes Song 4:1-5, w ith its d esc rip tio n o f th e w o m a n ’s eyes, hair, te e th , tem ples, n ec k a n d breasts, to be a re p re s e n ta tio n o f th e c o m p lete a n d holy state o f th e c h u rc h triu m p h a n t at th e m arria g e s u p p e r o f th e L am b. T h e n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry A m erican P resbyterian G eorge B urrow es also allegorizes th e Song. In g en e ral, his c o m m e n ta ry reflects an ad m ira b le e d u c a tio n in th e classics (it fre q u en tly alludes to a n c ie n t a n d E u ro p e a n lite rary w o rk s), b u t is o th erw ise u n im ag in ativ e. O n th e te x t th a t we have u sed as a test case fo r various in te rp re te rs , S ong 4:5, h e sim ply says th a t “th e th in g to be illu stra te d is th e general beau ty o f th e p iou s soul in th e eyes o f Je su s” (285). H e seem s u n co m fo rta b le at th e th o u g h t th a t Jesu s w ould lo o k u p o n th e saints as a m an looks u p o n a w o m a n ’s breasts a n d is at p ain s to suggest th a t th e a n c ie n t “o rie n ta ls” really d id n o t r e g a r d th e fem ale breasts as so m e th in g to be h id d e n , a n d th a t it w ould be in a p p ro p ria te to develop a m e ta p h o r o f C h rist’s beloved as a w om an a n d n o t in clu d e th e breasts. R e fe rrin g to various N T passages, h e says th a t S ong 4:5 illustrates how C h rist has g lo rified h u m an ity (2 8 4 -8 8 ). T his k in d o f allegorical in te rp re ta tio n p ersisted in P ro te sta n t Bible studies in to th e tw en tieth century. R. E. N e ig h b o r’s c o m m e n ta ry (107) treats th e Song as an alleg o ry o f C h rist a n d th e soul, a n d so co m m en ts o n S ong 5:16a (“H is thig h s a re alab aster pillars / set o n p ed estals o f p u re g o ld ”) w ith only th e faintest re fle c tio n o n w h at th e te x t o f th e S ong actually says, b u t draw ing heavily on th e NT.

Song of Solomon, (Song of Solomon,

H e re is a p ic tu re o f stately stre n g th , b u ild e d u p o n a fo u n d a tio n o f in c a lc u la b le w orth. H ow m atch less is th e pow er, how m a rv e lo u s is th e s tre n g th o f o u r G od. T h e L o rd Je su s u p h o ld s all th in g s by th e w o rd o f h is pow er. W h e n h e speaks, th e la m e walk; th e sick are h e a le d ; th e d e a f h e a r; th e d e a d co m e fo rth . O u r L o rd is th e o m n ip o te n t G od, a n d in H is o m n ip o te n c e , H e is all glo rio u s.

74

Introduction

N e ig h b o r says n o th in g a b o u t S ong 4:5; h e skips verses th a t are conspicuously sexual (e.g., S ong 7 :8-9 [ET 7 :7 -8 ]).

Problems with Allegorizing Interpretations To re a d a single allegorical in terp re tatio n is to be im pressed, a n d to w o n d er if th e a u th o r is o n to som ething pro fo u n d ; to re a d a h u n d re d allegorical in terp retatio n s is to b e d e p re s s e d , a n d to w a n t to d isc a rd th e w h o le. A lle g o riz in g in terp re tatio n s c a n n o t w ithstand com parison a n d analysis. N o single in terp retatio n has any m o re claim to legitimacy o r m akes any m o re sense th an any other. Allegorical in terp retatio n is forced, subject only to th e creative im agination o f the interpreter, a n d e x tran eo u s to th e Song o f Songs. Are th e breasts o f th e w om an (Song 4:5) to be un d e rsto o d as Moses a n d A aron, o r th e two tablets o f th e D ecalogue, o r m athem atical reasoning, o r C hristian pastors, o r th e two testam ents o f the C hristian Bible, o r th e ch u rch as a w hole, o r the two o rd in an ces o f P rotestant w orship, o r th e beauty o f the ch u rch in th e eyes o f Christ? N o re ad in g is in herently m ore reasonable o r plausible th a n another. A re c e n t allegorizing com m entary, w ritten from th e perspective o f th e m o d e rn eclectic religion broadly called “new age” (Elder, 1988), illustrates th e p o in t. T h is b o o k ’s m e a n d e rin g th o u g h ts a b o u t C hrist, B u d d h a, Krishna, a n d th e “Universal G o d ” are absurdly arbitrary, b u t as an allegory o f the Song they have as m u ch claim to legitim acy as any other. A n allegory, th a t is, a story th a t is actually in te n d e d to be re ad as an allegory, generally tells th e re a d e r th a t it is an allegory in a very obvious a n d d elib erate way. C. S. Lewis, describing T olkien’s m akes th e following p o in t ( 85): “W hat shows th a t we are read in g m yth, n o t allegory, is th at th ere are n o poin ters to a specifically theological, o r political, o r psychological application.” By contrast, J o th a m ’s allegory o f th e trees (Judg 9:7-21) could hardly be m o re conspicuously a political allegory. T h e Song never suggests th a t an allegorical m ean in g is in ten d ed . Allegorizing o f th e sort o n e sees with th e Song has n o an te c e d e n t in the NT; P au l’s use o f th e verb άλληγορέω in Gal 4:24 does n o t co rresp o n d to allegorizing as we see it in th e in terp re tatio n o f th e Song; cf. G oppelt, 139-40. A few obvious tre n d s em e rg e fro m a survey o f allegorical in te rp re ta tio n s. T h e first a n d m o s t obvious is th a t th e im a g in atio n o f th e individual in te rp re te r drives th e e n tire process. T h e se c o n d is th a t in te rp re te rs alm ost always see th e ir ow n relig io u s tra d itio n s in th e text. F o r Jew s, two b reasts suggest M oses a n d A aro n , o r th e two tables o f th e Law. F o r C hristians, they suggest M o th er C h u rch , o r th e two testa m e n ts o f th e B ible, o r p asto rs (re c e n t C atholic in te rp re te rs w ho re a d th e S o n g as a Jew ish po litical tra c t a re a n ex c ep tio n h e re ). T h e th ird tre n d is th a t alleg o rical in te rp re ta tio n s are o fte n su g g ested by sim ple psychological associatio n . B reasts = n u rtu re , a n d th e re fo re breasts re fe r to th e g re a t lead e rs o f Israel, o r to pastors. T h e n u m b e r two suggests th in g s th a t co m e in pairs, su ch as M oses a n d A aro n o r th e two testam en ts o f th e Bible. T h e fo u rth tre n d is th a t allegories a re o fte n suggested b y w o rd associations to o th e r passages in th e Bible. M any a n alleg o rizin g in te rp re te r a p p e a rs to believe th a t his o r h e r in te rp re ta tio n is th e last w o rd o n th e su b ject— a n d so m etim es will say so! T h e o rig in a n d u n d e r p in n in g s o f alle g o riz in g leave o n e u n easy w ith th e m e th o d . A llegorizing arose a m o n g p ag a n s w ho w a n te d to fin d a way to salvage m orsels o f tr u th fro m th e stories a b o u t th e d ru n k e n n e ss, p ettin ess, violence,

Song ofSongs,

Stories,

Lord of the Rings,

On

Typos,

Introduction

75

h o m o se x u a lity , a n d le c h e ry o f th e ir g o d s. E arly p a g a n alleg o rists, su ch as P herecy d es o f Syros a n d T h e o g e n e s o f R h eg iu m (b o th sixth c e n tu ry B.C.E.) , prov id e d a way fo r th e G re ek s to d o ju s t th a t; th u s, w h e n S a tu rn d e v o u rs his offsprin g , it tu rn s o u t to b e n o m o re th a n an allegory o f th e passing o f tim e. T his m a n n e r o f in te rp re ta tio n b eg a n a tra d itio n th a t e x te n d e d in to th e scholarship o f A lex a n d ria a n d o n in to th e Jew ish synagogue a n d C hristian ch u rch . A llegorism o f th e S ong is ro o te d in a n e o p la to n ic worldview th a t was m o re gnostic th a n C hristian. T his w orldview asserts th a t th e body, w ith its n eed s, app etites, a n d ex c re tio n s, is by n a tu re base, u n sp iritu a l, a n d finally evil. T ru e spirituality is lib e ra tio n fro m th e pow ers o f th e body. It is tru e th a t som e p agans an d gnostics claim ed o n e co u ld attain this lib e ra tio n th ro u g h in d u lg in g bodily ap p e tite s, b u t th e m o re s ta n d a rd ro u te , a n d ce rtain ly th e o n e th a t relig io u s m o n o th e ists chose, was asceticism . Ascetic o r lib e rtin e, th e p h ilo so p h ic al found atio n is still th e sam e: th e physical is b ad a n d an tispiritual. T hu s, an allegorizing in te rp re ta tio n o f th e S ong was inevitable. T h e S ong c a n n o t be a b o u t sexual love, th e re a so n in g goes, since we know th a t sexual love is th e q u in tessen ce o f carnality a n d th e re fo re is by n a tu re evil, even if licit in m arriag e. A n d it is n o t only C h ristia n s w ho fall in to th is p a tte r n o f th in k in g . N. S c h e rm a n , th e Jew ish allego rist c ited above, is positively A u g u stin ian in to n e, if n o t n eo p lato n ic! T h e C h ristian c h u rc h in late an tiq u ity a n d th e m edieval p e rio d a d o p te d a hostile a ttitu d e tow ard sexual desire. As C. S. Lewis has d esc rib ed it in (14-15: italics o rig in al):

The Alle-

gory of Love

T h e views o f m edieval c h u rc h m e n o n th e sexual ac t w ith in m a rria g e (th e re is n o questio n , o f co u rse , a b o u t th e a c t o u tsid e m a rria g e ) a re all lim ite d by two c o m p le m e n ta ry a g re em e n ts. O n th e o n e h a n d , n o b o d y ever a sse rte d th a t th e ac t was in trin sica lly sinful. O n th e o th e r h a n d , all w ere a g re e d th a t so m e evil e le m e n t was p re s e n t in every c o n c re te in sta n c e o f th is ac t sin ce th e Fall. It was in th e e ffo rt to d e te r m in e th e precise n a tu re o f th is c o n c o m ita n t evil th a t le a rn in g a n d in g e n u ity w ere e x p e n d e d . G regory, a t th e e n d o f th e sixth c e n tu ry , was p e rfe c tly c le a r o n th is q u estio n : fo r h im th e ac t is in n o c e n t b u t th e d e sire is m o rally evil. I f we o b je c t to th e c o n c e p tio n o f an intrin sically w icked im p u lse tow ards a n in trin sically in n o c e n t a c tio n , h e re p lie s by th e ex a m p le o f a rig h te o u s re b u k e d e liv e re d in an g er. W h a t we say m ay b e exactly w hat we o u g h t to have said; b u t th e e m o tio n w hich is th e effic ie n t cause, re m a in s guilty. B u t th e c o n c re te sex u al act, th a t is, th e ac t p lu s its u n a v o id a b le e ffic ie n t cause, rem ain s guilty. W h e n we co m e dow n to th e la te M id d le A ges th is view is m o d ifie d . H u g o o f St. V icto r ag rees w ith G re g o ry in th in k in g th e c a rn a l d e sire a n evil. B u t h e d o es n o t th in k th a t this m akes th e c o n c re te ac t guilty, p ro v id e d it is “e x c u s e d ” by th e g o o d e n d s o f m a rria g e, su ch as o ffsp rin g .

Canterbury Tales.

T h is a ttitu d e is well illu stra te d in C h a u c e r’s In b o o k 2 o f th e M an o f Law’s Tale, th e sto ry o f th e v irtu o u s C h ristian P rincess C o n stan ce, h e all b u t apologizes fo r th e fact th a t she h a d sexual rela tio n s w ith h e r beloved husb an d , K ing Alla, a n d m e n tio n s th a t this is s o m e th in g th a t a p io u s w om an m u st e n d u re as a necessary p a r t o f m arria g e. By co n trast, in th e M iller’s Tale, th e a d u lte ro u s affair o f Fly N icholas a n d A lison, th e c a rp e n te r’s wife, is, to say the least, ro b u st. T his view point is co n tra ry to th e teachings o f th e Bible, w hich declares th e ereation o f th e physical w orld, th e living creatures, a n d m an as m ale a n d fem ale to be “g o o d ,” a n d w hich explicitly celebrates th e u n io n o f m an a n d w om an (G en 1;

76

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2:18-25). T h e re are two view points th a t biblical theology equally disavows: fertility paganism , w hich reg ard s sex as a p o in t o f in tersectio n betw een th e physical a n d th e divine, a n d a gnostic type o f asceticism , w hich reg ard s th e physical, a n d in p artic u la r th e sexual, as innately evil. W hile th e Bible co n d em n s lust after th e o th e r w om an as evil, it nev er describes th e sexual desire itself as evil, least o f all w hen expressed tow ard o n e ’s wife. Also, w hile Paul urges believers to co n sid er w h e th e r it is wise to m a rry a n d have c h ild re n in lig h t o f th e “im p e n d in g crisis” (1 C or 7:26), a n d a lth o u g h h e w ould p re fe r th a t m o re believers w ere, like him self, free to devote th e ir e n tire lives to th e service o f C hrist (1 C or 7:32-35), h e never im plies th a t celibacy o r virginity is innately a state th a n m atrim ony— a n d fo r him , m atrim o n y by d efin itio n includes sexual relatio ns (1 C or 7:1-5). T h e la n g u a g e o f sexual love is b ro u g h t in to th e re alm o f sp iritu al d ev o tio n to th e d e trim e n t o f b o th . In S ong 7 :8 -9 (ET 7 :7 -8 ), th e m an d eclares th a t th e w om an is like a p alm tree a n d h e r breasts are like its clusters o f dates. H e will clim b th e tre e a n d seize th e clusters! O n e cringes at usin g th ese term s to describe th e love o f G o d fo r his p e o p le , o r th e love o f th e soul fo r th e tru th , o r w hatev er o th e r sp iritu al sense can be a tta c h e d to it. T his is n o t a p p ro p ria te lang u ag e fo r w o rsh ip a n d spirituality. S p iritu alizin g th e w ords p rev en ts th e h e a re r fro m a p p re c ia tin g how they ce le b ra te th e jo y a y o u n g m an has in his w ife’s body. I d o n o t believe th a t th e alleg o rizatio n o f any tex t o f th e Song is o f theological o r ex eg etical value. To say th a t th e m a n in th e S ong is th e re d e e m e r fig u re ju s t as C h rist is th e re d e e m e r is tru e , b u t this d oes n o t validate alleg o rizatio n as such. R ath er, th e S ong b rin g s o u t th e d e e p s tru c tu re o f h u m a n tra n sfo rm a tio n , a n d this p ro cess o f tra n sfo rm a tio n has its q u in tessen tial expressio n in th e Christian gospel. U n d e rs to o d in this way, we m ay yet achieve som e re c o n c ilia tio n o f A n tio ch (th e n a tu ra l re a d in g o f th e text) a n d A lex an d ria (th e sp iritu al re a d in g o f th e te x t) . T h a t is, o n e can grasp th e sp iritu al m e a n in g o f th e S ong w ith o u t a b a n d o n in g th e straig h tfo rw ard m e a n in g o f th e love poetry. B ut o n e m u st w ork th ro u g h th e n a tu ra l, o rd in a ry a n d in my view self-evident m e a n in g o f th e S ong in o rd e r to c o m p re h e n d this process o f tra n sfo rm atio n . O n e c a n n o t allegorize it, fo r w h en th e S ong is allegorized, its tra n sfo rm a tio n a l im age is lost. T h e w om an a n d h e r loss o f virginity b ec o m e invisible. To p u t it bluntly, th e S ong o f Songs really is a song a b o u t kisses, physical beauty, a n d sexual u n io n . W h en S o n g 4:5 m e n tio n s fem ale breasts, it m ean s fem ale b reasts a n d n o t M oses a n d A aro n , M ary as sp iritu al m ed iatrix , o r th e n u rtu rin g p o w er o f th e ch u rc h . B u t physical sex is n o t th e w hole story; tra n sfo rm a tio n is at th e h e a rt o f th e Song. U n d e rs to o d in this way, th e S ong o f Songs a n d th e gospel b o th speak o f th e sam e n e e d fo r intim acy a n d tra n sc e n d e n c e. O n e can fin d this m essage only w h en o n e is w illing to give th e S ong an h o n e s t read in g .

holier

T h e D ram atic I n terpreta tio n s

Bibliography B ullock, C. H . A n In tro d u c tio n to the O ld T estam en t P oetic Books. C h icag o : M o ody Press, 1979. E m m e rso n , G. I. ‘T h e S o n g o f Songs: M ystification, A m b ig u ity a n d H u m o u r .” In C ro ssin g the B o u n d a ries. FS M. D. G o u ld er, ed . S. P o rte r, P. Jo y ce, a n d D. E. O rto n . L e id e n : Brill, 1994. 9 7 -1 1 1 . G o u ld e r, M. D. S on g o f F ourteen Songs. W a te rm a n , L. T h e S o n g o f Songs.

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77

A n n A rbor: Univ. o f M ich ig an Press, 1948. W oods, T. E. P. S h u la m m ith . G ra n d R apids: E erd m a n s, 1940.

In th e last two ce n tu ries, it has b e e n fairly p o p u la r to in te rp re t th e Song as som e k in d o f d ram a. Two m ajo r varieties exist: th e th re e -c h a ra c te r d ra m a an d th e tw o-character d ram a.

The Three-Character Interpretations All th re e -c h a ra c te r in te rp re ta tio n s follow th e sam e basic story line. S olom on w ants to b e d a y o u ng Israelite girl a n d takes h e r in to his h arem , b u t she is in love w ith a n o th e r, usually id e n tifie d as a s h e p h e rd , a n d she resists his a rd e n t pleas fo r h e r sexual favors. In th e en d , she escapes a n d m akes h e r way to h e r beloved. T h e theory, supposedly b u t p ro b ab ly n o t actually suggested by ibn Ezra, was d ev e lo p e d b y J. F. Jaco b i, S. L ow isohn, a n d H . Ewald; see M. P o p e (104, 111-1 2 ), w ho co n sid ers Low isohn to be th e tru e fo u n d e r o f this in te rp re ta tio n , a n d R. K. H a rriso n ( , 1054). T h e th re e -c h a ra c te r d ra m a is a rb itra ry in n a tu re ; its advocates te n d to see w h at they w an t to see in th e lyrics. If an in te rp re te r assigns a love song to th e “s h e p h e rd ,” th e w ords are a r d e n t a n d p u re ; if a n o th e r in te rp re te r assigns th e sam e te x t to S o lom on, it is lustful a n d m anipulative. S om etim es a single interp re te r will take th e sam e w ords to be b o th em p ty flattery a n d p u re love. T his is illu stra te d by A deney (8), w ho co m m en ts, “S o lo m o n ’s co m p lim en ts are frigid a n d stilted; th ey d escrib e th e o b ject o f his affection in th e m o st ex trav ag an t term s, b u t they e x h ib it n o trace o f fe elin g .” As an exam ple o f S o lo m o n ’s hollow praise, h e singles o u t S ong 1:15, w here “S o lo m o n ” says th a t th e w o m a n ’s eyes are like doves (Adeney, 19). A deney has n o t n o tic e d th a t th e w om an uses th e sam e em p ty flattery w h en sp eak in g to h e r own tru e love (Song 5:12). C ertainly n o o n e has surpassed T. W oods fo r an im aginative in te rp re ta tio n o f Song o f Songs as a th ree-ch aracter play. H e in tro d u ces th e Song with a lengthy a n d highly creative retellin g th e story b e h in d th e biblical book, com p lete with “S h u la m m ith ” (th e w om an o f th e Song) w eeping an d p lead in g to h e r uncle to save h e r from th e k in g ’s advances. A n ex c erp t from this co m m en tary ( 50-51) will illustrate how this a p p ro a c h forges a full-scale novel o u t o f th in air (words o f th e S ong are in bold, as in W oods’s original te x t):

Introduction

of

Shulammith,

T h e d o o r o p e n s a n d S h u la m m ith co m es in. S o lo m o n rises, m e e ts h er, a n d c o n d u c ts h e r to th e co u c h alre ad y a rra n g e d fo r h er. H is eyes d e v o u r h e r beauty. T h e n th e k in g k n ee ls b e fo re her, to u c h e s h e r a rm gently, as h e speaks in low to n e s c h a rg e d w ith passion h e c a n n o t c o n tro l.

Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah; Com ely as Jerusalem ; Fair as the m oon, Clear as the sun; Terrible as an army with banners.

78

Introduction In sp ite o f h e r re so lu tio n , S h u la m m ith is a ffe c te d by th e e m o tio n in h is voice. S he lifts h e r eyes a n d looks a t h im searchingly. Is th e re n o t s o m e th in g o f g re a tn e ss, som eth in g g e n e ro u s in th is m a n o f h ig h ra n k , to w hich sh e can ap p e al? S h e is a b o u t to speak, w h en S o lo m o n , g ra sp in g h e r a rm till it h u rts, cries o u t,

Turn thine eyes away from m e, For they quite conquer m e. W ith a sigh o f d isa p p o in tm e n t, sh e bow s h e r h e a d a n d g e stu re s w ith h e r fre e h a n d to th e a rm h e is h o ld in g so tightly. H e rele ase s h e r a n d stru g g le s fo r m a ste ry o v er h im self. T h e re is silen c e in th e ro o m .

T h is n o v elizatio n o f th e S ong illu strates w h at can h a p p e n in “d ra m a tic ” in terp re ta tio n s: th e settin g , actions, a n d m o tiv atio n s b e h in d th e lines o f th e S ong are c re a te d by th e in te rp re te r w ith o u t any w a rra n t fro m th e text. T h is e x c e rp t also illustrates a p ro b le m specific to th e th re e -c h a ra c te r m o d el, th a t som e o f th e m o st b eau tifu l lines o f love o f th e S ong a re tra n s fo rm e d in to th e self-in d u lg en t attem p ts o f an o v ersex ed k in g to sed u ce o n e o f his fem ale subjects. L. W a te rm a n develops a re d a c tio n h isto ry fo r th e S ong a n d uses it to p ro p o se a h isto ry o f S o lo m o n ’s succession to th e th ro n e . E q u atin g “S h u n a m m ite ” w ith “S h u la m m ite ,” h e suggests th a t S o lo m o n trie d to w oo A bishag th e S h u n a m m ite (th e y o u n g w o m an w ho k e p t th e dying D avid w arm in 1 Kgs 1:3-4) b u t th a t she re je c te d th e k in g a n d re tu r n e d to h e r lover in th e n o rth . H is in te rp re ta tio n suggests th a t S o n g 4:2 la m p o o n s S o lo m o n fo r ex a m in in g th e girl as if she w ere an an im al 41), th a t 4:4 is m e a n t to m ake S o lo m o n lo o k rid icu lo u s 42),, a n d th a t 6:4 serves to ex a lt T irzah, th e capital o f th e n o rth e r n k in g d o m 41). M any th re e -c h a ra c te r in te rp re ta tio n s tu rn th e S ong in to a n an ti-S olom onic tract. T h e th re e -c h a ra c te r d ra m a is m o re re cen tly re p re s e n te d in a c o m m e n ta ry by I. Provan. H e arg u es th a t th e S ong b eg in s w ith th e w om an in S o lo m o n ’s h a re m , th a t is, alread y m a rrie d to S o lo m o n (P rovan, 246). F ro m th e h a re m she yearn s fo r h e r lo v er o n th e ou tsid e; th e two a re n o t m a rrie d b u t co n sid e r them selves m a rrie d . V arious texts in th e S ong alte rn a te ly d escrib e th e lovers’ p assion fo r o n e a n o th e r a n d h e r d isd ain fo r S o lo m o n . Every d ra m a tic in te rp re ta tio n o f th e S o n g is a to u r d e fo rce, b u t P ro v an ’s is ex tra o rd in a rily co n fu sed a n d confusing. H is analysis o f S ong 3:6-11 (Provan, 2 9 8 -3 0 5 ), fo r ex am p le, asserts th a t th e ‫אפריון‬, “p a la n q u in , sed an c h a ir,” is really S o lo m o n ’s p alace. H e arg u es th a t th e s tru c tu re c a n n o t be a p a la n q u in becau se it has ‫עמוד‬, “p illa rs,” a n d says th a t this w o rd “always refers to larg e pillars o f a size an d stre n g th sufficient to s u p p o rt a b u ild in g ” (Provan, 300). H e m akes this claim a lth o u g h h e acknow ledges th a t th e w o rd is also u sed o f “pillars o f sm o k e” a n d o f te n t poles. T h e w o rd d escrib es so m e th in g sta n d in g u p rig h t, be it a c o lu m n o f sm oke, a te n t p o le, a s u p p o rt post, o r a pillar, a n d it d o es n o t suggest a massive b u ild in g . H e arg u es th a t a t th e c e n te r o f this “p a la c e ” is a “c h a rio t” (so in terp re tin g ‫ ;מרכב‬S o n g 3:10). B u t this “c h a rio t” tu rn s o u t to be n o t a real c h a rio t a t all b u t S o lo m o n ’s b ed , his p lace o f sexual ad v e n tu rin g . P rovan also takes 3:6 to m e a n th a t th e w o m an is a sacrificial victim (taking ‫ עולה‬n o t as “co m in g u p ” b u t as “w hole o ffe rin g ”). H e th u s seem s to u n d e rs ta n d 3:6a to m ean , “W ho is this? A w ho le o ffe rin g fro m th e d e s e rt.” T h e text, w ith its sm oke a n d in cen se, is th u s a

(Song of Songs, (Song of Songs, (Song of Songs,

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k in d o f p aro d y o f a sacrificial rite. In H ebrew , an in terro g ativ e follow ed by a p artic ip le is very co m m o n , a n d o n e w ould n atu ra lly take it to m e a n “W ho is this co m in g u p fro m th e d e se rt? ” To P rovan th e “d e s e rt” is n o t a literal d e se rt b u t a m e ta p h o r fo r S o lo m o n ’s b e d (th a t is, a place o f b a rre n s e x ). O n th e o th e r h a n d , th e “sixty w a rrio rs” literal: “H e re is th e g re a t S olom on driving a ro u n d in his p re te n tio u s ch ario t-b ed . H e is th e m ighty S o lo m o n, b u t h e n e e d s sixty elite warrio rs to g e t h im safely th ro u g h th e n ig h t” (Provan, 303). S ong 3:6-11 is “a d ark a n d b itte r satire c o n c e rn in g S o lo m o n a n d his string o f fem ale victim s” (Provan, 304). O n e can only assum e th a t th e c e le b ra to ry m o o d o f this text, o n P ro v an ’s re ad in g , is iro n ic. P ro v an ’s c o m m e n ta ry is d ec o n stru ctiv e; it plays gam es w ith th e lan g u ag e o f th e tex t in o rd e r to o b tain a socially subversive m ean in g . B ut it is fo rc e d a t every p o in t. D e te rm in e d to tu rn th e S ong in to an anti-S olom onic d iatrib e, it m isreads even e le m e n ta ry signs o f th e lan g u ag e o f love. P rovan states, ‘T h e r e is, by contrast, n o tru e intim acy ex p e rie n c e d in th e d esert, w hich is th e e x tra o rd in a ry royal b e d c h a m b e r” (305). H e seem s u n aw are o f texts such as H os 2:14: ‘T h e re fo re , I will now allu re her, b rin g h e r in to th e d esert, a n d speak ten d erly to h e r ” (Yahweh sp eak in g o f his love fo r Is ra e l). P rovan sim ilarly arg u es th a t S o lo m o n knows n o jo y a n d , c o n tra ry to th e e x u b e ra n t m o o d o f th e text, says th a t S ong 3:11 is only a b itte r re m in d e r o f fo rm e r days (Provan, 305). H is co m m e n ta ry illustrates how th ree -ch a rac te r in te rp re ta tio n s o f th e S ong tu rn its sw eetest fru it in to so u r grapes a n d cre a te havoc w ith th e language.

are

The Two-Character Interpretations T w o-character in te rp re ta tio n s view th e S ong as a d ram atic p re se n ta tio n o f th e story o f S o lo m o n ’s d ev o tio n to his o n e tru e love. T his a p p ro a c h was s u p p o rte d by th e p o e t J o h n M ilto n (see P o p e, 35). M ore recently, M. D. G o u ld e r has a d o p te d this p o sitio n . H e asserts th a t th e w om an is an A rabian p rin cess a n d th a t th e S o n g is a tra c t ag a in st racism ( 11-14, 7 5 -7 8 ). G. E m m erso n ( “S ong o f S ongs”) , a lth o u g h w riting in a in G o u ld e r’s honor, unravels his analysis o f th e Song. F. D elitzsch (1813-1890) is p e rh a p s th e fo re m o st ex p o sito r o f th e two-characte r d ra m a tic in te rp re ta tio n . D elitzsch was re a c tin g ag ain st th e v iolence d o n e to th e tex t in th e th re e -c h a ra c te r d ra m a a n d h a d n o d o u b ts a b o u t th e validity o f his in te rp re ta tio n . C o m m e n tin g o n his in itial 1851 m o n o g ra p h o n th e Song, D elitzsch w rote: “I certain ly su cc eed e d in fin d in g th e rig h t key to th e in te rp re ta tio n o f this w o rk ” (D elitzsch, 4). H is in te rp re ta tio n is careful th ro u g h o u t. H e is d e te rm in e d to destroy th e th re e -c h a ra c te r d ra m a (o r as h e a n d o th e rs call it, th e “sh e p h e rd h y p o th esis”). O n S ong 5:7, h e observes th a t th e w om an seeks h e r beloved n o t in th e o p e n field, n o r in th e villages, b u t in th e city. T h is is “fatal to th e sh ep h e rd -h y p o th esis,” h e claim s (D elitzsch, 96). If n o t fatal, it a t least scores a p o in t. D elitzsch divides th e S ong in to six “acts”: (1) th e m u tu a l affection o f th e lovers (1:2-2:7); (2) th e m u tu a l seek in g a n d fin d in g o f th e lovers (2:8—3:5); (3) th e m arria g e (3 :6 -5 :l); (4) love sc o rn e d b u t w on ag ain (5:2-6:9); (5) “S h u la m ith ” th e fair b u t h u m b le p rin cess (6:10-8:4); a n d (6) th e ratificatio n o f th e co v en an t o f love in S h u la m ith ’s h o m e (8:5-14; D elitzsch, 9 -1 0 ). H is analysis is in m any

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resp ects p ercep tiv e, b u t it fails in th e a tte m p t to derive som e k in d o f co m p lete, c o h e r e n t sto ry fro m th e S ong. H e asserts th a t S o n g 5 :2 -8 d e sc rib e s “love s c o rn e d ,” b u t th e e v id en t ab su rd ities e n c o u n te re d in a literal re a d in g o f 5 :2 -8 fo rce h im to re tr e a t in to th e “d re a m ” in te rp re ta tio n (th a t is, n o n e o f this really h a p p e n e d — it was all a d re am ; D elitzsch, 97). B u t why is this love s c o rn e d if it was o n ly a dream ? In ad d itio n , as is co m m o n in d ram atic in te rp re ta tio n s, h e re ad s a massive a m o u n t o f in fo rm a tio n in to th e text. In his co m m en ts o n S ong 8:5, h e d escrib es th e ex a ct ro u te tak en by S o lom on a n d his y o u n g p rin ce ss as they stroll th ro u g h Israel to h e r village in th e a re a o f H e rm o n (D elitzsch, 1 4 0 41). Im p lie d claim s to o m n iscien ce o n D elitzsch’s p a rt d o n o t in sp ire co n fid e n ce in his overall tre a tm e n t o f th e text; to th e co ntrary, they e n g e n d e r suspicion a b o u t th e w hole en te rp rise . As su g g ested by th e title o f his b o ok, G o u ld e r divides th e S ong in to fo u rte e n individual songs (1:2-8; l:9 -2 :7 ; 2:8-17; 3:1-5; 3:6-11; 4:1-7; 4 :8 -5 :l; 5:2-9; 5 :1 0 6:3; 6 :4-12; 7:1-10; 7:11—8:4; 8:5-10; 8 :1 1 -1 4 ). H e says th a t th e fo u rte e n songs w ere w ritten to g e th e r as a single o p u s in th e fo u rth c e n tu ry B.C.E. H e co n sid ers th e S ong to tell th e story o f S o lo m o n ’s m a rria g e to an A rab ian p rin cess a n d asserts th a t th e w ork fu n c tio n s as a tra c t ag a in st racism . In o rd e r to create this in te rp re ta tio n h e m ust, as all d ra m a tic in te rp re ta tio n s do, re a d an e n o rm o u s n u m b e r o f n a rrativ e details in to th e Song. F o r exam ple, th e first so n g (1:2-8) is said to d esc rib e th e “arriv al” o f th e A rab ian p rin cess w hile th e sec o n d so n g (1 :9 2:7) is said to b e an a c c o u n t o f h e r first a u d ie n c e w ith S olom on 1 0 -2 0 ). T h e re is n o th in g in e ith e r te x t to suggest such settings o r activities. H e arg u es th a t th e w om an is A rab ian fo r n o clear reaso n save th a t sh e has d a rk skin like th e ten ts o f K ed ar (1:5). In reality, th e “ten ts o f K e d a r” are m erely a sim ile a n d say no th in g a b o u t h e r o rig in , a n d h e r d a rk skin is a ttrib u te d to h e r having w o rk e d in th e sun, n o t to h e r eth n icity (1:6). In Song 8 (5 :2 -9 ), h a re m g u ard s b e a t th e p rin cess fo r w a n d e rin g a b o u t in th e n ig h t ( 42; o n e w o n d e rs if th o se g u ard s w ould still have th e ir h ea d s o n th e ir sh o u ld ers th e n e x t m o rn in g ). S ong 11 (7 :1 -1 0 ), h e says, describes how th e A rab ian p rin cess m u st c o n te n d w ith co m p e titio n fro m a n o th e r m e m b e r o f S o lo m o n ’s h arem , A bishag th e S h u n a m m ite o f 1 Kgs 2:17; however, th e A rabian p rin cess recaptu re s S o lo m o n ’s a tte n tio n by d o in g a n ero tic d a n c e fo r h im 5 4 -5 9 ). S im ilar arb itra ry re ad in g s are fo u n d th ro u g h o u t th e co m m en tary.

(Song ofFourteen

Songs,

Song ofFourteen Songs, (Song of Fourteen

Songs,

Problems with Dramatic Interpretations T h e tre a tm e n t above shows th a t th e re are n u m e ro u s p ro b lem s w ith d ra m a tic in te rp re ta tio n s o f th e Song. T h e m o st obvious a n d th e m o st co m m o n ly c ited p ro b le m is th a t th ese in te rp re ta tio n s th e tex t m o re in fo rm a tio n th a n they actually As it stands, th e S ong sim ply d o es n o t have e n o u g h in fo rm atio n to s u p p o rt any o f th e stories th a t have b e e n suggested. N o t only m u st in fo rm a tio n be a d d e d in fo rm a tio n p re s e n t m u st be su b jecte d to rad ical tra n sfo rm a tio n in m ean in g . We saw this in P ro v a n ’s asto n ish in g analysis o f S ong 3:6-11. T h e sam e is tru e o f th e tw o-characte r dram as. In his analysis o f 3 :1-5, G o u ld e r ( 27) says th a t th e “s tre e ts” a re actually c o rrid o rs o f a p alace, th e city “g u a rd s” are actually eu-

find.

Song

read into

to the Song

Song ofFourteen Songs,

in the

Introduction

81

n u c h s w ho w atch over th e h arem , a n d th e “d a u g h te rs o f J e ru s a le m ” are n o t th e y o u n g w o m en o f J e ru sa le m b u t are o th e r m em b ers o f th e h arem . F o r d ram atic in te rp re te rs , th e te x t is m alleab le in every way. As it stands, S ong o f Songs has m in im al p lo t, n o ch a ra c te r d e v e lo p m e n t, a n d n o sub p lo t. O n th e tw o-character re ad in g , S o lo m o n a n d his b eloved fall in love. O n th e th re e -c h a ra c te r re ad in g , th e w om an sp u rn s S olom on fo r h e r sh e p h e rd . N e ith e r o f th ese really m akes fo r a story. As a d ra m a, S ong o f Songs is decidedly in fe rio r to th e G reek d ra m a s o f fifth -c en tu ry A thens. It will n o t do to say th a t th e a n c ie n t Israelites m ig h t have c o n sid e re d su ch a b a rre n p lo t an a d e q u a te story because we know th a t in th e actual narratives o f th e Bible (G enesis, Sam uel, Esther, etc.) stories are fully dev elo p ed a n d o ften very com plex. In te rp re te rs have m ad e u p fo r this deficiency by c re a tin g n o e n d o f detail, in c lu d in g th e in v en tio n o f new ch a ra c te rs a n d e lem e n ts o f conflict. T h e re is n o in d icatio n th a t th e d ra m a existed as an a rt fo rm in Israel. N o th in g in th e preexilic p e rio d suggests it existed in Israel o r anyw here else in th e N ear East. T h e G reeks dev elo p ed th e d ra m a in th e fifth ce n tu ry B.C.E., b u t we have n o reaso n to th in k th a t it was im p o rte d in to th e postexilic com m unity (an d I have already a rg u e d th a t th e b o o k c a n n o t be th a t la te ). If th e Song w ere a late w ork a n d if it d id re p re s e n t a Jew ish a p p ro p ria tio n o f th e G reek dram atic m odel, th en o n e w ould ex p e ct th e S ong to resem ble G reek d ram a. T h e re is n o resem blance at all. In co n trast with dram atic in terp retatio n s o f th e Song, w here confusion abounds a n d details m u st b e in v en ted at every tu rn , th e plot, speaking parts, a n d developm en ts o f dram atic ten sio n in G reek dram as are clear. G. L. C arr (34) states th a t in his ex p e rien ce th e Song is “u n ac ta b le.” T h e S ong is n o t a play. Two p ro b lem s b ey o n d th ese are specific to th e th re e-c h a rac te r in terp re tatio n s. T hey te n d to spoil a g re a t d eal o f th e b eau ty o f th e Song by tre a tin g its love p o e try as an a tte m p t a t se d u c tio n by th e w icked S olom on. A n d th e ir d ram atic re c o n stru c tio n s o ften m ake n o sense. B ullock ( , 252) has S olom on atte m p tin g to sed u ce th e w om an at S ong 7 : 1 0 8 :4 ‫ ־‬. T h e w om an re sp o n d s by ded a r in g h e r love fo r h e r m issing s h e p h e rd , yet she addresses th e sh e p h e rd as “y o u ” (e.g., S ong 8:1) a n d says to him , “L et us go o u t in to th e c o u n try ” (Song 7:12 [ET 7 :1 1 ]), even th o u g h h e is n o t th e re a t all. T h e s h e p h e rd , w hom she addresses, is ab sen t; S o lo m o n , w hom she ig n o res, is p re s e n t a n d speak in g w ords o f love to h er! O n e fin d s th e sam e th in g in E. R e n a n ’s co m m en tary , w h ere S olom o n says to th e w om an, ‘Yea, th o u a rt fair, my love,” a n d th e w om an resp o n d s to h e r a b se n t lover, ‘Yea, th o u a r t fair, m y b elo v ed ” (R enan, 129). A play th a t h a d stage d irec tio n s like th a t w ould have left th e a n c ie n t au d ien c e as baffled as it d o es th e m o d e rn read er.

Introduction

T he Cultic I nterpretations

Bibliography A lbright, W. F. “A rch aic Survival in th e T ex t o f C a n tic le s.” In H ebrew a n d Sem itic S tu dies P re se n te d to G o d frey R o lle s D river. E d . D. W. T h o m a s a n d W. D . M c H a rd y . O x fo rd : C la re n d o n , 1963. 1 -7 . C a rr, G. L. “Is th e S ong o f S ongs a ‘S acre d M a rria g e ’ D ra m a ? ” J E T S 22 (1979) 1 0 3 1 4 ‫ ־‬. F o x , Μ. V. S o n g o f Songs a n d the A n c ie n t E g y p tia n L o v e Songs. K ram er, S. N . Sacred M a r n a g e R ite. M eek, T. “T h e S ong o f S ongs a n d th e F ertility C u lt.”

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The Song of Songs: A Symposium Canon, Theology, and Old Testament Interpretation. The Servant of the Lord and Other Essays.

In . Ed. W. H . Schoff. P h ila d e lp h ia : T h e C o m m e rc ia l M useu m , 1924. 4 8 -7 9 . Pope, Μ. H. “M etastases in C a n o n ic a l S h ap es o f th e S u p e r S o n g .” In E d. G. M. T u ck er, D. L. P e te rse n , a n d R. R. W ilson. P h ilad e lp h ia : F ortess, 1988. 3 1 2 -2 8 . Rowley, Η. H. “I n te r p r e ta tio n o f th e S ong o f S o n g s.” In L o n d o n : L u tte rw o rth , 1952. 1 8 7 234. S ch m id t, N . “Is C an tic les a n A d o n is L itu rg y ?” JAOS'46 (1926) 154 -6 4 .

A distinctive c o n trib u tio n o f th e tw entieth ce n tu ry is th e “cultic in te rp re ta tio n ” o f th e Song, which essentially reg ard s it as a sanitized m ythic p o em from th e fertility cults. T h ese cults focus o n a ce n tral g o d w ho goes by various n am es in various m yths (Baal, D u m u zi/T am m u z, Osiris, A donis) a n d w ho dies b u t is raised back th ro u g h th e agency o r intercession o f his goddess-consort (respectively to th e previous list, A nat, In a n n a /Is h ta r, Isis, A p h ro d ite ). T h e d e a th o f th e fertility g o d is associated w ith d ro u g h t o r b a rre n n e ss in th e land, a n d th e re su rrec tio n o f th e g o d is associated w ith spring, th e calving o f cattle, th e fruitfulness o f th e land, a n d h u m a n p reg n an cy . T h e w o rsh ip o f B aal was th e p rin c ip a l rival to o r th o d o x Yahwism in preexilic Israel. In ad d itio n , som e k in d o f w orship o f a m other-goddess fertility figure seem s to be very a n c ie n t in d e e d in th e Levant. T. M eek (“Song o f Songs”) n o ticed parallels betw een th e S ong o f Songs a n d Akkadian hym ns a n d cam e to th e conclusion th a t the Song was an ex p u rg ated version o f a fertility hym n. N. S chm idt 46 [1926] 154-64) resp o n d ed th a t th ere are n o exact parallels betw een the Song a n d th e A kkadian hym ns a n d th a t th e Song in n o way suggests a co n n ectio n to a fertility c u lt S. N. K ram er su p p o rted M eek’s position, ex cep t that, unlike M eek, K ram er d id n o t th in k th at th e S ong celeb rated Yahweh a n d th e goddess; ra th e r h e said th a t it co n cern ed a sacred m arriage between th e Israelite king a n d a goddess. In addition, he d id n o t try to argue th a t the Song originally co n tain ed dirges fo r a dying god; h e said th a t th e celebratory marriage songs from th e Sum erian texts elim inated the n e e d for this m o tif (Kramer, 90-92). O th e r in terp re ters suggested ties betw een th e Song a n d pagan myths. W. F. A lbright said o f th e “m o th e r” m en tio n ed in Song 8:5-7, ‘T h e m o th e r o f th e beloved was a m ythical figure, possibly a girl w ho h a d escaped to th e desert after becom ing p re g n a n t by a g o d (“Archaic Survival,” 7). M. P ope (465,548) argues th a t th e descriptions o f th e m an a n d w om an in the Song im ply th a t they are idols o f gods. T h e m ale in p articular appears to be m ade o f precious m etals (Song 5:11-15), b u t th e fem ale also is som etim es described as towerlike (Song 4:4). P ope has also arg u ed th a t th e w om an’s en o rm o u s nose (Song 7:5) suggests she is a goddess (“M etastases in C anonical Shapes,” 322-23). T his a p p ro a c h does n o t have a large follow ing (cf. M urphy, 40), a n d fo r g o o d reason. Η . H. Rowley (‘In te r p re ta tio n ,” 213-32) gave th e th eo ry a th o ro u g h analysis a n d fo u n d it w anting w hile it was still o n th e rise am o n g scholars. T h e S ong o f Songs has n o n e o f th e critical elem en ts o f a fertility text. T h e re is n o dying a n d rising god, w hich, K ram er’s suggestions notw ith standing, separates th e Song from a critical, c e n tral e le m e n t in th e fertility cult. T h e re is n o h in t th a t th e fertility o f th e w orld d e p e n d s u p o n th e sexuality o f th e couple. T h e re is n o suggestion in the Song th a t it is a religious tex t o r th a t th e sexuality th a t it celebrates has sacred significance. T h e re is n o th in g hym nic a b o u t th e S ong at all. K ram er 90) suggests th a t th e e p ith e t “sister” in th e Song was parallel to th e use o f th e sam e term fo r In a n n a /Is h ta r, b u t in fact this is best paralleled by th e use o f

(JAOS

SacredMarriage Rite,

nage Rite,

(Sacred Mar-

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th e sam e te rm in th e Egyptian love songs, w hich are certainly secular songs (cf. Fox, 234-43). Suggestions th a t th e w om an o f th e Song has a colossal nose a n d th e re fo re m u st be a goddess d o n o t e n h a n ce o n e ’s ap p reciatio n fo r th e theory. In reality, th e only parallel is th a t fertility cu lt texts a n d th e Song o f Songs b o th have lyrics th a t focus o n m arriag e a n d sexuality. T his does n o t m ean th a t the Song is an e x p u rg ated version o f th e hym ns. T h e reverse m ay in a sense b e tru e . S om e o f th e S u m erian love songs are n o t p articu la rly hym nic; to th e co n trary , th ey seem to be casual love songs th a t have b e e n b ro u g h t in to th e c u lt by ascrib in g th e love play they describ e to th e gods D um uzi a n d In a n n a . Y. Sefati observes th at, e x c e p t fo r th e liturgical an n o tatio n s, th e so n g o f th e w o o in g o f In a n n a by D um uzi u n d e r th e m o o n ap p e ars to be little m o re th a n casual e n te rta in m e n t fo r w om en, so m eth in g th a t they co u ld h u m w hile d o in g th e ir ch o res (CS 1:542). It m ay be th e case, th e re fo re , th a t a t least som e o f th e “h y m n s” to th ese gods a re S u m erian love d itties th a t have b e e n b ro u g h t in to th e cult.

Song ofSongs,

T he W edding Interpretation In 1873J. G. W etzstein p u b lish e d an a c c o u n t o f w hat h e o b serv ed a t w ed d in g ce rem o n ie s a m o n g th e Syrians a n d c o m p a re d th e ir custom s to w hat th e Song o f Songs see m e d to re fle c t [ ‘T h e Syrian T h re sh in g T ab le”]). H is views w ere su b seq u en tly p u b lish e d by F. D elitzsch as an a p p e n d ix to his com m e n ta ry o n th e S o n g (D elitzsch, 1 6 2 -76). T his a p p ro a c h to th e S ong suggests th a t it is an a n c ie n t Israelite ep ith a la m iu m , a series o f songs m e a n t to be perfo rm e d o v er th e co u rse o f a w e d d in g ce le b ra tio n . T h is w o u ld have b e e n an elab o ra te , d raw n -o u t event, p e rh a p s lasting a week. T h e b rid e a n d g ro o m w ould take o n th e ro les o f Active q u e e n a n d king, a n d th e re w ould be n u m e ro u s dances a n d songs. T h e o r descriptive so n g o f p raise, was th o u g h t to play a prom in e n t ro le in th ese festivities. As d o c u m e n te d by P o p e (1 4 1 -4 5 ), this th e o ry was h ailed as th e key to S ong o f Songs fo r a b o u t a q u a rte r o f a century, b u t since th e n s u p p o rt fo r it all b u t d isap p ea red . O bvious p ro b le m s are th a t th e re is an e n o rm o u s ch ro n o lo g ic al a n d cu ltu ral gap b etw een n in e te e n th -c e n tu ry Syrian c u ltu re a n d a n c ie n t Israelite cu ltu re a n d th at, th e p re se n c e o f a few songs n o tw ith sta n d in g , it is h a rd to see how the Song o f Songs c o u ld w ork as an ep ith alam iu m . In ad d itio n , th e Syrian w ed d in g c e le b ra tio n p ro b a b ly has ro o ts th a t go b ack to m any cu ltu res, n o t all o f th e m in th e L evant, a n d m o re re c e n t studies suggest th a t even in Syria th e re is n o widesp re ad p ra c tic e o f a “k in g ’s w eek” a t w eddings (see P ope, 144). F o h re r has aptly c o m m e n te d th a t a lth o u g h th e re is n o d o u b t th a t th e Song o f Songs has som e c o n n e c tio n to a n c ie n t Israelite w e d d in g ce rem o n ies, “th e b o o k c a n n o t be interp re te d totally fro m this p ersp ectiv e a n d ca lle d th e te x tb o o k fo r an Israelite w e d d in g ” (F ohrer, 302).

(Die syrische Dreschtafel

wasf

wasf

Introduction to the OT,

T he Funerary Interpretation If th e Song o f Songs was n o t p e rfo rm e d for w eddings, perhaps it was used for funerals. T hat, at least, is the thinking o f M. Pope (210-29). H e claims th at “funeral feasts in th e an c ie n t N ear East w ere love feasts celebrated with wine, w om en, an d

84

Introduction

song ” (Pope, 228). H e is curiously fascinated by w hat a p ro m in e n t role dogs have in the orgies o f th e tim e a n d devotes an ex trao rd in ary am o u n t o f space to th e issue (Pope, 211-14). H e is also very in terested in th e appearances o f th e w ord “cultic feast,” in biblical a n d Ugaritic sources (Pope, 214-21). N eith er study is particularly helpful since th ere are n o dogs in Song o f Songs, a n d th e closest th in g to a is th e “house o f w ine” at Song 2:4. F u rth erm o re, th e reference to d ea th in Song 8:4 does n o t suggest th a t anyone has actually d ied o r th at a fu n eral is going on. D eath is a simile for th e pow er o f love. T his th eo ry fails in th a t P ope ca n n o t relate th e Song o f Songs to its supposed original setting. In his massive co m m en tary o n th e text, h e refers to th e th eo ry so rarely th a t o n e som etim es w onders if h e h ad forg o tten a b o u t i t

mrzh,

mrzh

F em inist R eadings of the Song

Bibliography A rbel, D. V. ‘“My V ineyard, My Very O w n, Is fo r M yself.’‫ ״‬In S on g o f Songs: A F em in ist Comp a n io n to the Bible. FCB 2d ser. 6. Ed. A. B re n n e r a n d C. R. F o n tain e . Sheffield: S h effield A cadem ic Press, 2000. 90-1 0 1 . Black, F. C. “U nlikely Bedfellows: A llegorical a n d F em in ist R eadings o f S ong o f Songs 7 .1 -8 .” In S on g o f Songs: A F em in ist C om pan ion to the Bible. FCB 2d ser. 6. Ed. A. B re n n e r a n d C. R. F o n tain e . Sheffield: S h effield A cadem ic Press, 2000. 1 0 4 29. B ren n er, A. “W om en P oets a n d A u th o rs.” In A F em in ist C om pan ion to the S on g o f Songs. FCB 1. Ed. A. B ren n er. Sheffield: JS O T Press, 1993. 86-97. B rettle r, Μ. Z. “S ensual o r Sublim e: O n T each in g th e S ong o f S o n g s.” In A pproaches to T eaching the H ebrew B ible as L itera tu re in T ra n sla tio n . Ed. B. O lsh e n a n d Y. S. F eld m a n . N ew York: M o d e rn L an g u a g e A ssociaton o f A m erica, 1989. 133-35. B utting, K. “G o Y our Way: W o m en R ew rite th e S crip tu res (S ong o f Songs 2 .8 -1 4 ).” In Son g o f Songs: A F em in ist C om pan ion to the Bible. FCB 2 d ser. 6. E d. A. B re n n e r a n d C. R. F o n tain e . Sheffield: S heffield A cadem ic Press, 2000. 142-51. C have, P. ‘T o w ard s a N o t T oo Rosy P ictu re o f th e S ong o f S o n g s.” F em in ist Theology 18 (1998) 4 1 -5 3 . E x u m , J . C. “D ev e lo p in g S tra te g ie s o f F e m in ist C ritic is m /D e v e lo p in g S tra te g ie s fo r C o m m e n ta tin g th e S ong o f S ongs.” In A u gu ries: The Jubilee Volume o f the Sheffield D ep a rtm en t o f B ib lica l Stu dies. Ed. D. J. A. C lines a n d S. D. M oore. Sheffield: S heffield A cad em ic Press, 1998. 2 0 6 -4 9 .---------. ‘T e n T h in g s Every F em in ist S h o u ld Know a b o u t th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” In So n g o f Songs: A F em in ist C om pan ion to the Bible. FCB 2d ser. 6. Ed. A. B re n n e r a n d C. R. F o n tain e . Sheffield: S heffield A cadem ic Press, 2000. 24-35. Falk, M. S on g o f Songs: A N ew T ra n sla tio n . F o n tain e, C. R. ‘T h e Voice o f th e T u rtle: N ow I t ’s M Y S o n g o f S o n g s.” In S on g o f Songs: A F em in ist C om pan ion to the Bible. FCB 2 d ser. 6. Ed. A. B re n n e r a n d C. R. F o n ta in e . Sheffield: S heffield A cadem ic Press, 2000. 169-86. G o ite in , S. D. “T h e S o n g o f Songs: A F em ale C o m p o sitio n .” In A F em inist C om pan ion to the S on g o f Songs. FCB 1. Ed. A. B ren n e r. Sheffield: Sheffield A cadem ic Press, 1993. 5 8 -66. M erkin, D . “T h e W om en in th e Balcony: O n R e re ad in g th e Song o f S ongs.” In O u t o f the G arden. Ed. C. B fich m an n a n d C. Spiegel. N ew York: Faw cett C o lu m b in e, 1995. 238-51, 342. M eyers, C. “G e n d e r Im ag e ry in th e S ong o f S ongs.” H A R 10 (1986) 209-23. O strik er, A. “A H oly o f H olies: T h e S o n g o f Songs as C o u n te rte x t.” In Son g o f Songs: A F em inist C om panion to the Bible. FCB 2d ser. 6. Ed. A. B re n n e r a n d C. R. F o n tain e . S heffield: S h effield A cadem ic Press, 2000. 36-54. P o lask i, D. C. “W h a t Will Ye See in th e S hu lam m ite? W om en, P ow er a n d P an o p tic ism in th e S ong o f S o n g s.” B ibI n t 5 (1997) 64-81. T rible, P. “D e p a triarch a liz in g in Biblical In te rp re ta tio n . ” J A A R 41 (1973) 30-48. W alsh, C. E. E x qu isite Desire: R eligion , the Erotic, a n d the Son g o f Songs. M in n eapolis: Fortress, 2 0 0 0 .----------. “A S tartlin g Voice: W o m an ’s D esire in th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” B T B 28 (1999) 129-34. W eem s, R. J . T h e S ong o f S o n g s.” In N IB . N ashville: A b in g d o n Press, 1997. 5:363-434.

Introduction

85

T h e re is n o single “fe m in ist” in te rp re ta tio n o f Song o f Songs, a n d we can only sp eak o f c e rta in ten d e n c ie s in fe m in ist analyses o f th e Song. In A. B re n n e r’s view 88),

(Song of Songs,

A p p lie d to th e SoS [S ong o f S o n g s], fe m in ist re a d in g s d ea l w ith th e follow ing specific featu res: possible fem a le a u th o rs h ip o f th e b o o k o r p a rts th e re o f; th e lack o f sexism (d iscrim in atin g p e rso n s o n g ro u n d s o f th e ir sex, usually u se d fo r th e social p reju dices ag a in st w o m en ); eq u a lity in th e love re la tio n sh ip , a n d p r e d o m in a n c e o f th e fem ale figures; e le m e n ts o f m a tristic p ra c tic e s (p o w er in th e h a n d s o f w o m en ) a n d m a trilin e al p ractices (tra c in g m ale k in sh ip a n d in h e rita n c e th ro u g h th e m o th e r ’s line) as ag ain st in stitu tio n s o f p atriarch y ; g e n d e r analysis o f fem a le a n d m ale d isc o u rse, th a t is, th e d e fin in g o f th e e m o tio n a l a n d p sychological a ttrib u te s th a t society ex p e cts o f its m ale a n d fem a le m e m b ers; co m p a riso n s o f th e SoS w ith love lyrics o f co g n a te N e a r E a ste rn cu ltu res; a n d in v estig atio n s in to th e in te rte x tu a l c o n n e c tio n s b etw e en th e SoS a n d o th e r tre a tm e n ts o f love-them es in th e H e b re w Bible.

E xum gives a d etailed analysis o f c u rre n t fem inist th in k in g o n th e Song. She describes a n d advocates in p artic u la r th e deconstructive n a tu re o f this work. For exam ple, “A prom ising strategy for getting at w o m en ’s perspectives in and ro cen tric texts is to lo o k fo r alternative, co m p etin g discourses w ithin th e tex t” (“D eveloping Strategies,” 217). M any fem inist co n c ern s a n d perspectives a p p e ar in re c e n t co m m en taries on th e Song, such as th a t o f R. W eem s (“S ong o f S ongs”) . A n u m b e r o f scholars have p o n d e re d w h e th e r th e S ong m ig h t have b ee n w ritten by a w om an; th a t th e fem ale singer has m o re lines th a n th e m ale is frequently cited to su p p o rt this possibility. In 1957, S. D. G oitein a rg u ed th a t a w om an w rote the Song (“Song o f Songs,” re p rin te d in 1993; so also B ekkenkam p a n d van Dijk, “C an o n o f th e O T,” 79). O n the basis o f sup p o sed fem ale au th o rsh ip , D. A rbel (“My V ineyard”) reads th e w hole Song as a w o m an ’s in te rn a l a n d p erso n al discourse. A. B ren n e r is less co n fid en t th a t a w om an w rote th e w hole Song b u t says, “My p erso n al guess is th a t passages such as 1.2-6, 3.1-4, 5 .1 -7 a n d 5.10-16 are so essentially fem in in e th a t a m ale cou ld hard ly im itate th e ir to n e a n d tex tu re successfully” (“W om en P o ets,” 91). If any single th e m e d o m in ates earlier fem inist read ings o f th e Song, it is th a t the S ong is a c o u n te rte x t to th e p atriarchy o f th e H ebrew Bible (e.g., M. Falk, xv-xvi; C. Meyers, 10 [1986] 209-23; A. Ostriker, “H oly o f H o lies”; see also B ren n er, 90 -9 1 ). P. T rible 41 [1973] 30-48) a n d K. Butting (“G o Your Way”) re a d it as a reversal o f th e p atriarch al o rd e r th a t is fo u n d in Genesis; T rible in p artic u la r m akes m u ch o f w hat she sees as g e n d e r egalitarianism in th e Song. A distinctive fem inist in te rp re ta tio n , taken u p in th e n e x t section, is th a t th e S ong subverts th e p atriarch al o rd e r u p h e ld by th e p ro p h ets. F em inist read in g s o f th e Song lab o r u n d e r a heavy w eight o f ideological baggage. B re n n e r (“O n R eading th e H ebrew B ible,” 13) cou ld hardly p u t it m o re clearly: “B eing a fem inist w om an, o r w om anly reader, m ean s th a t every issue is a fem inist issue, a n d th e re is a fem inist perspective o n every subject.” B re n n e r continues in th e sam e article, answ ering th e charge th a t fem inist read ers are biased: “A w om anly re a d e r can easily be in cen se d by th e injustices o f a text a n d its interp re ta tio n w hich she o r h e diagnoses. W om anly read ersh ip , especially th a t o f a fem inist h u e, is in d e e d in th a t sense biased, fo r its p relim in ary stance is self-defin ed as such. It has b ee n arg u ed above th a t th e bias is m o re th an co m p en sated

Songs,

HAR Song of Songs,

Song of

(JAAR

86

Introduction

fo r by th e achievem ents o f th e discipline, c h ie f o f w hich is th e characteristic com prehensiveness o f vision” (21). A lth o u g h it is d eb atab le w h e th e r fem inist w riters have a p a rtic u la r claim to “com prehensiveness o f vision,” h e r claim to re a d in g th e tex t w ith a p artic u la r bias is unassailable. T h e Song is subjected to a h ig h e r law, th e political a n d theological ag e n d a o f fem inism , a n d ju d g m e n ts a b o u t th e S o n g ’s value, validity, a n d usefulness in social criticism are m ad e o n th e basis o f w h e th e r th e text, o r a “re a d in g ” o f th e text, su p p o rts th a t agenda. If n o t, th e Song by defau lt su p p o rts th e ag e n d a o f terro rizin g w om en— th e patriarchy. T ho se seem to be th e only two alternatives. F em inist readings, n o less th an a n c ie n t allegorizing in terp re ta tio n s, explicitly a n d in ten tio n ally pass th e text th ro u g h a grid, alb eit a p o stm o d e rn political a n d p h ilo so p h ical g rid ra th e r th an a trad itio n al theological g rid (cf. fro m th e fem inist perspective, F. C. Black 2000 [“U nlikely Bedfellow s”], a n d fro m my perspective, G arrett, , 124-33). In such circum stances, th e S ong is n o t a p o em to be ap p reciate d a n d in te rp re ted ; it is grist fo r a mill. F em in ist re a d in g s o f th e S ong also te n d to be u n usually self-referential fo r scholarly p u b licatio n s. A n u m b e r o f fe m in ist m usings o n th e S ong are m o re a b o u t th e in te rp re te r th a n they are a b o u t th e te x t (e.g., B ren n er, “‘My’ S ong o f S ongs” [B re n n e r’s u p b rin g in g as an Israeli w o m an ], a n d F o n ta in e, “T h e Voice o f th e T u rtle: N ow I t ’s S ong o f S o n g s,” [F o n ta in e ’s fu n d a m e n ta list childh o o d ]; see also D. M erkin, “W om en in th e Balcony,” 246-51, w h ere she describes h e r c h ild h o o d as an u n b eliev in g O rth o d o x Jew a n d h e r c u r re n t feelings o n th e S o n g ). Even a full-scale co m m en tary , su ch as th a t by C. E. W alsh re p e a te d ly re tu rn s to th e c o m m e n ta to r’s ex p erien ces, social settin g , a n d o p in io n s o n e x tra n e o u s issues. T h is ten d e n c y suggests th a t th e in te rp re te r is in a p riv ileg ed p o sitio n over th e te x t a n d over o th e r in te rp re te rs. T h e re are in d icatio n s th a t th e fem inist a ttitu d e tow ard th e Song is b eco m in g m o re negative. A n u m b e r o f fem inists now arg u e th a t th e n o tio n th a t th e Song is egalitarian o r even gynocentric is m isg u id ed (D. C. Polaski 5 (1997) 6 4 81]; P. Chave 18 (1998) 41 -5 3 ]; F. Black [“U nlikely B edfellow s”]; J. C. E xum [ ‘T e n T h in g s Every F em inist S h o u ld Know”] ). E x u m ’s essay in particular w arns fem inists th a t Song o f Songs d ea d en s th e ir critical faculties (by aro u sin g ro m an tic sen tim entalism ), th a t it is n o t a b o u t real w om en a t all, th a t it m ay be a m ale perspective fro m a m ale au th o r, th a t th e re is n o g e n d e r equality in th e Song, th a t it m ain tain s c o n tro l over fem ale sexuality a n d displays th e fem ale body, a n d th a t it is seductive a n d m u st be re a d w ith care. E xum ap p ears to be saying th a t th e S ong o f Songs is a subversive text—subversive o f fem inist ideology.

Hosea, Joel

MY

(Exquisite De-

sire),

[Feminist Theology

[Bibint

T h e S o n g o f S o n g s as S ubversive o f t h e P r o ph e t s

Bibliography Butting, K. “Go Your Way: Women Rewrite the Scriptures (Song o f Songs 2 .8 -1 4 ).” In T he S o n g o f Songs: A F em in ist C om p a n io n to the B ible . FCB 2d ser. 6. Ed. A. Brenner and C. R. Fontaine. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000. 142-51. Garrett, D. A. H osea, J o e l LaCocque, A R om an ce, She Wrote. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998.

In c u r r e n t sch o larsh ip , th e n o tio n o f th e “subversive te x t” has g a in e d su ch stan d in g th a t o n e can h ard ly p ro c e e d w ith o u t taking this view point in to acco u n t.

Introduction

87

W ith re g a rd to S ong o f Songs, th e a rg u m e n t is th a t th e S ong is a c o u n te rte x t th a t subverts th e p rev ailin g th eo lo g y a n d e th o s o f Israel. T his a p p ro a c h is a variety o f fe m in ist in te rp re ta tio n , b u t it is distinctive in its focus o n in te rte x tu a l analysis o f th e Song. Several scholars co u ld b e re g a rd e d as advocates o f th e subversive a p p ro a c h (e.g., K. B utting, “Go Your Way”), b u t A. L aC ocque has given us th e m o st c o h e re n t s ta te m e n t o f th e h e rm e n e u tic s o f this m e th o d ( , a n d his analysis will serve as th e p o in t o f in te ra c tio n fo r this section. In L a C o c q u e ’s view, S o n g o f Songs is fu n d a m e n ta lly an in te rte x tu a l w ork w hereby a fem ale p o e t to o k th e im ages a n d lan g u ag e o f S crip tu re, reversed th e ir significance, a n d th ere b y su b v erted th e o rth o d o x a n d p a tria rc h a l worldview o f th e p ro p h e ts. A c o m m o n strategy o f th e p o e t was to revive th e im ages th a t th e p ro p h e ts h a d u sed , b u t also to re sto re th e m as signifiers a n d so d e c o n s tru c t th e p ro p h e ts ’ su b jectio n o f th ese im ages to th e o rth o d o x worldview. F o r exam ple, in th e p ro p h e ts Israel is th e wife o f Yahweh, b u t in th e S ong th e re a d e r is p u lle d back fro m this san itized a p p ro p ria tio n o f th e sexual im age. T h e S ong celeb rates th e im age, Eros, as th e th in g itself. T his p o e t th u s reveled in th e lu x u ry a n d Eros th a t th e p ro p h e ts d esp ised ( 56). T h erefo re:

Romance

She Wrote),

Romance, She Wrote,

The composer of the Canticle did not make it h er business to praise the chaste love between Israel and h er God or between Israel and Wisdom personified. There is not in the Song. What the poet is doing here is shedding her a single word about societal chains; she is shouting her freedom from gender and stereotypes. She is daringly mocking consecrated definitions and formulas. She is throwing in the faces of the “magistrates‫ ״‬h er rejection of Agape devoid of Eros, by which they have castrated religion and mores. She is magnifying romance in terms that parody their theological jargon, terms that deceivingly echo things tam ed and familiar, things annexed and made comfortable. The Song of Songs is carnivalesque: kings, bishops, magistrates, are caricatured and made fun of. ( , 64)

hokma

Romance She Wrote,

F o u n d a tio n a l to L aC o cq u e’s a p p ro a c h is a d istin ctio n b etw een th e m idrashic a n d th e alleg o rizin g in te rp re ta tio n ( 6 -3 3 ). A m id rash ic readin g is ro o te d in th e c o n c re te m e ta p h o r; an allegorizing in te rp re ta tio n has its locus in th e heavenly ab stra ctio n a n d casts aside th e m etap h o r. T h e m id rash ic re a d in g d elig h ts in th e free ex p ressio n o f th e pow er o f Eros; th e allegorizing re a d in g seeks to m a in ta in th e in stitu tio n al ideals. Above all, th e m id rash ic readin g is in te rte x tu a l, re s h a p in g a n d su b v ertin g th e w ords o f th e p ro p h e ts; th e allegorizin g in te rp re ta tio n subverts E ros itself a n d forces it in to co n fo rm ity to its own re g im e n te d worldview. L aC o cq u e states th a t in M idrash, “th e in te rp re ta tio n is n o t allegorical, th a t is, re la tin g signifier to signified, fo r it relates signifier to signifier (th e passage o f th e R ed Sea; th e events a t Sinai, fo r e x a m p le ). T h e signifiers cro ss-referen ce w ith o n e a n o th e r; th e re is n o d iscard in g o f th e signi13-14). fier as if it w ere th e shell a r o u n d th e sig n ified ” ( B ut L aC o cq u e’s d istin ctio n betw een m id rash a n d allegory is artificial a n d only clouds th e issue o f th e in te rp re ta tio n o f th e Song. T h e historical re a d in g o f th e rabbis, a n d la te r o f th e F re n c h in te rp re te rs R o b ert, Tournay, a n d F euillet, is valuable to h im becau se th ey lin k th e im ages o f th e S ong to co n tex ts in th e p ro p h e ts (alb eit incorrectly, b ecau se they d o n o t see how th e S ong resto res th ese im ages a n d so subverts th e p ro p h e ts ). T h e o f S ong o f Songs in te rp re ta tio n fo r L aC ocq u e is, n o t surprisingly, O rig e n , th a t d esp iser o f passion, w hom h e cites,

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m ak in g th e assertio n th a t th e n a tu ra l re a d in g o f th e Song only h u rts th e re a d e r ( , 11). B u t L aC o cq u e d e m o n strate s little a c q u a in ta n c e w ith O rig e n ’s actu al exegetical m e th o d , w hich was highly m id rash ic a n d in te rte x tu a l, a n d it h a d only g o n e p a r t way tow ard b e c o m in g a full-fledged allegory. A lth o u g h h e w o rk ed fro m a d iffe re n t th eo lo g ical fo u n d a tio n fro m th a t o f c o n te m p o ra ry rabbis, his m e th o d s we re n o t strikingly d iffe ren t. L aC o cq u e’s claim th a t m id rash relates signifier to signifier is p artic u la rly m isleading. T h e p h rases “y o u r eyes are do v es” a n d “y o u r breasts are like two faw ns” h ard ly use lan g u ag e in th e sam e way as d o es th e p h ra se “th e events a t S in ai.” H e o ften does n o t really lin k “signitie r to sig n ifier”; h e sim ply scours th e H eb rew Bible fo r ex p ressions th a t are sim ilar to th o se fo u n d in th e Song. T h e results o f th e m id rash ic h a n d lin g o f th e S ong as co d ifie d in th e T arg u m a n d in th e co m m en ts o f th e rab b is are, n o t all th a t d iffe re n t fro m th e allegories o f th e C hristians. T h e “in te rte x tu a l re a d in g ” th a t L aC o cq u e espouses is especially tro u b lin g . T h e m e th o d is o f itself fairly sim ple. First, fo r any tex t in th e S ong h e looks fo r any use o f sim ilar lan g u ag e elsew here in th e H eb rew B ible, m o re o r less afte r th e m a n n e r o f th e T arg u m a n d o f R o b e rt o r Tournay. T h e n , h e seeks to show how th e S ong has rev ersed o r m o d ified th e im age in o rd e r to subvert an opp ressive s tru c tu re . H o sea in p a rtic u la r co m es in fo r scrutiny, a n d it is th e re th a t L aC o c q u e ’s w eaknesses are m o st a p p a re n t. F o r him , H o sea is th e e p ito m e o f th e u p h o ld e r o f th e patriarchy: in H osea, sin is e q u a te d w ith th e eroticism o f th e w om an , G o d /th e m ale is th e victim o f evil, a n d violence ag ain st w o m en is fully ju stifie d ( , 3 4 -3 6 ). B u t this com pletely m isco n stru es H o se a ’s m essage. A n h o n e s t re a d in g o f H o sea shows th a t th e “sinful w o m a n ” th a t H o sea addresses re p re se n ts n o n e o th e r th a n th e o f th e n a tio n — th e very priests, p ro p h e ts, a n d m agistrates th a t H osea, in L aC o cq u e’s analysis, w ishes to k eep in pow er. F u rth e rm o re , th e fu n d a m e n ta l im age o f H o sea is n o t o f th e prob u t o f th e wayward H o s 1 -2 a n d 4, fo r ex am p le, focus o n m iscu o u s th e m o th e r (th e in stitu tio n s o f Israel) a n d h e r ch ild re n (th e p e o p le o f Israel as m isled by th e le a d e rs ). By d e fe n d in g th e w om an, L aC ocque a n d sim ilar interp re te rs a re actually d e fe n d in g th e oppressive hierarchy! F or fu rth e r discussion o f this, see G a rre tt, esp. 124-33. B u t even if th e tru e significance o f H o sea be o p e n to d eb a te , a m ajo r issue rem ains: if it is th e S o n g ’s in te n t to subv ert H o sea th ro u g h in te rte x tu a l a p p ro p ria tio n o f his lan g u ag e, why d o es it fail to a p p ro p ria te th e m o st e m o tio n ally ch a rg e d im age o f th e book, T h is basic im age is ig n o re d entirely! It is im possible to believe th a t a p o e t w ho h a d as h e r aim th e satirizing o f H o sea co u ld d iscard this m etap h o r if she in te n d e d h e r re a d e r to ca tc h o n to h e r satire. In ac tu a l in te rp re ta tio n s o f th e text, L aC o cque is as a rb itra ry a n d a b su rd as th e allegorists. F o r ex am p le, h e asserts th a t in S ong 2:3, th e “s h a d e ” o f th e beloved allu d es to Yahweh as th e giver o f sh ad e fo r his p e o p le ( , 8 4 ) . T h u s, th e b eloved a n d Eros have re p la c e d Yahweh! H os 3:1 is th e “so u rce te x t” fo r S o n g 2:5 (th e fo rm e r d esc rib in g “lovers o f raisin cak es” a n d th e la tte r d esc rib in g th e w om an as su stain ed by raisins a n d ap p les). C o m p a rin g this to H os 5 :1 2-13, w h e re Israel is g a n g re n o u s a n d w o u n d e d , we see th a t th e S ong, in defian ce o f H osea, is ex u ltin g in lovesickness a n d raisin cakes ( , 8 5 ) ! In S o n g 2:14, “L e t m e see y o u r fa c e ” allu d es to M oses’ desire to see th e face o f G od in E x o d 33:18-23. B ut G od re m a in s h id d e n a n d terrifying, w hile th e

Romance She Wrote,

mutatis

mutandis,

Romance She Wrote,

male leadership

wife

mother.

Hosea, Joel,

and her children?

that of the mother

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Romance She Wrote,

Introduction

89

lady o f th e S ong shows h e rse lf a n d is b eau tifu l to see a n d sw eet to hear. “In th e ears o f religionists, all this n o d o u b t s o u n d e d like b o rd e rlin e b lasp h em y ” ( , 89). T h e “fo x es” o f S ong 2:15 are draw n fro m Ezek 13:4 a n d Lam 5:18, w h e re they are false p ro p h e ts a n d th o se w ho prow l in Zion. B ut the S ong has tra n sm u te d this im age in to th e so u r o rth o d o x p e o p le ‘"who are frownin g a t th e free love o f th e co u p le in th e S o n g ” ( , , 8 9 -9 0 ). T h is a p p r o a c h is n o th in g b u t a lle g o riz in g fro m a new p e rsp e c tiv e . A ny alleg o rizer (o r “m id rash ic in te r p r e te r ”) co u ld take all o f th e “in te rte x tu a l lin k s” th a t L aC o cq u e has c re a te d a n d use th e m equally well to sustain an o rth o d o x a n d dev o tio n al re a d in g o f th e Song. T h e “subversive re a d in g ” L aC ocque has seized u p o n is n o t a fu n c tio n o f th e texts; it is a fu n c tio n o f how th e in te rp re te r chooses to m a n ip u la te th e alleg ed linkages. A ra b b i sees th e h isto ry o f Israel; O rig e n sees th e soul a n d C hrist; L aC ocque sees th e subversive w ork o f th e angry fem ale p o et. B u t e a ch is equally arbitrary. T h e re is also n o reaso n to th in k th a t th e a u th o r o f th e S ong h a d th ese linkages in m in d o r in te n d e d w hat L aC ocque claim s; exegesis by c o n c o rd a n c e d o es n o t establish literary d e p e n d e n c e . A t th e co re o f th e Song, in this in te rp re ta tio n , is th e an g ry fem ale p o e t w ho recasts th e w ords o f T o rah a n d P ro p h e t fo r subversive ends. Is it re aso n ab le to ascribe th e S ong to a w om an p o et, a n d w h at m ay such a m ove imply? L aC ocque arg u es th a t th e fact th a t th e w om an has m o st o f th e lyrics in th e Song a n d conspicuously speaks o f h e rse lf im plies th a t a w om an m u st have w ritten th e Song , , 4 1 -4 4 ). T his only tells us th a t th e w om an is th e p ro tag o n ist a n d ce n tra l fig u re o f th e book; it tells us n o th in g a b o u t au th o rsh ip . T h e claim th a t a m a n sim ply co u ld n o t have e n o u g h u n d e rs ta n d in g o f a w o m an ’s viewp o in t to w rite th e S ong is w ro n g (a n d sexist!). A re we to claim th a t C h au ce r co u ld n o t have w ritten th e tale o f th e W ife o f B ath as well? L aC o c q u e ’s effo rts to m ak e his case leads h im to m ake som e d u b io u s assertions. F o r ex am p le, h e says th a t th e “fu n e ra l so n g ” is in th e “w o m en ’s d o m a in ” a n d cites 1 Sam 1:24 a p p a ren tly a typo fo r 2 Sam 1:24]; J e r 9:16-19; Lam 1; 2; 4 ( , 42). B u t th e fact th a t w om en are e x h o rte d to m ake la m e n ta tio n over n a tio n a l disasters hard ly m akes this g en re th e ir “d o m a in ”; contrast 2 Sam 1:17-27, th e la m e n t over Saul co m p o sed by David. T h e overw helm ing m ajority o f poets a n d a u th o rs in th e an c ie n t w orld were m en. A lth o u g h w om en w ere p erh ap s m o re active in com position in Israel th an in th e G reek w orld (w here S ap p h o is th e ex c ep tio n th a t proves th e r u le ) , very little o f th e H ebrew Bible is ascribed to w om en w riters o r poets. W here she does exist in th e H ebrew Bible, th e w om an p o e t is hardly th e d efian t o f m o d e rn scholarly im agination. T h e m ost significant fem ale poets o f th e Bible are D eborah, H a n n a h , p erh ap s M iriam, and, in th e NT, Mary. B ut w hat do we find in th eir songs? T hey co u ld hard ly be m o re o rth o d o x ! In d e e d , D eb o rah a n d M iriam are n o t only o rth o d o x b u t fervently nationalistic. D e b o ra h ’s song in particu lar is conventional. She em b races th e ideal th a t a m an sh o u ld be a w arrior a n d th a t it is to a m a n ’s disgrace th a t h e sh o u ld be slain by a w om an (cf. J u d g 4:9). H a n n a h a n d Mary exploit in a trad itio n al m a n n e r th e p ro p h e tic th em e o f Yahweh’s co n c ern for the oppressed. To claim th a t th e “m ale h ierarch y ” has only let us see w hat it w ants us to see o f fem ale poets is itself a hypothetical co n stru c t a n d an arg u m en t. T h e re is n o exam ple o f a H ebrew fem ale p o e t using h e r a rt for subversive ends. Yet L aC ocque n o t only ascribes th e Song to th e an g ry fem ale poet, in te n t on turn-

Ro-

mance, She Wrote

Romance She Wrote

(Romance She Wrote

[sic; Romance She Wrote,

provocatrice

ad hoc

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ing th e p ro p h e ts o n th e ir heads, b u t says th a t she rep resen ts a “c o u n te rc u ltu re ” w ithin S eco n d T em ple Ju d aism 46). W here is th e evidence fo r this fem ale co u n tercu ltu re? Is this an y th in g o th e r th an th e an ach ro n istic proje c tio n o f c u r re n t ideological trends? T his is n o t to say th a t a w om an have w ritten th e Song; we sim ply d o n o t know. B uilding an in te rp re ta tio n o f th e Song o n th e hypothesis o f th e an g ry w om an p o e t is precarious. A t th e o p e n in g o f his b o ok, L aC o cq u e gives us two pairs o f op tio n s. E ith e r th e S o n g is “a p h o ristic a n d ap o lo g etic o f an estab lish ed w orldview ,” o r it den o u n c e s th a t w orldview as “w ro n g a n d d e c e p tiv e .” E ith e r it is a r e m n a n t o f frivolous c o u r t p o e try w ritten fo r th e titillatio n o f th e p a m p e re d aristocrats, o r it is a “satirical p ie c e ” th a t was “sm u g g led in to th e biblical c o m p e n d iu m ‫״‬ 1). H e re , fro m th e very b e g in n in g , L aC ocque reveals his co m p lete m isu n d e rs ta n d in g o f w h at th e S ong is. T h e S ong is n o n e o f th e th in g s h e describes: It is n o t a relig io u s o r p olitical tract, a n d it is n e ith e r did actic n o r satirical. It is a ce le b ra tio n o f love. S ong o f Songs is n e ith e r p atriarchal n o r subversive.

(Romance, She Wrote,

could not

She Wrote, it is lync poetry.

(Romance,

T he Song as L ove P oetry A lm ost by defau lt, we are driven to th e c o n c lu sio n th a t th e S ong is ju s t w h a t it a p p e a rs to b e, p o em s a b o u t love b etw een a m an a n d a w om an. T h is view is n o t new; A q ib a’s c o m p la in t a b o u t p e o p le sin g in g th e S ong in a baw dy m a n n e r presupp o ses th a t m an y p e o p le in his day u n d e rs to o d th e S ong in th a t way. Even in th e early c h u rc h , th e re w ere d issen ters ag ain st allegorizing th e Song. T h e o d o re o f M opsuestia, a follow er o f th e A n tio c h e n e school o f biblical in te rp re ta tio n (w hich p re fe rr e d a n a tu ra l, “p lain se n se ” u n d e rs ta n d in g o f th e B ible to a n allegorical a p p r o a c h ) , re je c te d th e alleg o rizin g in te rp re ta tio n o f th e Song. H e was p o sth u m o u sly c o n d e m n e d in th e Fifth C o u n cil o f C o n sta n tin o p le (553 C.E.), a n d his w ritings o n th e S ong a re lost. In m o re re c e n t tim es, however, this app ro a c h to th e S ong has co m e to d o m in a te biblical scholarship. Saying th a t th e S ong o f Songs is “love p o e try ” does n o t advance in te rp re ta tio n o f th e S ong very far. It d oes n o t say if th e Song is u n ified o r is a loose anthology, if it has a d o m in a n t th em e, o r if it has any m ean in gful theology. However, attributing it to this g e n re is a g o o d b eginning. T h is a p p ro a c h forces us to seek th e significance o f th e m e ta p h o rs a n d symbols in th e c o n te x t o f a n c ie n t N e a r E astern love poetry. T h e im ag es are n o t th eo lo g ical, political, id eological, o r p h ilo so p h ic al ciphers. Also, this a p p ro a c h frees us fro m th e n e e d to “fill in th e g ap s” o f th e story, in th e m a n n e r o f d ra m a tic in te rp re ta tio n s. In reality, th e re are n o gaps. T h e p o e t has said all th a t h e m ean s to say, a lth o u g h h e d oes e x p e c t th e a u d ie n c e to be p ercep tiv e a b o u t th e im p licatio n s o f his w ords. A love song m ay have an im p lie d story b e h in d it (e.g., “o n c e you loved m e, b u t now you are g o n e ,” or, “m y life was em pty b e fo re I m e t y o u ”), b u t it is n o t itself a story (we are h e re ex c lu d in g th e ballad, w hich d o es n o t exist in a n c ie n t N e a r E astern p o e try — n o tw ith sta n d in g J. A. B lack [“B abylonian Ballads: A New G e n re ," JAOS103 (1983) 2 5 3 4 ‫ —] ־‬a n d at any ra te th e S o n g is clearly n o t a b a lla d ). R e a d in g th e S ong as love p o e try forces us to deal w ith th e co n v e n tio n s o f p o e try in th e in te rp re ta tio n o f th e Song. H ow are th e stanzas fo rm ed ? W h at

Introduction

91

co n stitu te s a lin e o f p o e try in this book? H ow d o th e im ages convey m eaning? T h ese a re th e q u estio n s o n e m u st ask o f S ong o f Songs. G re a t p oetry, p articu larly g re a t love poetry, is o ften in sp ired by som e beloved p erso n . S om etim es, th e n a m e o f th e beloved a n d his o r h e r re la tio n sh ip to th e p o e t is know n. F o r ex am p le, th e love p o em s o f A n n e B rad street (1612?-1672) a re d ire c te d to h e r h u sb a n d , Sim on B rad street. Som etim es th e o b ject o f affectio n is h id d e n b e h in d a p seu d o n y m o r is left anonym ous. C atullus (c. 8 4 -5 4 B.C.E.) devotes his love p o em s to a ce rta in m a rrie d w om an h e calls “L esbia.” S h ak e sp e a re ’s la tte r so n n ets sp eak o f love fo r som e w om an now know n to readers sim ply as th e “d a rk lady.” It is by n o m ean s n ecessary fo r th e p o e t to have h a d an actual love affair with th e o n e w ho in sp ire d his verse. D a n te was passionately in love w ith B eatrice, a n d she is p r o m in e n t in m u c h o f his poetry, n o t least in th e Now identified as B eatrice P o rtin a ri, th e real B eatrice briefly m e t D an te w hen they w ere b o th c h ild re n a n d only occasionally spoke to h im as a yo u n g ad u lt. However, by his a c c o u n t h e fell in love w ith h e r im m ediately. She m a rrie d a n o th e r m an b u t d ie d a t th e age o f twenty-four. D a n te was devastated a t h e r d e a th , b u t she, forever y o u n g in his m in d , served as a k in d o f m use fo r his poetry. C o u ld such a fig u re be b e h in d S ong o f Songs? We will n ev er know. I have already a rg u e d th a t th e S ong o f Songs b elo n g s in th e u n ite d m o n arc h y p e rio d a n d have su g g ested th a t S o lo m o n c o u ld have b e e n th e a u th o r o f th e piece, alth o u g h th e su p ersc rip t d o es n o t d e m a n d this conclusion. It m ay be th a t th e p o e t o f Song o f Songs h a d so m eo n e in m in d w h en h e w rote his work. B ut it is by n o m ean s n ecessary to su p p o se th a t th e p o e t actually h a d any k in d o f re la tio n sh ip w ith th e o b je c t o f his affectio n — in fact, th e id ealized n a tu re o f this p o e try suggests th e contrary. Also, this is to suggest th a t th e re is any k in d o f a histo ry th a t o n e can tease o u t o f S ong o f Songs in th e m a n n e r o f th e d ram atic in te rp re tations. B u t it m ay b e th a t th e e x p lo ra tio n s o f love in th e Song are b o rn e o f ad o ra tio n fo r a w om an w ho was o n ce real b u t w ho, in th e p o e t’s m in d , b ecam e progressively idealized— a B eatrice. Surely, so m eth in g o r so m eo n e m otivated the w riting o f th e p o e m , since even sacred S crip tu re arises in a h u m a n co n tex t. All o f this, o f co u rse, is p u re guessw ork. T h e p o e t co u ld have b ased his w ork o n o b serv atio n s o f a loving co u p le h e knew, o r th e w hole th in g co u ld be th e p ro d u c t o f his im ag in atio n , th e p e o p le a n d situ ations b ein g com posites from th e p o e t’s ob serv atio n s. T h is b it o f id le sp ec u la tio n serves a t least to re m in d us th a t S ong o f Songs co u ld be a c c o u n te d fo r in various ways a n d th a t we sh o u ld b e careful a b o u t claimin g m o re know ledge a b o u t it th a n we possess. F u rth e r sp ecu latio n s a b o u t th e b a c k g ro u n d o f th e p o e m will take o n a life o f th e ir own a n d clo u d th e issue ra th e r th a n illu m in ate it. All we have is an id ealized p o rtra it o f love, th e Song itself, a n d th a t is w h at we will analyze.

Divine Comedy.

not

poem.

We have no idea what circumstances led to the writing of this

Excursus: Finding an Approach to Lyric Poetry Bibliography Barthes, R. T he P leasu re o f the Text. T ran s. R. M iller. N ew York: H ill a n d W ang, 1975. Brooks, C., a n d R. P. Warren. U n d ersta n d in g Poetry. 4 th ed. N ew York: H o lt, R e in h a rt,

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Introduction 8c W in sto n , 1976. C o m ey , R . W. “W h a t D oes ‘L ite ra l M e a n in g ’ M ean? S o m e C om m e n ta rie s o n th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” A T h R 80 (1998) 4 9 4 -5 1 6 . C u re to n , R . D . “H e le n V en d le r a n d th e M usic o f P o etry : A Review o f Poem s, Poets, P oetry: A n In tr o d u c tio n a n d A n th o lo g y by H e le n V en d le r.” V ersification 1.1 (M arch 1997) [an e le c tro n ic jo u r n a l] . H all, D . T h e P leasu res o f Poetry. N ew York: H a r p e r 8c Row, 1971. V endler, H . T h e A r t o f S h a k esp ea re's S o n m t s . ---------- . T he M u s ic o f W h a t H a p p e n s : Poem s, P oets, C ritics. C am b r id g e , MA: H a r v a r d UP, 1988. ---------- . P oem s, P oets, P o etry : A n I n tr o d u c tio n a n d A n th ology. B oston: St. M a rtin ’s, 1997. ‘T h e q u e s tio n ‘W h a t is lyric p o e try ? ’ h as n e v e r b e e n a d e q u a te ly a n s w e re d ,” acc o rd in g to R. C u re to n ( “H e le n V en d le r,” 1). O u r difficulty w ith th e S o n g o f S ongs arises a t least in p a r t fro m a lack o f g u id in g p rin c ip le s fo r d e a lin g w ith th is g e n re . C a u g h t b etw e en re a d in g lyric p o e try a n d re a d in g a c a n o n ic a l te x t, b ib lical sc h o lars stru g g le to fin d a n a p p ro a c h th a t is tr u e b o th to its p o e tic fo rm a n d to its c a n o n ic a l status. T h e re c o g n itio n th a t it is e ro tic in n a tu re h as n o t le d to a sa tisfacto ry in te rp re ta tio n (cf. R. C orney, A T h R 80 [1998] 4 9 4 -5 1 6 ). P e rh a p s we n e e d to le a rn afresh h ow to re a d lyric p o etry . I shall n o t h e r e a tte m p t a n y th in g like a full-scale d e s c rip tio n o f w h at c o n stitu te s lyric p o e try o r a n y th in g like a c o m p le te th e o re tic a l fo u n d a tio n fo r th e criticism o f lyric p o etry . B u t I will try to set fo rth a few basic o b se rv a tio n s o n th e n a tu re o f th is lite ra ry g e n re , w h ich I h o p e will b e o f h e lp to th e rea d e r. I have p rin c ip a lly d raw n o n th e w ork o f H e le n V endler, w ho is w idely r e g a rd e d as th e p r e m ie r A m e ric a n critic o f lyric p o e try o f o u r tim e. S h e is n o t w ith o u t h e r d e tra c to rs, a n d I am n o t h e r e e n d o rs in g ev e ry th in g sh e says o r even su g g estin g th a t my b rie f survey re p re se n ts h e r view point. H e r w ritings have b e e n h elp ful in w o rk in g th ro u g h th e p ro b le m o f w h at c o n stitu te s lyric p o etry . It may b e necessary to o rien t th e re a d e r to w hat is m e a n t by ‘lyric” poetry. T h e te rm is related to th e w ord lyre, a n d thus suggests a p o em th a t may b e sung acco m p an ied by a lyre. In classical civilization, th e lyric p o em is essentially w hat in G reek is called a μβλ0£, a “so n g ” in te n d e d to be sung by an individual poet. G reek exam ples o f lyric p o etry are th e p o em s o f Sappho, A lem an, an d P indar; Latin m asters in clu d ed Catullus an d H orace. Pindar, fo r exam ple, celeb rated th e triu m p h a n t victories o f G reek athletes in his odes. T h ese short, self-contained poem s contrast, fo r exam ple, with th e p oetic dialog o f G reek tragedy. A t som e p o in t, W estern civilization s e p a ra te d th e p o e m fro m th e song, a n d a lyric p o e try e m e rg e d th a t was d esig n e d to b e sp o k e n a n d n o t sung. T h e R en aissan ce erea te d th e so n n e t, a p o etic fo rm th a t is arg u ab ly th e q u in te sse n tia l W estern lyric p o e m . T h u s, we have w o n d e rfu l ex am p les o f lyric p o e try in th e so n n e ts o f S h ak esp ea re . Still, we sh o u ld n o t d raw to o k e e n a d istin ctio n b etw e en a so n g a n d a lyric p o e m , since m an y o f th e songs o f S h a k e sp e a re ’s plays c o u ld also b e classified as lyric p o etry . T h e n o n m u sical lyric p o e m b e c a m e a m a jo r g e n re o f W estern lite ra tu re . T h e lyric p o e m was th e p e rfe c t vehicle fo r th e ro m a n tic era, w ith its p ro fo u n d lite ra ry investigations o f th e h u m a n c o n d itio n . T h e reflectio n s o n art, vitality, a n d d e a th in th e o d es o f J o h n Keats (e.g., “O d e to a N ig h tin g a le ”) vividly illu strate how well su ite d th e lyric p o e m is fo r m e d ita tio n th a t d o es n o t seek to fre e itself o f em o tio n . G o e th e ’s p o e try also ex em p liTies th e lyric poem ; his “A n d e n S chlaf” (To S leep) ca p tu re s th e e m o tio n a l d e s p e ra tio n o f a y o u n g m a n in love (like th e y o u n g lovers o f th e E gy p tian p o etry , h e sees his g irlfrie n d ’s m o th e r as a b a rrie r b etw een h im se lf a n d bliss!). Lyric p o e m s are essentially th e re fle c tio n s o f a p o e t o n a situ a tio n , ev e n t, o r id ea. T h u s, th ey te n d to b e sh o rt. O n e c a n n o t set a specific m a x im u m le n g th to a lyric p o e m , b u t a lyric p o e m o f five h u n d r e d lin e s w o u ld b e u n u su a l. Lyric p o e m s a re ofte n b ro a d ly ro m a n tic . A lth o u g h th e y a re n o t necessarily a b o u t love (yet th e y o fte n a re ) a n d a lth o u g h th e y a re n o t n ecessarily in tro sp e c tiv e o r se n tim e n ta l, th e y d o delve in to th e feelings a n d reflec tio n s th a t occu p y th e p o e t’s m in d . It is n o t su rp risin g , th e re fo re , th a t th e ro m a n tic e ra in W estern civilization p ro d u c e d an e n o rm o u s a m o u n t o f

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lyric p o etry . It is especially im p o rta n t to rea lize th a t lyric p o e m s d o n o t a sto ry b u t and a story. T h e sto ry itself m ay b e totally u n fa m ilia r to th e re a d e r; th e re a d e r, w h en h e b e g in s to re a d a p o e m , d o es n o t k now th a t th e p o e t ’s h u s b a n d h as ju s t d ie d a n d th a t sh e is a tte m p tin g to e n u n c ia te a n d u n d e r s ta n d h e r sorrow . U p o n e n te rin g th e p o e m , th e r e a d e r is initially a t a loss to u n d e r s ta n d th e p o e t’s to n e a n d th e allu sio n s sh e m akes. S he d o es n o t b e g in w ith th e w ords ‘T w o days ago my h u s b a n d d ie d o f a m assive h e a r t a tta c k w hile liftin g b ales o f hay, a n d now I w an t to tell you w h at I am th in k in g .” B u t as h e re a d s h e r re fle c tio n s o n th e ev en t, th e re a d e r b eg in s to u n d e rs ta n d th e situ a tio n a n d to p ic k u p d etails a b o u t th e in c id e n t as she allu d es to th e m . F u rth e rm o re , th e “s to ry ” b e h in d a lyric p o e m is very sim p le a n d o n e d im e n sio n a l: a y o u n g m a n is in love, o r a p a r e n t h as lost a ch ild , o r a y o u n g g irl picks flowers. Since lyric p o em s only allu d e to stories ra th e r th a n tell th e m , th e re a d e r w ould b e hopelessly lost if th e sto ry b e h in d th e p o e m w ere c o m p lex , h av in g m u ltip le characters o r a su b p lo t. It is this allusive fe a tu re th a t especially sets a p a rt th e S o n g o f Songs as lyric p o e try a n d n o t as d ra m a . T h e p o e m s o f th e S o n g d o n o t a sto ry b u t are a story. F u rth e rm o re , th e sto ry b e h in d th e S o n g is ex c e e d in g ly sim ple: a m a n a n d w o m an m arry. Lyric p o e try m ay b e re c o g n iz e d by c o m p a rin g it w ith o th e r k in d s o f p o etry . F o r ex a m p le , n o o n e w o u ld c o n s id e r ep ics su ch as G ilg am esh , th e U g aritic ep ic o f K irta, o r th e O dyssey to b e lyric p o etry . Sim ilarly, th e d isc o u rses a n d d ia trib e s o f th e p ro p h ets a n d J o b , a lth o u g h o fte n in p o e tic fo rm , a re n o t lyric p o em s. A b a lla d sh o u ld n o t b e classified as lyric p o etry , sin ce a b a lla d is essentially a sto ry in so n g a n d verse. Litu rg ic al p o e try s h o u ld n o t b e classed as lyric p o e try sin ce its p rim a ry fu n c tio n is n o t to reflec t th e in n e r th o u g h ts o f th e p o e t b u t to serve as a v eh icle fo r p u b lic w orship. M ost o f th e psalm s sh o u ld n o t b e ca lle d lyric p o etry . B u t so m e p salm s ca n b e classifled as lyric po em s; Ps 23 is a w o n d e rfu l ex a m p le . B iblical W isd o m p o e try (e.g., Ps 1; P rov 2) is n o t lyrical; W isdom p o e try is essentially d id a ctic a n d th u s te n d s to b e struct u r e d a n d stra ig h tfo rw a rd in m e a n in g , w h erea s lyric p o e try is m o re c o n c e r n e d w ith creativity a n d a rtfu l ex p re ssio n . T h is is n o t to say th a t d id a ctic p o e try is in fe rio r; it is sim ply a d iffe re n t k in d o f p o etry . Similarly, in m y view, a d irg e o r la m e n ta tio n sh o u ld n o t b e classified as lyric p o e try sin ce its p rim a ry fu n c tio n is to serv e as a te x t fo r a p u b lic e x p re ssio n o f g rief. T h u s, th e b o o k o f L a m e n ta tio n s is n o t lyric p o etry . By contrast, a n elegy, a n in n e r re fle c tio n o n a d e a th o r a calam ity, is lyric p o etry . W ith this ad m itte d ly in e x a c t d e s c rip tio n o f lyric p o etry , we sh o u ld b e ab le to e n u n c ia te a few g u id e lin e s fo r re a d in g lyric p o etry . Lyric p o e try is o fte n e n ig m a tic by n a tu re . T h is is a m a tte r o f d e g re e , a n d so m e lyric p o e m s a re p la in a n d stra ig h tfo rw a rd in m e a n in g . Still, lyric p o e try g en e ra lly dem a n d s th a t th e r e a d e r o r lis te n e r invest m e n ta l a n d even e m o tio n a l e n e rg y to th e u n d e rs ta n d in g o f th e p iece. A lyric p o e m is n o t a n essay, a p o litica l sp e e c h , a dram atic m o n o lo g u e , o r a new s article , w h ere th e b u r d e n o f c o m m u n ic a tio n lies heavily o n th e w riter o r sp e a k e r a n d w h ere c o n d e sc e n sio n to th e a u d ie n c e ’s lack o f fam iliarity w ith th e to p ic is essen tial. T h e p rin c ip a l d u ty o f th e lyric p o e t is to fin d th e a n d to c o m b in e w o rd s a n d p h ra se s in to c ra fte d a n d in te r re la te d lin es o f p o etry . A lth o u g h a lyric p o e m c o m m u n ic a te s, th a t th e re a d e r is e x p e c te d to and n o t ju s t T h e r e a re several o th e r rea so n s th a t a lyric p o e m ca n b e d ifficu lt to follow, a n d we will e x p lo re so m e o f th e se below. T h e im p o rta n t p o in t is this: re a d in g lyric p o e try w ith c o m p re h e n s io n re q u ire s so m e tra in in g , p a tie n c e , a n d p rac tice . N ovices will so m e tim es s h ru g th e ir sh o u ld e rs a n d w alk away fro m a lyric p o e m sim ply b e c a u se its m e a n in g is n o t o b vious o n th e first re a d in g . In w o rk in g w ith th e S o n g o f S ongs, stu d e n ts o f th e B ible sh o u ld n o t e x p e c t it to b e as p la in a n d d ire c t as D e u te ro n o m y o r 2 Kings. S eco n d , how ever, a lyric p o e m d o es have a specific m e a n in g th a t th e p o e t in te n d e d . I re je c t th e id e a o f th e “in te n tio n a l fallacy” (i.e., th a t it is w ro n g to seek a n a u t h o r ’s

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Introduction in te n d e d m e a n in g , o r th a t m e a n in g resid e s solely in th e r e a d e r ) . C ritical analysis o f a lyric p o e m fre q u e n tly b eg in s w ith a p ro se p a ra p h ra se o f th e p o e m . (A lth o u g h V en d le r insists th a t p a ra p h ra s e is o n ly th e o f th e u n d e rs ta n d in g o f a p o e m , sh e rep e a te d ly follow s th is p ra c tic e h erself; e.g., , 495, 540.) T h e c o m m o n p ra c tic e o f p a ra p h ra s in g p o e m s in o r d e r to e x p la in th e m im p lies a t le ast two th in g s. First, p o em s a re o fte n n o t easy to u n d e rs ta n d . S e c o n d , th e p o e m d o e s have an m e a n in g th a t th e p o e t in te n d e d th e r e a d e r to g et. T h a t a p o e m ca n also have specific sig n ifican ce fo r a specific r e a d e r o r th a t in d iv id u a l re a d e rs b rin g th e ir ow n persp ectiv es to p o e m s d o es n o t in v alid ate this; re a d e rs also b r in g th e ir p erso n al view points to n ew sp a p er articles, b u t th a t d o e s n o t m e a n th a t n e w sp a p e r articles a re o p e n ‫ ־‬e n d e d in m e a n in g . S om e m o d e rn p o e try a n d so n g p u rp o se fu lly strin g s tog e th e r w ords in a n o n se n sic a l m a n n e r so th a t th e o n ly m e a n in g is th a t it h a s n o m e a n in g . B u t th is is n o t tru e o f classical p o e try a n d is c e rta in ly n o t tr u e o f S o n g o f Songs. T h ird , lyric p o e try is h ig h ly allusive. A s o n n e t m ay a llu d e in p assin g to a n e p iso d e in th e o r to a c h a ra c te r fro m G e rm a n m yth o lo g y o r a valley in F ra n c e . I f th e r e a d e r d o es n o t re c o g n iz e th e allu sio n , h e o r sh e will m iss th e p o in t o r h av e to g uess a t it fro m co n tex t. B ecause a p o e m is allusive, it is also elusive. Lyric p o e try is in o n e re s p e c t like a scientific o r p ro fe ssio n a l jo u r n a l, in th a t it e x p e c ts th e r e a d e r to c o m e to th e te x t w ith a basic u n d e rs ta n d in g o f its c o d e . N o m o d e rn r e a d e r re c o g n iz e s M e h i o f th e P ap y ru s H a rris 500 songs, a n d th u s his id e n tity a n d sig n ific an c e a re m a tte rs o f c o n je c tu re . T h is is to so m e d e g re e tr u e o f th e S o n g as well; S o n g 7:5 (E T 7:4) says th a t th e w o m a n ’s n o se is like th e to w er o f L e b a n o n . T h is leaves th o se o f us w h o hav e n ev e r se e n th e tow er o f L e b a n o n (today, th a t w o u ld b e everybody) a t a d isa d v an tag e. F o u rth , lyric p o e try is h ig h ly c o m p a c t. D iscussing p o e m s th a t d e a l w ith a h isto ric a l to p ic, V en d le r says, “In th in k in g a b o u t h isto ry p o em s, th e m a in th in g to re m e m b e r is th a t th e re is always a te n sio n b e tw e e n th e c o p io u sn ess o f h isto ry a n d th e brev ity o f ly ric” 251). T h e sam e c o u ld b e said o f o th e r v arie tie s o f lyric poetry. S h ak esp ea re fre q u e n tly packs several p ersp e ctiv es a n d m an y d iv erse p a rtic u la rs in to th e fo u rte e n lin es o f a so n n e t. T h u s, lyric p o e try is o fte n q u ite d e n s e . W h e n th e w o m an o f th e S on g calls o n th e girls o f J e ru s a le m n o t to a ro u se love u n til it p leases (e.g., 2:7), sh e is a llu d in g to th e sta n d a rd s o f sexu ality a n d virginity u n d e r s to o d in h e r society a n d giving advice to th e m in a v ery c o n d e n s e d m a n n e r. F ifth, a n d so m ew h at p ara d o x ica lly in c o m p a riso n to th e f o u rth p o in t, lyric p o e try m ay e x p lo re th e sig n ifican ce o f a n e v e n t in g re a t d e ta il, even w h en th e ev e n t itself c o u ld b e d e s c rib e d in very few w ords. H e rm a n M elville’s “T h e M arch in to V irg in ia ” (e x p lo re d in V endler, 2 3 9 -4 1 ) essentially says, “Y oung U n io n sold ie rs c h e e rfu lly m a rc h e d o ff to d o b a ttle a t M anassas; m o st d ie d , b u t th o s e w h o survived b e c a m e g rim .” M elville sp e n d s alm o st th e e n tire p o e m d e s c rib in g th e g leeful a tm o s p h e re o f th e ir m a rc h so u th a n d in so d o in g e n a b le s th e r e a d e r to a p p re c ia te th e c ru e l e n lig h te n m e n t o f b a ttle . T h e S o n g o f S ongs ca n basically b e d e s c rib e d lik e this: “A y o u n g w o m an in love m a rrie s a n d loses h e r virginity.” It is, how ever, th e sign ific an ce o f th e e x p e rie n c e th a t is th e re a l stu ff o f th e Song. S ixth, as V en d le r says, “P o em s have th e ir o rig in s in life, esp ecially in th e fo rm a l o r in fo rm a l c e re m o n ie s th a t o c c u r a t cru c ial m o m e n ts o r p h a se s in a sin g le p riv ate life— b ir th , a d o le sc e n c e , m a rria g e , d e a th — o r a t p u b lic m o m e n ts w h e n we co llectiv ely c o m m e m o ra te a war, a relig io u s feast, a h o lid a y ” 3 ). S h e o b se rv e s 4, 13) how W illiam B lake draw s o u t th e m e a n in g o f c h ild b irth in “In fa n t S o rro w ” a n d how S h a k e sp e a re u n d e rs ta n d s th e p assage o f tim e u n d e r differe n t im ages in S o n n e t 60. T h e E gy p tian love p o e m s d o m u c h th e sa m e th in g ; so m e e x p lo re th e m e lo d ra m a tic e m o tio n s o f a bo y a n d g irl in love, a n d o n e g ro u p ex p o ses th e e n tra p m e n t o f a boy by a p ro stitu te . T h e S o n g o f S ongs investigates a n d c e le b ra te s th e e m o tio n a l jo u r n e y o f a w o m an in to m a rria g e .

beginning Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets

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Iliad

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Poems, Poets, Poetry,

(Poems, Poets, Poetry,

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S ev en th , a n d ag a in follow ing V endler, lyric songs n o t only explore th e sig n ifican ce o f life-events b u t a rra n g e th e m as well (Poem , Poets, Poetry, 2 5 -5 1 ). T h e devices p o e try uses to d o th is have alre ad y b e e n m e n tio n e d . T h e y in c lu d e th e so u n d s o f th e Iang u a g e (rh y m e, stress m e ter, syllabic m e te r, a llite ra tio n , e tc .), th e a r r a n g e m e n t o f stanzas, m a tc h in g syntactical u n its, a n d so fo rth . T h e ch iasm u s o f th irte e n c a n to s o f th e S o n g o f S ongs d e s c rib e d above c o n n o te s th e m a rria g e o f th e m a n a n d w o m an as a fu lfillm e n t o f a p u rp o se in life. It is p e rh a p s sig n ific an t th a t th e m o m e n t o f th e ir u n io n , th e c e n te r o f th e ch iasm u s, is th e se v en th c a n to fro m b o th th e b e g in n in g a n d fro m th e e n d o f th e o p u s. M a rria g e is m idw ay b etw e en b irth a n d d e a th , a n d lo o k e d a t fro m e ith e r e n d , it is re g a rd e d as th e h ig h p o in t. E ig h th , lyric p o e try d o es n o t tell a sto ry b u t d ra w s o u t the m e a n in g o f a story. V en d le r n o te s th a t a novel h as tim e to spell o u t in d e ta il its ep iso d es, c h a ra c te rs, a n d circum stances; a p o e m d e p e n d s o n th e re a d e r to c a tc h th e im p lic a tio n s o f th e w ords it uses (V endler, Poem s, Poets, Poetry, 150). G eo rg e H e r b e r t (a n A n g lican clerg y m an [1 5 9 3 1633]) illu strate s th is p rin c ip le in his p o e m “R e d e m p tio n ” (V endler, Poem s, Poets, Poetry, 161, also cites th is p o e m ). HAVING b e e n te n a n t lo n g to a ric h L o rd , N o t thriv in g , I reso lv ed to b e b o ld , A n d m ake a suit u n to h im , to a ffo rd A new sm a ll-ren te d lease, a n d ca n ce ll t h ’ old. In h ea v en at his m a n o u r I h im so u g h t: T h ey to ld m e th e re , th a t h e was lately g o n e A b o u t som e la n d , w hich h e h a d d ea rly b o u g h t L o n g since o n e a rth , to tak e possession. I stra ig h t r e t u r n ’d, a n d k n o w in g his g re a t b irth , S o u g h t h im acco rd in g ly in g re a t reso rts; In cities, th e a tre s , g a rd e n s, park s, a n d co u rts: A t le n g th I h e a rd a ra g g e d n o ise a n d m irth O f theeves a n d m u rd e re rs: th e re I h im esp ied , W ho straig h t, Y our su it is gran ted, said, a n d d ie d . T h e g o spel o f C h rist is th e sto ry b e h in d this p o e m . A t th e sam e tim e, it is c le a r th a t th e p o e m d o es n o t retell th e sto ry b u t explores the im p o rta n ce o f it. S o m e o n e w ho d id n o t alread y k now th e C h ristian faith , in fact, w o u ld have g re a t difficulty m a k in g sense o f th e p o em . T h u s, th e essen tial facts o f th e g o sp el (G o d cam e dow n fro m h ea v en , b e c a m e h u m a n in th e p e rs o n o f Je su s, dw elt a m o n g sin n e rs, a n d d ie d to re d e e m th e m ) are g iv e n s th a t a re a n te c e d e n t to th e p o e m itself. To sim ply re sta te th o se facts, as I have ju s t d o n e , is n o t to e x p la in th e p o e m a t all. B ut, k n o w in g th o se facts, th e r e a d e r o f th e p o e m can a p p re c ia te how H e r b e r t h as o p e n e d fo r us a new p ersp e ctiv e o n th e ir significance. H e r b e r t d o e s n o t re te ll th e events o f th e life o f Je su s o r re c o u n t th e C h ristian th e o lo g y o f re d e m p tio n . B u t w h en o n e rec o g n ize s th e sto ry b e h in d th e p o em , o n e can c o m p re h e n d h ow th e la rg e r b a c k g ro u n d sto ry (th e G ospel) im p acts th e in d iv id u al life. Similarly, th e r e a d e r o f S o n g o f Songs is e x p e c te d to re c o g n iz e th e life-event b e h in d th e S ong, a m a rria g e . T h e S ong itself n o m o re tells th e sto ry o f a p a rtic u la r m a rria g e th a n H e r b e r t re c o u n ts p a rtic u la rs o f th e G ospel o f M atthew . A p o in t o f te n sio n in th e re a d in g o f th e S o n g alre ad y a llu d e d to h e re is th e m a tte r o f re a d in g it as a ca n o n ic a l te x t versus re a d in g it as art. As a w ork o f a rt, a lyric p o e m s h o u ld give p le a su re to th e rea d e r. (See H all, P leasu res o f Poetry, fo r a u sefu l in tro d u c -

96

I ntroduction tio n to th e p le asu re s o f p o etry .) O n e n e e d n o t fall in to th e p e c u lia r a n d sexually c h a rg e d ae sth e tic s o f R o la n d B a rth e s (P lea su re o f the Text) to affirm th a t a p rim a ry re a so n fo r re a d in g a te x t, a n d c e rtain ly fo r re a d in g a p o e tic te x t, is th a t it gives p leasu re. A fter all, if th e on ly p o in t w ere to c o m m u n ic a te d a ta , o n e c o u ld d o th a t m u c h b e tte r in p la in a n d sim p le p ro se. P a ra p h ra se s o f p o e m s a re e a sie r to c o m p re h e n d th a n th e p o e m s them selves. B u t th e c o m m u n ic a tio n a c h ie v ed in a p o e m is n o t m e re ly in th e tra n s fe r o f in fo rm a tio n ( “th e U n io n so ld iers w ere e x c ite d a n d c a re fre e as th ey m a rc h e d o ff to th e ir first b a ttle , b u t th ey w ere quickly e d u c a te d a b o u t th e re a litie s o f w ar”). T h e very re a d in g o f th e p o e m draw s th e re a d e r in to th e e x p e rie n c e , a n d th e “p le a s u re s ” o f a p o e m , b e it th e in to x ic a te d jo y o f a love so n g o r th e p la in tiv e m o u rn in g o f a n elegy, c o n s titu te a m a jo r e le m e n t o f th e “m e a n in g ” o f a p o e m . F u ll a p p re c ia tio n o f a p o e m involves cognitively g ra sp in g its essen tial m essage a n d situatio n , b u t it also involves h e a rin g its w o rd s a n d a p p r e h e n d in g why th e se p a rtic u la r w ords w ere c h o se n , en jo y in g its tro p e s, e m p a th iz in g w ith em o tiv e re sp o n se , a n d finally, a p p re c ia tin g th e c ra ft o f th e p o e t. U n d e rs ta n d in g a p o e m th u s im p lies, first a n d o n th e sim p lest level, c o m p re h e n d in g w h at th e p o e m is a bou t , th e n th e ability to re s p o n d to it w ith th e e m o tio n s a n d th e self, a n d finally a n u n d e r s ta n d in g o f why th e p o e m works. A p p re c ia tio n o f th e p le a su re o f th e p o e m , how ever, fo rc es o n e to give d u e a tte n tio n to th e lan g u a g e , im ages, a n d so u n d s o f th e p o e m , th a t is, to its su rfa ce q u alitie s. H ow is this u n d e rs ta n d in g o f p o e try p o te n tia lly a t o d d s w ith th e re a d in g o f a c a n o n ical text? V endler, discussing R o la n d B a rth es in “T h e F u n c tio n o f C ritic ism ” (V endler, M u s ic o f W h a t H a p p en s, 16), p u ts it like this: T h e se two m o d e ls a re rad ically in c o m p a tib le . T h e B a rth ia n m o d e l, c e n te rin g o n bliss, refuses to d isp e n se w ith th e signifier; th e bib lical m o d e l, c e n te rin g o n “tr u t h , ” fin d s its tr u e re p o se in th e sig n ified . T h o u g h th e se c o n d , h e rm e n e u tic a l, m o d e l c o u ld n o t finally avoid fo rm -criticism , it re g a rd s a tte n tio n to th e fo rm chiefly as a m e an s to a h ig h e r e n d . It is fro m th e h e rm e n e u tic a l m o d e l, w ith its p e rs is te n t alleg o rizin g ten d en c y , th a t th e v u lg a r n o tio n o f th e re b e in g a “h id d e n m e a n in g ” in lite ra tu re has arisen . T h e se c u la r critic stays h is eye o n th e su rfa ce ; th e re lig io u s critic ch o o ses to pass th ro u g h th e su rfa ce in se a rc h o f d iv in e m e a n in g . B o th so rts o f critics are always w ith us, th o u g h u n d e r d iffe re n t nam es. T h e two critical sc h o o ls will always re m a in d istru stfu l o f e a c h o th e r, e a c h fin d in g th e value o f th e w o rk o f a rt by a m e th o d re p e lle n t to th e o th e r. N o th in g so fully illustrates V endler’s p o in t re g a rd in g biblical h e rm e n e u tic s as th e histo ry o f th e in terp re tatio n o f Song o f Songs, with its persistent a n d d e te rm in e d allegorizing. B ut other, nonalleg o rizin g ap p ro a ch es to th e Song are n o less d ed ica ted to th e sam e m e th o d a n d aims; n e ith e r th e d ram atic m o d es n o r th e fem inist m odes o f in te rp re ta tio n escape using th e Song as an ything o th e r th a n a q u a rry fo r theological o r political d o gm a. Even in te rp re ters w ho re a d th e p o e m sim ply in its “plain se n se” as a “love p o e m ” are fu n d am en tally in th e business o f seeking tru th in th e p o em , alth o u g h o ften with inconsiste n t an d m eag er results. I, too, will seek th e tru th w ithin th e p o em s o f S ong o f Songs. O n th e o th e r h a n d , a lth o u g h b ib lical sc h o la rsh ip h as always fo c u se d o n tr u th a n d m e a n in g , th e biblical w riters th em selves d o n o t seem to have felt th em selv es to b e o n th e h o rn s o f a d ile m m a b etw e en “b liss” a n d “t r u t h ”— c e rtain ly n o t th e p o e t b e h in d Ps 119, w ho co u ld w rite, “O h , h ow I love y o u r Law! / All day lo n g it is m y m e d ita tio n ! ” (v 97). H e is n o t ju s t saying, “I fin d m u c h tr u th in y o u r Law,” a lth o u g h h e re p e a te d ly m akes th a t p o in t as well. T h e very ac t o f re a d in g a n d h e a rin g th e Law was a so u rc e o f in te n se p le asu re; to h im th e very w ords w ere like carefu lly c h o se n n o te s in a su p e rb m usical score. A n d th e p salm ist is h e r e sp e a k in g o f th e L a w —h a rd ly w h at th e g e n e ra l re a d e r w o uld c o n s id e r th e m o st aesth e tic ally p le a sin g o f th e b o o k s o f th e Bible!

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W h e re d o es th is leave us w hile in th e p ra c tic a l b u sin ess o f in te rp re tin g S ong o f Songs? It suggests th a t we m u st b e g in w ith th e p leasu res o f th e S o n g b e fo re p ro g ressin g to th e tru th o f th e S ong. Its lin e s a n d tro p e s, its so u n d s a n d im ag es, a n d th e em otive q u ality o f th e w ords c h o se n a n d th e fee lin g s ev o k ed m u st b e e x p lo re d . Som etim es— a n d I am h e re as guilty as any b ib lical in te r p re te r — we fo cu s to o m u c h on w h at a m e ta p h o r sign ifies a n d n o t e n o u g h o n w h at it evokes. T h e se a rc h fo r bliss is n o t, how ever, at varian ce w ith th e se arch fo r m e a n in g in th e S ong. If th e S o n g d o e s conta in p r o fo u n d tr u th , a n d I am c o n v in c e d th a t it d o es, th a t tr u th c a n n o t b e fo u n d w ith o u t fee lin g w hat th e p o e t felt a n d e x p e c te d us to feel. A p p re c ia tio n fo r th e m etap h o rs o f th e S ong (th e gazelles, does, foxes, sp ik e n ard , tow ers, fo u n tain s, a n d so fo rth ) sh o u ld le ad to an a p p re c ia tio n fo r th e love a n d sen su ality o f th e S ong, a n d finally fo r a n a p p re c ia tio n o f th e tr u th o f th e S ong.

Song of Songs and Christian Theology Bibliography Ayo, N. Sacred M a rria g e. N ew York: C o n tin u u m , 1997. Boer, R. ‘T h e S e c o n d C om ing: R e p e titio n a n d In s a tia b le D e sire in th e S o n g o f S o n g s .” B ib I n t 8 (2000) 276-301. Blumenthal, D. R. “W h e re G o d Is N ot: T h e B o o k o f E sth e r a n d S o n g o f Songs . ”J u d a is m 44 (1995) 80-92. Brown, P. T he B ody a n d Society: M e n , W om en, a n d S ex u a l R e n u n c ia tio n in E a rly C h ristia n ity. N ew York: C o lu m b ia UP, 1988. Campbell, J. H ero w ith a T h o u s a n d Faces. Davidson, R. M. ‘T h e o lo g y o f S exuality in th e S ong o f Songs: R e tu rn to E d e n .” A U S S 27 (1989) 1-19. Dillow, J. C. Solom on on Sex. N ashville: N elso n , 1977. Elliott, M. W. “E thics a n d A esthetics in th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” T y n B u l4 5 (1994) 137-52. Gledhill, T. M essage o f the S o n g o f Songs. Glickman, S. C. A S on g f o r L overs. D o w n ers G rove: In terV arsity Press, 1978. Hein, R. C h ristia n M yth m akers. Jakobson, R. “L inguistics a n d P o e tic s.” In R o m a n Ja k o b so n : Selected W ritin g s III. Ed. S. Rudy. T h e H ag u e : M o u to n , 1981. 18-51. Kinlaw, D. F. “C h a rles W illiam s’ C o n c e p t o f Im a g in g A p p lie d to th e S o n g o f S o n g s.” W esleyan T heological J o u r n a l

16 (1981) 85-92. Levi -Strauss, C. S tru c tu ra l A nth ropology. Lewis, C. S. T he A llegory o f L ove. L o n d o n : O x fo rd UP, 1936. ----------. E xperim ent in C ritic ism . ---------- . P ilg r im ’s R eg ress. ---------- . S u rp rised by Joy. N ew York: H a rc o u rt, B race, 1 9 5 5 . ----------. W eight o f G lory a n d O th er A d dresses. Loder, J. T ra n sfo rm in g M om en t. Maranda, E. K., a n d P. Maranda. S tru c tu ra l M odels in Folklore a n d T ra n sfo rm a tio n a l E ssays. Murphy, R. E. “C a n t 2:8-17 — A U n ifie d P o e m ? ” In M ela n g es bibliques et o rien ta u x en V h on n eu r de M . M a th ia s Delcor. Ed. A. C a q u o t. N e u k irc h e n Vluyn: N e u k irc h e n e r V erlag, 1985. 3 0 5 -1 0 . ----------. ‘T h e S o n g o f Songs: C ritical B iblical S c h o la rsh ip vis-a-vis E x eg etical T ra d itio n s.” In U n d ersta n d in g the W ord. FS B. W. A n d erson, ed. J. T. B utler, E. W. C o n ra d , a n d B. C. O lle n b u rg e r. S h effield : JS O T Press, 1985. 63-69. Payne, R. ‘T h e S ong o f Songs: S ong o f W om an, S o n g o f M an, S o n g o f G o d .” E x p T im

107 (1996) 329-33. Shippey, T. J. R . R . Tolkien: A u th o r o f the C entury. Shults, F. L.

“O n e S p irit w ith th e L o rd .” P rin ceton T heological R e view 7.3 (2000) 17-26. Snaith, J. G. T h e S o n g o f Songs. G ra n d R apids: E e rd m a n s, 1993. Trible, P. G od a n d the R h etoric o f Sexuality. P h ilad e lp h ia : Fortress, 1978. Tolkien, J. R. R. “Beowulf: T h e M o n sters a n d th e C ritics.” In A n A n th o lo g y o f B e o w u lf C riticism . E d. L. E. N ich o lso n . N o tre D am e, IN: Univ. o f N o tre D am e Press, 1963. Walsh, C. E. E x q u isite Desire: R eligion , the E rotic, a n d the S on g o f Songs. M in n eap o lis: F ortress, 2000.

O verview of the P roblem T h e dem ise o f th e allegorical in te rp re ta tio n ap p e ars to have left th e Song o f Songs a theologically im p o v erish ed book. T h eo lo g ical ru m in a tio n s tu ck ed away

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in th e b ack o f m o d e rn in tro d u c tio n s to th e S ong (like this o n e) o fte n chew en d lessly over a very m e a g e r a m o u n t o f cud. T h e ir p o in t seem s to b e this: “Love a n d sex are g o o d !” (som etim es th e m essage is p a re d dow n to, “Sex is g o o d !”). T h e S ong “legitim izes sexual n e e d a n d fu lfillm e n t,” th e S ong “o p en ly ce le b rate s th e ero tic n a tu re o f h u m a n love,” th e S o n g “d ec la res th e prim acy o f love in h u m a n life,” a n d so fo rth a n d so o n (for a full p re s e n ta tio n o f a “th eology o f sexuality” fro m th e S ong, see R. M. D avidson, 27 [1989] 1 -1 9 ). Is a “th eo lo g y o f sexuality” all th a t th e S ong has to offer? D oes S ong o f Songs have any real theology? Is it a n o n th e o lo g ic a l love so n g fro m w h ich o n e can g e t a th e o lo g ic a l m essage only by an exegetical to u r d e force? T h e p ro b le m o f fin d in g a theo lo g y in th e S ong o f Songs is c o m p licated by th e fact th a t th e n a m e o f G o d (‫ )יהוה‬a n d th e w o rd fo r G o d (‫ )אלהים‬n ev er a p p e a r in th e book. It is possible th a t th e re is a circ u m lo c u tio n fo r “G o d ” in S ong 2:7 (see o n v 7), a n d it is possible th a t in S ong 8:6 th e suffix ‫ יה‬is “Yah,” fro m “Y ahw eh.” N e ith e r case is a real use o f th e n a m e o f G od, a n d n e ith e r suggests a theology. D. R. B lu m e n th a l 44 [1995] 8 0 -9 2 ) tries to m ake so m e th in g o f this ab se n ce o f th e divine n am e a lo n g fe m in ist lines, b u t his suggestion is n o t persuasive. M u rp h y (10 0 -10 5 ) w restles w ith th e p ro b le m a t le n g th a n d co n clu d es, “H um an sexual fu lfillm en t, ferv en tly s o u g h t a n d co n su m m a te d in re cip ro ca l love betw een w o m an a n d m an: Yes, th a t is w h at th e S ong o f Songs is a b o u t, in its literal sense a n d theologically re le v an t m e a n in g ” (103). B ut M urp h y is also m o re sym p ath etic w ith th e allegorical in te rp re ta tio n th a n m o st m o d e rn scholars are, a n d h e a lm o st wistfully looks b ack to th e early allegorists a n d th e ir rich celebratio n o f th e love o f G od (12-28; see also his “S ong o f Songs: C ritical B iblical S c h o a rsh ip ”) . H e also cites a few texts th a t d escrib e th e re la tio n sh ip b etw een G od a n d his p eo p le u n d e r th e m e ta p h o r o f m arriag e (e.g., Isa 62:4-5) a n d m akes th e p o in t th a t love is a g re a t gift fro m G o d (1 0 4 -5 ). G. A. F. K n ig h t (64 -6 5 ) likewise sees th e th eo lo g ical significance o f th e S ong in a loose analogy betw een divine a n d h u m a n love. N. Ayo ex p lo its this analogy to th e fullest. In his view, th e S ong c e le b rate s sexuality b u t is u ltim ately sp iritu al as well since “th e sensual a n d th e sp iritu al are two sides o f th e sam e c o in ” 61). L o n g m a n ’s analysis (5 8 -7 0 ) is sim ilar: th e S ong ce le b rate s sexual love, it p o rtray s sexual love as a k in d o f re d e e m in g reversal o f th e effects o f G en 3, a n d it exalts sexual love as an illu stra tio n o f th e love b etw een G od a n d h u m an ity (citing texts such as J e r 2:1 a n d Rev 19:6-8). T h e p ro b le m is th at, e x c ep t fo r th e p o in t th a t th e S ong celeb rates sexual love, all o f th ese th eo lo g ical insights are draw n fro m Song o f Songs. M u rp h y (105 n. 400) has a n im pressive list o f verses m ak in g th e p o in t th a t love is a gift fro m G od; n o c itatio n fro m th e S ong is am o n g th em . T h e p o in t th a t m arital a n d sexual love th e love b etw een G o d a n d his p e o p le draws exclusively o n texts o u tsid e th e Song. T h e c h u rc h is th e b rid e o f C hrist, b u t this th eo lo g ical c o n c e p t is n o t ro o te d in th e S ong (n o N T tex t alludes to th e S o n g ), a n d th e S ong d o es n o t suggest any such th eo lo g ical c o n stru c t. T h e re is n o su g g estio n in th e S ong o f Songs th a t h u m a n , sexual love illu strates divine love. A yo’s c o m m e n ta ry has well n ig h co m e full circle back to O rig e n . W orking w ith th e p re m ise th a t E ros a n d sp iritu al y e a rn in g are fu n d a m e n tally o n e a n d th e sam e, h e b eg in s w ith a “lite ra l” re a d in g o f th e Song, b u t th e n , in cate n alik e

AUSS

Comment

(Judaism

(Sacred Marriage,

outside

illustrates

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fashion , looks fo r links th a t can b rin g h im a r o u n d to th e NT. F o r ex am p le, th e m e n tio n o f th e w ord ‫כרם‬, “v in ey ard ,” in S ong 7:13 (ET 7:12) p ro m p ts a discussion o f C h rist as th e tru e vine in J o h n 15:1-11 ( 230). T his is n o t th eo lo g ical in te rp re ta tio n ; this is th eo lo g ical sleig ht o f h a n d . R elating th e S ong to G en 2 -3 is similarly ex traneous. P. T rible ( 144-65) m akes this tie. C lear links betw een th e two are few a n d far betw een (e.g., th a t the w ord fo r “d esire ,” ‫תשוקה‬, ap p ears in G en 3:16 an d Song 7:11 [also in G en 4:7]). Even these ties are o f d u bious value; th e re is little reason to th in k th a t they are d elib erate allusions to Genesis in th e Song. T h e Song m en tio n s g ard en s, trees, a n d a n atu ra l setting, b u t these are n o in d icatio n th at th e Song is focused o n reversing th e story o f th e fall in Genesis. P astoral a n d gard e n settings, w ith a g en eral p re fere n ce fo r n a tu re over th e city, are often fo u n d in love poetry, be it p ag an o r C hristian. P. T rib le’s assertion ( 47) th a t “in m any ways, th e n , S ong o f Songs is a M idrash o n G enesis” is n o t convincing. O n e can say th a t th e Song, over against G en 2-3, rep resen ts sexual love as parad ise reg ain ed , b u t it is a m istake to say th a t this is th e intrinsic m essage o f th e Song. R ather, it is a m essage th a t have c reated by ju x tap o sin g th e Song a n d G en 2-3. C o m p arin g th e S ong to Genesis is n o t illegitim ate, b u t w hen an in te rp re te r rep eated ly tu rn s to G enesis to fin d th e m ean in g o f th e Song, it is obvious th a t th e alleged m ea n in g is n o t g erm a n e to th e Song at all. R. Payne 107 [1996] 331-32) follows sim ilar logic using G en 1: G od created hum an ity as in his im age m ale a n d fem ale, a n d th ere fo re th e love betw een m ale a n d fem ale in Song o f Songs is a reflection o f divine love. It is an observation th a t is fu n d am en tally ro o te d in G en 1, n o t in th e Song, a n d it provides n o clear g u id an ce for in te rp re tin g th e Song o r a p p ro p ria tin g th e Song theologically. O th e r a p p ro a c h e s have fa re d n o better. J. G. S naith 134) finds n o m o ral th eo lo g y in th e S ong o th e r th a n th a t it is “a c e le b ratio n o f G od-given h u m a n love.” Keel ([1994] 3 2 -3 7 ) focuses o n “Love as an E lem en tal F o rc e ” and co n clu d e s th a t th e S ong alm o st p erso n ifies love— o r deifies it as a g o ddess ( 3 4 ) . P o p e ’s c o n te n tio n th a t th e S ong o f Songs is ro o te d in a fu n e ra ry feast (210-29) suggests th a t in love a n d sexuality, p e o p le clin g to life a n d seek to tra n sc e n d d ea th . M. W. E llio tt 45 [1994] 137-52) argues th a t m e ta p h o rs such as th e lover as gazelle (S ong 8:14) re m in d th e re a d e r o f how o u r co rp o reality binds us to th e c re a te d o rd e r a n d th u s calls us to a h ig h e r spirituality, sym bolized by th e lea p in g o f th e gazelle. S uch an analysis d e m o n strate s how close we com e back to alleg o rizin g w hen we try to fin d th eo lo g y in th e Song. R ecent attem pts to use th e Song as th e biblical guide to good sex (cf. J. C. Dillow, are n o t to be taken seriously. T. G ledhill ( looks for m o ral lessons th ro u g h o u t the Song; m u ch o f w hat h e says is valid, a n d som e is ro o ted in th e text o f th e Song. Provan im ports extraneous m aterial into th e supposed m oral teaching o f th e Song an d launches an attack o n th e evils o f the O T view o f w om en an d in particular o f th e h arem system, using texts draw n from Exod 20, Ju d g 11, an d E sther (Provan, 272-77). Like o th e r dram atic/h isto rical interpretations, Provan m oralizes o n his reco n stru cted d ra m a ra th e r th an o n the Song itself (so also, b u t with a differently reco n stru cted story, S. C. Glickm an, ). T h e n o tio n th a t th e love o f w om an a n d m a n is an alo g o u s to th e love o f hum anity a n d G od, p articu larly w h en a P lato n ic u n d e rs ta n d in g o f Eros is used, can lea d in a m u c h d a rk e r d irec tio n . Eros b eco m es th e vehicle fo r fin d in g God.

Sacred Marnage,

God and the

Rhetoric of Sexuality,

God and the Rhetoric of

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(ExpTim

(Song of Songs,

(TynBul

Solomon on Sex)

Message of the Song)

Songfor Lovers

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U ltim ately, th e sexual im p u lse is so g lo rified th a t it beco m es th e th in g itself a n d eclipses th e y e a rn in g fo r G od. C. E. W alsh m oves in this d ire c tio n th ro u g h an ex tra v ag an t e x p lo ra tio n o f ero ticism a n d spirituality in h e r aptly n a m e d com m e n ta r y T h is is a d a n g e ro u s p a th . As E ros is leg itim ized as an ex p ressio n o f sp iritu al d esire, th e re is ultim ately n o d iffe re n c e b etw een re a d in g th e Bible a n d re a d in g p o rn o g rap h y .

Exquisite Desire: Religion, the Erotic, and the Song of Songs.

L essons about L ove and Sexuality

not

All this is to say th a t th e p o in t th a t “love a n d sex are g o o d ” is invalid; to th e co n trary , it is c o rre c t a n d is o f th e m essage o f S ong o f Songs. T h e S ong has m o re to say th a n th at. T h e re a re som e m o ral lessons in th e S ong, a n d it is useful to categ o rize th e m w hile re a d in g S ong o f Songs as a c e le b ra tio n o f hum an , sexual love.

part

The Song as a Rejection of the Ascetic Ideal In c o n tra s t to th e te n d e n c y to tre a t sexuality as intrinsically vile a n d th e antithesis to holiness, th e S ong o f Songs p re se n ts sexual love as a th in g o f g re a t b eau ty a n d an activity th a t e n ric h e s h u m a n life. T h e S ong teach es th a t love a n d sex are g o o d . P aganism h ard ly n e e d s such a lesson; it already w orships sexuality as th e b a c c h a n a lia n p o in t o f access to th e po w er a n d p leasu re o f th e gods (alth o u g h , I sh o u ld ad d , th e id ealizatio n o f th e virgin a n d th e celib ate also has p ag a n r o o ts ) . In som e fo rm s o f m o n o th e ism , however, th e re is a d a rk cellar o f g u ilt a n d suspicion , a n d sexuality looks u p fro m th e b o tto m o f th a t cellar. T his m en tality d etests th e physicality o f th e h u m a n body w ith all its a p p e tite s a n d ex cretio n s, a n d it d esires fre e d o m fro m th e flesh, so th a t th e soul m ay b e spiritual a n d im m u n e fro m bodily desires. It takes very seriously th e in ju n c tio n o f th e A postle P au l to “m ortify th e re fo re y o u r m e m b ers w hich are u p o n th e e a r th ” (Col 3:5 KJV). H a ir shirts, self-flagellation, a n d p ro lo n g e d fasting b ro k e n only by th e o ccasio n al sm all m eal d elib erately m a d e u n p a la ta b le by th e a d d itio n o f bitte r h e rb s a re c o m m o n strategies in C h ristian asceticism fo r freein g o n e se lf fro m th e c o n stra in ts o f th e flesh. (P aul h a d n o such p ractices in m in d ; fo r h im , m ortificatio n re fe rr e d to a b ste n tio n fro m “fo rn ic a tio n , im purity, lust, evil d esire, a n d g re e d , w h ich is id o la try ” [Col 3:5], a n d fo r h im ascetic practices w ere m isleadin g a n d useless [Col 2 :1 6 -2 3 ].) P e te r B row n has th o ro u g h ly d o c u m e n te d th e sexual attitu d e s o f early Christianity in his m agisterial Even a sam p lin g o f his fin d in g s are eye-opening, a n d it is w orth w h ile to p e ru s e th e teach in g s o f th e c h u rc h fathers. F o r m any early Christians, th e id e a th a t the H oly S pirit co u ld co m e in full pow er o n a p e rso n w ho was sexually active (in m arria g e) was sim ply in conceivable ( 6582); it s h o u ld be n o te d th a t this a ttitu d e owes as m u c h to p ag an a n d p lato n ic tra d itio n as it d o es to biblical texts. A stro n g ten d en c y tow ard p e rp e tu a l celibacy e m e rg e d q u ite early in th e c h u rch es o f Asia M in or a n d Syria. T h e o rth o d o x com m u n ity re sisted such ex trem ism , b u t even h e re sex (w ithin m arria g e, again) was re g a rd e d as a fu n d a m e n ta l th re a t to C h ristian spirituality. C lem en t o f A lexand ria, a lth o u g h an e x p o n e n t o f th e id eal o f th e C hristian m arria g e, w en t so fa r as

in Early Christianity.

The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation Body and Society,

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to lay down rules for copulation, which he suggested should be entered into with careful attention to deportment, in a stoical manner (Brown, Body and Society, 133). Christians were encouraged to avoid intercourse during pregnancy and lactation, making sexual encounters between even married couples rare indeed. Exuberant praise for the ideal of the virgin notwithstanding, the spiritual bliss promised for celibate men often had to contend with the enormous impediment posed by flesh-and-blood women, be they consecrated virgins or not. At the end of late antiquity, the desert fathers sought refuge in the wilderness from the spiritual snare posed by the female body. “In the fourth and fifth centuries, the ascetic literature of Egypt became a repository of vivid anecdotes concerning sexual seduction and heroic sexual avoidance. In this new monastic folklore, the body leapt into sharp focus. Women were presented as a source of perpetual temptation to which the male body could be expected to respond instantly. For a nun simply to pat the foot of an elderly, sick bishop was considered enough provocation to cause both of them to fall instantly into fornication” (Brown, Body and Society, 242). Even complete separation from women did not save them from the powers of sexuality, however, as attested by the detailed injunctions and regulations to guard against homosexuality and pederasty among the monks (Body and Society, 246). It was left to Augustine to establish a modus vivendi for dealing with the flesh and with women in the church. This former follower of the Manichaeans—this scholar who, for the sake of his Christian calling, dismissed his faithful concubine (in effect, a common-law wife) and son—would not turn against the ideal of the celibate. On the other hand, he had less stridency and more charity than did Jerome. For Augustine, the fundamental problem of the human race was not that humans were physical beings or even that humans experienced sexual desire; it was that the will itself was warped and ever turning toward strife, envy, and hatred. This was true of all persons, married or celibate. Augustine would honor marriage and the family, and he would not despise sexual union in marriage, even if he did hold to a rather passionless ideal. Still, he had deep admiration for married couples who renounced sexual intercourse but remained together as spiritual companions (Brown, Body and Society, 387-407). For Augustine, then, the higher level of holiness was found in celibacy. The end result, intellectually codified for centuries in the Western church and ultimately institutionalized in the Catholic Church, was a two-tiered spirituality in which marriage is legitimate, to some degree even wondrous, but forever held back in a lower level of spirituality by that most carnal of activities, sex. To be close to God, one had to be continent. The exuberant delight in sexuality that the Song reflects can hardly proceed from a theology that regards the flesh as innately evil or sexual activity as innately degrading. Similarly, the extravagant praise heaped on the woman’s body cannot come from an outlook that regards female sensuality as dangerous and ungodly; the praise that the woman of the Song heaps on the man’s body suggests that males, too, are sensual beings. If the presence of the Song in the biblical canon suggests anything, it is this: loving God with one’s heart and soul and loving a member of the opposite sex with one’s heart and flesh are not opposed to one another. The celibate is not on a straighter path to holiness than is the sexually active husband or wife.

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The Song has no place for the ideal of man and woman associating as sexless creatures. In the real world, there are men and there are women; the sexless “human” is an abstraction, and the Song does not deal in abstractions. The fundamental reality of sex, the grim discovery ofJerome and Augustine, does indeed leave women and especially men struggling with lust and infidelity. On this matter, the Song is not silent. “Set me like a seal upon your heart, / like a seal upon your arm. / For love is strong, like death. / Jealousy is severe, like the grave” (Song 8:6). Love is a stern taskmaster and demands absolute fidelity to the beloved. Marriage must be fully monogamous. But the Song is not moralizing and offering up a restatement of the command against adultery. Rather, the passion that demands fidelity is also a shield to fidelity. To try to live without the passions of love is not merely frustratingly hopeless; it is unwise, unbiblical, and an open doorway to the very lusts it is trying to bar. In the Song, right passion is a protection against wrong passion. Romantic Love We have already noted that the medieval church regarded sexual desire as inherently evil. As C. S. Lewis has written (Allegory ofLove, 14), “But according to the medieval view passionate love itself was wicked, and did not cease to be wicked if the object of it were your wife. If a man had once yielded to this emotion he had no choice between ‘guilty’ and ‘innocent’ love before him: he had only the choice, either of repentance, or else of different forms of guilt.” Under this conception of sexual desire, a romantic, passionate love for one’s own wife is impossible—and it is no surprise that the romantic ideal of courtly love in the medieval period exclusively concerned adulterous and extramarital affairs. There is no place for chronological snobbery here. Modern (or postmodern) culture also has great difficulty in seeing marriage as a promising setting for romance and passion. In current fiction, hot love is invariably in an extramarital setting. The Song of Songs is filled with passion and desire from beginning to end. That expression of passion was probably of greater concern to the medieval churchman than was any explicit reference to breasts and thighs. The medieval man was told to keep concupiscence under control; the ideal was a man who could have sexual intercourse with his wife without passion and only for the sake of procreation. Passion is what the Song celebrates. References to sexual acts are fairly rare and usually indirect. What is not indirect or veiled is the fervent desire of the couple for each other. I have already noted that I believe that a marriage is at the center of the Song. What the Song therefore establishes is the legitimacy and beauty of a husband and wife experiencing heated desire for each other. The Song achieves something that medieval Christian culture could not fathom and that modern and postmodern culture cannot artfully attain: a man and woman who maintain passionate desire for each other in the context of conventional morality. Sexual Morality Song of Songs does not prescribe rules for human sexual life or even explicitly speak of them (with one significant exception), but this does not mean that there is no moral outlook pervading the text. The sexuality of the Song is monogamous and heterosexual. This is not imposing a bourgeois Protestant

Introduction

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morality on the Song. In reality, heterosexual monogamy is the foundation for all of the Song’s celebration. The sexuality of the Song is heterosexual; a “gay reading” of the Song is the most violent kind of an imposition of extrinsic values on the Song (cf. the selfdescribed “perverse” reading of R. Boer, BibInt 8 [2000] 276-301). Not only are the central lovers in the Song male and female, but it is understood that this is the outlook of the community at large. At the beginning of the Song, when the splendors of the man’s love are being praised, the woman responds that the girls “rightly” love the man (Song 1:3-4). This love is monogamous in nature. The woman is to the man “my sister, my companion, my bride” (e.g., Song 5:1). She is the lotus blossom; all other women are thorns (Song 2:2). Among sixty queens, and eighty concubines, and an endless number of girls, “my dove” is perfect and unique (Song 6:8-9; the figures represent a contrived comparison; the man is not saying that he has other queens, concubines, and girlfriends [see Comment on 6:8-9]). To the woman, the man is simply “my lover” and the one “whom my soul loves” (e.g., Song 1:7; 5:10). He is an apple tree; all other men are just trees in the forest (Song 2:3). He is the best among ten thousand men (Song 5:10). Most powerfully, the woman proclaims, “My lover is mine and I am his” (e.g., Song 2:16). To dismiss all this as white lies and empty “sweet talk” (as when a man who has several girlfriends tells one of them, "You’re the only girl for me!”) is to indulge in the kind of cynicism that the Song of Songs is itself set against. The Song portrays an idealized, perfect love; when these idealized lovers express their absolute devotion to each other, we can assume that they mean it Three other texts suggest that this is a monogamous (and married) relationship. First, Song 3:6-11, the arrival of the bride in a palanquin, reflects what is almost certainly an ancient Israelite wedding tradition (see Comments on 3:611). An ancient audience would have recognized this and understood that this is not a couple engaging in extramarital sex. In Song 8:6-7, the woman sings what is one of the few didactic passages in the Song: “Set me like a seal upon your heart, / like a seal upon your arm. / For love is strong, like death. / Jealousy is severe, like the grave. / Its spark is a blaze of fire! It is the flame of Yahweh! / Many waters are not able to extinguish love, / and rivers cannot overwhelm it. / If a man were to give all his worldly possessions for love, / his offer would be utterly scorned.” She claims ownership over him, in the same manner that a bulla marks ownership over a scroll among the scribes of ancient Israel. She declares that with powerful love comes powerful possessiveness. A woman who loves in this manner cannot share her man with other women. Such love is as strong as death; it utterly consumes the heart of the lover. She claims that such love is a rare, once-in-a-lifetime experience. Many never experience love at all. Like wisdom, it cannot be bought with money, and fidelity to one’s bride is here equated with fidelity to Wisdom herself (see Explanation for 8:5-7). Such a rare gift as love must be protected; to throw it away for a fling with an outsider would be the utmost folly. A third exemplary text is Song 2:7 and parallel passages, where the woman calls on the girls to swear that they will not arouse or awaken love until it pleases. The woman means: do not enter into a sexual relationship until the right time. Following the pattern of the Song itself, the “right time” is when a woman has found and wedded the one man she can love all her life. That is, the woman asserts that girls

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should remain virgins until marriage. This is not bourgeois morality or a Christian manipulation of the text; this is Wisdom, and the ancient audience would have understood it as such (see Excursus: Virginity in the Ancient World). The only grounds for claiming that the couple is not married is in the woman’s declarations at various points that she will take the man to “my mother’s house” (e.g., Song 3:4). Taken literally, this suggests that the woman still lives at home, is not married, and is having trysts with her lover in her parents’ home. Song 5:2-8 is often read in the same way. This commentary will suggest that this literal understanding of the passages completely misreads them. Her “m other’s house” is her womb, and she is determined to have sexual relations with the man. But she is not living at home and having sex with a boyfriend under her mother’s nose. She is speaking of her husband. Tenderness and the Nurturing of a Relationship As described above, many interpreters seek to mine the Song for hints on how to have a good relationship. This can be overdone. It is correct to treat the Song as a portrayal of ideal love and to see that how the two lovers treat one another is in some respects paradigmatic for the marriage relationship. The verbal affection that the couple shares implies that tender expressions of devotion are right and proper if love is to flourish. The love of Song of Songs is not strictly physical activity; often the words that praise the beloved’s body and affection are the thing itself. Using words to declare intimacy and devotion are necessary and are part of the joy of love. One can find many other texts that suggest practical ideals about the sexual relationship. Song 1:5 suggests that beauty, as determined by contemporary culture, can be misleading. Comparing Song 1:9-10 to 1 Peter 3:3 may enable the reader to come to a balanced view of the appropriateness of jewelry for women. Peter says that the real adornment of feminine beauty is a godly life, and he discourages fascination with fashion. The Song suggests that jewelry enhances a woman’s beauty and that there are times when jewelry is appropriately given to the woman one loves. No doubt both sentiments are true. Song 1:13 suggests that the most wonderful adornment to a woman’s beauty is her husband’s love. FleetingJoys under the Sun The man and woman of Song of Songs are young. Their bodies are perfect: beautiful eyes, black hair, golden skin, and not a tooth is missing (Song 4:2). The young man leaps on the hills like a gazelle (Song 2:9). The young woman’s cheeks have the blush of youth (Song 6:7). They are new to love and to sexuality. It is a glorious, wonderful, and fleeting time—like the springtime that the Song itself describes (Song 2:10-13). Arise, my companion, my beautiful one, and come along! For see, the winter has passed, the rain is done, it is gone away. The flowers appear in the land,

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the time of singing and pruning arrives, the sound of the dove is heard in our land! The fig tree ripens its figs, and the vines from blossoms give their fragrance.

One cannot read the Song of Songs without awareness that it is indeed an ephemeral moment. “Rejoice, young man, in your youth, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your prime. Follow the ways of your heart and the visions of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you to judgment. Banish care from your heart and throw away the troubles of your body, for youth and vigor are fleeting” (Eccl 11:9-10). The Song puts flesh on Qoheleth’s injunction. Life is short, our days under the sun are few, and the hours in which we have the bloom of youth pass quickly. The young man and woman of the Song have seized their moment of glory under the sun. More than that, wherever there is the poetry of love, there is also the shadow of death. As in the following lines, it is linked to jealousy. This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy, This canker that eats up Love’s tender spring, This carry-tale, dissentious Jealousy, That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring, Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear That if I love thee, I thy death should fear. (Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis, 11. 655-60)

In the Song, love and death are equal in power: “For love is strong, like death. /Jealousy is severe, like the grave” (Song 8:6). It is jolting and sobering to encounter death at the end of a read through the idyllic love poetry of the Song. Although death and the grave in the Song are fundamentally illustrations of the possessive power of love, they are also reminders that whenever lovers vow eternal fealty to one another, they do so knowing that someday one will bury the other. But this is all the more reason to make the most of this brief but glorious spring: “We will rejoice and celebrate! / We will commemorate your caresses rather than wine!” (Song 1:4). A Sense of Yearning The Song of Songs, as argued above, is not an allegory of Christ and the church or of God and Israel. The love relationship between man and woman, however, expresses fundamental needs of the human soul or, to put it another way, is a type for the transformation and redemption of the soul. This is not a new insight. Writers and poets have long sensed this and have tried to describe the experience of how romantic love draws a person out of insular unhappiness and into a transformative experience. This transformation opens the inner self to an intimacy that recreates the inner person without destroying his or her identity. The man (or woman) in love typically declares that for the first time he can give without fear of hurt and betrayal. The woman (or man) in love says that for the first time she knows what the words happiness, trust, and fulfillment mean. This is of course an ideal portrait, and in a world where people are often selfish, foolish, and evil, the ideal is often not

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achieved. As a force for great happiness, romantic love is easily perverted into a force for domination, manipulation, and betrayal, making it also a great source of unhappiness, violence, and despair. Nevertheless, there are those whose love approximates the ideal, and the ideal is the subject matter of Song of Songs, so our concern here is with the ideal and not with the perversions and failures. A major theme in the apologetic of C. S. Lewis is that our desires, inclinations, and emotions indicate who and what we are. In Weight of Glory he argued, A man’s physical hunger does not prove that the man will get any bread; he may die of starvation in a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man’s hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will. A man may love a woman and not win her; but it would be very odd if the phenomenon called falling in love occurred in a sexless world (6).

Lewis had already developed this concept years earlier. It is expressed in a different form, for example, in his preface to The Pilgrim’s Regress (10). This idea is related to the notion of the experience of Sehnsucht, or yearning, as a momentary realization of something fundamental about ourselves, the world, and God. Lewis typically used the word joy, and it was a major theme in his personal experience of conversion, as described in Surprised byJoy. The concept was woven through all of Lewis’s fiction (see Hein, Christian Mythmakers, 201-45). Lewis perhaps best expressed it in these words from Weight of Glory (12-13): And this brings me to the other sense of glory—glory as brightness, splendour, luminosity. We are to shine as the sun, we are to be given the Morning Star. I think I begin to see what it means. In one way, of course, God has given us the Morning Star already: you can go and enjoy the gift on many fine mornings if you want to get up early enough. What more, you may ask, do we want? Ah, but we want so much more— something the books on aesthetics take little notice of. But the poets and the mythologies know all about it. We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.

Sehnsucht may come during the reading of a line of a poem, or in a sudden glimpse of a sunset, or in the moment a man and a woman discover that they love each other. At that moment, we understand that there is something outside of us that answers the unspoken and perhaps unrecognized needs of the heart. We long for the freedom to open ourselves to the Good in the certainty that it will change us without swallowing us. The transcendental moment of Sehnsucht tells us that redemption and transformation are really necessary and really possible, and that life without them is empty. We cannot seize, create, or repeat the moment of Sehnsucht, for the moment is not the thing itself but the testimony to the reality in ourselves that seeks the reality outside of ourselves. Sehnsucht is not thus merely an analogy for the experience of knowing God; it is a moment of grace. To attempt to repeat or create the moment is to make an idol of the experience, but the actual event is a genuine apprehension of our basic need and of how that need is met.

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Related to this is the notion Lewis derived from Charles Williams that although the creature can stand in the eye of its beholder as a rival to God (that is, as an idol), it can also serve as a bridge to God as a small token of the goodness of God. Because the creature bears the imprint of the creator, it is the type or image that affirms and points to the creator. The creature thus has the power to awaken Sehnsucht and provoke a yearning for God. At the same time, the creature remains true to itself. It has not become invisible, in contrast to the allegorical interpretations of the Song where the creature (that is, the human couple and their love) is invisible and has actually ceased to be (cf. D. F. Kinlaw, Wesleyan TheologicalJournal 16 [1981] 85-92). Prospective for a T heology : T he T ransformation of the Soul

We have come back to where we began: according to Song of Songs, love and sex are good. For all the beauty and pathos the Song brings to that blunt statement, it falls short of a profound theology. This commentary will suggest that, in fact, that is not all there is. The Song portrays an experience of transformation of great theological significance. A claim to find such a theology in the Song would have to fulfill certain requirements. 1. It needs to come from within the Song itself. This is not to say that one cannot look for hermeneutical keys to bring to the interpretation of the text. However, the message itself should arise from within the Song. To say that the Song celebrates the love Christ has for the church is to build a theology out of Ephesians, not Song of Songs. 2. The theology of the Song of Songs must be exegetically fruitful and allow one to interpret its specific texts in an honest way, without taking refuge in a quasi-allegorical catena of biblical texts. 3. Eroticism as such cannot be called the theology of the Song. While sexuality is a dominant feature of the Song, if the Song’s message is to be called a theology, the essential yearning it describes should transcend sexuality and not lead back to sexuality itself. There is an analogy between yearning for God and yearning for another person, but having sex is not a spiritual act, and desire for sex is not a desire for God. 4. An interpretation of the Song should lead to the true allegory of love. This is not the allegorizing of texts but an appreciation of how the love and desire of the Song of Songs are aspects of the fundamental longings of the human heart. I believe such a theological interpretation of the Song can be found in a theology of transformation. I will suggest that Song of Songs gains perspective when seen as a heroic quest and transformation in the sense that J. Campbell (Hero with a Thousand Faces) and C. Lévi-Strauss (Structural Anthropology) have taught. A Model for Transformation F. LeRon Shults (Princeton Theological Review 7.3 [2000] 17-26), building on the cultural anthropology of Claude Lévi-Strauss and its application to theology in the work of James Loder (Transforming Moment), argues that beneath all transformational myth is a common structure that might be described as the grammar of transformation. Lévi-Strauss (Structural Anthropology, 206-31), on the basis of an analysis of the structure of myth, determined that there was an analogy be­

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tween myth and linguistics. Specifically, structural linguistics can distinguish langue from parole. The former, langue, is the unchanging deep structure of human linguistics. The latter, parole, is the grammar and vocabulary of a given language with its specific, arbitrary symbols. Lévi-Strauss contended that myth uses the structure of langue and the specificity of parole to produce a new referent of timeless truth. One can understand myth on one level as a specific, diachronic (or, sequential) story. But on another level one can see myth as a declaration of a synchronic (or, timeless) representation of the structure of human existence. He found that a single myth tends to have parallel episodes because the parallels helped to bring out the deep structure of the story. Lévi-Strauss found that myth tends to relate two pairs of concepts as “A is to B as C is to D.” He expressed the structure of myth in a simple formula (LéviStrauss, Structural Anthropology, 228) : There are two “characters” in this structure: the protagonist of the story and the redeemer, the person (or event or thing) that transforms the protagonist. There are also two initial functions or spheres of existence. The formula, as developed further by a number of scholars, describes the structure of transformation in which the protagonist of the story begins in one sphere of existence but longs to be in another sphere of existence. We may call these two, respectively, the “unhappy situation” and the “desired situation.” The protagonist, however, is incapable of achieving this change of sphere of existence. The protagonist needs the redeemer. In order to fill the redeeming or transforming function, it is necessary that the redeemer be simultaneously in both spheres of existence—in both the unhappy situation and the desired situation. The redeemer cannot relate to the protagonist if the redeemer is not also in the unhappy situation. On the other hand, the redeemer cannot help the protagonist if the redeemer is not in the desired situation. The redeemer is an agent who functions simultaneously in both spheres of existence and relates to the protagonist on each side of the equation. There are three movements that take place in the grammar of transformation as described in this model. First, there is a mediation of opposites, whereby the redeemer simultaneously exists in both spheres of existence. This enables the redeemer to mediate for the protagonist, who longs to move from the unhappy situation to the desired situation or sphere of existence yet also desires to do so without loss of identity or self. Second, a double negation occurs. This double negation involves, first, the fact that the protagonist is in a negative situation and must accept the fact that he/she is in such a condition. Specifically, the protagonist must acknowledge his/her inability to move from the first sphere of existence (unhappy situation) to the second sphere of existence (desired situation). This negation is itself negated when the protagonist allows the redeemer to mediate transformation. When the protagonist submits to the mediation of the redeemer, the protagonist is able to attain his/her desire, but it is only attained by negation, the protagonist’s abandonment of attempts to attain the desired situation by acting as agent. Third is the emergence of dialectical identity, in which the protagonist goes through a permutation from the unhappy situation to the desired situation. In the first, the protagonist is an agent in that sphere of existence (the unhappy situation). As an agent, the protagonist is free but trapped (e.g., suffers from lack of

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intimacy, joy, life, or significance). Then the protagonist moves from being agent to being a sphere of existence. That is, after the redemption, the protagonist is no longer agent but is now a sphere of existence in which the real agent of existence, that which gives identity, is the desired condition. The permutation or inversion of the protagonist is this: he/she no longer claims to be the agent of his/her existence but finds “real existence” under the agency of that which was sought as mediated by the redeemer. The protagonist does not become a controlling agent in the desired situation; rather, the protagonist becomes the domain of the desired reality. This reality can be called “real existence.” By “real existence,” one means significance, love, intimacy, value, or life. The protagonist sought “real existence” but was unable to attain it while continuing to act as agent, governing and directing his/her existence. The protagonist feared, however, that he/she would be destroyed, swallowed up, or lose identity if he/she simply surrendered to the desired reality and allowed it to make him /her its domain. But the redeemer, functioning at the same time in both spheres of existence, is able to bring the protagonist through the process of transformation. One might say that the redeemer gives the protagonist the means and the courage to undergo this transformation. And the protagonist is not swallowed up at all. In the redeemed condition, he/she is not consumed. Loss of status as “agent” does not entail loss of identity; it means a new identity that is also a dialectical identity. Through a relationship with the redeemer, who exists in both spheres of existence, the protagonist finds both freedom and access to the desired sphere of existence. But the protagonist does not become the exact counterpart to the redeemer, who operates in both spheres. The protagonist accepts the negation of his/her role as controlling agent and becomes the domain in which the desired condition operates. Pierre and Elli Maranda (StructuralModels) modify Lévi-Strauss and introduce varieties of structure to folklore and transformational models; nevertheless, they still operate with this basic framework. At this point, several objections to the entire project here described need to be dealt with. Structuralism has been criticized for approaching the analysis of texts and stories with a misleading, pseudo-mathematical precision. One may question whether this model really dominates mythology. Or a reader with a high regard for the canonical authority of the Hebrew Scriptures may wonder whether a structure derived from myth can be rightly applied to the Song of Songs, and whether such an application means that we regard the Song as myth. Finally, even if some validity is granted to the above model, one may ask whether and how it can be convincingly applied to the Song. Regarding the first question, whether the m ethod of structuralism is pseudomathematical, I think that to some degree it is. While structuralist formulas may be convenient shorthand, it is a peculiar method for doing literary interpretation, and it can be confusing. More than that, the scientific notation certainly does not prove anything. One cannot say that this approach to myth is correct because it has been demonstrated in a formula that resembles a scientific proof. Nevertheless, although structuralism may be overambitious about its claims of scientific objectivity and may use some questionable notations, this does not mean that all of its interpretive insights are invalid. The suggestion that a protagonist goes through a transformation in the midst of a quest to achieve a new sphere of existence is valid in many cases. Also, as Shults notes, “Deconstructivist and

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post-structuralist scholars would criticize Lévi-Strauss along with anyone who claims to find similarities or common structures among human beings . . . , but it is important to note that their criticisms at this philosophical level are subject to the problems of self-referential incoherence one finds in all radical relativist and nihilist positions” (Princeton Theological Review 7.3 [2000] 25 n. 6) .The Lévi-Strauss model works well with the Song of Songs, as is argued below. In answer to the second question, one can say that although this model is not necessarily present in all myths, it or elements of it are surely present in some myths, stories, and songs. Even some modern mythology and fiction to a degree follows this model. The Use of Myth in Relation to Song of Songs Does the application of this model to the Song of Songs mean that it is to be regarded as myth? I would not describe the Song as myth for several reasons. The term myth often connotes a pagan worldview characterized preeminently by a pantheistic and animistic view of nature. This is not present at all in the Song. The Song shares the outlook of the Hebrew Scriptures—and especially the outlook of Wisdom—that this world is created by God but is separate from him. The world is not God’s body, and there is no magic. In the Song, sex has no sacral significance and there is no celebration of a fertility cult. Although the world of the Song is idealized, there is nothing fantastic here. There are no gods, no magical creatures, and no elements that do not have correspondents in the real world. Metaphors are simply metaphors; the woman is not really a flower, and she mates with a man and not with a bull or swan or gazelle. The term myth is unhelpful for many because in the Bible it can simply connote a story that is false and worthless, as in Paul’s disdain for those who “turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths” (2 Tim 4:4 RSV). As far as genre is concerned, Song of Songs is lyric poetry and not epic mythology. At the same time, the fact that a structure is discovered behind many myths does not mean that the structure itself is false or perverse, nor does it mean that the structure only exists in myth. Even pagan myths could symbolically present many profound truths about the human situation. And the Song is rich in symbolism. C. S. Lewis provides a description of myth that is illuminating and can help to further refine the significance present in the Song. In An Experiment in Criticism (43-44), Lewis gives six characteristics of myth as a vehicle of timeless truth. 1. Myth is in a sense extraliterary. That is, the story itself, and not the artful telling of the story, is what constitutes myth. The literary pleasure of reading myth is altogether separate from the apprehension of its mythic significance. Lewis illustrates by showing how even a simple, abbreviated telling of the story of Orpheus carries all its mythic power (Experiment in Criticism, 40-41). 2. The pleasure and power of myth do not depend on the normal narrative techniques of suspense and surprise. In fact, the narrative element itself is often minimal. 3. Human sympathy with the characters is minimal. “We feel indeed that the pattern of their movements has a profound relevance to our own life, but we do not imaginatively transport ourselves into theirs” (Experiment in Criticism, 44).

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4. Myth is fantastic, dealing with impossible and preternatural things. 5. Myth may be sad or joyful, but it is always grave. It is never comic. 6. Myth is also awe-inspiring. “We feel it to be numinous. It is as if something of great moment had been communicated to us” (Experiment in Criticism, 44). How does this list stack up against Song of Songs? In contrast to myth, the pleasure of the Song is clearly not extraliterary. As high lyric poetry, its literary creativity and its manipulation of language are of supreme importance. Take away the art of the Song and there is nothing left. Using Roman Jakobson’s terms (“Linguistics and Poetics,” 18-51), in the Song the poetic function dominates the cognitive function. As in Lewis’s use of the term myth, the Song’s power does not depend on suspense and narrative technique. The Song is not narrative. There is no real sympathy with the characters of the Song. They are idealized and remain outside of the reader. We are observers and listeners. The Song does not deal with magic or impossible things. On the other hand, the language of the Song does transcend normal human experience. The woman, whose head is like a mountain, who dwells with lions in the high lairs of Lebanon, whose breasts are two deer, or who is a living garden or date-palm tree, or who is as glorious as the sun, moon, and stars, is no normal woman. The Song is between two worlds. Its characters are mythic in their literary proportions, and yet they do not inhabit a world of magic, and they are not gods. They are ordinary and yet much larger than ordinary. The Song is grave and never comic. It is often joyful, but its celebrations are serious celebrations and never frivolous. The Song is awe-inspiring. Lewis’s words, “We feel it to be numinous. It is as if something of great moment had been communicated to us” (Experiment in Criticism, 44), could have been written as a description of the Song. Although Song of Songs is not fully myth or epic, it contains elements that suggest that the interpretive tools one brings to epic or myth may also shed light on the Song. Can the structure described by Lévi-Strauss be meaningfully applied to the Song? One may try it and see what happens. The reader can decide whether the effort is successful or not, but I think it can be done. The application of this structural analysis to the Song of Songs will both clarify the meaning of the structural analysis and show how the structural analysis functions in Christian theology. One caveat is necessary, however. Song of Songs is lyric poetry and not epic poetry, and one should not expect numerous or obvious parallels to heroic tales, or force parallels where they do not exist. But if analogies from other literature help to understand the Song more fully, so much the better. Song of Songs as a Heroic Quest and Transformation J. Campbell, in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, studied common elements in stories of the hero and his quest. One does not need to follow Campbell’s understanding of this model fully, nor need one assume that the Song fulfills every aspect of this model, in order to gain some insights from the concept of the heroic quest. The protagonist of Song of Songs is the woman. This is of itself unusual. The hero of the classical heroic quest is a man, whether Gilgamesh, Jason, Aeneas, or Luke Skywalker. The quest is often a means of initiation. It usually involves an

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initial hesitation if not an outright refusal to act on the hero’s part, a departure from familiar surroundings, and a conflict with a monster or super villain. The hero is often aided in the quest by some wise old man, god, or wizard, and the hero frequently has a group of companions. The woman of the Song, this commentary suggests, struggles at Song 2:5-7 and 3:1-5 with hesitation and anxiety over proceeding with the marriage and loss of virginity. She does not do battle with the forces of evil, but she does have an encounter with the violence of the “guards” at 5:2-8 in the course of her “quest.” She has no wise sage to guide her, but she does repeatedly refer to her mother and her mother’s house. She specifically says that her mother “used to teach me” (Song 8:2). The woman does have a group of companions in the girls of Jerusalem. Beyond those similarities, the woman’s “quest” is exceedingly domestic. She is, after all, only getting married. There are some female heroic figures in myth and legend. The most obvious is the goddess Isis (or Anat, or Inanna), who rescues her fallen consort Osiris (or Baal, or Dumuzi). There are also human heroic females, such as Electra. But the experience of the woman of the Song is far removed from these figures, and trying to find parallels in these myths to the Song spreads more confusion than light. The woman of Song of Songs is decidedly not a warrior. Still, her experience and her person are made to be larger than life. She is the one whose body is described in sometimes titanic terms, whose radiance is like that of the sun, and who dwells in the mountains. The point is not that she is a goddess (as in the cultic interpretation). Rather, she is made into an archetype—she is given universal significance—in order to define the meaning of the ordinary feminine experience of marrying, having sexual relations with a man, and ending her virginity. The Song, furthermore, seeks to mediate two pairs of opposites, where virginity is to nonvirginity as autonomy is to love. Her initial condition or “unhappy situation,” as described in this commentary, is that of virgin. Her desired situation, therefore, is “nonvirgin.” Virginity in the Song is a condition of isolation and imprisonment. She has no intimate relations with a man and thus is sexually autonomous; she is the locked garden and the sealed well. She is like a walled city with guards on the walls or like a goddess high in a mountain lair, surrounded by wild beasts. Her autonomy is that no man has access to her body. Ironically, however, her autonomy is not freedom but the antithesis of freedom. In the condition of virgin, her only relationship with men is with her brothers, who regard her as an outsider, or even as a servant fit only to work in the vineyards. Working as a slave, she has no opportunity to cultivate her own “vineyard” (Song 1:6). Although sexually autonomous, she has no liberty to nurture her life, joy, or significance, nor can she give and receive love. Virginity is both a protection and a prison. She longs to be free of it but is terrified to leave her domain. The pain of the loss of virginity is both physical and emotional, She fears that the loss of virginity will mean her death (that is, the destruction of her identity as well as the physical trauma). She cannot resolve this dilemma by her own agency, that is, through promiscuity. Doing this, she would lose the virginity without gaining the intimacy, joy, or significance she seeks. In terms of the Lévi-Strauss formula, she cannot force her way into the desired situation “nonvirgin” and become an agent controlling

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that sphere of existence. Were she to try that, she would continue to be autonomous and yet not have freedom (ironically, true freedom in sexuality only exists when one man has exclusive claim to her sexual pleasures and she has exclusive claim to his desire, as in her refrain, “I belong to my beloved and his desire is for me,” Song 7:11 [ET 7:10]). In promiscuity, freedom and intimacy would be further from her than ever before. She would emotionally still be behind the walls of virginity while physically not a virgin. She would be in effect not free but a promiscuous virgin, with virgin here meaning, “unloved by a man.” This is the prostitute’s dilemma, that she is sexually active but alone and without love. Thus, the woman of the Song repeatedly tells the girls of Jerusalem not to awaken or arouse sexual desire until the time is right (Song 2:7; 3:5; 8:4). Her message is that virginity is the key to attaining sexual freedom—a freedom understood not simply as the ability to have sex but as the attainment of joy and intimacy in the sexual relationship. The man of the Song is the mediator or redeemer figure. In terms of the formula, he is at the same time in the unhappy situation and the desired situation: he is both a virgin (sexually inexperienced) and a nonvirgin (a male). The man is in the sphere of existence of being a nonvirgin in that, being a man, he does not have the physical attribute of virginity, the hymen. That is, he can engage in sexual intercourse without the physical trauma of the tearing of the hymen. Perhaps even more significant than the physical matter of virginity is the fact that society does not enclose him within the walls of virginity. This does not mean that Israelite culture necessarily endorsed a double standard regarding the man’s freedom to be promiscuous; the book of Proverbs emphatically rejects that option for the man. Nevertheless, the male is not secluded from the world within the title of “virgin.” Thus, he at the same time occupies both spheres of existence. One may immediately ask on what basis can one assert that the man has no prior sexual experience since he never explicitly declares that he has never had sex before (a very odd thing to do in a love song). There are three reasons for drawing this conclusion. The Song stands in the tradition of biblical Wisdom literature. Its title, “the Song of Songs of Solomon,” already establishes this link, and its position in the Hebrew canon in the midst of Job, Proverbs, Ruth, and Ecclesiastes further reinforces this classification (an argument can be made for seeing Ruth as woman’s Wisdom literature). Wisdom literature is explicit and emphatic in its demand that the young man avoid promiscuity in the person of the prostitute and that he direct all his affection and sexual energy to the “wife of his youth” (e.g., Prov 5 and 7). The archetype for the male lover in Song of Songs can hardly be someone who has dallied with the prostitutes, like the young man of the Nakhtsobek Songs. The very nature of the poem, a celebration of young love, speaks against seeing the man as anything other than new to love. The essence of this poem is the excitement and newness of the sexual experience. Young lovers and first love are what the poem is all about. The man expresses a sense of awe in his stance toward the woman. He is overwhelmed in her presence and feels himself incapable of approaching her. She is a tower, and he is in awe of her. His attitude here is the attitude of the unaffected male—not jaded, but innocent and amazed in the presence of feminine beauty. His words are not the words of a man acquainted with casual sex, incapable of feeling the newness and wonder of the sexual relationship.

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As a redeemer, the man and the love he gives mediate the transition of the woman from isolated virgin to the status of being free, loving, loved, and at peace. The woman begins the Song as an outsider. She has a peasant’s dark skin and even within her own family she does peasant’s work. She has no freedom to pursue her own interests and in that sense is not her own person (Song 1:5-6). She desires to be with her lover but is fearful of men (1:7). Nevertheless, the love between herself and her lover is strong—they adore one another (1:9-2:7). Her lover comes to her and calls her away to love (2:8-17). It is his passion for her that allows her to confront the power of sex and the loss of her virginity, even though the prospect makes her swoon (2:5). With the prospect of the wedding night looming before her, she has a night of terror. She seeks her lover, the one who will provide intimacy and freedom, but she finds the guardians of the walls— her virginity. Suddenly, the groom appears, and she makes a determined decision to take him to “her mother’s house,” that is, to end her virginity with him (3:15). A marriage ceremony follows (3:6-11). He then woos her with a tender seduction (4:1-15). His passion for her gives her the strength to open up the “locked garden” (4:12) and let her lover into his feast (4:16-5:1). This does not mean that the loss of virginity is without trauma; as she goes through the experience, she suffers pain and feels alone (Song 5:2-8). Mere loss of virginity is not transformation; as with the promiscuous woman, she could yet become physically loosed from virginity but without intimacy, freedom, and joy. Her transformation is completed in two stages. She reflects on how wonderful her lover is (that is, on how much she loves him) in 5:9-16, and he comes to her again and makes it clear that his desire and admiration of her is unabated (6:1-9). The woman’s body has become the domain of love. In terms of the structural formula, the protagonist woman has become the sphere of existence of the desired reality, love. As all can see, she is the garden, the embodiment of love, pleasure, and life (6:9-13). The lover’s desire is for her. Love, intimacy, and sexual pleasure have their true place in her person (7:1-10). She has not simply lost her virginity; she has taken her man into herself. This does not mean that she is simply passive, much less that she has lost her personality. To the contrary, she has true sexual freedom. She delights in her lover’s body (5:1016). She is so happy in her role as sexual woman that her only regret is that she cannot be more public about it (8:1-4). She understands the meaning of love, and she has become the true interpreter and guide to love (8:6-7). Perhaps the apotheosis of the woman occurs at Song 8:10: “I was a wall, and my breasts were like towers; / then I was in his eyes as one who finds peace.” Previously she was like a walled city with guards all about and the gates closed. She was prepared for war, ready to defend her virginity. In his eyes, however, peace came. He did not storm the walls and conquer her. Peace between her and the male sex was found “in his eyes,” that is, in his love for her. The guards and walls are no longer needed. She attained in intimacy a true end to her virginity. She now has freedom; she can tend her own vineyard at last (8:11-12). Her freedom came not by promiscuity (she did not awaken love before it was ready) or by rejection of the male (perpetual virginity) but by the transformation that made her the domain of love.

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T heological Reflection

The distinctively female experience of loss of virginity as described in the Song of Songs explores in an ideal form a crucial aspect of the human experience and of the human soul (it is not uniquely the feminine experience of the feminine soul). In contrast to the church fathers, for whom virginity was the closest thing in this world to holiness, in the Song of Songs virginity represents isolation and imprisonment. The virgin is the locked-up garden and the walled city. As an emblem of seclusion, the virginity of the woman of the Song speaks to the isolated souls of both men and women. We humans, male and female, exist behind emotional barriers as lonely, autonomous souls longing for freedom and love. Our yearning or Sehnsucht is for release from isolation, rejection, and death. We are autonomous but not free. We nevertheless fear intimacy and its theological counterpart, holiness. If it breaks through to us, it may destroy us. If we fall into a sea of holiness, we may drown. We have eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, have recognized our nakedness, and have clothed ourselves. We do not want to be found naked, and we know that if intimacy breaks through our barriers, our shame will be made visible. We cannot bear to let go of the false freedom of being an autonomous agent. Put in more abstract terms, we are aware of our need to transcend our isolation, corruption, and finitude, yet we fear the eternal, infinite, and pure. We are in need of transformation, and the Song celebrates that process of transformation: the virgin marries and becomes the joyfu l domain of love. The Song tells us that the human need for intimacy is universal and that the condition is not hopeless. Shults (Princeton Theological Review 7.3 [2000] 17-26) argues that the LéviStrauss structural analysis of transformation also describes the Christian gospel. He argues that the grammar of permutation functions within the Christian experience of becoming “one spirit” with the Lord (1 Cor 6:17). Comparing the Song to the Christian gospel, we can see that both describe the same process of human transformation. Describing the Christian gospel in terms of the structure of transformation, we can see where the gospel and the Song of Songs meet. The Eastern church perceives the fundamental human dilemma to be mortality. Christ delivers us through his incarnation, death, and resurrection and the subsequent pouring out of the Spirit. The soteriology of the Eastern church is sometimes described as a kind of divination of humanity. It is not that we literally become gods but that by the deity of Christ and by his resurrection we partake of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). Understood in this way, humanity (or the individual person) can be described as the protagonist in the unhappy situation. That is, our sphere of existence is bounded by death. We are mortal, finite, and perishing. We long to escape this dilemma and enter the desired situation: God’s sphere of existence, that is, immortality. Christ, the God-man, is simultaneously mortal and immortal, finite and infinite, and perishing and imperishable. He is the redeemer in the structure of our existence. He is the mediator. As God he shows us our negation, our mortality, but as man he is united to us. In him, the human race undergoes the process of transformation. In his death he negates our negation, and in his resurrection he releases the human race from the bondage of death. In him we have a new

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identity, a dialectical identity grounded not in our becoming gods but in our becoming domains in which the divine life now exists. Our eternal life is not a matter of our becoming agents that have power over life and death. It is a matter of the divine spirit, or the power of the resurrection, living in us. We have surrendered all attempts to become divine through our own agency or to control the power of life and death. Instead, “the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for m e” (Gal 2:20 NASB). The Western church perceives humanity’s principal problem to be the guilt whereby we merit only divine wrath. Once again, humanity, the protagonist of this story, is in the unhappy situation but longs to be free of it. As before, the protagonist cannot enter the desired domain, righteousness, via his own agency. If he could by his "works” enter the domain of righteousness, then he would be an agent that controls righteousness and, in Paul’s words, have something to boast about (Rom 4:2). In fact, however, this is not possible. Christ enters our dilemma as the one who is without sin and yet is made sin for us (2 Cor 5:21). Once again, he is the redeemer who mediates the two opposites. As the one who is in the desired situation of being without sin, he confronts us in our negation (our guilt), but as the one who is in the unhappy situation, the one who bore our sin, he negates our negation. Our quest for righteousness ends not with our attaining it but with our inversion or permutation. We are not agents who attain righteousness or masters over righteousness; we are the dwelling in which righteousness lives (Rom 6:16-20). The body is now dead because of sin, but the spirit lives because of righteousness (Rom 8:10). In short, we become the sphere of existence where righteousness now rules as controlling agent. Christ himself is now our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor 1:30). We should not forget that there is an ongoing dynamic in the grammar of transformation. The woman in the Song becomes the domain of love, but the man continues to relate to her with awe for her beauty and purity, as though she were perpetually \irginal. As Christians, we continue to relate to Christ on both sides of the formula of transformation. On the one hand, we remain mortals who ever look to him as our hope of eternal life, and we remain sinners who continue to seek forgiveness. On the other hand, as transformed beings who are now the domain of the life and righteousness of God, we relate to Christ as the mortal who is the channel of our immortality and as the one in whom we are clothed in righteousness. Our redemption is not static but dynamic and forever bound to the person of our redeemer. This understanding of redemption allows us to come to a better grasp of the distinctive nature of Christian spirituality. We do not in gnostic fashion climb up the ladder of existence toward the region of pure being and away from the lower regions of matter. We do not seek absorption in the One or the annihilation of personality. In Christian spirituality, individuality and the body are not an illusion from which we seek release. Christian spirituality focuses on two realities. First, there can be no redemption without a redeemer. Second, Christian spirituality is not so much a matter of “being spiritual” as it is a matter of being the domain of the Spirit. This explains how we can speak of being “dead with Christ” and yet alive, or of being

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alive in the Spirit yet without the annihilation of personality. We have not ceased to be, but we are now the domain of the Spirit rather than agents that control life and righteousness. We do not speak of being absorbed into the Spirit; rather, the Spirit lives in us. We are free but not autonomous, because as the domain of the Spirit we experience intimacy, love, righteousness, and life. As the woman is united to her husband, so we who are united to the Lord are one Spirit with him. Christian spirituality is this: through the redeemer, we become the domain of the love of God. The point of what we are saying is this: the gospel and the Song of Songs both describe, on different levels of existence, the most basic need of the human soul. We should make clear that the connection between the Song of Songs and the Christian gospel is not merely a matter of analogy. The point is not that the woman’s experience of losing virginity is an allegory of Christ and the church or even that our need for God and redemption in Christ is analogous to our need for intimacy. Rather, our need for love and significance is a single thing that expresses itself on the different planes of our existence. As creatures who are flesh and blood, created by God to multiply, fill the earth, and build families, our need expresses itself as the desire for heterosexual love and sex. As beings created in the image of God, made to glorify God and honor him forever, it expresses itself as the yearning of the heart for spiritual redemption. But to make a fine point, this does not mean that Eros and the desire for God are one and the same. It means that Eros and the desire for God are both born of a desire for love and significance, but it also means that to function rightly each desire must be fulfilled in its own realm and not in the other. The woman’s experience in the Song of Songs brings out the deep structure of the human soul. The Sehnsucht that C. S. Lewis describes is not an allegory of our need for love and ultimately for God; it is an expression of it. A passing glimpse of glory one may catch when looking at the heavens, or when listening to music, or when reading the words of an epic poem is a breaking out of this deep yearning for that which is good, beautiful, and loving. When people experience love, joy, freedom, or intimacy on any level, they are experiencing something that redeems human nature. Knowing God is therefore the ultimate experience of redemption; every other redemptive experience is real but limited, like a foreshadow. Implications of the T heology of Song of Songs

The theology of Song of Songs as described above has significant ramifications. What follows is not strictly the theology of the Song but implications of that theology for the body and society as we also draw on other areas of biblical teaching. This interpretation of the Song indicates that the solution to the problem of integrating men and women together into the spiritual life of the church is quite different from what many early Christians imagined. To be sure, the Augustinian solution, with its more all-encompassing understanding of the bondage of the will, was better than that of Tatian, Origen, or Jerome, but even Augustine’s model is fundamentally marred. A two-tiered spirituality—the holy celibate over against the married Christian—is established, and even the married believers

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are constantly urged to move toward the ideal of continence. If my reading of the Song is correct, Holy Scripture does something that most of the Fathers of the church would have considered inconceivable and some would have considered horrible: it celebrates a woman 5 loss of virginity. This is a far more significant issue, from the standpoint of the history of Christian theology, than are the Song’s references to breasts and kisses and thighs. Focusing on erotic tidbits of the text, as some feminist readings and other modern commentaries do, is both adolescent and obtuse, missing the point of the Song entirely. Rather, the Song is shocking to the Christian because the ideal exalted in much of Christendom, virginity, is stood on its head in Song of Songs. In a word, celibacy is neither the norm nor the ideal, and it does not confer a spiritual advantage. This does not forbid celibacy or denigrate the wonderful examples of men and women who have the charis, “spiritual gift,” of celibacy. But it does imply that celibacy is not itself the path to chans. Rather, celibacy is a gift that allows some believers freedom from other responsibilities in order that they may give more of themselves to God’s work and to the church (1 Cor. 7:32-35). In a word, what celibacy gives is not more holiness but more time. It is difficult to judge the character of a person across the ages, but if his writings are any indication, it is doubtful that many of us would have found Saint Jerome to be a model of Christian charity. Certainly many Christians of his own time did not care for him. A bitter, conflicted celibate who shouts the spiritual virtues of continence but who has no charity is no more than a clanging cymbal. In the angry celibate, one is reminded of the Prioress’s Tale in The Canterbury Tales. The prioress speaks adoringly of a small boy who sang the praises of the Virgin Mary, but she portrays the Jewish community as a pack of vicious, unnatural animals, and she revels in the slaughter of the Jews. Surely the irony was not lost on Chaucer’s readers. Virginity confers no holiness on a hateful heart. The Jews, too, went through a period of sexual searching, as witnessed by the sexual continence demanded by the Qumran community. But as the rabbis reconstructed Judaism in the face of the calamity of the fall of Jerusalem, they chose not to elevate celibacy but to make marriage the normative pattern for Judaism. Doing this, they placed the family at the core of Jewish life. R. Aqiba is cited by virtually every commentator for his famous curse on those who trill the Song of Songs in a burlesque manner. What is less well known is that Aqiba is proverbial in Jewish lore for the love he had for his wife, Rachel (see S. Sviri, “Song of Songs,” 48). In elevating marriage and the family in their religious life, the Jewish leadership showed more wisdom than did the Christian. It is curious that they did this while allegorizing Song of Songs; this pattern would be repeated in many Protestant theologians, who, like Luther, also turned from celibacy as a spiritual ideal but continued to allegorize the Song. The theology of the Song of Songs leads to certain ramifications for the life of the church. First, acceptance of the beauty and significance of the sexual union of man and woman of necessity entails acceptance of the full meaning of the doctrine of creation. The world may be fallen, but it is still a creation of God. Procreation is, in the words of Gen 1, “good,” and the goodness specifically includes being fruitful and multiplying. Christians did finally reject the creation-despising doctrines of Gnosticism and Manichaeism, but they never

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could fully bring themselves to believe that the body and its appetites were not, in the final analysis, disgusting and incompatible with life in the Spirit. By accepting the doctrine of creation, Christians come to terms with what it means to be between the times. On the one hand, we are dead with Christ and living by the power of the Spirit, in which we eagerly await the resurrection of the body. We groan inwardly, hoping to escape the defilements of this world and weakness of mortality. Our citizenship is in heaven, where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. At the same time we are mortals, living under the sun, to whom God has given a few short days to enjoy the good things of creation before the silver cord snaps and the golden bowl breaks. The blessings of the hearth and of the field, the blessings of the womb and of the garden, and the blessings of parents, children, family, and friends are ours for but a brief time. No matter how spiritual we are, we still need to eat and to have a place to call home, and most of us need a companion to sleep beside us. No amount of prayer and fasting will change the fact that we are mortal and members of the first creation; we have not transcended the basic facts of our humanity. We are not of this world, but we are creatures who live in this world. Learning how to relate rightly to both domains is a difficult challenge, but the wise will hold on to the one and not let go of the other. The theology of creation and of the Song thus has bearing on sanctification. Relating to both the heavenly and the earthly realms does not mean that we serve both God and mammon. But it is possible to accept the fact that we are humans, with all that this entails, without being self-indulgent. One is not free either to mentally rape a pretty girl or to demonize her, to say nothing of indulging in promiscuity or pornography. One should seek to be not a spiritual super being but one who finds grace in the brokenness of repentance. One should enjoy the good things God has given and not follow the teachings of those who forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. But victory over lust is often not attained solely by prayer and fasting or even solely by seeking to provoke a passion for God. When we speak of the quest for purity and the war with the lusts of the flesh, we are speaking of something that is not exclusively but is especially a man’s problem. It was this single problem that drove the church to distraction as monks, priests, and theologians heroically sought out an elusive inner peace. If the believing man knows the Song of Songs, deliverance comes also through passion for his wife. Sexual passion is a fire that many waters cannot quench, but if this passion exists in the context of a love that is tender and yet as strong as death, a passion whereby he sets her as a seal upon his heart and upon his arm, then in God’s sight it is ‫״‬good.” Marriage as described in the Song protects the heart, not simply by giving theflesh an outlet for its biological appetite but by giving the heart a passion for the beloved. Perfect love casts out fear, and there is also a right passion that displaces lust. Lust is, after all, the craving hunger of an empty heart. For those with the true chans of celibacy, the love of God alone will still that hunger, but most do not have this gift. The promise of holiness through celibacy is a deceit for all who do not have it; such men are fighting an impossible battle against their very selves. For them, this hunger of the heart and body should be filled in a normal and righteous way, in a passionate love for one’s spouse. In

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this case, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the (Prov 18:22 RSV). Both the knowledge of God and the good wife are, each in its own way, a pearl of great price. It is something for which a man gives up everything else, including lust. He will find a peace that many continent church fathers, sadly, never knew. This is not a triumphalist gospel, promising to overcome the basic bondage of the will. The man who loves God and his wife is still subject to strange per versities that Augustine recognized in the human heart. What is suggested here is assuredly not a new variety of the spiritual superman; to the contrary, it works from the assumption that such an ideal is impossible for us. But if some form of peace within oneself is not possible, if there is no life of rejoicing in the heart, in the family, and in God, then the gospel is vain. Again, the passionate love described in Song of Songs does not seek to displace the passion for God. God does not draw us through Eros. Sexuality, in the Song, is not an act of worship. It has no sacral meaning and plays no role in finding God. It is an activity that belongs solely to this world, since in the kingdom of heaven people neither marry nor are given in marriage (Matt 22:30). God is not named in the Song, and no prayers are voiced in the Song. A keen appreciation for the Song and the doctrine of creation does not confuse heavenly and earthly realms, and it does not seek to fill the heart’s need for God with sexuality or even with a passionate love for another person. There is, however, a separation of the sacred and the profane that is not helpful. The exaltation of the married state in the Song implies that the redemption of the family, and indeed the locus of the church in the family, is something that we have missed. There are many fine synagogues in the world, but because Judaism made the Jewish family the locus of Jewish life, the Hebrew heritage and faith permeated secular life and did not concentrate on magnificent, cathedrallike structures. The splendor of the Passover Seder in the home is no less great than the splendor of reading Torah in the synagogue. Christians, by contrast, sought to make their churches into little theaters of heaven and abandoned entirely the house churches of the early centuries. Christianity borrowed much of its ecclesiastical liturgy from Judaism but neglected entirely to appropriate the liturgy of the home. As a result, it is sadly impoverished in this area. The root problem is that we have not believed that the home, the domain of this world and perpetuated by sexual reproduction, can be the domain of the Spirit. As the theology of the Song addresses the man’s urgent sexual needs, it also meets the woman’s need for intimacy and respect. In the ancient world, women were often despised as weak, defective humans. This tendency is sometimes exaggerated in modern scholarship, but it was nevertheless real. In the Song, as described above, the woman is the heroic protagonist. But her heroism is not that of Anat, the warrior-goddess who plays the role of a man. Rather, her heroism is in the quintessentially feminine act of her willingness to take her man into herself. The message here is simple: the trials of everywoman—deflowering, pregnancy, childbirth—are not to be despised. They are acts of courage no less than the man’s willingness to stand in battle is an act of courage. Nevertheless, Paul says, she shall be saved through childbirth (1 Tim 2:15). Rightly appreciated in the manner of the Song, the woman is the domain of love in the believing household. The husband leaves father and mother and LORD”

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121

clings to his wife. The reality of the woman as domain of love is made a vivid reality by the children that grow within her. She is the glory of the family’s love: beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, and awesome as the panoply of heaven. Her husband and her children will rise up, and they will call her blessed.

Superscript (1:1) Bibliography Cotterell, P. “The Greatest Song: Some Linguistic Considerations.” B T 47 (1996) 101-8. Translation

1 The Song of Songs.a Of Solomon. Notes l.a. MT includes ‫אשר‬, “which.”

F orm /Structure/Setting

This is a superscript, similar to the many psalm superscripts that appear in the Psalter (e.g., in Hebrew versification, Pss 3:1; 4:1; 5:1; 6:1; 7:1) and elsewhere (e.g., Hab 3:1; Exod 15:1; Deut 31:30). In contrast to many of the psalm superscripts, however, the Song of Songs lacks both musical directions and reference to any historical incident. Musical directions include notations such as “for the choir director,” “on stringed instruments,” and “(to the tune of) ‘the morning doe’” (see the superscripts to Pss 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 31, and others). One may best explain the lack of musical directions with the observation that the Song is a lengthy, complex libretto that no doubt required a variety of tunes, instruments, and musical styles. No single annotation would suffice to describe the variety of musical directions required to perform the entire Song of Songs. The lack of a notation about any historical incident is itself significant, especially with respect to the contention that the Song represents an account of an episode from the life of Solomon (e.g., that this is the story of his failed attempt to win the love of the Shulammite away from the “shepherd lover”). Quite a few of the psalm superscripts refer to historical episodes or persons, even where the psalm itself does not explicitly describe such details. Examples include the superscripts to Pss 3, 7,18, 34,51, 52, and 56. The superscript to Ps 56, for example, states that the psalm comes from the time when the Philistines seized David in Gath. It would appear that the framers of the canon included historical notations in the superscripts if they felt they had reliable information regarding their historical provenance. One might suggest, therefore, that they had no information linking the Song to any actual episode or simply did not consider the Song to be a presentation of historical events. This is not, of itself, a decisive argument for abandoning the historical/dramatic interpretation of the Song, but at the least it tells us that one does not find evidence for such an interpretation where one might expect it to be found.

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Comment

1 The phrase ‫ שיר השירים‬functions as a superlative and could legitimately be translated, "The finest of the songs that belong to Solomon.” At the same time, it can be read more literally as “the song of songs,” a single musical production that is a collection of smaller songs, analogous to the oratorio tradition in Western music (see discussion of the structure of the Song in the Introduction). ‫ לשלמה‬may be rendered “of Solomon” in the sense of “belonging to Solomon’s collection.” It could also be taken as the lamed auctoris, “(written) by Solomon.” It could possibly mean “to Solomon” in the sense of dedicated to Solomon or written for Solomon. Finally, it could mean “concerning” after the analogy of Jer 48:1, “concerning Moab” (‫)למואב‬. Contrary to Longman (3), there are no grounds for translating it “in the Solomonic/wisdom literary tradition.” It is most unlikely that it means “concerning Solomon.” Although Solomon is mentioned in the Song (1:5; 3:7, 9, 11; 8:11-12), the Song certainly does not concern Solomon in the sense that Jer 48 concerns Moab. To say that the Song of Songs “concerns” Solomon is to say that he is the central topic of the Song, which is self-evidently not the case. The translation “(dedicated) to Solomon” suggests that a poet in Solomon’s court composed the Song in his honor. This interpretation has many analogies outside of Israel; Augustus was the patron of Virgil, who composed the Aeneid in his master’s honor. Unfortunately, we have no certain grounds for interpreting ‫ לשלמה‬in this manner. The translation “of Solomon” is as ambiguous as the Hebrew; it may mean that Solomon wrote it, or it may mean that someone else wrote it and Solomon, as the sponsor, owned it. We probably cannot get beyond that ambiguity. See the Introduction for further discussion of the authorship of the Song. E xplanation

The superscript tells us three things about Song of Songs. First, it belongs to the Solomonic collection. Second, the superscript tells us that this Song is regarded as the best example of a musical work from Solomon’s collection. Finally, it indicates that the song is a collection of shorter works in a single musical production.

L Chorus and Soprano: The Entrance (1:2-4) Bibliography Bloch, A. A., and C. Bloch. “From In the Garden of Delights." Judaism 44 (1995) 36-63. Callow, J. “Units and Flow in the Song of Songs 1:2-2:6.” In Biblical Hebrew and Discourse Linguistics. Ed. R. D. Bergen. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1994. 462-88. Dahood, M. Ugaritic-Hebrew Philology. Translation First Stanza so pra no

2 He will kissa me with the kisses of his mouth.

1A

CHORUS

Indeed your caresses are better than wine,b 3 abetter than thefragrances ofyour perfumes.a Your very name is like perfumes poured out.b

2A 2B 2C

SOPRANO

That is why the girls love you.

3A Second Stanza

4 Take me with you! Let us run!

4A T hird Stanza

The king bringsa me to his chamber.

5A

CHORUS

We will rejoice and celebrate! We will commemorate your caresses rather than wine!

6A 6B

SOPRANO

Rightly they love you!

7A

Notes 2.a. Nothing is gained by emending ‫נשק‬, “kiss,” to ‫סקה‬, “give someone a drink.” ‫ ישקני‬is universally read to be juss., “let him kiss me,” but morphologically it is a simple impf. A juss. translation is possible but not required. The parallel structure of the two strophes suggests that it is indie., but it is traditionally taken to be juss. 2.b. LXX, followed by OL and Vg., perhaps implies that the man, not the woman, sings v 2b. It reads, “For your breasts [μαστοί] are better than wine,” reading the noun ‫ דד‬here. Of course, it is possible that the LXX translators imagined the woman singing these lines, but that would be very strange. There is no reason, however, to adopt the LXX reading here. 3.a-a. LXX reads καί όσμή μύρων σου υπέρ πάντα τα αρώματα, “your perfume is more fragrant than any perfume.” 3.b. If left unemended, one could translate ‫ שמן תורק‬as “oil is poured out” (hop'al impf.), although the use of a fem verb with the noun ‫ שמן‬is peculiar and the impf. does not fit well here. One may remedy both problems by emending ‫תורק‬, “poured out,” to the ptc. ‫מורק‬, “pouring out,” following Q LXX (έκκβνωθβν) a OL Vg. Otherwise, one may take ‫ תורק‬as a proper name and translate it as “oil of Turac.” 4.a. The p f. ‫הביאני‬, “brings me,” in a poetic text such as this does not necessarily require a pasttense translation.

126

Song of Songs 1:2-4

F orm /Structure/Setting

The Song opens with three stanzas that announce its theme, the celebration of love. The text implies that a soprano and a chorus of young women both sing in these opening verses. The first words, “He will kiss me,” indicate that this part of the libretto is for a single female singer. Other pronouns are used here to maintain the gender identification of the singers: they sing of “your” (masculine singular) caresses, perfumes, and name, as well as of the “king,” the man whom the girls “rightly love.” All of this suggests that these lines are sung by girls. It is more difficult to determine whether all of this text belongs to a female solo or if at least parts of it belong to a chorus. The text contains several hints, however, that enable us to separate the parts. First, the perspective of the text changes several times in these few lyrics. It begins with a third-person statement (“He will kiss me with the kisses of his mouth”) and immediately moves into second person (“Indeed your caresses are better than wine”). This cannot be explained on the grounds that the woman is addressing the man as a superior and thus initially uses formal, deferential language before shifting into the more familiar second person (thus A. A. and C. Bloch, Judaism 44 [1995] 51-52). She never addresses the man in so formal a manner, and the characteristic language of formal, third-person address (“my lord” and “your servant”) is nowhere used in the Song. Second, a female singer—the “soprano”—declares that the young girls rightly love the man. It is unlikely that she would sing such a line if the chorus had been silent up to this point (otherwise, how would the audience know that they love him at all?). All in all, therefore, it seems fairly clear that the opening verses are made of lyrics sung by both the female soloist and the chorus. As described above, the opening words, “He will kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,” presumably belong to a female solo. Lines 2A-C (“Indeed your caresses are better than wine, / better than the fragrances of your perfumes. / Your very name is like perfumes poured out”) change from third person to second person, and one may suggest that this change represents a change of singers; thus, these three lines are sung by a chorus of girls. Lines 2A-C are linked by the repetition of ‫ טובים‬at the beginning of 2A and the end of 2B; also, both 2A and 2B are three-unit verbless clauses in which the second unit ends with the second masculine singular suffix (observe the chiastic matching described above). Line 2C, another threeunit line, continues the metaphorical analogy that the beloved is somehow better than costly and fragrant liquids; only here his name is better than perfume. Also, line 2C is linked to 2B by consonance with the sound of ‫שם‬. The middle word of line 2B is ‫שמניך‬, "your perfume,” and line 2C begins with ‫שמן‬, “perfume,” and ends with ‫שמך‬, “your name.” All of this suggests that strophe 2 is a tightly bound unit and is sung by the chorus. Line 3A ("That is why the girls love you!”) is obviously sung by the soprano, and again it makes more sense if it was the female chorus that sang lines 2A-C. The audience does not have to surmise that the girls “love” the young man; they have heard it for themselves. The second stanza is but a single line. This seems incredible, and there are no other one-line stanzas in the Song of Songs, but there appears to be no convincing way to join it to the lines of another strophe. The one-line stanza can exist; see Ps 15:5c.

Form/Structure/Setting

127

Like stanza 1, stanza 3 again opens with a one-line strophe (line 5A, “The king brings me to his chamber”) sung by the soprano and expressing the man’s lovemaking toward the woman. Like line 1A, this line speaks of the man in the third person. The following two lines (6A-B, “We will rejoice and celebrate! / We will commemorate your caresses rather than wine!”), however, match one another (each is a first plural cohortative of three units; 6A has two verbs followed by a one-unit prepositional phrase, and 6B is one verb followed by a two-unit prepositional phrase). These are best taken as lyrics assigned to the chorus. The “we” suggests that the chorus sings, and the theme of this bicolon, in which the man’s love is favorably compared to wine, repeats the theme of strophe 2. Finally, the third stanza ends with a one-line strophe (7A) that belongs to the soprano, in which she again declares that the women “rightly” celebrate the man. It is not clear why the third stanza is one line shorter than the first; it may be that for musical reasons the poet wanted to keep this canto at ten lines. So interpreted, stanzas 1 and 3 each begin with the soprano singing a line describing the man’s acts of affection toward her. The chorus then celebrates the man’s love for the woman under metaphorical comparisons to wine and perfumes. The woman closes each of these stanzas with a strophe affirming that the choral assessments of the man are valid. The structure of canto I is illustrated in figure 2. a

a'

Account of the man’s lovemaking 1A ß Choral praise of the man’s lovemaking 2A-C γ Affirmation of choral praise 3A δ Call to depart from woman to man 4A Account of the man’s lovemaking 5A β' Choral praise of the man’s lovemaking 6A-B γ' Affirmation of choral praise 7A Fig. 2. Structure of canto I

The formal function of the introduction is to prepare the audience for the theme of the performance, the joys of love between a woman and a man, and it also indicates that for the most part the interpretation of love comes from the woman’s perspective (since women do all the singing here). The words, “We will rejoice and celebrate! / We will commemorate your caresses rather than wine!” tell the audience precisely what is coming: a celebration of love. This canto is therefore proleptic; that is, it tells the audience where the Song of Songs is going before it gets there. Several themes are suggested in these lines. The opening words focus on kissing and indicate that sexual play is a prominent theme in the Song of Songs. The comparison of the man and his love to perfume and wine suggests that metaphorical images of love taken from nature and from other (nonsexual) pleasures will figure predominantly in Song of Songs. That is, love and the beloved will frequently be described using language drawn from the beautiful and delightful flora, fauna, fragrances, and foods of ancient Israel. There are two indications of marriage in these lines. First, line 4A, “Take me with you! let us run!” suggests that the woman will escape the confines of her present status, seen to be the household of her brothers in Song 1:6. Second, line 5A, "The king brings me to his chamber,” suggests a wedding and wedding

Song of Songs 1:2-4

128

night. The “king” is a motif of the groom (developed, for example at 3:6-11), and his taking her to his chamber suggests a wedding night. Again, however, this is proleptic; she does not begin the Song in a wedding chamber. The soprano’s lines to the effect that the girls “rightly” love the man suggest that Song of Songs celebrates the love of man for woman as something good and glorious. The position and nature of the second stanza, "Take me with you, let us run,” is significant. Standing between what is otherwise two strophes with the same structure, it is to a degree the focal point of this canto. It is filled with exhilaration and sets the tone for the Song of Songs, and tells the audience that the couple desires to escape and be together. Comment

2 “He will kiss me” involves a wordplay with the use of ‫ישקני‬, “he will kiss me,” from ‫ )נשק‬in that it sounds similar to verbs from the root ‫שקה‬, “to give a drink” (hip'il stem). This pun leads into the comparison in 1:2b, that his love is better than wine. This does not, however, justify translating the line as something like “Let him make me drunk with his kisses,” as was done by A. A. and C. Bloch in Judaism 44 (1995) 47. ‫ דודים‬here refers more to “caresses”—making love—than to the mental state of being loving, although the latter is obviously not excluded. For analogous usage, see Prov 7:18 (‫נרוה דדים עד־הבקר‬, “Let us drink in lovemaking until morning”), Ezek 16:8 (‫והנה עתך עת דדים‬, “indeed, your time was the time of lovemaking” [i.e., you had attained sexual maturity]), and Ezek 23:17 (‫למשכב דדים‬, “to a bed of lovemaking”). 3 The ‫ ל‬on ‫ לריח‬continues the force of the ‫ מן‬with ‫ מיין‬at the end of v 2. A full translation of this line could be “As for the fragrance of your perfume, (your love) is better.” However, the ‫ ל‬can have the force of ‫ מן‬in Ugaritic ( UT§ 10.1), and the same appears to be the case here. The use of ‫ ל‬in a comparative text is described in Dahood Ugaritic-Hebrew Philology, 29-30. Or, the ‫ ל‬could be an “emphatic ‫( ” ל‬Gerleman, 94). See also IBHS 11.2.10h. The Hebrew forms a chiasmus; see figure 3. “indeed your caresses are better,” ‫כי־טובים דדיך‬ “than wine,” ‫מיין‬ “than the fragrances of your perfumes,” ‫לריח שמניך‬ “(they are) better,” ‫טובים‬ Fig. 3. Chiasmus o f Song 1:3

a ß ß‫׳‬ a'

2A 2B

Line 2A (aß) begins with ‫טובים‬, “better,” and line 2B (ß'a') ends with ‫טובים‬, “better.” Each line has three units, the first hemistichoi of each line (a and ß ) each having two units and the second hemistichoi (ß and a') each having one. ‫דדיך‬, “your caresses,” is the implied subject of ‫טובים‬, “better,” in a ' (gapping); ‫ טובים‬cannot modify ‫לריח‬, “than the fragrances,” because it is plural and ‫ ריח‬is singular. Thus, “the fragrance of your perfumes is good” is not an option here. It is possible that line 2B could be translated “for fragrance, your perfumes are

Explanation

129

good.” However, this interpretation obliterates the syntax of the chiasmus since it requires that the grammar of line 2B be unlike that of 2A. Also, such a translation makes the perfumes, rather than the man and his love, the object of praise. The whole point of the choral lyrics seems to be that he and his love are better than wine and perfume. As indicated above, the lines 2A and 2B should be read together: “Indeed your caresses are better than wine, / better than the fragrances of your perfumes.” This suggests that although the fragrance of his body oils is wonderful, his love is better yet. The third line (2C) builds upon this by asserting that his “name” (his character, his person, or the very thought of him) is better than the finest or most extravagant use of perfumes. The phrase ‫שמן תורק‬, if it does not mean “oil poured out” (see Note 3.b.), could be the proper name of some specific variety of perfume, the “oil of Turac” (Fox, Song of Songs, 98). Thus, the phrase either refers to a prodigious application of fragrant oils or to especially expensive or delightful oils. Either way, this line suggests that the very mention of his name is like an aromatic delight. 4 The line “The king brings me to his chamber” seems odd as usually translated: “The king has brought me into his chamber.” Two-character dramatic interpretations (see Introduction) may take this to be Solomon with his young bride, and three-character dramatic interpretations see it as Solomon having abducted the shepherdess and holding her there as a captive while he attempts to seduce her. Neither is satisfying. Both interpretations begin with the woman already in the man’s bedroom. Short of forcing interpretations and peculiar readings at every turn, it is impossible to make sense of the Song if she is in his chamber at the very outset of the story. (See Form/Structure/Setting.) Explanation

The Song begins by describing the man’s affection for the woman in the simplest and most straightforward manner: he will kiss her. The kiss is here the fundamental act of affection, and it is one of the few love acts not veiled under an allegorical description in the Song. The kiss is the beginning of love play, and it is surpassingly intimate in that it brings mouths and faces of two people together. Of course, the man’s kisses may reach other parts of the woman’s body as well, and the language suggests that Song of Songs will explore their sexual relationship. But the kiss, a direct and simple act, binds the man to the woman and opens the Song of Songs. The point of “your caresses are better than wine” is twofold: his love is both pleasant and intoxicating. Love leads to a delirium of pleasure. Like perfume, his caresses overwhelm the senses and produce a kind of rapture. Perfumed oils imply health (oils were fundamental to both preventive and healing medicine in the ancient world), pleasure (these are oils perfumed with exotic spices), and value (the perfumes are very expensive). The woman’s praise of the man and of the quality of his love is extreme; he is so wonderful that he is larger than life. By contrast, in the next canto (1:5-6) the woman seems to be little more than a pretty peasant girl. In the course of the Song of Songs, however, the woman will undergo a transformation with the result that all will look upon her as the very embodiment of love. At Song 4:10,

130

Song of Songs 1:2-4

the man praises the woman in words that, in a significantly reworked form, recall 1:2b—3: her love will be better than wine. The chorus, moreover, will speak of her as the most beautiful of women and ultimately be dazzled by the sight of her (e.g., Song 6:10; 7:1 [ET6:13]). The suggestion above that the chorus sings these lines does not imply that the chorus is experienced in making love to the man, as though he had given his affection to every girl in the village. Such an interpretation would be reading the canto as though it were a drama. The chorus, as they will do throughout Song of Songs, is merely acting as a foil and is praising love and the lovers. The appeal to run away together is a frequent motif of the Song, and it expresses the common desire of young lovers: that they escape the constraints that hold them back and that they be free to explore their love together. In Song of Songs, however, this desire is of particular concern to the woman because she wants to be liberated from the control of her brothers and from the status of being a child—or a slave—in her home. The words are a programmatic statement of what the audience should expect to hear in the cantos that follow. Song of Songs concerns the movement of a woman into the wedding chamber of her chosen bridegroom, a figure to whom she here gives the wedding designation of “king.” It is a canto about her abandonment of the security and isolation of virginity, an event that takes place when she is taken into the chamber of the king. Furthermore, the tide “king” suggests that the man as groom plays the archetypal role of powerful savior. This, too, will be explored in the Song of Songs, albeit in a surprising way since the outcome will be the exaltation of the woman. The woman’s twice-repeated refrain, that the girls rightly love the man, establishes her position vis-à-vis the other girls. She has come to a passage in her life that they desire. Thus, there is a touch of rivalry in the lyrics. She has a man whom they all admire with a fervency that drives them to envy her success. She is embarking on a journey they have not yet begun. Their position in the Song of Songs is set from the outset: they are observers who will interact with her as she enters the world of love. They represent the world she is leaving, but, for the most part, they do not seek to hold her back because they, too, desire to experience love someday. She also draws strength to move forward into this relationship because of the encouragement she receives from their admiration. Understood as a proleptic and programmatic text, the first canto tells the audience or reader what is coming. “The king brings me to his chamber” alerts us to the central event of Song of Songs, the wedding night, and “we will rejoice and celebrate” tells us its mood. “Rightly they love him” suggests that the mystery and power of love, marriage, and sexuality are well worth appreciating.

II. Soprano: The Virgin’s Education I (1:5-6) Bibliography Ogden, G. S. ‘“Black but Beautiful’ (Song of Songs 1.5).” B T M (1996) 443-45. Translation SOPRANO

5 I am dark yet lovely, O daughters ofJerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. 6 Do not stare a at me, that I am swarthy and that the sun has gazed upon me. It was my mother's sons! b They burned with anger toward me. They forced me to be a keeper of the vineyards, while my vineyard—the one that was mine—I could not keep.

1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 2A 2B 2C

Notes 6.a. Nine MSS read ‫תיראוני‬, “do not fear me.” Read MT. 6.b. The clause-initial position o f ‫בני אמי‬, “the sons of my mother,” makes this the focus of the line.

F orm /Structure/Setting

A new canto is indicated by the fact that the subject matter of the lyrics has abruptly changed. This canto is eight lines divided into two strophes. Lines 1A-C (v 5) are joined by the syntactical dependence of 1C on 1A (line 1B being a vocative phrase). In addition, 1A is a verbless clause with two predicates, and 1C has two phrases, each beginning with the preposition ‫כ‬. Lines 1D and 1E are joined by matching (two relative clauses begun with ‫ )ש‬and gapping (“Do not stare at me” in 1D governs both lines). The consonance with ‫ ש‬linking lines 1D to 1F is pronounced; counting the doubled letters (with dageshforte), ‫ ש‬occurs no less than eight times in four consecutive words! In addition, the two predicate adjectives in 1A and the pairing of phrases with the preposition ‫ כ‬in 1C is answered by the two relative clauses in 1D-E with the relative ‫ש‬. This suggests that 1D-E are part of the same strophe as 1A-C (contrary to the MT versification). The final three lines (2A- C) are coherent in that all concern the brothers’ actions. Line 2A ends with “they burned with anger toward me,” and 2B begins with “they forced me,” with “my mother’s sons” serving as subject of both verbs. In addition, the three words ‫נחרו‬, “they burned with anger,” ‫נטרה‬, “keeper,” and ‫נטרתי‬, “I could [not] keep,” link these three lines via consonance. The female solo sings this entire canto. As a speech-act, it is a self-appraisal set against the standards of her culture. It expresses an underlying fear that she will not attain love because she does not measure up to its standards of feminine beauty.

132

Song of Songs 1:5-6

Comment

5 The woman is embarrassed that the other girls are looking at her and is defensive about her dark skin. Some interpreters take her words to mean, “I am black and beautiful” (e.g., Pope, 307- 18). Her defensiveness about her dark skin, however, implies that her culture does not regard dark skin as attractive. Thus the conjunction at ‫ ונאוה‬requires the translation “but” rather than “and.” She compares herself to the “tents of Kedar” and the “curtains of Solomon.” ‫קדר‬, “Kedar,” refers to an Arab bedouin tribe; Assurbanipal says he defeated the king of ki-da-ri in a campaign against the Arabs (ANET, 298-99). Some interpreters emend “Solomon” to “Salma,” the name of another Arab tribe, but no textual evidence supports this. Furthermore, although the emendation makes for tidy parallelism, it probably misses the main point of the analogy. As the shelters of Arab bedouin, one may surmise, the tents of Kedar were probably made of tanned hides or coarse sackcloth and were dark in color. They also must have been very sturdy since they had to withstand the rigors of the wind, sand, heat, and the occasional storm as the only shelter these travelers would possess. They may have been proverbial as tough, reliable tents. The curtains of Solomon, by contrast, would have been of the finest craftsmanship and would have had exquisite detail. Perhaps the curtains had interwoven colors, beads, or even pearls, as well as lacelike patterns. Therefore, the woman claims that she is dark like the tents of Kedar—and she is equally as sturdy as those tents. But she is also beautiful, like the curtains of Solomon, and worthy to receive the admiration given to princesses. The structure of v 5 also brings out a pattern meaning “dark like the tents of Kedar” and “beautiful like the curtains of Solomon.” It has two pairs of parallel concepts divided by a vocative; see figure 4. T am dark,” ‫שחורה אני‬ “yet lovely,” ‫ונאוה‬ "O daughters of Jerusalem,” ‫בנותי רושלם‬ “like the tents of Kedar,” ‫כאהלי קדר‬ “like the curtains of Solomon,” ‫כיריעות שלמה‬ Fig. 4. Structure of canto II, stanza 1

a ß

1A

y a'

1B 1C

ß'

‫שחורה‬, “dark,” relates to ‫כאהלי קדר‬, “like the tents of Kedar,” as ‫ונאוה‬, “but lovely,” relates to ‫כיריעות שלמה‬, “like the curtains of Solomon.” This kind of “redistribution” has long been recognized as a feature of biblical Hebrew poetry. 6 She explains that her skin is dark because her brothers forced her to work out in the vineyards under the glare of the sun. She uses a number of wordplays to describe her situation. She asks the girls not to stare (‫ )ראה‬at her, but says that the sun has “gazed” (‫ )שזף‬on her. Her wordplay makes use of the fact that ‫שזף‬ means to “gaze” at but ‫ שדף‬means to “scorch”; it is all the more effective a wordplay because of the common interchange of ‫ ד‬and ‫ז‬, a phenom enon often observed in Aramaic. She then says thát her brothers “burned [‫ ]חרה‬with anger” toward her, using an obvious synonym of ‫שדף‬. She does not explain why her brothers were angry at her. It is certainly possible that this a determination by her brothers to keep her chaste, especially in

Explanation

133

light of the lines about protecting the little sister who has small breasts at the end of the book (Song 8:8-9). It is true that chapter 1 does not state that the brothers set her to work in the vineyard in order to keep her from being involved with a man. On the other hand, the woman’s declaration of independence under the image of the vineyard at Song 8:12 suggests that her sexuality is the issue here. At the least, one can say that the brothers represent authority figures who intrude into the lives of young lovers and prevent them from coming together. Explanation

Some interpreters take the line “I am dark yet lovely” to imply that the woman is a non-Israelite, perhaps of African heritage. For example, Weems (5:384) asserts that “this is not the first time in the Bible when a foreign woman becomes a reminder of how diverse is God’s vision of covenant people (e.g., Ruth and Rahab).” This exposition is the basis for construing the woman to be a valiant opponent of racial prejudice who, against the hostility of society, pursues her love for a much lighter-skinned Israelite man. Intriguing as that interpretation may be, it is not the meaning of the text. The woman clearly states the reason her skin is dark: she has been outside working under the sun in the vineyard. She never hints that she is of non-Israelite extraction. The Song nowhere addresses the matter of racial tension or implies that an interracial relationship is at the center of the story. We may well ask, however, why the Song raises the issue of her sun-darkened skin. Modern Caucasian Europeans and North Americans regard tanned skin as attractive and healthy looking, and readers from this culture are naturally puzzled that she would be defensive about this feature. In agrarian societies, however, dark skin is ordinary and is a sign that one is a member of the peasant class. Tan women in such a society are common and are not the stuff of male fantasy or female aspiration. Indeed, almost every society tends to regard the different as exotic and therefore alluring. The Japanese geisha, the ideal contrast to the farm woman, had astoundingly white skin (or wore white makeup). In an era when even the average European peasant woman would have been fairly tan, lean, and muscular, contemporary artists depicted the sensual woman as pale, soft, and plump (cf. “The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus” by Rubens and “Cupid a Captive” by Boucher). These verses, therefore, do not concern racial issues but assert that the joys of love, particularly the appreciation of a woman’s body, belong to all social classes and not simply to the elite. More than that, they protest against artificial, culturally imposed standards of beauty that fail to appreciate the comeliness of a woman on the grounds that she is common. The love between a plebeian and his wife is as wondrous as that between two members of the court, and the admiration a peasant girl has from her beloved is as worthy of celebration in song as any love that a princess has inspired. Shakespeare’s sonnets to the “dark lady” eloquently testify to this notion of beauty, as in Sonnet 127: In the old age black was not counted fair, Or if it were it bore not beauty’s name;

134

Song of Songs 1:5-6

But now black is beauty’s successive heir, And beauty slandered with a bastard shame.

Also, this description of the woman’s appearance is strikingly similar to what we read of the young David’s appearance: “he was reddish [deeply tanned?] with beautiful eyes and good looks” ( l Sam 16:12). Even the reason for David’s reddened skin is similar: “he is looking after the sheep” (1 Sam 16:11). Perhaps the woman’s keeping of the vineyard is to be regarded as the feminine counterpart to David’s watching of the sheep. It is difficult to know what to make of this parallel; is it coincidental or deliberate on the part of the Song? If the latter, perhaps the point is to endow the woman with the same youthful vigor and heroic stature that the attentive reader associates with David. She therefore demands that the girls not look at her with disdain for her dark skin (1D-E). Her concern here is with standards of beauty in her society and with class identification, not with race. Her words are a cultural code for “Do not regard me as a plain, unimportant peasant girl.” The brothers represent a general sense of oppression that the young woman feels in her paternal home. As a sister, destined to marry and leave the household, she receives the harsh treatment that is otherwise reserved for slaves. Regarded as a quasi-outsider who consumes the goods of the household, she is forced by her brothers into menial tasks for the common good of the family and is not free to pursue her own interests. There is, therefore, something of a Cinderella motif here. Marriage to her “king” suggests that he is her Prince Charming. It means more than sensual pleasure; it is her freedom to be herself and be at the center of a new family. In this relationship, the man she loves mediates her transformation from peasant and outsider to queen and insider. Her complaint that she could not tend her own vineyard explores this further. Her vineyard is her body, her interests, and her very self. She will give her “fruit” to her husband (Song 4:16). More than that, the tending of a vineyard represents the ability to cultivate one’s aspirations and see them bear fruit. The woman’s treatment at the hands of her brothers is important, however, as the “education” she received during childhood and adolescence. It was, to say the least, a hard education composed of long hours working in the vineyard. But it has made her strong and mature, and it has given her an appreciation of the benefits of freedom and adulthood. She will enjoy these to the maximum when she can take care of her own vineyard (Song 8:12). Modern readers need to understand the woman’s outlook in her context. In ancient Israel, no young single woman (except perhaps the prostitute or the destitute widow) lived alone. Furthermore, the fact that the daughter was desti n e d to be married away into another family made her to some degree an outsider in her own family (although one should not exaggerate this reality). Thus, for the woman of the Song, marriage meant entering her own family and having the freedom to cultivate her own life. Of course, this picture is to some degree idealized. No doubt some marriages put women into a worse position of oppression than they had experienced in their childhood homes. Still, the ideal she yearns for—love and true freedom in a marriage relationship—is valid in all times and all cultures.

III. Soprano and Chorus: Finding the Beloved (1:7-8) Bibliography Brooke, G. “‫חבר‬.” N1DOTTE §2489. Emerton, J. A. “Lice or a Veil in the Song of Songs 1:7?” In Understanding Poets and Prophets. FS G. W. Anderson, ed. A. Auld. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993. 127-40. Holladay, W. L. Jeremiah 2. Translation SOPRANO

7 Tell me, you whom my soul loves: Where do you graze yourflocks ? Where do you rest them at noon ? You don’t wanta me to be like a woman picking at fleas b among theflocks ofyour companions!

1A 1B 1C 1D IE IF

CHORUS

8 Well,* if you don’t know; most beautiful of women, get yourself out in the tracks of theflock and tend your kids at the tents of the shepherds.

2A 2B 2C 2D 2E

Notes 7.a. MT ‫שלמה‬, lit. “who” [‫ ]ש‬why [‫ ”?]למה‬the idiom is used in a request to imply “This will be the outcome if you do not do what I request; it is an outcome that I am sure you agree is to be avoided.” See, e.g., Exod 32:12; Num 27:4. 7.b. The interpretation of ‫ עטה‬is most difficult. LXX has πβριβαλλομένη, “wrapped about,” which conforms to an attested meaning of ‫עטה‬. On the other hand, ‫ כעטיה‬is an act. ptc.; one would expect the reflexive or pass, if the meaning were “like a wrapped woman.” Tg. Syr. σ' Vg. all take it to mean “wander about.” ‫ עטה‬could be emended to ‫טעה‬, a by-form o f ‫תעה‬, “to wander” (cf. Ezek 13:10). Inasmuch as this requires an emendation of the text, however, it should not be regarded as probable unless alternative interpretations are for other reasons less likely. A third possibility is that ‫עטה‬ here is to “snatch at” (HALOTriüü II) and thus to pick at fleas and lice, or to “delouse.” 8.a. The ‫לך‬, “for yourself,” at the end of ‫אם־לא תדעי לך‬, “if you don’t know for yourself,” may imply "You ought to know this.” See Fox, Song of Songs, 103. The closest parallel is in Job 5:27, ‫שמענה ואתה דע־לך‬, “Hear it and know it for yourself.”

Form /Structure/Setting

This canto contains two strophes. It follows the motif of seeking the beloved. The structure of v 7 is: an opening imperative (“tell me”), followed by a vocative phrase (“you whom my soul loves”), a matching pair of lines (1C and 1D), and a complaint couched as a rhetorical question (literally, “Why should I be like a woman picking at fleas among the flocks of your companions!”). There are

136

Song of Songs 1:7-8

chiastic elements in lines 1B-E. As already noted, 1C and 1D form a matching pair (each line begins with ‫איכה‬, "where?” followed by a second masculine singular im perfect). Also, 1B and 1E each begin with the letter, 0, “who?” an interrogative proclitic pronoun, and there is assonance with the opening words ‫שאהבה‬, “you whom my soul loves,” and ‫שלמה‬, “who why?” Line 1F is syntactically dependent on 1E; it could be read as a hemistich of 1E, but cf. Masoretic cantillation. In v 8, the line “if you do not know” (line 2A) responds to the command “tell me” in v 7 (line 1A). Also, 1A ends with ‫לי‬, “to me,” and 2A ends with ‫לך‬, “to you.” The four lines of v 8 are in chiastic structure, in which “women” is answered by “shepherds” and “get yourself out in the tracks of the flock” is answered by “tend your kids” (see figure 5). Line 2E could be read as a hemistich of 2D rather than as an independent line, but again the cantillation indicates otherwise, and there is nothing that compels us to reject this. “most beautiful of women,” ‫היפה בנשים‬ “get yourself out in the tracks of the flock,” ‫צאי־לך בעקבי הצאן‬ “and tend your kids,” ‫ורעי את־גדיתיך‬ “at the tents of the shepherds.” ‫על משכנות הרעים‬ Fig. 5. Chiastic structure o f Song 1:8

a ß ß' a'

The lines of strophe 2 match or answer the lines of strophe 1. The command “tell me” (line 1A) is answered by “well, if you don’t know” in line 2A, and the vocative “you whom my soul loves” (line 1B) is answered by the vocative “most beautiful of women” in line 2B. The two matching questions in lines 1C-D (“Where do you graze your flocks? / Where do you rest them at noon?”) are answered by the two matching directives in lines 2C-D (“get yourself out in the tracks of the flock / and tend your kids”). Line 1E ("You don’t want me to be . . . picking at fleas”) has no counterpart, but line 1F (“among the flocks of your companions”) has a clear match in line 2E (“at the tents of the shepherds”). Both 1F and 2E are two-unit prepositional phrases beginning with ‫על‬, “upon” (by itself ‫ על‬does not count as a unit). The imperfect symmetry suggests that the woman’s concern about “picking at fleas” is dismissed as unworthy of an answer. In other words, the woman is implicitly told to set that concern aside. Commentators frequently treat the second strophe (v 8) as the man’s line, no doubt because the text refers to the woman as the “most beautiful of women” and especially because she addressed her question to the man. Thus, it may be a tease by him (e.g., Murphy, 134). But there is no reason to think that the chorus could not answer her question or refer to her as beautiful. Exum (ZAW85 [1973] 72) demonstrates a pattern in vv 5-10 that indicates that the chorus sings in v 8 (see figure 6). So construed, this strophe is the response of the chorus to the woman, notwithstanding the fact that she addressed her question to the man. In addition, elsewhere only the chorus calls her “most beautiful of women” (‫היפה בנשים‬, “the most beautiful among women”; the phrase also appears in 5:9 and 6:1, both of which belong to the chorus). The tenor does not employ this sobriquet; he characteristically calls her ‫רעיתי‬, “my companion”; ‫אחתי‬, “my sister”; and ‫כלה‬, “bride.” Thus, it is fairly certain that v 8 belongs to the chorus.

Comment a ß ß' a'

137

‫“( נאוה‬beautiful”; vv 5-6; woman to daughters) ‫“( תרעה‬you shepherd”; v 7; woman to man) ‫“( ורעי‬and shepherd?”; v 8; daughters to woman) ‫( כאוו‬they are beautiful”; v 10; man to woman) Fig. 6. Exum’s analysis of Song 1:5-10

Comment

7 In this strophe she seeks the man. The phrase "whom my soul loves” is one of the sobriquets the woman uses of the man. It appears here and in Song 3:1, 2, 3, 4. The language is now not regal but pastoral, and her lover is now a shepherd and not a king. Again, these are metaphors for roles the lover takes on in her eyes. We need not try to develop a literal story of a shepherd and his lover. Commentators who take ‫ עטה‬to mean "wrap” here frequently suggest a parallel with Gen 38:14, in which Tamar veils herself and is taken by the shepherds (particularly Judah) to be a prostitute (e.g., Fox, Song of Songs, 103). But the woman in the Song is not threatening to play the prostitute or even to be a flirt. The verb ‫עטה‬ does not appear in Gen 38, and it is not at all clear that being veiled was a sign of a prostitute. As Emerton (“Lice or a Veil,” 129) says, “If it was the practice of prostitutes to wear veils, then presumably the woman in Song 1.7 was not wearing a veil. It would be strange to say that she, though unveiled, would be ‘like one who is veiled.’ Further, it would be self-contradictory to suppose both that prostitutes wore veils as a badge of office and that the woman would be taken for a prostitute when she was not appropriately dressed.” Finally, as mentioned in Note 7.b., the verb here is not a passive or reflexive participle. Still, if one should pursue the translation of “wrapped” or “covered” for ‫עטה‬ here, it may be that the woman’s desire not to be like a “cloaked woman” has to do with the widow rather than the prostitute. ‫ עטה‬does appear in contexts of mourning or shame. In Lev 13:45, the leper is to go about with his “moustache” (i.e., the lower half of his face) covered. This was a customary sign of grief or shame (see Ezek 24:17, 22; Mic 3:7). The psalmist sometimes speaks of his adversaries as covered (‫ )עטה‬with shame (e.g., Ps 89:46 [ET 89:45]). To be sure, the root ‫ עטה‬does not always connote shame or grief (e.g., Ps 104:2). If Israelite widows cloaked themselves in a time of mourning in the same way that the widowers did, the woman might be saying that if her lover does not come to her, she will be like a widow among the shepherds. That is, she would seem to have lost him, be bereft and alone. Still, it is quite a stretch to say that “cloaked woman” would have been recognized by an Israelite audience to mean, “defenseless widow woman.” The second alternative translation suggested in Note 7.b. above, “Why should I be like a wandering woman among your companions?” is certainly intelligible, but it is perhaps too plain and prosaic. It merely suggests that she does not want to wander around lost and lacks any poetic connotation. Also, as mentioned in the notes above, it requires both an emendation and understanding that this is a by-form verb. One may object to the third alternative, “Why should I be like a woman picking at fleas/lice,” on aesthetic grounds: it suggests that the lady of the Song has lice! In reality, however, this is what it suggests is not the case. She is not saying

138

Song of Songs 1:7-8

that she has fleas or lice and that she will sit around picking her fleas while she waits for her man (contrary to Emerton, “Lice or a Veil,” 138; Fuerst, 171). She is saying that if she goes in search of him among shepherds, then she will catch their fleas and lice and start to pick at them. The strongest case for the meaning “pick at fleas” is at Jer 43:12, “and he [Nebuchadnezzar] will burn them and take them captive. And he will pick off (the leadership of) the land of Egypt as a shepherd picks off (lice from) his garment, and he will depart from there in peace.” A number of translations render ‫ עטה‬in Jer 43:12 as “wrap himself,” but in this context it makes no sense to imagine Nebuchadnezzar “wrapping himself"in Egypt, nor is it clear why there would be some significance to a shepherd wrapping himself in a cloak. See Emerton, “Lice or a Veil,” and Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 302. In addition, the LXX renders ‫ עטה‬in Jer 43:12 as φθβιρι£ω, ‫״‬to pick lice.” This interpretation of ‫ עטה‬makes the most sense; shepherds spend a great deal of time around animals, and they would be more likely than most men to have fleas, ticks, or lice in their garments. By analogy, the leaders of Egypt are as lice or fleas to Nebuchadnezzar. This interpretation works best in Isa 22:17-18 as well, where Yahweh threatens a certain steward named Shebna that he will snatch him up (‫)עטה‬, roll him in a ball, and cast him away because he is a disgrace in his master’s house. Here too, the suggestion is that Shebna is no more than vermin, and that Yahweh will roll him up as one rolls up a flea or tick to kill it (one cannot kill a flea by simply squeezing it). Here in Song 1:7, the connection to shepherds suggests that the meaning is to pick at fleas or lice. See further discussion below. “Companions” translates ‫חבריך‬, a word from the root ‫חבר‬, "join,” which describes peers (Ps 45:8 [ET 45:7]), allies (Gen 14:3; Isa 1:23), associates (Aramaic of Dan 2:13,17), or colleagues (Eccl 4:10; see also Ezek 37:16, 19). Here, the term implies men who are her lover’s associates and economic peers—that is, other shepherds. The companions are not necessarily good (Dan 2:13) or evil (Isa 1:27); they are simply an association of men, and as such represent a domain in which the woman is uncomfortable and perhaps feels threatened. For her, the “shepherds,” here representing the world of men, are a foul, dirty, lice-ridden lot. If she moves among them, she is afraid, she will soon be scratching and picking at herselfjust as they do! 8 The tone of this text is not a tease but a mild rebuke. The Jerusalem girls answer (rather than allowing the man to answer) because to them the appropriate response is self-evident. Their response, however, is anything but a set of directions to a geographic location. Explanation

The woman desires to see her beloved but does not want to have to go on a search for him. If she does not know precisely where he is, she contends, she will have to go about looking for him among all the shepherds, a situation with which she is not comfortable. Her words suggest discomfort around men. She is a young woman who is comfortable with other women; her one experience with men, her brothers, has not been good. She may find the culture and bodies of men to be frightening if not repulsive, and the thought of entering among them is not welcome. She loves her man, but she wants him to come to her; she does not want to go into his world. Her words signify that she is caught between two worlds

Explanation

139

of men—her brothers, to whom she is a virtual outsider and subject to forced labor, and the other shepherds, to whom she is a true outsider. The answer she receives is assurance that she can become an insider, but to do so will require an act of courage on her part. The Jerusalem girls urge her to forget about her qualms about picking at fleas among the shepherds and simply go out and find him where he is to be found, with the flocks. More than that, they urge her to become a shepherdess herself. Their point is that when she goes out and joins him, she will no longer be an outsider—a woman among the shepherds—but will find her community and family. Her lover’s community will be hers, and she need have no fear or discomfort, She will be an insider. The point behind their mild rebuke is that she cannot be one with her lover without entering his world. More specifically, she must allow herself to get close to a man, with all that this involves. Hence, they tell her that she must abandon fear and reserve; she must boldly claim the man she loves. On a deeper level, she must overcome her fear of male culture and the male body.

I V. Tenor, Chorus, and Soprano: The First Song of M utual Love (1:9—2 : 7) Bibliography Brenner, A. “Aromatics and Perfumes in the Song of Songs.” JSOT 25 (1983) 75-81. Chaucer, G. The Canterbury Tales. Ed. V. A. Kolve and G. Olson. New York: Norton, 1989. Grober, S. F. “The Hospital Lotus: A Cluster of Metaphors. An Inquiry into the Problem of Textual Unity in the Song of Songs.” Semitics 9 (1984) 86-112. Hamilton, V. “‫עור‬.” NIDOTTE §6424. Hunt, P. N. “Sensory Images in Song of Songs 1:12-2:16.” In Dort ziehen Schiffe dahin: Collected Communications to the XIVth Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament. Ed. M. Augustin, and K. Schunck. New York: Lang, 1996. 69-78. Keel, O. Deine Blicke send Tauben: Zur Metaphorik des Hohen Liedes. SBS 114-15. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1984. Konkel, A. “‫}קדה‬.” NIDOTTE §5925. Pope, Μ. H. “A Mare in Pharoah’s Chariotry.” BASOR200 (1970) 56-61. Saeb0, M. " O n the Canonicity of the Song of Songs.” In Texts, Temples, and Traditions. FS M. Haran, ed. M. Fox. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1996. 267-77. Walker, L. L. “‫תפוח‬.” NIDOTTE §9515. Translation First Stanza TENOR

9 To a mare a belonging to the horses with the chariots of Pharaoh I liken you,b my companion. 10 So a attractive are your cheeks with bjewelry; so attractive is your neck with b its necklace!

1A 1B 1C 1D

CHORUS

11 Jewelry of gold we shall makefor you with the decorations of silver!

2A 2B

Second Stanza soprano

12 Untila the king is at his circle, my spikenard b gives of its fragrance. 13 Like the bundle of myrrh is my lover to me: he willpass the night between my breasts. 14 Like a bunch of henna blossoms is my lover to me in the vineyards ofEngedi.

3A 3B 4A 4B 4C 4D

T hird Stanza TENOR

15 How beautiful you are, my companion, how beautiful you are: your eyes are doves!

5A 5B 5C

SOPRANO

16 How beautiful you are, my lover; really delightful! Our bed is really verdant!

6A 7A

Notes

17 The beams of our house are cedars! Our rafters arefirs!

141 7B 7C

F o u r t h St a n z a

21 I am a rose of Sharon, a lotus aof the valleys.

8A 8B

TENOR

2 Like a lotus among thorns, so is my companion among the other young women.

9A 9B

SOPRANO

3 Like an apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my lover among the young men. In his shade I take pleasure and sit, and his fruit is sweet in my mouth.

10A 10B I 0C 10D

F if t h S t a n z a

4 He takes me to the house of wine, and his bannera toward me is love. 5 Lay me on a bed of raisins; stretch me out on a couch of apples, for I am wounded by love.

11A 11B 12A 12B 12C

S ix t h St a n z a

6 His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me. 7 I call on you to swear, daughters ofJerusalem, aby the gazelles or by the does of thefield,a that you will not arouse or awaken the passions of love b until they are ready.

13A 13B 14A 14B 14C 14D

Notes 9.a. The ending ‫ י‬in ‫לססתי‬, “to a mare,” is not the pronoun suf. but the hireq compaginis (GKC §90, k-n; Joüon §93,1), which emphasizes the connection between two nouns and is related to the const, state. On its significance here, see Comment οn v 9. 9.b. A. A. and C. Bloch (Song of Songs, 143-45) take ‫ דמיתי‬to mean “I dreamed” and so translate it “My love, I dreamed of you as a mare, my very own, among Pharaoh’s chariots” (Song of Songs, 51). But ‫ דמה‬does not mean "to dream.” It means “to compare, to suppose, to ponder, or to consider (something/someone) to be (something/som eone).‫ ״‬Here it is simply, “I compare.” 10.a. LXX σ' OL Tg. insert ‫מה‬, “how,” which captures the meaning of the line but is unnecessary. Read MT. 10.b. MT ‫ב‬, “with.” LXX OL Vg. = ‫ כ‬, “like.” Read MT. 12.a. The phrase ‫ עד־ש‬in ‫ עד־שהמלך‬means “until,” not “while.” See Judg 5:7; Ps 123:2; Song 2:7, 17; 3:4, 5; 4:6; 8:4. The same is true of the much more common ‫ עד אשר‬. 12.b. The term ‫( נדרי‬from ‫ )נרד‬seems to mean “spikenard.” The term is well attested in cognate and other ancient languages, such as the Gk. vápôoç. Cf. HALOT "1 y . ” In the Hebrew Bible, it only appears here and at Song 4:13-14. 2:1.a. ‫ שושנה‬is best taken to mean “lotus” rather than simply “lily” (although the lotus is a kind of lily). See Comment on 2:1. 4.a. Although ‫ דגל‬can mean “banner” (notwithstanding Murphy, 132), the phrase “his banner toward me is love” strikes many as an odd metaphor in this context, where the terms are not military but are derived from the gardens and vineyards. One might, therefore, follow Gordis (81-82) and Pope (376) in reading this as a cognate to the Akkadian diglu, “wish, intention.” Gordis (JBL 88 [1969] 203-4) also suggests that it means “And his glance upon me is loving.” But a good case

142

Song of Songs 1:9-2:7

for “banner” can be made from the use of the root ‫ ת ל‬in Song 5:10; 6:4, 10, where it means something like “marked with a banner.” There may be deliberate ambiguity here; see Comment on v 4. 7.a-a. LXXêv ταΐς δυΐ'άμβσιι; καί ev ταΐ? Ισχύσβσιν του αγρού, “by the power and might of the field.” 7.b. Vg. Syr. have pass, meanings: “being loved.”

Form /Structure/Setting

The woman and man dominate this canto; the chorus has but one verse (1:11). One. can argue, as many interpreters do, that Song 1:11 also belongs to the man, but the plural verb implies otherwise, and the interpretation of the wider context validates ascribing this verse to the chorus. Specifically, the man begins by declaring that jewelry enhances the woman’s beauty (1:9-10), and the chorus follows with an enthusiastic promise to provide more jewelry for the woman (1:11). This does not mean that young women literally want to buy jewels for a bride; they simply provide a foil for the woman’s response. They voice the general opinion that ifjewelry enhances a woman’s beauty, then by all means she should have more of the same. To this, the woman responds that the real enhancement to her beauty is her love for her man (1:12-15). This canto comprises six stanzas with a total of thirty-eight lines. Stanzas 1 and 2 have six lines each. Stanza 3 has seven lines, stanza 4 has eight, and stanza 5 has five. Stanza 6 has six lines. On my reckoning, the tenor has nine lines, the chorus has two lines, and the soprano has twenty-seven. A stanza need not be sung entirely by one singer. The lines of stanza 3 clearly belong together since the tenor and soprano alternately praise one another’s beauty, and just as obviously the parts are sung by different singers. The first stanza of the canto centers upon the adornments that enhance the woman’s beauty. It is composed of two strophes; line 1A is dependent on 1B, and there is gapping in v 10 (lines 1C-D) in that the verb ‫נאור‬, “so attractive,” in 1C does double duty. One could take these four lines (1A-D) to be two strophes of two lines each, but the significance of 1C-D (v 10) depends on 1A-B (v 9). In v 11, line 2B syntactically depends upon 2A. The second stanza (vv 12-14) also has two strophes, but here the first has two lines and the second four, thus reversing the pattern of the first stanza. The first strophe (v 12) speaks of her lover as a “king” and declares that her spikenard gives off fragrance while she awaits him; the two lines are bound by syntactic dependence. In the second strophe (vv 13-14), lines 4A-B are matched by lines 4C-D with repetition of ‫דודי לי‬, “my lover to me.” In this strophe, the lover himself is metaphorically the perfumed spices between her breasts. In the third stanza, the lines are bound together through repetition and matching. Lines 5A-B repeat ‫הנך יפה‬, “how beautiful you are,” twice. This text appears again in Song 4:1, but 4:1 has ‫מבעד לצמתך‬, “behind your veil,” after "your eyes are doves,” requiring that we treat “your eyes are doves behind your veil” as a separate line in that text. For that reason, it is probably best to regard “your eyes are doves” as a separate line in 1:15 also. Line 6A picks up ‫ הנך יפה‬from 5A-B in the woman’s response: ‫הנך יפה‬, “how beautiful you are.” There is a transition from strophe 6 to strophe 7 through the use of ‫אף‬, here translated “really,” in lines 6A and 7A. Even so, the matching structure in lines 7A-C and change of subject matter suggest that we have two separate strophes in line 6A and lines 7A-C. Lines 7A-C are

Form/Structure/Setting

143

verbless clauses and are semantically related (dealing with greenery and kinds of wood), and all three lines have the suffix ‫נו‬, “our,” added to the subject. In this stanza, as in the next, the soprano and tenor take turns singing their parts. The fourth stanza continues the antiphonal singing but changes the focus of the lyrics; here, the woman and man are metaphorically flowers or trees. This stanza is eight lines long. In Song 2:1 (8A-B), the woman compares herself to a flower in a bicolon with gapping (‫אני‬, “I,” does double duty). The man picks up this metaphor and expands its significance in v 2 (9A-B). He uses syntactic dependence, with “like . . . so . . . ” (‫ כ‬and ‫ )כן‬joining the two lines. The woman responds in 10A-B with precisely the same pattern, and she compares him to an apple tree. But she extends the metaphor of the apple tree for another two lines (10C-D). This gives closure to both the antiphonal singing and the metaphors of flowers or plants. Once again, the lines are tightly bound together and revolve around a single conceptual metaphor (the beloved as a wonderful plant); we might imagine that the singers responded to one another in a rapid-fire fashion. The soprano continues to sing solo through to the end. The topic abruptly changes at Song 2:4, and, inasmuch as the tenor no longer sings, I would suggest a stanza break. Stanza 5 has a two-line strophe (v 4 [lines 11A-B]) and a three-line strophe (v 5 [lines 12A-C]). These should be regarded as separate strophes; note that v 4 is indicative, having a perfect verb and verbless clause, whereas v 5 is volitive, in that it has two imperative verbs. There is consonance in that 11A begins ‫הביאני‬, “he takes me,” and 11B ends ‫אהבה‬, “love.” The three lines of v 5 are bound first by matching; 12A and 12B each have a suffixed imperative (‫ סמכוני‬and ‫ )רפדוני‬followed by a prepositional phrase with ‫ב‬. Line 12C is then bound to 12A-B through dependence (‫)כי‬. The sixth stanza has the same pattern as the fifth. Here too the soprano begins with a two-line strophe that describes the man’s loving actions toward her (v 6 [lines 13A-B]). She uses the dyad “right hand—left hand” to bind these two lines together. She then moves into another volitive section, here adjuring the girls of Jerusalem not to awaken love before it is time to do so (v 7 [lines 14A-D]). Thus, the six stanzas of the fourth canto come in pairs. The first two are each of six lines, and each has a four-line and a two-line strophe. Stanzas 3 and 4 are both sung antiphonally with the woman closing each with a part of four lines. Stanzas 5 and 6 are each sung by the woman solo, and in both she begins with a two-line account of the man’s loving action and follows that with a longer, volitive strophe. The six strophes are interrelated. The concepts developed in the six stanzas are as follows: Stanza 1 Stanza 2 Stanza 3 Stanza 4 Stanza 5 Stanza 6

Tenor and chorus praise soprano regarding jewelry Soprano speaks of tenor as simple necklace reposing between her breasts Tenor praises soprano; soprano responds Soprano’s self-appraisal; tenor praises soprano; soprano responds and speaks of reposing under tenor’s “shade” as “apple tree” Soprano speaks of tenor’s love actions; asks to be laid out on “raisins” and “apples” Soprano speaks of tenor’s love actions; urges chorus not to arouse love

144

Song of Songs 1:9- 2:7

The linkage between the three pairs of stanzas is fairly obvious. Both stanzas 1 and 2 speak of jewelry for the woman, although in stanza 1 it is jewelry of gold and silver and in stanza 2 it is a simple pouch hanging presumably on a leather thong. Stanzas 3 and 4 both have the man and woman in succession praising one another. Stanzas 5 and 6 both begin by speaking of the man’s love actions; also, stanza 5 speaks of the woman stretched out as if on a bed, and stanza 6 advises the girls not to “arouse” or “awaken” love. In addition, there is linkage between stanzas 2 and 4. In stanza 2, the man reposes between the woman’s breasts, and in stanza 4 the woman reposes under the man’s shade. Also, stanza 4 describes the man as an apple tree, and in stanza 5, the woman asks to be stretched out on apples. Finally, the chorus appears at the beginning and end of the canto. In stanza 1, they enthusiastically promise to secure jewelry for the woman, but in stanza 6, they are addressed with a warning not to awaken love too soon. Comment 9 To a modern reader, it is somewhat bewildering that the man would compare his beloved to a horse. The point is not that she looks like a horse. Instead, she is likened to a horse among pharaoh’s chariots in that she, like the horse, is magnificent to look upon. The only point of actual visual similarity is that both she and the mare attached to pharaoh’s chariot are adorned in splendid ornamentation. Egyptian artwork depicts the horses of the royal chariots with headdresses and finery (e.g., the chariots of Tutankhamen, ANEP, 60; see also Keel ([1994] 57, fig. 13). Pope (338-39) suggests that she is like a mare in the midst of the chariots of pharaoh in that she causes great disruption and excitement among the male war horses. He argues that pharaoh’s chariots were drawn by stallions and that an estrous mare among them created so much disorder that an enemy might well render pharaoh’s chariot corps ineffective in battle by sending a mare into their midst. The idea is that she drives him wild with passion. If this is the meaning of the metaphor, however, it is odd that the canto does not develop it at all. From the following verses, it appears that the ornamentation and stately appearance of the woman are the real point. The woman is likened to a mare rather than to a stallion for the simple reason that she is female, and the point that in the Egyptian order of battle the chariot corps actually used only stallions, even if true, is irrelevant. The text says nothing about a military setting for this verse, much less about a mare running loose among stallions during a battle. Pharaoh’s chariots are not necessarily war chariots going into combat (Keel’s extravagant paraphrase [(1994) 56], “a mare among the battle horses of pharaoh’s chariots,” is completely unfounded). Pope himself cites a text that describes the fondness Amenhotep II had for one of the mares of his stable (339). The interpreter of this verse should not ignore the hireq compaginis of ‫לססתי‬, “to a mare.” Although perhaps archaic, we should not pass over the sufformative as though it were meaningless. The hireq compaginis emphasizes the genitival or construct relationship between two nouns. Examples include rrçp ‫שכני‬, “inhabitant of the bush” (Deut 33:16), and ‫עזבי הצאן‬, “the abandoner of the flock” (Zech

Comment

145

11:17). More interesting yet is Lam 1:1, where the hireq compaginis appears three times: Jerusalem was ‫לבתי עם‬, “great of people” (i.e., populous); ‫רבתי בגוים‬, “a great one of [the cities] in the nations”; and ‫ במדינות‬τπίρ, “a princess of [the cities] in the provinces.” In the latter two cases, where it appears with the preposition ‫י ב‬ the hireq compaginis is not a meaningless archaism or metrical ballast; both times it points to a nomen rectum that is implied but not explicit: “cities.”Jerusalem was not a great nation or province, it was a great example o f the cities that are in the nations and provinces. In the Song, similarly, the man does not compare the woman to a mare “among the chariots of pharaoh” but “to a mare belonging to [the horses that are with] the chariots of pharaoh” (‫)לססתי ברכבי פךעה‬. Put another way, the mare is a member o f the class o f horses that are with the chariots of pharaoh. As such, the mare cannot be an alien horse released by an enemy among the stallions. Interpreters who take this to mean a mare creating havoc among pharaoh’s chariot corps generally point out that ‫רכב‬, “chariots,” here is plural. This is the only place in the Hebrew Bible where ‫ רכב‬is found in the plural. Normally the singular noun either refers to one single chariot or is used as a collective to refer to the chariot corps of an army. Examples of the latter usage include Exod 14:9 (‫רכב פרעה‬, “chariots of Pharaoh”) and 14:23 (‫ כל סוס פרעה רכבו ופרשיו‬, “every horse of Pharaoh, his chariots and his cavalry”). What is significant here is that the Hebrew expression for “pharaoh’s chariot corps” is ‫ לסב פרעה‬. Thus, the phrase ‫ בדקבי פלעה‬probably means, “individual chariots belonging to pharaoh.” That is, it does not refer to a military u n it but describes individual chariots that are used by pharaoh himself

If the real point of comparison is the ornamentation on one of pharaoh’s mares, then one should understand that by implication the woman wears equally elaborate adornments. V 10 confirms this. A woman in elaborate jewelry implies a wedding scene (or some other special occasion) since Israelite women did not wear such ornamentation on a day-to-day basis. This does not mean that all the following verses need refer to specific elements of a wedding ceremony. 10 The meaning of ‫ תרים‬is to some degree a matter of conjecture. The term is apparently related to the root ‫תור‬, “turn,” and means something twisted in a decorative fashion. Because of its proximity to the cheeks and neck, it is presumably a kind of jewelry. It is impossible to tell much more about this jewelry than that it is about her head and neck. She seems to wear some kind of beaded jewelry, similar to the necklaces and earrings with multiple rows of beads seen in depictions of goddesses and women from the ancient Near East. This corresponds also with the pictures of the decorations on the heads of royal horses from ancient Egypt. The necklaces that the women wore were virtually collars in that they were worn tightly around the neck. In some erotic artwork, the women are wearing only the collar necklaces, but the woman in this verse seems to have on a more elaborate display of jewelry and ornaments since they hang down over her cheeks. There is no suggestion that she is nude. 11 ‫נקרות‬, “decorations,” are studs or points; ‫ נקרות הכסף‬are probably “decorations of silver” and patterns worked into gold jewelry. A possible cognate is ‫נקר‬, “speckled,” a term that describes Jacob’s variegated sheep in Gen 3 0 : 3 2 3 5 ,33‫ ־‬, 39; 31:8, 10, 12. The precise meaning of ‫ נקרות‬is a matter of conjecture; see A. Konkel, N E DO TTE §5925.

146

Song of Songs 1:9-2:7

If the chorus sings this verse and if the implied image is of a bride decked out in the elaborate ornamentation her culture prescribes, then this verse expresses the general desire of people—and especially of women—to see a bride dressed as elaborately and as gorgeously as possible. The verse may allude to the young women at a wedding helping to dress up the bride. 12 The woman declares enigmatically that her spikenard gives off its fragrance until “the king” is at his “circle.” The term “circle” here (‫ )מסב‬may be a banquet or a couch or may be related to the enigmatic surrounding of a man by a woman described in Jer 31:22, ‫נקבה תסובב גבר‬, “a woman shall encircle a man.” ‫מסב‬, “circle” (from ‫)סבב‬, could be taken to be a circle of feasters, a room, a table, or whatever else one may imagine to be somehow rounded. Used adverbially in 1 Kgs 6:29, it means “all about.” In 2 Kgs 23:5 it is the “surroundings” of Jerusalem (i.e., the suburbs). Lacking any other clear evidence, most interpreters prefer to go with the LXX ev άνακλίσει and on the basis of άνακλίνω, “to recline,” take it to be a couch or bed used for dining or sleeping. See also Pope (347), who observes that in postbiblical Hebrew mésibbã means a banqueting party. I prefer to preserve the ambiguity of ‫ מסב‬with the translation “circle.” It is clear, however, that some kind of sexual meaning is present; the sensual intent of the next verse is stated fairly boldly. If the “circle” is a couch or bed, then the intimate implications are obvious. If it is a banquet, on the analogy of mésibbã, “banquet party,” the idea is possibly that the groom will feast as if at a banquet upon the pleasures the woman provides. This kind of imagery is used so frequently in the Song (e.g., at 2:4-5) that such an interpretation cannot be considered peculiar or forced. If the “circle” functions in away analogous to the woman’s “circling” of a man in Jer 31:22, it probably refers to her embrace, if not to sexual union. On the other hand, this may allude to a literal feast that was held in conjunction with a wedding. It is quite possible that “circle” is left deliberately ambiguous to allow for a blending of metaphors. “King” is here a metaphor for her lover, the bridegroom, who has in her eyes the significance, beauty, and charm worthy of a king. She thus declares that her spikenard gives off its fragrance until he comes to his “circle,” that is, to the feast and to her embrace. Translated into simple terms, she is saying that the spikenard gives off its fragrance in expectation of the “king,” her groom, coming to her. 13 In contrast to the expensive and somewhat theatrical beauty of necklaces of gold and silver (vv 10-11), the woman mentions a “bundle of myrrh” between her breasts. The bundle is not metallic and cold like the gold, silver, or pearls of her jewelry but is a soft pouch of cloth or leather, probably hung from a simple thong. It is not as expensive but is far more intimate. Unlike gold, it gives off an enticing fragrance. Its position between her breasts is obviously sensual. In equating her lover to this bundle, she does not distinguish between the emotions of her experience of love—symbolized by myrrh—and the object of her love, the man himself. Her “love” is at the same time her man and her feelings. The bundle of myrrh also serves as a surrogate for the man as she awaits his coming between her breasts. The imperfect ‫ ילין‬should be given a future translation, “he will pass the night between my breasts.” This continues the orientation toward the future seen already in the previous verse, where she waits “until” the man comes to his “circle.” 14 The woman next compares him to a cluster of henna flowers in the vineyards of Engedi. Henna, a bush that grows to ten feet (three meters) in height,

Comment

147

has clusters of white, fragrant flowers that apparently were used for perfumes. This verse places it among the vines of the vineyard, where it adds beauty and fragrance to the vineyard. Engedi, an oasis located west of the Dead Sea, is known to have been the location of carefully tended vineyards from at least the seventh century B.C.E. (Keel [1994] 67). The spikenard of v 12 and the bundle of myrrh of v 13 both adorn the woman’s body, and thus one should take the vineyard that the henna adorns to refer at least in part to the woman’s body as well. This agrees with frequent references to her “fruit” that the man will eat (e.g., Song 4:12-16) and to the description of her breasts as a cluster of grapes (Song 7:9 [ET 7:8]). Thus, the henna, the man, is a flowering plant that adorns the vineyard, the woman, even as he is also a sachet of myrrh between her breasts. Vv 12-14 must be understood in the context of his praise of her wearing her jewelry and in the context of the desire of the chorus to add to those adornments (vv 9-11). 15 This verse begins a third strophe in which the lovers toss words of adoring praise to one another. The meaning of “your eyes are doves” is not self-evident. Some interpreters have argued that the eyes of the woman look like doves, but this idea is garish if not nonsensical. Some take it to mean that her eyes look like the eyes of a dove, but the text simply states her eyes are doves. At any rate, a dove’s eyes are not particularly remarkable. References to doves elsewhere in the Bible are generally of little help (e.g., the dove in the story of the flood, Gen 8; the dove’s wings, which allow it to escape trouble, Ps 55:7 [ET 55:6]; the sound of the dove’s cooing, Isa 38:14 and 59:11; the dove as a senseless animal, Hos 7:11; the dove as a symbol of the Spirit, Matt 3:16). On the other hand, Jer 48:28 describes the dove as an animal that seeks refuge high in craggy rocks, a metaphor that has a parallel in Song 2:14. It could be that “your eyes are doves” in 1:15 is an abbreviated form of “your eyes are like doves behind your veil” in 4:1. In this case, the metaphor would imply that her eyes behind her veil remind the man of doves that are high and safe in nests built in the sides of cliffs. By analogy, the woman is equally beautiful but out of reach. It is not certain, however, that 1:15 should be interpreted in the light of Song 2:14 or 4:1. ‫יונה‬, “dove,” is simply a hypocorism for the woman in Song 5:2 and 6:9, and in 5:12 the woman says that the man’s eyes are like doves. Thus, the dovelike quality of the eyes does not belong exclusively to the woman, and the metaphor of 1:15 does not necessarily relate to the woman’s veil and to the dove hiding in the cliffs. Keel ([1994] 70-73) argues that iconographic evidence conclusively demonstrates that the dove was a symbol of sexuality across the ancient eastern Mediterranean world. He cites, among other examples: a Syrian cylinder seal from ca. 1750 showing the fertility goddess unveiling herself before her mate as a dove flies overhead; a Mitanni cylinder seal from the thirteenth century in which the goddess holds a staff with a flying dove; also, a scarab from eight- or seventh-century Lachish in which a dove is beneath the sign of the moon, a symbol of the goddess. This evidence seems to be sufficient to demonstrate that ancient peoples associated doves with sexuality, albeit not exclusively with sexuality (as the other biblical texts, cited above, indicate). It is possible that “your eyes are doves” is cultural code for “I find you sexually attractive.” It is possible, of course, that we are trying too hard. The doves may not strictly symbolize anything. The phrase “your eyes are like doves” may be simply an ex-

148

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pression of attraction and affection that transcends any logical connection. When one thinks of a dove, one thinks of soft cooing, fluttering wings, gentleness, and in the case of the white dove, brightness of color. Rather than bind the term in a metaphoric equation, we should perhaps simply take pleasure in the connotations. 16 The woman returns the man’s praise in kind, declaring him to be ‫ז י ה‬, which is simply the masculine form of ‫ה‬5‫ ע‬, “beautiful.” She then declares that their bed is verdant. The word ‫רענן‬, “verdant,” almost always appears in the Bible in conjunction with the word ‫עץ‬, “tree,” or with some specific species of tree, such as the olive (Jer 11:16). Although ‫רענן‬, “verdant,” occasionally means “prospering” (Ps 92:15 [ET 92:14]; Dan 4:1 [ET 4:4]), that would not seem to be the sense here. In light of the reference to trees in the next verse (1:17), the greenness of their bed must refer somehow to the greenness of trees. In the rest of the Bible, “every green tree” (‫ )כל־עץ רענן‬invariably refers to the groves and woodland shrines where the sacred prostitution of the fertility cult flourished (Deut 12:2; 1 Kgs 14:23; 2 Kgs 16:4; 17:10; Isa 57:5; Jer 2:20; 3:6,13; Ezek 6:13; 2 Chr 28:4). In describing their bed as a leafy bower, she is saying that their time of sexual pleasure is about to come. 17 It is possible that this line belongs to the man and so sustains the antiphonal singing. On the other hand, there is no clear indication of a change of part here. In addition, the next stanza is also antiphonal and ends with the soprano singing a part in four lines, and we may suggest that the same is taking place here. Continuing her proclamation that their bed is verdant, she says that the rafters are cedar and fir. That is, they have greenery beneath them and an arbor above them; they are in a secluded grove of trees. 2:1 Scholars interpret this verse according to two extremes. On the one hand, many take the woman’s self-description as a ‫חבצלת‬, “rose of Sharon,” to be self-deprecation, as though she were saying, “I am just one of many girls.” In this interpretation, the “rose of Sharon” is taken to be some kind of crocus or other small flower and the “lily of the valley” is also assumed to be common. Thus interpreted, she means, “I am nobody special.” Apart from whatever other problems this interpretation may entail, it is not likely that she would make such a self-effacing statement in a song where the man and woman are extravagantly praising each other. On the other hand, Keel ([1994] 78-80) argues that she is claiming herself to be the center of love and life. He argues that ‫( שושנה‬masculine form: ‫)שושן‬ means not “lily” but “lotus.” His strongest argument is that the capitals of Solomon’s pillars had the ‫ שושן‬design (1 Kgs 7:19, 22), as did the great metal ‫ים‬, “sea,” the washing basin in the temple complex (1 Kgs 7:26). He observes that the lotus design is common for the capitals of Egyptian columns and cups but that an ordinary lily pattern is never found. Furtherm ore, Egyptian and Phoenician art regularly portrays the lotus as the flower of the gods and the symbol of life. See also S. Grober (Semitics 9 [1984] 88), who argues that ‫ שושן‬is an Egyptian loanword that clearly means “lotus.” These arguments are compelling; it is best to translate the word as “lotus” rather than as “lily.” Even so, one should bear in mind that the lotus is in fact a variety of lily and that the Israelites may not have carefully distinguished the two. In addition, Keel ([1994] 78) argues that the flower here translated as “rose of Sharon” must also be of great significance because the only other place in the

Comment

149

OT where the word (‫ )חבצלת‬occurs it represents the dawning of eschatological salvation (Isa 35:1). Here, however, Keel has overreached himself. In Isa 35:1, the main point about the ‫ חבצלת‬is not that it was individually a spectacular flower but that when it was in bloom it was so abundant that it apparently covered an entire valley. This is more in keeping with the interpretation that takes “I am the ‫ חבצלת‬of Sharon” to mean, “I am one among many girls.” It appears that there is truth in both interpretations. On the one hand, she is saying, “I am one among many girls.” But she does not mean by this that “I am nobody special.” She is a flower, a thing of beauty and life. She emphasizes this when she declares that she is the “lotus of the valleys” and invokes traditional notions of the power of the lotus. She does not claim that she is unique in all the world, but she does claim that her role as woman is beautiful and powerful. As an afterthought, we should also observe that a number of psalms are set to the tune of “lotuses” (‫)על־ששנים‬. These include Pss 69 and 80, but the most interesting example for our purposes is Ps 45, the wedding psalm. The superscript not only sets it to the tune ‫ על־ששנים‬but also calls it a “love song” (‫)שיר ידידת‬. It may be that the tune or musical style called “lotuses” was chosen for Ps 45 because the music was associated with love poetry (Pss 69 and 80 are psalms of lament; we cannot say if there is any significance to these psalms also having this music, although the music may have been in a style appropriate both for tenderness and for mourning). 2 The man responds that in fact she is unique in all the world. He declares that, compared to all other young women, she is a lotus among thorns. In light of this response, it is fairly clear that her claim to being a “rose of Sharon” does describe her as one among many flowers. But for him she is not one flower, however good that may be; she the one and only, the lotus. It goes without saying that these words imply that he is devoted to her. His declaration also has monogamous implications; she is the only flower and he loves only her. 3 The woman begins by continuing the antiphonal series: the man has said she compares to other women as a lotus compares to brambles, and she responds that he compares to other men as the apple tree to the trees of a forest. The point of comparison is of course that the apple tree bears delicious fruit but that forest trees do not. A number of scholars argue that the edible apple was unknown in ancient Israel and contend that the ‫ תפוח‬was an apricot (especially Fox, Song o f Songs, 107, but other suggestions include the orange and even the lemon). The apple was known in ancient Mesopotamia (von Soden, Ancient Orient, 102-3). Also, the ancient Greeks and Romans knew and enjoyed the apple. It is certainly conceivable that the ancient Israelites knew the apple as well. The apple tree probably originates from the area between the Caspian and Black Seas; it was brought to the New World by immigrants. L. Walker notes that the apricot was a late import from China but that later use of ‫ תפוח‬associates it with the making of sauce and cider, which also suggests the meaning “apple” (NID O TTE §9515). The word is rendered as “apple” in both LXX (μήλον) and Vg. (malum). As mentioned above, the apple was quite significant in Greco-Roman literature. It is especially associated with women (or goddesses) and sexuality. According to (Pseudo) Apollodorus, Library 2.173, Eris (“strife”) offered the prize of an apple in the beauty contest between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite and so ultimately pro­

150

Song of Songs 1:9-2:7

voked the Trojan wars. In the tale of Atalanta and Melanion (more commonly known as Hippomenes), the athletic virgin Atalanta issued the challenge that she, wearing full armor, would race any man who desired to marry her. If she won, the man would die on the spot, but if he won, he could marry her. After many had died in the attempt, Melanion succeeded by throwing in front of her the golden apples of the Hesperides that Aphrodite had given him, which she could not resist stooping to pick up (Library 1.401). Another myth tells how Earth presented Zeus with the golden apples of the Hesperides after his marriage to Hera. The Hesperides (nymphs) and a dragon guarded these apples at the western end of the world; Herakles’ eleventh labor was to fetch them (Library 1.221). Pausanias, in his guide to Greece (2.10.5), describes an image to Aphrodite in which the goddess holds an apple in her hand. The figure of the apple also appears on a number of extant vases. For example, an early classical vase from Attica (catalogue London D 6) depicts a girl (or nymph) picking apples from a tree. A red figure vase from Campania, about 450 B.C.E. (Boston 01.8083), depicts three women at a festival of Dionysius, and the central woman holds an apple. Artwork on other vases reflects the fact that the apple had sexual implications. In short, classical evidence for the association of apples with women and sexuality is fairly strong; the woman’s claim that the man is to her like an apple tree is in keeping with this motif. She speaks of taking pleasure in his shade and his fruit and abiding with him. As in the myth of Atalanta and Melanion, she is the virgin who finds the apples to be irresistible. 4 As stated in Note 4.a., in this context ‫ ודגלו‬might have the meaning, “his intention.” The more common Hebrew meaning of ‫דגל‬, “banner,” cannot be excluded, however. Later in the Song, the woman as virgin is a walled city (6:4) and is surrounded by guards. The man has not conquered the city but has come to her in peace and has been freely admitted (see, e.g., Song 8:10). Understood in light of this metaphor, the line “his banner toward me is love” becomes comprehensible; the man is a “king” who comes as an ally and not an enemy. He has approached her in peace and not to conquer. “His banner toward me is love” is a veiled anticipation of the metaphor of the woman as a walled city that the man takes without combat or violence. He has brought her to the “house of wine” with the intent to give her his love. Interpreters have understood the phrase ‫בית היין‬, “house of wine,” in a wide range of ways—as a banqueting hall, as a symposium, or as an arbor where one drinks and makes love. If a wedding banquet is in view here, the “house of wine” is on one level the banquet and on another level the anticipated love play. In the Song, wine often connotes or is associated with lovemaking, especially kisses (1:2, 4; 4:10; 5:1; 7:3 [ET 2], 10 [ET 9]; 8:2). 5 The verb ‫ סמך‬in the qal means “to rest upon, support, lean against.” In Gen 27:37, ‫ ודגן ותירס סמכתיו‬means, “with grain and wine I supported him,” and thus many conclude that here the word means to “refresh” or “feed.” On the other hand, the phrase ‫ וסמכת אודידך עליו‬means, “and lay your hand on him” (Num 27:18), indicating that the primary meaning of ‫ סמך‬is that one thing is leaning or resting on another (other examples include Exod 29:10, 15, 19; Lev 1:4; 3:2, 8). It is best to understand Gen 27:37 as a metaphorical use of ‫סמך‬, analogous to the English word support used with the meaning “provide the necessities of life for someone.” ‫ סמך‬is also used metaphorically to mean “rely upon” (e.g., 2 Chr

Comment

151

32:8 [nip'al]). But in English one would not use “I supported him” to mean “(in the course of a meal) I served him food,” and we may doubt that the Hebrew ‫ סמך‬should be so understood here. It is probable that the pi'el of ‫( סמך‬used only here) means, “make (me) to rest upon” rather than “feed me.” The verb ‫ רפד‬appears three times in the Hebrew Bible. In Job 41:22 (ET 41:30) we have ‫תחתיו חדורי חרש ירפד חרוץ עלי־טיט‬, “Beneath him are jagged potsherds; he stretches out [like] a sledge over mud,” in the description of Leviathan (using qal stem of ‫)רפד‬. A picel form appears in Job 17:13, “If I spread out [‫ ]רפדתי‬my bed in darkness.” From these two examples, it appears that the qal has the intransitive or middle meaning, “to spread oneself out” or “stretch oneself out,” whereas the pice l has the transitive meaning, “to spread something out.” The pi'el example here (‫ )רפדוני‬thus could mean, “Spread me out,” but it is probably more appropriate to give it the translation, “stretch me out.” The word never connotes giving someone food. The verb ‫ חלה‬means to be hurt or in pain. The source of the hurt may be an illness (1 Sam 19:14; 1 Kgs 14:1, 5; 17:17), weariness (Isa 57:10), or an injury or wound (2 Kgs 1:2; 2 Chr 22:6). It is often used of illness, and one could translate this as “lovesick.” However, to the modern reader this implies adolescent pining, and there is more to it than that. In what sense has love wounded the woman or made her ill, and why does she ask that they lay her on raisin cakes and apples? Scholars often take this text to mean simply that she is flushed with excitement over love and that she needs raisin cakes and apples to restore her strength. Also, many interpreters point out that these foods probably were thought to have an aphrodisiac quality. The image of lying on a bed of raisins and apples has layers of meaning. Lying down implies rest for someone who is weary or ill, and the eating of food gives strength to such persons. On the other hand, lying down has sexual implications, and sweetmeats such as raisins and apples probably connote love play. Lying down in these foods also betokens luxuriant extravagance. Her request is thus an appeal for both strength and for affection, but it suggests a paradise setting. She needs this because she is “wounded by love.” The real question, then, concerns the significance of her sickness. Her lovesickness does reflect her deep desire for her lover, but it is not desire for an absent lover or grief over unrequited love. It is, rather, a conflicted desire. ‫חלה‬, “wounded,” implies real illness or impairment; it is unlikely that the term here means only that she is overly excited or flushed from overstimulation. Similarly, there is more here than adolescent pining; the language implies real suffering that the reader is to empathize with rather than smile at. It is better to take this as mental pain produced by profound anxiety and conflict. The solution to her anxiety, here metaphorically described as lying down in a bed of raisins or apples, is the affection of her beloved. It is his affection that will enable her to overcome her internal conflict. She has already described her lover as an apple tree in Song 2:3; it is hardly an interpretive leap to take “apples” here to refer to his affection. 6 The dyad “right hand” and “left hand” also appears in the Sumerian love poetry, but the usage there is more erotic. In one of the Sumerian songs, the woman asks the man to place his left hand at her head and his right hand at her

152

Song of Songs 1:9-2:7

nakedness, that is, her genitals (CS 1:541). Here in the Song, the right-handleft-hand dyad only implies affection and support, not genital stimulation. This verse answers the request of the previous verse. The man lets her rest upon his left arm while he caresses her with his right hand. He sustains her with tender affection; his love is the raisins and apples upon which she rests. As described in Form/Structure/Settingabove, however, it seems to be bound to strophe 6 rather than to strophe 5. The declaration that the girls should not awaken love (Song 2:7) before the right time is closely related to this verse. 7 This is the first of three texts in which the woman demands that the Jerusalem girls forswear “arousing love before it pleases.” The other two are at Song 3:5 and 8:4 (the latter lacks the line concerning gazelles and does of the field). We naturally wonder why she asks the girls to swear by gazelles and also what specifically they are supposed to forswear. Many modern interpreters take ‫בצבאות או באילות השדה‬, “by gazelles or by the does of the field,” to be a circumlocution for “by (Yahweh) Sabaoth [‫ ” ]צבאות‬and “by God Shaddai [‫( ” ]אלהים שדי‬cf. Note 2:7.a-a. on the LXX). The coincidence is remarkable, and it is easy to see why interpreters have taken this as a circumlocution. But if the similarity is deliberate, it is probably little more than a wordplay, and we still have to deal with the words that are actually present in the text. The words for gazelles and does have not been chosen simply because of their similarity to Sabaoth and El Shaddai; gazelles and deer play an important role in the Song and in love imagery from the ancient Near East. The woman’s lover is like a gazelle (Song 2:9,17), and her breasts are like the twins of a gazelle (Song 4:5; 7:3). Keel ([1994] 91-93) has documented the place of gazelles or deer in the iconography of the Near East that relates to sexuality and the goddess. It is probable that in the wider culture of the ancient Near East as well as in the vocabulary of the Song itself, gazelles and deer represent the joys of love. In charging the women with an oath in the name of the gazelles, she is calling on them to swear by love itself rather than by the name of a deity. Fox (Song of Songs, 110) argues that she is asking the chorus not to disturb the lovers until they are finished. He states that ‫ עור‬never means to arouse sexually but that it only means to “awaken” someone. He thus concludes that waking someone is equivalent to disturbing someone, and thus that she is asking that they not be disturbed. His interpretation, however, is very unnatural; “Do not awaken love until it desires” cannot possibly mean “Do not disturb us until we have finished making love.” Arguing that ‫ עור‬does not of itself mean “to arouse sexually” misses the point that this is metaphorical language. She is telling them not to “ wake up” love itself. One can readily understand “waking up love” as a metaphor for arousal (or more precisely as a metaphor for becoming sexually active for the first time in one’s life) without having to demonstrate that ‫ עור‬alone connotes sexual arousal. Apart from that, Fox’s translation is simply wrong. V. Hamilton (NIDOTTE §6424, 3:357) summarizes the meaning of ‫ עור‬as follows: “In the simple and passive stems the vb. is used for being aroused or excited to some activity. In the factitive and causative stems the vb. is used for arousing or stirring somebody to action. The activities to which one is aroused are those that require extra effort, such as war, work, or love.” The word does not mean “disturb.”

Explanation

153

Explanation

Symbolically, this text describes the tension between the glory of the wedding and the glory of the marriage. The glory of the wedding is in ceremony and elaborate costuming. The glory of a marriage is in the love of a man and woman. It remains for the woman of the Song to redirect attention to where it belongs, not on the trappings of the wedding but on its significance as the beginning of a marriage. “King” is here a metaphor for her lover, the bridegroom, who has in her eyes the significance, beauty, and charm worthy of a king. She thus declares that her spikenard gives off its fragrance until he comes to his “circle,” that is, to the feast and to her embrace. Translated into simple terms, she is saying that the spikenard gives off its fragrance in expectation of the “king,” her groom, coming to her. The governing topic is the question, What enhances the woman’s beauty? The man and the chorus desire to adorn her with expensive ornaments of gold and silver. This sentiment is not bad, and it is born of love for her, but it substitutes a superficial embellishment for true adornments. She asserts rather that her desirability is enhanced by her fragrances of spikenard, myrrh, and henna and that her beauty is enhanced by the love of her lover. She gives off the fragrance of spikenard as she waits for him to come to her. She will have him, like her myrrh, between her breasts. He is like henna in that he adorns the beauty of her, the vineyard. The fragrance of these perfumes is like love itself; it is invisible but powerful and sweet. Her real adornment, she asserts, is the groom and the love she has for him. The association between love play and a verdant paradise (“Our bed is really verdant”) are universal, and it is not surprising that the fertility cult seized this setting as the locus for sexuality. It is probably safe to assume that the Israelites would have heard “our bed is verdant” to be an indication that it is ready for their love play. At the same time, the image is not of itself evil. God himself seizes the language of the fertility cult when he promises that he will be a lush, lifegiving tree or vineyard for Israel (Hos 14:4-8 [ET 14:5-9]). The grove is the domain of sexual love. While the sacred prostitute (or, in a more modern setting, the mistress) might make use of the language of sexual pleasure, such imagery rightly belongs in a setting of a couple committed to one another in love. The question the Song confronts us with is this: Which of these two, the liaison with the prostitute or the unity of a married couple, is the real arena of sexual pleasure? A very common motif in love poetry is yearning for an absent lover, or distress over an unrequited love, or wasting away in agony in a love that one dare not or cannot declare openly. Egyptian love poetry also makes use of the motif of lovesickness, often because one is longing to see the beloved again. For example, in Papyrus Chester Beatty I group 34, a woman describes how vexed and agitated she is in the absence of her lover; she cannot even put on her scarf or paint her eyes. In group 37 of the same text, a boy declares that he is sick from not having seen his beloved for a full seven days and that medicines do him no good.

154

Song of Songs l:9-2:7

A classic expression of this kind of lovesickness in English is in the Knight’s Tale in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and it well illustrates what one frequently sees in love literature. When Arcita is freed from prison in Athens and banished from the city, he is despondent over the thought that he will never see Emily, the object of his undeclared love, again (p. 36, lines 497-508): Whan that Arcite to Thebes comen was, Ful ofte a day he swelte and seyde “allas,” For seen his lady shal he nevermo. And shortly to concluden al his wo, So muche sorwe had nevere creature That is, or shal, whyle that the world may dure. His sleep, his mete, his drink is him biraft, That lene he wex and drye as is a shaft. His eyen holwe, and grisly to biholde; His hewe fallow and pale as asshen colde; And solitarie he was and evere allone, And waillinge al the night, makinge his mone.

The Song of Songs is strikingly different. Here, the soprano does not imply that the man is absent or that she can be cured by seeing him again. To the contrary, v 6 suggests that he is with her. Instead of longing for an absent lover, she asks to lie upon raisin cakes and apples. The Song has taken the motif of lovesickness and, by doing away with the absent-lover device, has transformed a formulaic device and taken it in an entirely new direction. A desire may be conflicted for a number of reasons: a woman may love a man whom her family rejects (as in Romeo andJuliet), or she may love a man but know that loving him is at odds with another duty. This commentary will argue that Song 3:1-5 describes symbolically the conflicted state of the woman’s love. She fully confronts the source of her suffering in 5:2-8, where she once again declares herself "wounded by love” (5:8).The Song is distinctive in ancient love poetry in that it refuses to invoke the goddess (or a god) of love. Neither the woman nor the man calls upon Aphrodite (under any of her many titles) to give aid in the quest for happiness in love. But neither is Yahweh explicitly invoked. This is not because the Song is “secular” but because it avoids any suggestion that Yahweh will play the role of Eros or Aphrodite. It does not participate in the superstitions that surrounded love in the ancient world. The Song offers no sanctioned prayer, ritual, or amulet for calling upon Yahweh to make this or that person fall in love. By using words that sound like Sabaoth and El Shaddai, the woman forces the girls of Jerusalem to reckon with the importance of the oath she calls them to take. Nevertheless, she avoids naming God and has them swear by love instead. Her appeal is that they not awaken the passions of love until those passions are ready. That is, it is a simple moral injunction (cf. M. Saeb0, "O n the Canonicity,” 276). Put another way, she is telling them to avoid sexual experience until the proper time. A modern, Western reader might take this to mean “Do not become involved in sexual activity until you are sure that you are emotionally prepared for it.” Such an interpretation would be quite out of character with the moral code of ancient Israel and the message of the Song. In this context,

Explanation

155

the exhortation can only mean that they should avoid promiscuity and save their virginity for marriage. This is not a matter of imposing Christian or bourgeois ethics on the text. To the contrary, ancient moral codes in this regard are far more conservative than modern Western codes. At the heart of the Song, moreover, is the event of a young woman marrying the man she loves and giving up her virginity. The passion of love and of the powerful emotions of the transition from virgin to sexually active woman are to be experienced with what the OT calls the “husband of your youth.” The woman is simply telling the younger girl to wait until she finds and marries the man she loves. In this light, lines 14C- D (Song 2:7b) make more sense. Because her man tenderly sustains her, she is at peace about “awakening love” with him. A woman who awakens love with a man who is not giving of himself or prepared to sustain her will find herself bitter and desolate.

V. Soprano and Tenor: The Invitation to D epart (2:8-17) Bibliography Albrektson, B. “Singing or Pruning?” BT 47 (1996) 109-14. Butting, K. “Go Your Way: Women Rewrite the Scriptures (Song of Songs 2.8-14).” In Song of Songs: A Feminist Companion to the Bible. FCB 2d ser. 6. Ed. A. A. Brenner and C. R. Fontaine. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000. 142-51. Gibson, J. C. L. Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions. Lemaire, A. “Zamir dans la Tablette de Gezer et le Cantique des Cantiques.” VT25 (1975) 15-26. Murphy, R. E. “Cant 2:8-17—A Unified Poem?” In Melanges bibliques et orientaux en l'honneur de M. Mathias Delcor. Ed. A. Caquot. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1985. 305-10. Weems, R. J. "The Song of Songs.” In NIB. Nashville: Abingdon, 1997. 5:363-434. Translation F ir s t S t a n z a soprano

8 The sound of my lover! There, he is coming, leaping on the mountains, springing on the hills! 1 My lover is similar to a gazelle or the stag of the deer.a There, he is standing behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peekingb through the lattices! 10 My lover spoke up and said to me,

1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F 2A 2B 2C 2D

Se c o n d St a n z a TENOR

Arise, my companion, my beautiful one,a and come along! 11 For see, the wintera has passed, the rain is done, it is gone away. 12 The flowers appear in the land, the time ofpruning and singinga arrives, the sound of the dove is heard in our land! 13 The fig tree ripens its figs, and the vines from blossoms give theirfragrance.

3A 3B 4A 4B 4C 5A 5B 5C 5D 5E

T h ir d S t a n z a

Arise! Come, my companion, my beautiful one! Come along! 14 My dove in the clefts of the rock, ain the coverts of the cliff! *

6A 6B 7A 7B

Form/Structure/Setting Show me your form! Let me hear your voice! For your voice is sweet and your form is lovely.

little foxes ruining vineyards! Our vineyards are in bloom.

he who grazes among the lotuses. 17 Until the day comes to life and the shadows flee, Take your fill! a Make yourself my lover, like the gazelle or like the stag o f the deer on the cleft mountains! b

157

7C 7D 7E 7F 8A 8B 8C 9A 9B 10A 10B 10C 10D

Notes 9.a. LXX adds eπί τα όρη Βαιθηλ, “on Bethel’s mountain.” 9.b. ‫( צוץ‬hip'il) normally means to “bloom” (e.g., Isa 27:6), although the concept sometimes is used metaphorically (Ps 72:16). Here alone it means to “peek.” 10.a. LXX adds πeριστ6ρά μου and Vg. columba mea, both meaning “my dove.” 11.a. ‫( סחו‬Q ‫ )סתיו‬is known from Jewish Aram, as well as Syr. and Arabic cognates but is a hapax legomenon in the OT. It may mean either “winter” or “winter rains.” Cf. Lemaire, VT25 (1975) 23. 12.a. Scholars and translators struggle with the question of whether ‫ זמיר‬here has its more common meaning “song” (I ‫זמר‬, “sing”), or if it is from the root II ‫זמר‬, “to prune” (B. Albrektson, BT 47 [1996] 109-14). See Comment on vv 10b-13a. 14.a-a. LXXêxópcva του προτβιχισματο?, “clinging to an outer wall.” 17.a. Interpreters are divided regarding whether ‫סב‬, “turn,” here means “depart” or “come back” (with LXX Syr. Vg.). Read “eat.” See Comment on v 17. 17.b. The root ‫ בתר‬means to “split” or “cut in two.” The phrase ‫ על־הרי בתר‬thus means “on the cleft mountains” (cf. BDB‫)בתר‬. See further discussion in Comment on v 17.

Form/Structure/Setting

At the heart of this unit is an invitation speech-act by the man appealing for the woman to come to him and come away with him (vv 10b- 14). The woman sings an introduction to his canto (vv 8-10a) and concludes the unit by answering him with words of encouragement that the two of them belong to each other and that he can love her until morning dawns. The chorus also has a brief part in this unit; at v 15 they encourage the lovers with an enigmatic line about catching foxes (see discussion below concerning the attribution of this verse to the chorus). The two strophes that make up the first stanza parallel each other. Matching is employed in 2:8-10a to link the two strophes together as illustrated in figure 7. Line a a has ‫הנדדזה בא‬, “There, he is coming,” which corresponds to ‫הנה־זה עומד‬, “There, behind our wall,” in a ‫׳‬. The two lines β and ββ are matched by the two lines β' and ββ' in that both pairs have participles followed by prepositional phrases (and assonance is maintained by using four participles with the ‫מ‬

Song of Songs 2:8-17

158

preformative). Line y begins ‫דומה דודי‬, “my lover is similar,” and line y ' begins ‫ענה דודי‬, “my lover spoke up,” using repetition, before it breaks off for the man’s lines. “The sound of my lover! ” ‫קול דודי‬ “There, he is coming,” ‫הנה־זה בא‬ “leaping on the mountains,” ‫מדלג על־ההרים‬ “springing on the hills! ” ‫מקפץ על־הגבעות‬ “My lover is similar to a gazelle,” ‫דומה דודי לצבי‬ “or the stag of the deer.” ‫או לעפר האילים‬ “There, he is standing behind our wall,” ‫הנדרזה עומד אחר כתלנו‬ “gazing through the windows,” ‫משגיח מן־החלנות‬ “peeking through the lattices! ” ‫מציץ מן־החרכים‬ “My lover spoke up and said to me,” ‫ענה דודי ואמר לי‬ Fig. 7. Matching in Song 2:8-10 a

a aa B

ßß ‫ד‬ yy

a' ß‫׳‬ ßß‫־‬ y'

1Α 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F 2A 2B 2C 2D

The second and third stanzas parallel each other in that each begins with a call from the man to the woman to come away (lines 3A-B and 6A-B). In the second stanza, this invitation to depart is followed by a series of strophes that describe the advent of spring. Strophe 4 describes the ending of winter, and strophe 5 describes the awakening of the flora and fauna. In the third stanza, after the invitation to depart (lines 6A-B), the man addresses the woman as a dove in the cleft of a rock. This metaphor links this stanza to the previous one, in which the turtledove’s voice is heard again with the return of spring (v 12 [line 5C]). In strophe 7 (v 14), however, the image is not the harbingers of spring but the dove as a beautiful but inaccessible creature. Strophe 7 also illustrates again many of the tropes of Hebrew poetry. Line 7A is linked to 7B by matching and gapping (note the “double-duty” use of ‫יונתי‬, “my dove”). Line 7C is bound to 7A-B by syntactical dependence (in this case, because 7A-B by itself is only a vocative, 7A-B depends on the imperative in 7C). Line 7D matches 7C, and line 7E depends on 7D via the subordinating particle. Line 7F matches line 7E. The fourth stanza (v 15) has no syntactical relation to either what precedes it or what follows it, and therefore it should be treated as an independent stanza. Still, it fits well within the fifth canto, a celebration of the advent of spring and young life. The significance of this enigmatic verse is explored below. The soprano sings the fifth stanza, and in it she resumes the metaphor of the groom as a stag on the hills. Like his stanzas, this stanza begins with a two-line strophe, then moves into a longer second strophe. Unlike his stanzas, however, which begin with imperatives and then move into lengthy explanations of the imperatives, she begins with a description of him in strophe 9 and moves into a series of inviting imperatives in strophe 10. The line division of strophe 10 calls for some explanation: lines 10A-B depend on 10C, and 10D matches (with gapping) line 10C. Comment 8 -1 0 a The woman describes her lover as ‫מדלג‬, “leaping,” on the hills. This is obviously a function of the metaphor that follows, the gazelle. Leaping connotes

Comment

159

energy and vitality, and the woman expresses her excitement with the words "The sound of my lover! There, he is coming! ” The gazelle or deer implies beauty and grace as well as strength without violence (unlike, for example, the lion). Anyone who has seen a deer leaping up a mountain will readily comprehend the image of graceful power that these words evoke. The Chester Beatty Papyrus I also describes the woman’s lover as a gazelle, so it was to some extent a stock metaphor. The lover is not to be regarded as a “peeping Tom.” It is more likely that the peeking through the window is a function of the metaphor of the deer. The image of a young woman who is excited to see a deer outside her window is merged with the image of a young woman who is excited at the coming of her lover. He is outside ‫כתלנו‬, “our wall,” that is, the wall of her parents and brothers. The lover is thus a beautiful outsider, a gazelle, who comes to take her away from her childhood home. Her domestic environment, the home, is thus contrasted with the wilderness, the domain of the gazelle. The point is that the man is wooing the woman; he wants her to leave her childhood home and run with him in the wilderness—here suggesting the wilds of sexual maturity and the danger of abandoning the security of her childhood home. 10b-13a The man’s lines are in two parts, each beginning with “Arise, my companion, my beautiful one, and come along!” at 10a and 13b.‫רעיתי‬, “my companion,” is his usual name for her, but he calls her ‫יפתי‬, “my beautiful one,” only here and in v 13b. It is interesting that the man does not use the terms ‫אחתי‬, “my sister,” and ‫כלה‬, “bride,” for her at this point; these terms will dominate his words in 4:8-15. This portion of the man’s canto is a beautiful account of the coming of spring. The link between springtime and romance is natural and universal. As mentioned in Note 12.a., it is difficult to decide if ‫( זמיר‬v 12) means “song” or “pruning.” Context could incline one in either direction; the flowering of the plants in 12a favors “pruning” while the cooing of the doves in 12c favors “song.” Keel ([1994] 101) contends that the pruning of vines takes place between January and March before the sap begins to rise but that the winter rains can last until the end of April. He also argues that the flowering of the plants and the emergence of young figs takes place in April or May, too late for the pruning season. Thus, he contends that ‫זמיר‬ means “song” here. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine that no pruning at all took place while plants were in flower and beginning to bear fruit. In fact, Isa 18:5 explicitly asserts that the pruning and cutting of vines occurred while they were in flower. The term ‫ זמיר‬also appears in line 6 of the Gezer Calendar (see Gibson, Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions, 1.1-4), and it may be that the two occurrences illuminate one another (Lemaire, VT25 [1975] 15-26). However, the meaning of the Gezer Calendar is unclear here, and it is difficult to correlate the two. The ancient versions unanimously take the word to mean “pruning” (e.g., the LXX: καιρός τής τομής eφθακeν). The meaning “pruning” cannot be excluded on horticultural grounds. At the same time, ‫ זמיר‬routinely means “song” (e.g., Isa 24:16; Ps 95:2; Job 35:10), and the reference to the cooing of doves is suggestive of singing. We probably have here a case of deliberate ambiguity or double meaning. The text demonstrates this with a form of Janus parallelism; it is a time both of pruning (with 12a) and of singing (with 12c). He is continuing to woo her and to appeal to her to come out to him; spring is the time when the earth awakens, and he is seeking to awaken love in her.

160

Song

of

Songs 2:8-17

13b-14 Once again the man associates his beloved with the dove, a creature that has romantic or sexual implications in the ancient Near East. Here, however, the woman herself., and not her eyes, is called a dove. He portrays her as nesting high in the crags and rocky cliffs, far away from human contact, the main point being that she is out of his reach. The motif of the woman’s inaccessibility appears repeatedly in the man’s songs. He cannot get to her; for them to come together, she must come out to him, or open the door to him, or descend to him. But he does not attempt to gain her by force or entrapment. His only means of attaining her are his words. He appeals to her, praises her, calls her by many pet names, and speaks fervently of the pleasures that she has the power to give. 15 This verse is often attributed either to the man or to the woman, but the plural forms ‫אחזו־לנו‬, “catch for us,” imply that we here have the chorus addressing the couple. It is of course possible that either the man or the woman is addressing the chorus, but this would be unusual because in the Song the man and the woman are usually the focus of the action. If the chorus is asked to do something, they are generally addressed as the “daughters of Jerusalem” (e.g., Song 5:8). It is hard to imagine, moreover, why the chorus would be asked to catch foxes for the couple. What is unacceptable, however, is to take this as a verse addressed by the man to the woman or as addressed by the woman to the man. This interpretation disregards entirely the plural form of the imperative (‫)אחזו‬. Clues to the identity of the singers of the parts of the Song of Songs are few enough as it is; nothing is gained by disregarding the indications that are explicit in the text. In the ancient world, foxes were notorious for their stealing of grapes from vineyards. In Aristophanes’ Knights 1075-77, Demos and a sausage seller are discussing the interpretation of an oracle concerning the “dog-fox.” Demos asks, “Why does the oracle then not say ‘dog’ instead of ‘dog-fox’?” The sausage seller replies, “Because it compares the soldiers to young foxes who, like them, eat the grapes in the fields.” Aristotle considered the fox to be “mischievous and crafty” (History of Animals 488b.l). Other classical writers also reflect this sentiment, including Pindar (Pythian Odes 2.75), Sophocles (Ajax 101), and Plato (Republic 365c). Images of hunting scenes on classical pottery attest to the fact that young people hunted foxes. Closer to this text, in the Papyrus Harris 500 Egyptian texts, a woman refers to her lover as her fox (on the translation, see Keel [1994] 110 n. 2; he also cites a hymn to Hathor in which wreathed young women and drunkards raise their heads to the goddess of passion and to the foxes). Biblical texts on foxes do little to illumine the meaning of this passage. Samson caught foxes and used them to get revenge on the Philistines (Judg 15:45). Other texts allude to the small size of the fox (Neh 3:35 [ET 4:3]) or to its behavior as a scavenger (Ps 63:11 [ET 63:10]; Ezek 13:4; Lam 5:18). Jesus uses the fox as a metaphor for craftiness (Luke 13:32). Some interpretations of the text are highly unlikely if not absurd. Some see a royal hunting party here and claim that the king is speaking. Apart from the fact that the use of a royal plural would be odd in the Song, a king on a hunt would not ask others to do the hunting for him, nor would concern for vineyards be his motivation. Also, classical pottery indicates that hunting foxes was the sport of boys, not kings. In the Assyrian bas-reliefs, kings hunt lions. Foxes would be puny game for a king in the ancient Near East! More preposterous yet is the interpretation of Robert Graves that foxes are a metaphor for hallu-

Comment

161

cinogenic mushrooms (cited in Pope, 403). Some say that the foxes are anything that might prevent the love of the young couple from coming into full bloom or anything that might keep the woman from blossoming with all her feminine charm. Weems (“Song of Songs,” 394) says they are the cunning stratagems of the lovers to consummate their relationship in secret. None of these interpretations has much to commend it, and none relates meaningfully to the rest of the Song. Gordis (82) asserts that the line should be emended to read “Little foxes have seized us.” He argues that the line belongs to the woman and that she is confessing that she has already lost her virginity. But the woman never speaks of herself in the plural, and Gordis’s emendation of ‫( אחזו‬imperative form) to a perfect tense is gratuitous. Another unlikely interpretation is that of Falk (Song of Songs, 178), who takes the foxes to be city guards who abuse defenseless women in the streets. A more exotic interpretation is that the foxes represent the wild and untamed nature of sexuality and that this verse is a call to domesticate that power and bring it into the realm of civilized life (Landy, Paradoxes of Paradise, 240-41). Some say that the foxes are boys who would deflower the girls (e.g., Murphy, 141) and that the chorus here calls for protection from such boys. This has something to commend it in that the woman does charge the girls to refrain from sexual activity (e.g., Song 2:7), and girls are represented as flowers (Song 2:1), a fact that could explain the line “Our vineyards are in bloom” in this verse. However, in Song 2:7 the girls are charged to take responsibility upon themselves to maintain their virginity; it is peculiar to see them here asking the lovers to keep boys away from them. Also, foxes go after grapes, not flowers. In short, what one finds in the interpretation of this verse is an enormous amount of guesswork, usually carried out without benefit of inquiry into how the ancients thought about foxes and grapes. In the metaphor of Song 2:15, the chorus asks the couple to “catch the foxes” because the “vineyards are in bloom.” That is, they should catch the foxes now while the vines are in flower and before the grapes begin to emerge. But this language should probably not be taken too seriously, as though it concerned a significant threat to the world of the Song. The foxes are called “little,” and they are to be “caught” rather than killed (which would give the verse a more ominous tone). This verse surely reflects upon life in rural Israel. One can well imagine that, when spring arrived and the vineyards were blossoming with the young grapes beginning to form, the young people made a game of trying to catch foxes. As mentioned above, chasing foxes was a task for boys in classical Greece, and no doubt they made a game of it. For them it would have been fun, and it would have helped to insure a larger grape harvest for the farmers, but it would not have been a matter of the life and death of the community, as though the little foxes were the equivalent of a locust plague. In short, the real focus of this verse is not the threat posed to the vineyard but the game of chasing the “little foxes.” The imagery of the language—the flowering of the vineyard and the role of foxes as metaphors for the playful young lovers—gives a sexual flavor to the words. The hunters have been assimilated to the hunted. The couple, like the foxes they chase, are young, excited, and full of life. It is springtime, and young people are out playing. In my view, there is nothing more to be said about the verse than that, and there is no deep symbolism that must be rooted out.

162

Song of Songs 2:8-17

16 This simple sentiment “My lover is mine and I am his” is perhaps the most beautiful line of the Song. This looks back to the decree of Gen 2:24, “For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife; and they will become one flesh” (NIV), and it looks ahead to 1 Cor 7:4, that the husband has authority over his wife’s body and the wife has authority over her husband’s body. True love is monogamous. It implies devotion to the other but also implies that one has the right to expect fidelity from the other. ‫ רעה‬here means not to “lead cattle to pasture” but to “browse”; i.e., it refers to an animal that grazes on plants and not to a shepherd that leads an animal to graze. Its use here is a function of the metaphor of the man as a gazelle or deer. The woman describes her lover as browsing on the lotuses. The metaphor is somewhat mixed since deer were probably not known for routinely grazing among lotuses. However, as Keel ([1994] 111-15) demonstrates, the lotus was associated in Egyptian art with sexuality. Among other items, he cites a painted ivory tile from the tomb of Tutankhamen in which the queen, Ankhesenamen, stands before Tutankhamen. She holds a bouquet of lotus flowers and is wearing a diaphanous gown that is open at the middle, exposing her from the waist down. It is probably an invitation to love and indicates how the Egyptians associated the lotus with lovemaking. 17 ‫ עד שיפוח היום‬is literally “until the day breathes.” Since breathing is asso ated with the force or presence of life in ancient thought (as in the varied meanings for ‫)נפש‬, the idea is probably of the day coming to life (i.e., sunrise). The metaphor catches how the world seems to awaken from death when the light shines, the wind begins to stir, the birds sing, and so forth. The woman invites her lover to stay with her until morning dawns, that is, through the night. Interpreters are divided over whether ‫ונסו הצללים‬, “until shadows flee,” denotes sunrise or sunset, but taking it to be sunset is most unnatural. One would not normally think of the time that the whole world is engulfed in darkness as the time that shadows “flee.” Some contend that the fleeing of shadows means that they are getting longer as the sun goes down, but “fleeing” has the connotation of going away, not getting larger. She is inviting him to love her all night, until the morning dawns. His enjoyment of her body is described under the metaphor of eating, like the grazing of the gazelle in v 16, but she represents the eating in more human terms when she tells him to “recline and eat.” ‫ סב‬has been translated as “turn” or “return,” but neither makes sense in this context. It is more likely that the verb here has the same sense that it has in 1 Sam 16:11, to sit or recline at a meal; v 16 speaks of the man as a gazelle that feeds on the lotuses. Of course, gazelles do not literally lie down to eat, but this is not supposed to be a literal portrayal of the natural history of gazelles. The language of this verse melds several images, including the gazelle or deer, the taking of a meal, and making love. Reclining was a normal human way of taking a meal and also of making love. Efforts to identify a possible geographical location for the ‫ הרי בתר‬as the “mountains of Bether” are useless and obtuse, notwithstanding the fact that Aquila and Symmachus related it to Battir, a place conjecturally identified with Khirbet el-Yehud, about eleven kilometers southwest of Jerusalem. “Battir” as a place name appears in the Codex Alexandrinus of Josh 15:59 and 1 Chr 6:44 as Βαιθηρ or Βαιθθηρ. The word 5‫ תר‬does not appear in the MT of either of these texts, and it is doubtful that it would be written

Explanation

163

‫ בתר‬if it were there; ‫ ביתר‬would possibly be the spelling (cf. HALOT tq III). The identification of this site with ‫ בתר‬of Song 2:17 should be regarded as unlikely (cf. Murphy, 139). The root ‫ בתר‬refers to “splitting” something into two parts. It occurs six times in the OT, here and in Gen 15:10 (3x) and Jer 34:18-19. In the latter two texts it describes the covenant ceremony of cutting a sacrificial animal into two halves and walking between the parts. The verb (both qal and pi'el) means to split into two parts, and the noun ‫ בתר‬describes the two parts, unless in Song 2:17 it refers to the fissure itself. The LXX of our text has δρη κοιλωμάτων, “mountains of hollow places,” evidently seeing the root ‫בתר‬, “to split,” behind the term and referring to cleft places in the mountains. The phrase ‫ הרי בתר‬fairly conspicuously refers to the split between a woman’s two breasts. Song 8:14 is identical to this verse except that the woman changes the name of the metaphorical mountains from “cleft mountains” to “the mountains of balsam” (‫)הרי בשמים‬. In both texts these “mountains” describe her breasts, in Song 2:17 represented as two mountains separated or split from one another by a valley and in 8:14 portrayed as mountains fragrant with spices (referring to the woman’s perfume). The man, similarly, immediately after comparing his beloved’s breasts to two fawns (4:5), declares at Song 4:6 that he will get himself “to Myrrh Mountain” (‫ )הר המור‬and “to Frankincense Hill” (‫ ; )גבעת הלבונה‬using these terms, he evidently names her two “cleft mountains” individually. One need not comb the topography of the Levant for “mountains of Bether,” “Frankincense Hill,” or “Mountains of Balsam” to find the meaning of these verses. Explanation

This canto should be read as the man’s wooing of the woman and her posiit ve response to him. It shows the place of words in love between a man and woman. For him to gain her affection and devotion, he must touch her soul with language. The Song of Songs is not just about sexuality and the bodies of the man and woman; it is a work of tender, affectionate speech. These motifs— the inaccessibility of the woman and the man’s attempt to reach her with tender words—are another indication of how thoroughly the concept of virginity dominates the Song. In the culture of ancient Israel, virginity makes the woman unattainable to the man; he must entice her to open her heart and body to him with words of love. The two motifs dominate the man’s canto in Song 3. The woman calls the man to her breasts as a way of declaring her readiness to give him her love. In light of Prov 5:19 (to say nothing of the many references to breasts in the Song), we can hardly doubt that the Israelites focused on the female breasts as a place of sexual pleasure. In short, she responds to his invitation with an invitation of her own and signals her willingness to have him; the event itself is described in Song 4:16-5:1. In closing the fifth canto with this dramatic invitation, the woman signals her willingness to give him her love and her body. He has aroused and awakened love in her. Note, however, that this is an invitation. The text does not indicate that the couple has already consummated their relationship with sexual intercourse.

164

Song

of Songs

2:8 1 7 ‫־‬

Excursus: Virginity in the Bible and the Ancient World Bibliography Anderson, A. A. 2 Samuel Bergant, D. ‘“My Beloved Is Mine and I Am His’ (Song 2:16): The Song of Songs and Honor and Shame.” Semeia 68 (1994) 23-40. Dale, A. M. Euripedes: Alcestis. Driver, S. R. Notes on the Hebrew Text and Topography of the Books of Samuel Matthews, V., and D. Benjamin. Social World ofAncient Israel. Page, D. Aeschyli septem quae supersunt tragoedias. Roth, M., trans. “The Laws of Eshnunna.” In CS 2.332-35. Walton, J. “‫עלומים‬.” NIDOTTE §6596. Wenham, G. “Betulah: A Girl of Marriageable Age.” VT22 (1972) 326-48. This commentary suggests that the Song of Songs focuses on the marriage and sexual relationship between a young couple in love. It shows that much of the Song deals with the loss of a young woman’s virginity on her wedding night. The modern reader should understand that this event was far more important and received far more attention in ancient Israel than it does in the modern West. One needs to give special attention to the significance of virginity in the ancient world and in Israel in particular. ‫בתולה‬, “virgin,” does not appear in the Song. That does not mean that the idea of virginity is absent. The Song uses a wide variety of images to focus on the virginal status of the woman. In 1:6, she is under the care and control of her brothers. In 1:7, she does not want to be around men. In 2:9, she is behind a wall and a lattice. In 2:14, she is a dove out of reach and in the cleft of a rock. In 3:3, she is under the eyes of the watchmen. In 3:7, she is surrounded by a troop of warriors. In 4:4, her neck is like a fortified tower. In 4:8, she is in a lofty mountain lair. In 4:12a, she is a locked garden. In 4:12b, she is a sealed spring. In 5:2-8, she is behind an implied door. After the union of the couple, in 8:8-9, the Song discusses the proper barricading of the “little sister,” but the woman of the Song declares herself to be a city at peace (8:10). The virginal status of the young woman is very much in view in Song of Songs. For the young Israelite woman, the loss of her virginity was one of the most significant milestones of her life. Her own honor and her family’s sense of honor were represented in her virginity. She and they protected it with a view toward someday entering marriage in purity, not having “played the harlot.” It was the symbol of her belonging to her parents’ home. It was also the sign of her independence from any outside man and of her basic goodness. Losing it even in marriage would be traumatic. In the texts that follow, the Song explores that sense of trauma. The Hebrew Scriptures use a number of terms for young women and girls, including ‫בתולה‬, usually “virgin”; ‫עלמה‬, “young woman”; ‫נערה‬, “girl”; and ‫ילדה‬, “girl.” The term ‫ נערה‬appears to mean simply a girl or young woman without any reference to her sexual history. In Judg 19:4, the concubine of the Bethlehem Levite is called a ‫נערה‬. The word ‫ ילדה‬also seems to have no sexual connotations beyond simply giving the gender of the child. It can be used of a girl who has reached sexual maturity (Gen 34:4) or for a little child (Zech 8:5). The meaning of ‫ עלמה‬has been the subject of much debate in light of the fact that it is used in Isa 7:14: “Behold, a young woman [‫ ]עלמה‬shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (RSV). The best solution to the meaning of the word seems to be that of Walton (NIDOTTE §6596): that a woman ceases to be an ‫ עלמה‬not when she first has sexual relations but when she becomes a mother (see Isa 54:4). The term ‫ בתולה‬has received a good deal more attention since Wenham ( VT 22 [1972] 326-48) argued that the term does not connote sexual inexperience; it simply describes a woman of marriageable age. His arguments are strongest at four texts (Esth 2:17-19; Joel 1:8; Ezek 23:3; Job 31:1) and seem to gain support from the fact

Excursus: Virginity in the Bible and the Ancient World

165

that ‫ בתולה‬is often paired with ‫בחור‬, “young man,” a term that does not appear to have any reference to sexual history. The Esther text states that Esther pleased the king more than any of the other women (‫ )אשה‬or any of the virgins (‫ )בתולה‬of the harem. Joel 1:8 calls on the people to wail like a virgin (‫ )בתולה‬who mourns for the husband of her youth. In Ezek 23:3, 8, “they handled her virgin [‫ ]דדי בתוליהן‬breasts” describes the apostasy of Israel and Judah under the metaphor of the promiscuous sisters. In Job 31:1, the patriarch declares that he has not looked upon a virgin (‫)בתולה‬. None of this is a convincing reason to overturn the basic idea that ‫ בתולה‬connotes “virgin.” In Esth 2:17-19, the term ‫ בתולה‬is a backward reference to the group of virgins who, according to Ezek 2:2, had been assembled for the purpose of finding Ahasuerus a new queen. Ahasuerus loved Esther more than any other members of the original group of women designated as the “virgins.” It does not imply that a woman who had lost her virginity would still normally be called a ‫בתולה‬. The Joel text (1:8) is best understood as an engaged couple, legally married although they had not yet consummated their marriage; the plight of the young virgin who lost her “husband” before the consummation of the marriage was all the more pathetic and thus useful as an analogy in Joel’s rhetoric. Similarly, the graphic language of Ezek 23:3, 8 does not mean that a sexually active girl would be called a ‫בתולה‬. The point of Ezek 23 is that they lost their virginity with their foreign lovers, and the statement that her lovers fondled her “virgin breasts” expresses this idea in a startling but effective manner. In other words, their breasts, which had been virginal and should have remained so, are now being fondled. The Job text (31:1) tells us nothing about the meaning of the ‫ ;בתולה‬she is a young woman whom Job asserts he has not lusted after. The choice of the word ‫ בתולה‬implies that he refused to contemplate taking advantage of his position as a man of power, and that he would not take away the virginity of young women. Deut 22:13-21 has great significance for this discussion. The text concerns a man who marries a woman but who after the consummation of their marriage comes to despise her and begins to tell people that she did not come to the marriage as a virgin: “I came to her but did not find evidence of virginity” (‫בתולים‬, v 14). In response, the family of the woman was to produce the evidence of virginity (v 17). The elders of the town were to fine the man a hundred shekels for slandering the girl (v 19). If, however, the woman had in fact “acted like a prostitute” and had lost her virginity prior to her marriage, she was to be stoned to death (v 21). Wenham ( VT22 [1972] 334-36) argues that the issue is that she was accused of being already pregnant by another man at the time of her wedding and that her father was to refute this charge by bringing out clothing that she had stained while menstruating in order to prove that she was not pregnant when she married. For Wenham, therefore, ‫ בתולים‬seems to mean “menstruation.”Many scholars are persuaded by this analysis, but it is in reality quite far-fetched. The text says nothing to imply that a pregnancy is involved in the case. It is also difficult to imagine how anyone could regard a piece of a woman’s clothing that she had at some time stained with her menstrual blood as proof that she was not pregnant when she got married—and Wenham provides no historical analogies for this peculiar custom he proposes. If the law did concern the kind of situation Wenham imagines, it would only apply to a woman who had become pregnant immediately prior to her marriage. A woman who had become pregnant more than a month or two before her marriage would prove her own guilt by coming to term too soon (and a woman who had been pregnant much longer than that would already be showing at the wedding). It would be highly unusual for such a detailed piece of legislation to be included in the Torah for the sake of such unusually narrow circumstances—the woman who became pregnant by another man days before her wedding. Furthermore, usage in other texts makes it clear that ‫ בתולים‬means “virginity”and not “menstruation.” In Judg 11:37-38, Jephthah’s daughter wept over her “virginity” (‫ )בתולים‬and not for her “menstruation.”Lev 21:13 says that a priest must marry a woman

166

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who is in her ‫בתולים‬, her virginity. The word does not mean a woman who is menstruating and is therefore able to bear children for the priest (contra Wenham, VT22 [1972] 33738). Context indicates that the concern of this text is the woman’s sexual history, not her childbearing ability. It is worth reading Lev 21:13-15 in full (nrsv) : “He shall marry only a woman who is a virgin. A widow, or a divorced woman, or a woman who has been defiled, a prostitute, these he shall not marry. He shall marry a virgin of his own kin, that he may not profane his offspring among his kin; for I am the L ord ; I sanctify him.” In context, it makes no sense to take v 13 to mean, “He shall marry only a woman who is menstruating.” The “virgin” is here contrasted with “a widow, or a divorced woman, or a woman who has been defiled, a prostitute.” Obviously any one of these could still be menstruating and capable of bearing children. Similarly, the point to marrying a ‫בתולה‬ is not that he might have offspring but that he might not defile his offspring. The common interpretation of Deut 22:13-21 is undoubtedly correct. After a woman’s wedding night, it appears that she deposited with her parents a piece of cloth stained with the blood from the rupture of the hymen. This was to serve as proof of her virginity, and its presentation to the family may have been done in ritual fashion in the presence of witnesses (see Craigie, Book of Deuteronomy, 292-93). Similar customs are known in other cultures (Wenham himself notes an analogy to this from Palestinian culture [ VT22 (1972) 334]). Of course, the presence of a blood-stained cloth was not an infallible proof that a woman was a virgin on her wedding night (and for that matter, not every woman bleeds when she loses her virginity). The real purpose of the law was not to provide absolute proof but to reinforce the necessity of maintaining the virginity of one’s daughters. Note that a woman who had been promiscuous was to be stoned “at the door of her father’s house” because she had been immoral while yet “living in her father’s house.” In short, it is the responsibility of the paternal household to maintain the virginity of its daughters. The maintenance of a daughter’s chastity was of great significance in a culture dominated by honor and shame (see D. Bergant, Semeia 68 [1994] 23-40 ). The superficial effect of the law was no doubt that young women and their parents were careful to get and preserve the ‫בתולים‬, the official proof of the girl’s virginity. The intended, more significant outcome was that they would be careful to maintain her actual virginity. Also, the fact that the girl’s parents preserved official evidence of her virginity deterred her husband from publicly questioning her character without strong evidence. For our purposes, Deut 22 indicates again the enormous amount of attention that Israelite society gave to the matter of the virginity of young women. The issue can be fairly said to have governed the lives of young women and to have been a primary concern of their parents. The virginity of one of their daughters or lack of the same was their pride or their shame. (This phenomenon is also reflected in the story of the rape of Tamar by Amnon [2 Sam 13].) The use of ‫ בתולה‬opposite ‫בחור‬, “young man,” usually occurs in a text of lamentation over the destruction of a city. For example, Amos 8:13 asserts that in the day of wrath “virgins and young m en” will collapse from thirst (also Deut 32:25; Jer 31:13; Ps 78:63; 2 Chr 36:17). Of itself, the pairing of the two words really tells us nothing about whether ‫ בתולה‬means "Virgin,” but its use in these pairs is probably deliberate. The fall of a city is all the more tragic when it is viewed as entailing the deaths of young women who have not yet married as well as of the young men who would have become their husbands. The mourning of Jephthah’s daughter indicates that the Israelites felt that the death of a young woman was particularly sad if she had never married. The difficulty with the word ‫ בתולה‬probably comes from the fact that one uses the word virgin specifically and only with regard to sexual inexperience. Indeed, the modern English word virgin has moved so far in the direction of referring only to sexual inexperience that one regularly hears of sexually inexperienced males described as “virgins,” a usage that would have been unthinkable in the ancient world for ‫בתולה‬, virgo, or

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167

παρθένοβ (none of which has a masculine counterpart). Biblical Hebrew uses the word ‫ בתולה‬in contexts where modern English would simply use the word girl. The same applies to the Latin virgo and the Greek παρθενοs, which also appear often in the literature. That these languages used these terms so frequently does not mean that the words do not connote sexual inexperience. Rather, this common usage demonstrates how much the ideal of virginity dominated these societies. The English word that probably comes closest to semantic equivalence with ‫בתולה‬ is maiden. Like ‫בתולה‬, maiden implies that a woman is young (but not a child), single, and without sexual experience. The word does not strictly focus on sexual inexperience (as the contemporary English word virgin does), but it would be very peculiar or ironic to construct a sentence such as "That maiden has had sex with several men.” That maiden has dropped out of ordinary English usage (in contrast to its much more routine usage in English texts from two or three centuries ago) reflects a cultural shift. Virginity no longer dominates our ideal for a young woman, and many people no longer regard it as the expected norm for an unmarried woman. Although the term ‫ בתולה‬probably does not connote clinical precision about a woman’s sexual past, biblical evidence indicates that a Hebrew speaker would not refer to a woman known to be sexually experienced as a ‫בתולה‬. One should also note that the epexegetical “she had not known a man” after ‫בתולה‬ (e.g., Gen 24:16) does not mean that a Hebrew reader would not have thought virginity already to be implicit in the word ‫בתולה‬. The epexegesis makes the point more forcefully or directly and arises from the fact that the ancients spoke of “maidens” far more frequently than we do, thus necessitating further comments if one wanted to draw attendon to the specific issue of sexual inexperience. By contrast, “she had not known a man” is not used with a term such as ‫נערה‬, “girl,” without adding ‫ ;בתולה‬otherwise, the phrase would not be epexegetical but would be introducing an entirely new idea. Sometimes a woman is called a virgin to establish her credentials as a suitable candidate to be the wife of a young man from a good family (Gen 24:16). Levitical legislation requires that the priests take virgins rather than prostitutes, divorced women, or even widows as wives, since to do otherwise would violate the holiness of the priesthood (Lev 21:13-14). The virgin daughters of David were identified by the long-sleeved or embroidered garment that they wore (2 Sam 13:18, referring to the ‫כתנת פסים‬, the same term used for the garment that Jacob gave to Joseph in Gen 37:3). The garments identified young women in terms of their marriageability and implied lack of sexual experience. The gap between ancient and modern Western culture in this area is quite large; there is no garment in modern society that carries the implication “virgin” for the woman who wears it. Classical literature abounds with references to the importance attached to young women maintaining their virginity. In Aeschylus’ Suppliant Maidens 1000-1017, Danaus appeals to his daughters (the Danaids) to maintain their virtue in the face of the lustful desires of men. He exhorts, “Honor your chastity more than your life” (to σωφρονεΐν τιμώσα του βίου πλέον [D. Page, Aeschyli septem, 130, line 1013]). The daughters respond that as far as the “bloom of virginity” is concerned, they will not sway from their path of virtue. In Euripides’ Alcestis 175-79, the unhappy wife of that name who is about to give up her life for her husband looks on her bed, the place where she gave up her virginity, and laments the fact that now, because of her virtue and fidelity, she is soon to die: "O bed, where I lost my virginal maidenhood by this man for whom I die. Farewell” (tQ λέκτρον, ένθα παρθένει’ έλυσ’ εγώ / κορευματ’ εκ τουδ’ avôpóç, ου θνήσκω περί, / χαΐρ’ [Α. Μ. Dale, Euripedes: Alcestis, lines 17779]). What is remarkable in this scene is that a woman who is about to die focuses her attention on the place where she lost her virginity. In short, the importance attached to a girl’s keeping her virginity until marriage held enormous power in the minds of ancient peoples. It was, for Alcestis, her badge of honor and proof that she did not

168

Song of Songs 2:8-17

deserve what was to befall her. None of this is to suggest that the Greco-Roman world was particularly puritanical about sexuality—the truth lies in the other direction. Still, even this society held fervently, albeit often hypocritically, to this ideal. More than that, these examples reflect a fixation on virginity that goes far beyond what modern, Western culture practices or readily comprehends. The world of Josephus included both OT Judaism and Greco-Roman culture. In the Jewish Antiquities 1.246, he retells Israelite history for the benefit of his Gentile audience. In his account of the first meeting between Rebekah and the servant whom Abraham had sent to find a wife for Isaac (Gen 24), Josephus has Rebekah introduce herself in this manner: "They call me Rebekah. My father was Bethuel, but he is dead, and Laban is my brother and, together with my mother, he takes care of all our family affairs and is the guardian of my virginity.”Josephus has expanded the Genesis account of Rebekah’s words, although not entirely without justification (see Gen 24:16). What is remarkable, however, is that Josephus believed that Laban’s guardianship of Rebekah entailed two primary duties: he managed the family business affairs and served as guardian of her virginity. Josephus apparently felt that this understanding of Laban’s role was in keeping with Jewish culture and was equally comprehensible to members of his Greco-Roman audience.

VI. Three Wedding-Night Songs (3:1- 4:15) A. Soprano: The Bride’s Anxiety (3:1-5) Bibliography Edmée, Sister. "The Song of Songs and the Cutting of Roots.” AThR 80 (1998) 547-61. Lundbom, J. R. “Mary Magdalene and Song of Songs 3:1-4.” Int 49 (1995) 172-75. Translation SOPRANO

On my bed night after night I seek whom my soul loves; I seek hima and do not find him. “I will arise and I will go about in the city; in the streets and in the plazas I will seek whom my soul loves.” I seek him and do not find him.a The guards find me, those who go about in the city: "Haveyou seen whom my soul loves?” It is just a moment from when I turn from them until I find whom my soul loves. I hold him and will not let him go until I bring him to the house of my mother, to the chamber of my conceiver. I call on you to swear, daughters ofJerusalem, by the gazelles or by the does of thefield, that you will not arouse or awaken the passions of love until they are ready.

1A 1B 1C 2A 2B 2C 2D 3A 3B 3C 3D 3E 3F 3G 3H 4A 4B 4C 4D

Notes 1.a. LXX OL and some MSS of Syr. add “I called him, but he did not answer.” 2.a. LXXA+MSSadd “I called him, but he did not answer.”

Form /Structure/Setting

This canto consists of four strophes. Line 1A is linked to 1B by dependence, and 1B to 1C by matching (both lines begin with ‫בקש‬, “seek”). Lines 2A and 2B are joined by dependence, and the two lead into 2C and 2D, which are again bound by the repeated pair of verbs from ‫ בקש‬at the beginning of each line. The third strophe is in eight lines and has several pairs of matched expressions. The verb ‫מצא‬, “find,” appears in 3A and 3E, the expression ‫שאהבה נפשי‬,

170

Song of Songs 3:1-5

“whom my soul loves,” in 3C and 3E, and the pattern ‫עד־ש‬, “until . . . with a finite verb in 3E and 3G. There are also cases of syntactical dependency: line 3C depends on 3B, line 3F depends on 3E, and line 3H matches the final phrase of 3G. These eight lines make for a long strophe, but there are a sufficient number of poetic tropes to hold them together. The fourth strophe (four lines) is simply the adjuration formula found also in Song 2:7 and 8:4. It lacks the lines “His left hand is under my head / and his right hand embraces me” found in the other texts. The full formula is found only in Song 2:7. The passage is bound together by a number of catchwords, including ‫בקש‬, “seek” (4x), ‫מצא‬, “find” (4x), and ‫סבב‬, “go around” (2x). The woman is the only singer in this canto; it is a solo. This text is dominated by perfect verbs, and many translations therefore place the whole passage in the past tense. This is probably incorrect. The perfect form does not necessarily denote past action and frequently is not past action in a poetic text. In a narrative text, a sequence of past events (giving the main story line or “foreground” action) employs a chain of wayyiqtol forms (vav-consecutive imperfects). Even in a poetic text, however, a sequence of past events may be given with a string of wayyiqtols; the high number of wayyiqtols in the recounting of events in Ps 18 provides a good example of this. Here, however, there are no wayyiqtol forms. It is somewhat unusual for a simple recital of past events to use the perfect form exclusively, and since this text is poetic anyway, we have all the more reason to doubt that it should be translated as simple past tense. The perfect forms here focus on the action of the verbs rather than on their time frame. Further indications that this is not a narrative of some specific past event include the fact that she introduces it as an event that occurs “night after night,” v 1, and the fact that she uses cohortative forms in v 2 without putting them in a past-tense framework by means of an expression such as “and so I said.” The only perfect that is clearly past tense is ‫ראיתם‬, which appears in a direct question (“have you seen?”), a situation in which the past tense usage of the perfect is more common. Comment

1 ‫ בלילות‬means not “all night long” but literally “in the nights” or “night after night” or simply “by night.” The point is that it is a regular nocturnal occurrence, not that it is an event that took place during the course of one specific night. See Fox, Song of Songs, 118; Murphy, 145. She seeks her lover night after night on her bed but does not find him. This indicates nocturnal yearnings for sexual fulfillment and for the companionship of a man. It should not be taken to mean that she actually expected to find her lover in her bed. What she describes, simply enough, is the desire one experiences when sleeping alone. She wants “the one whom [her] soul loves.” Her words both reflect desire for the specific man whom she already loves and refer to her loneliness in bed and to her desire for affection and a husband. The yearning and agitation of the young woman are the actual focus here. Today, many would translate this as “whom I love” instead of “whom my soul loves.” Notwithstanding the variety of meaning that ‫ נפש‬can have, the term “soul” should not be washed out in the translation of this idiom. Cf. Edmée, AThR 80 (1998) 556-61.

Comment

171

2 Here, she overcomes her indolent wishing and takes positive action to find her lover. This decision is comparable to Song 1:7-8 (where she wants to find her lover without having to pick at fleas among the shepherds but finds herself mildly rebuked by the chorus). The women in that text tell her that if she wants her lover, she must go where he can be found. Here, the woman of her own accord makes a move from inaction to action. The cohortative verbs in Song 3:2 (‫אקומה נא‬ ‫ואסובבה‬, and ‫אבקשה‬, “I will arise,” “I will go about,” and “I will find”) are strongly assertive and connote determination: she has made up her mind to find him. She stops her idle, romantic fantasizing and actually goes after him with all the emotional risks that this action entails (again, this is all metaphorical). Her act of looking for a man in the streets and plazas of the city is comparable to the behavior of both Lady Wisdom and the prostitute in Prov 1:20-21; 7:10-13; 8:1-4. In each case, the "woman” in question is hunting for a man in order to entice him. This is of itself neither good nor evil; the character and purposes of the woman in question give the action its moral quality. The woman of the Song does not seek to instruct the man (as does Lady Wisdom) or to drag him down to Sheol (as does the prostitute); she seeks the true lover and companion for her heart. Still, we should not take this to mean that she literally wandered the streets of the city (Lady Wisdom, too, does not literally roam the streets). Rather, the words describe a movement from a passive desire to a focused determination to bring her lover to her bed. In fantasy, the pleasures of sex are easy, uncomplicated, and come of themselves to a passive subject. In reality, sexual pleasure and the fulfillment of a relationship require effort, maturity, active participation, and a determination to overcome obstacles. For a woman to comb the streets alone at night would require great determination; as a metaphor, her action is a coming of age. Many myths describe a quest in which the protagonist puts himself at risk by going outside of the security of home or civilization in order to obtain the object of his desire. Often, the quest itself is part of the process of transformation of the protagonist. From the ancient Mesopotamian world, the most famous quest legend involved Gilgamesh who, after the death of his friend Enkidu, sought the plant of eternal youth in the sea (he found it only to lose it again). Greek mythology has many journeys and quests, such as the story of Jason, the hero who with the Argonauts sailed to Colchis to obtain the golden fleece. Another great but failed quest was that of Orpheus, who journeyed to Hades and almost succeeded in bringing his wife, Eurydice, back with him. The woman of the Song shows herself to be the true protagonist of Song of Songs by metaphorically embarking on a heroic journey. The wandering in the streets of Jerusalem represents the ideal of the quest. Reading these lyrics as actual events misses the deeper point. The woman takes upon herself the responsibility of nurturing her love by courageous determination to take the man to herself. Nevertheless, she does not immediately find him; she must first deal with the guards of the city. 3 The appearance of the guards is altogether unanticipated. ‫מצאוני השמרים‬, “the guards find me,” appears immediately after ‫ולא מצאתיו‬, “but I do not find him,” without even a particle to provide transition. Also, the audience has no prior knowledge of the existence of the guards. The suddenness with which they enter the Song is only one aspect of the enigma they pose for the interpreter, however. All we know about them is that in this verse they find the woman and

172

Song of Songs 3:1-5

she asks them where her lover can be found, and that in Song 5:7 they again find her but on that occasion beat her, injure her, and take away her veil. It is also noteworthy that Egyptian love poetry and ancient sexual imagery have no analogy for the guards of the Song. Clearly Song 3:3 and 5:7 are bound together. Already, here in 3:3, we have reason to suppose that the guards represent the virginity of the woman. An ancient city was a “virgin” (cf. Lam 2:13; Isa 47:1). The woman of the Song, moreover, is characterized as a city (Song 6:4, where she is compared to Tirzah and Jerusalem). For an ancient reader, conditioned to think of a young marriageable woman in terms of her virginity, the notion that the “guards” of the “city” represent the woman’s virginity would not be far-fetched at all. In light of Song 5:7, it is fairly certain that the guards represent her virginity. It simply makes no sense to have a love song in which the leading lady is physically assaulted. More than that, no one in the Song finds it surprising that the woman has been beaten; the Song implies no astonishment or outrage at the event. The “guards” themselves are strikingly impersonal. They have no appearance, no emotion, no words, no weapons, no fists, no faces, and no names. In short, they do not appear to be persons at all. If we are expected to understand that the woman literally met guards on two occasions and on one occasion was assaulted, we would expect her to say something more about the perpetrators, if only to make the experience more vivid for the reader and provoke more sympathy for the victim. The account is not coherent unless the suffering she received from the guards itself is symbolic and represents something else. For further discussion, see the Comment on 5:7 below. On the other hand, the difference between how the guards treat her here and how they treat her in 5:7 is also conspicuous. In 5:7, the guards simply assault her; there is no indication of an interview of any kind. Here, she asks them for help in finding her lover. They do not respond, but neither are they hostile. They are simply mute. What can this mean? It is again hopeless to try to resolve this difference on a literal level, as though actual guards in the first encounter stood by dumbly but in the second encounter were suddenly, irrationally hostile. As a symbolic series of events, however, the encounter of 3:3 is laden with meaning. First, the guards abruptly come upon her as she seeks her lover. That is, as she yearns for her lover, the brute fact of her virginity suddenly presents itself before her mind. Second, she asks the guards if they have seen her lover. That is, she looks on her virginity as a key to finding her lover. Without virginity, she will not be able to obtain him, virginity being the sine qua non for marriage in ancient Israel (except in the case of widows). Nevertheless, the guards themselves do not show her the way to her lover. They are silent and (at this point) passive. 4 As the third step in the sequence, she turns from the guards and immediately finds her lover. The verbs here are remarkable. The verb rendered “turn from” is ‫עבר‬, which connotes crossing a barrier or boundary. She then seizes (‫ )אחז‬her lover and will not loosen (‫ )רפה‬her grip. The language is dramatic and speaks of determination, decision, and steadfastness. She has in her mind stepped across a border. She has turned away from her virginity and instead clings tightly to her lover. That is, she has chosen him over her virginity. More than that, she is determined to take him to the house and chamber of her mother, the one who conceived her. The term ‫הורתי‬, “my conceiver,” here is

Explanation

173

used to match to ‫אמי‬, “my mother.” A similar parallel appears in Hos 2:7 (ET 2:5). These are the only two texts that use the qal feminine participle of ‫הרה‬. This idea is also quite difficult if taken literally. It seems quite clear that her desire is for sexual relations with the man (in that she holds him tightly), but we can scarcely imagine that a decent Israelite maiden would drag the man she wants to her mother’s home for a night of sex. Such an understanding of the situation is highly anachronistic. Of course, one could argue that by taking him to her mother’s house she only means that she will take him to her mother in the sense of formally declaring her intent to marry the man. If so, this line would only mean that she wants to declare her willingness to marry him. In Song 8:2, however, a text that certainly comes after the consummation of their relationship (Song 4:16-5:1), she again declares that she will take him to her mother’s house. There, she is undoubtedly describing her intent to have sexual relationships with her husband (see Comment on 8:2), and it is unlikely that the terms in 3:4 have a different meaning. More than that, the focus of Song 3:1-5 is on her passionate desire for the man as she seeks him from her bed; it is not concerned with fulfilling wedding protocol. It is very peculiar at any rate to imagine that she would jum p out of bed, find him wandering in the city, and bring him home to her mother for an official wedding announcement. Therefore, the mother’s ‫בית‬, “house,” and the ‫חדר‬, “room,” of the woman who conceived her are again representative terms. They can only be the womb; this is the house and room where all are conceived. She is determined to bring her lover into her maternal chamber, so to speak. More than that, the woman identifies with her mother in the matter of confrontation with the loss of virginity. Her mother, in effect, has become a role model for her and gives her the strength to face this event (see also Comment on 8:2). We should finally note that the character of the man is hardly part of the episode at all. We are given no explanation for why he was lost to the woman in the first place, and when she finds him, he says nothing and he does nothing. This only adds to the sense of unreality in this canto and further indicates that the real “story” takes place in the mind and emotional struggles of the woman. 5 The woman abruptly calls on the Jerusalem girls not to arouse sexual passion until the proper time arrives (see Song 2:7). As part of the sequence of 3:1-5 this is a non sequitur; it makes little sense for her to be in the process of dragging the young man to her mother’s house and then abruptly turn and give an admonition on sexual morals to her friends. (Did they suddenly appear out of nowhere, too?) But this problem is irrelevant so long as one does not read this as a literal series of events. The woman is not at this point actually taking her young man for a night of love. Rather, she has in her mind confronted the issue of her virginity and has resolutely decided to take her lover rather than retain her virginity. Understood in this way, the sudden charge to the Jerusalem girls suits the context perfectly. She is in effect saying that this is a very big decision and that her friends should not rush into it. Wait for the right time and right man, she suggests. Explanation

The motif of this canto is the yearning of the young woman for her lover. The structure is simple: in vv 1-4 she seeks and finds her lover, and in v 5 she repeats her charge to the girls of Jerusalem to avoid sexual activity until the proper time.

174

Song of Songs 3:1-5

The interpretation of this passage is much debated. Dramatic and historical readings of the Song often take it literally. This entails an obvious difficulty that most such commentaries fail to deal with: it implies that she is still living with her mother and thus is unmarried. An unmarried girl who roamed the streets looking for her lover and then dragged him home (apparently for sexual purposes) does not seem like the woman we want for the heroine of the book. The fact that the guards of the city beat her up in the parallel passage (Song 5:2-8) hardly helps things. In a canto where virtually every line is metaphorical, it is odd that readers would even try to defend a literal reading of this bizarre episode. In addition, several commentators have noted that it is unlikely that an Israelite maiden would be roaming the streets of the city at night. Such a girl would likely be taken as a prostitute (Hos 2:7; Prov 7:10). It is true that Ruth went out at night to the threshing floor to find Boaz (Ruth 3), but this was in a rural village (Bethlehem) and not in the city of Jerusalem. Besides that, Ruth was not wandering around looking for Boaz; she knew precisely where he was. In light of the burden Deut 22:13—21 places on parents with respect to their daughters' virginity, it is unlikely that they would allow them to wander the streets in the middle of the night (much less allow them to bring their lovers home with them!). This passage is often described as a dream (e.g., Rudolph, 137-38; Gledhill, Message, 143-46), primarily because of the self-evident absurdity of the details that the text gives (that the event happened night after night, that she would go out wandering at night, that she would expect the guards to know who her lover was, that she would suddenly find her lover, and so forth). More recent commentators, however, have abandoned the “dream” strategy in dealing with the text because calling this text a dream is really no interpretation at all. It is in effect saying that in a dream anything can happen and dreams often make no sense anyway, and that therefore the reader is under no obligation to try to comprehend the odd goings-on of this text. More significantly, the text never implies that this is a dream. Cultic interpretations of the Song relate this text to Anat seeking Baal or to Ishtar seeking Tammuz. Supposed parallels include the fact that Ishtar had to parley with the guards of seven gates in her descent to the underworld and that Anat sought the aid of Shapsh, the sun goddess, in her search for Baal (see Pope, 419-22). None of this, however, is sufficient to convert this text into a cultic document. The woman is not a goddess and the man is not a god, and he is neither dead nor in danger. The only coherent interpretation of this text is that it represents the mental anxiety of the woman as she goes through the process of preparing to become a wife. Alone at night, she yearns for her lover. As she mentally seeks him out and contemplates a physical relationship with him, she confronts her own virginity. She knows she cannot have him without going through the event of losing her virginity. Nevertheless, she resolves to take him to herself. She does not view this decision as a trivial matter, and she closes the canto by admonishing her friends to hold on to their virginity until they are certain that the proper time has come. The parallel event, Song 5:2-8, describes not her anxiety over the loss of her virginity but the event itself. The message of Song 3:1-5 appears to be that the virgin who has not faced the emotions of this issue prior to her wedding night is not prepared for marriage.

Notes

175

B. Chorus: The Bride Comes to the Groom (3:6—11) Bibliography Beare, F. W. Gospel according to Matthew. Davies, W. B., and D. C. Allison. Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Dirksen, P. B. “Song of Songs 3:6-7.” VT 39 (1989) 219-25. Driver, G. R. “Supposed Arabisms in the Old Testament."JBL 55 (1936) 101-20. Epstein, I. HebrewEnglish Edition of the Babylonian Talmud: Seder Nashim. Garrett, D. A. Hosea, Joel Gundry, R. H. Matthew. Jeremias, J. Parables of Jesus. Schweizer, E. Good News according to Matthew. Translation CHORUS

Who is this coming up from the wilderness like columns a of smoke when there is a fragrant burningb of myrrh and frankincense, the best of exoticfragrances? Oh, it is his palanquin! The one that belongs to Solomon! Sixty warriors are about it, the elite of the warriors of Israel! All of them are skilled with swords and trained in warfare. Each man has his sword at his side because of the terrors of the night. The king made a sedan chairfor himself; Solomon made it from the wood of Lebanon. He made its pillars of silver and its canopy framework of gold. Its seat is purple, and its intenor is fitted together—this is love! Daughters ofJerusalem, 11come out! And look, O daughters of Zion, at King Solomon with his crown— the one with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding on the day his heart was full ofjoy.

1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F 2A 2B 2C 2D 2E 2F 3A 3B 3C 3D 3E 3F 4A 4B 4C 4D 4E 4F

Notes 6.a. MT ‫כתימרות‬, “like columns of.” a' reads ‫כתמונת‬, “like a form of.” Syr. reads ‫כעטרת‬, “like abundance of.” Read MT. 6.b. MT ‫ךת‬$‫ םק‬is a fem pu'al ptc.: “being burned.” a Vg. Tg. read an act. ptc. with the prep.‫מן‬: “from the burning of.”

176

Song of Songs 3:6- 11

Form /Structure/Setting

The chorus alone sings this canto; there are no parts for the tenor or soprano. This canto is unified and gives no indication of exchanges among two or more singers and thus should not be divided into several parts. Fox (Song of Songs, 11927) argues that v 6 belongs to the chorus but that vv 7-11 is the woman’s portrayal of her beloved, but this is not persuasive. Since the woman’s arrival is the object of all the attention in this canto, she obviously is not the singer. The tenor also is a poor choice to be the singer of this part; it is unbecoming for a man to be calling excitedly for the girls of the city to come out and have a look at his beloved or at “Solomon.” He never does anything like this elsewhere in the Song. One might object to assigning these lines to the chorus on the grounds that in vv 10- 11 they summon the girls of Jerusalem to come out, and therefore the singers are thus not themselves the girls ofJerusalem. But this objection is flimsy; the chorus is not all of the Jerusalem girls but a small, representative group. The people who are most likely to call out girls to come see a spectacle are other girls. This canto has four strophes of six lines each, for twenty-four lines in total. Lines 1A and 1B could be taken to be a single line, but the parallels in Song 6:10 and 8:5 (the other places where ‫מי זאת‬, “Who is this?” appears) work best with ‫ מי זאת‬taken as a separate line. In both 6:10 and 8:5 the ‫ מי זאת‬is followed by a series of matching lines (with participles). Here, ‫ מי זאת‬is followed by a single participle line, but it seems best to maintain the structural parallel with the other texts. In the first strophe, 1A is answered by 1F, and 1B- E is epexegetical of ‫זאת‬, “this,” describing the entourage of the woman whom they see approaching. The second strophe has somewhat the same structure as the first. Line 2A focuses the attention on the sixty soldiers, and 2F answers the unstated but obvious question, "Why are the sixty soldiers there?” with the line, “because of the terrors of the night.” In between, lines 2B-E are epexegetical of the sixty warriors, giving their characteristics. The third strophe is also descriptive; it announces in 3A that the king made the palanquin and proceeds to describe in 3B- F its materials and features. But 3F ends with a strange twist, concluding with the word ‫אהבה‬, “love,” standing alone. Following the analogy of the structure of the first two strophes, this would seem to be an answer to the unstated question, "What is the palanquin’s name?” Or, “What is its purpose?” The last strophe is a six-line unit. It is structurally different in that it begins with two lines that employ matching, calling the girls to come out and see a spectacle (4A‫ ־‬B). Lines 4C‫ ־‬D are joined by words with the root ‫עטר‬, “crown,” and a dependence on 4B. Lines 4E- F are held together by repetition, with both lines beginning with ‫ביום‬, “on the day,” and by their dependence on 4D. This is an arrival song celebrating the appearance of a bride and groom at a wedding. The woman is brought to the man in a sedan chair (vv 6 1 0 -), and he, wearing a crown, comes outside of the wedding house to await her arrival (v 11). It is important to note that it is the woman and not the man who rides in the palanquin (contrast Murphy, 151).

Comment

177

Comment

6 The phrase ‫ מי זאת‬means “Who is this (woman)?” Many scholars argue that context indicates that a man is at the center of the sight on the basis of v 11. In reality, however, the text never indicates that the “Solomon” of v 11 is in the palanquin of vv 6-10. The fact that v 7 says that it is Solomon’s palanquin, moreover, does not mean that he is inside. It is true that ‫ זאת‬can be a neutrum, a feminine pronoun with a vague or undefined reference (IBHS, 692), and one might suggest that the word refers to the whole spectacle that is approaching and not to a single person. A problem with this interpretation is that the text does not have ‫מה־זאת‬, “What is this?” as in Exod 13:14; it reads ‫מי זאת‬, “Who is this?” implying that the feminine pronoun is indeed a person. The phrase ‫מי זאת‬ appears elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible only at Song 6:10 and 8:5, and in both of these the object of attention is the woman. The simplest solution is that the woman is in the palanquin (v 6) and that the man is awaiting her arrival (v 11). See also P. Dirksen, VT 39 (1989) 219- 25. The chorus exclaims that she is coming up ‫מן־המדבר‬, “from the the wilderness,” with what seem to be columns of smoke. For the biblical reader, this language immediately connotes the wanderings in the wilderness with the Shekinah in the form of a “pillar of cloud.” The language is not precisely the same. The word for “column” here (‫ )תימרה‬is not used of the pillar of cloud in the exodus narrative (‫ ;עמוד הענן‬e.g., Exod 13:22). The text is describing not a theophany but the wedding party. Still, the visual image is reminiscent of classic theophany language. We should also note that they arrive specifically from the “wilderness.” Against G. L. Carr (108), ‫ מן־המדבר‬should here be rendered “the wilderness” and not “the desert.” The latter is misleading and misses the significance of the wilderness motif. The historic, literary, and religious connotations of the wilderness are driving this language. The mention of wilderness does not mean that it literally figured significantly either in Solomon’s life or the wedding rituals of ancient Israel. From a canonical and literary standpoint, the wilderness is highly significant (see Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 88-91). The wilderness is the place of Israel’s sojourn with God, and from the wilderness Israel came into Canaan to seize the land of promise. It was there also that Moses resided during his years of formation and there that he had his mystical experience with the burning bush. Wilderness almost connotes images of Eden: Hosea invokes wilderness as the place of divine wooing, where God would win back the heart of the woman Israel (Hos 2:16 [ET 2:14]). Keel ([1994] 126) observes that both Ashtarte and Ishtar were goddesses of the wilderness. This canto speaks of the arrival in these terms in order to endow the event with grandeur and wonderment. Like the armies of Israel or like God himself, the entourage appears from the wilderness with clouds of glory. The pillar of smoke that the chorus sees may be dust kicked up by the entourage, dust that looks like columns of smoky incense, or it may actually be clouds of incense. The word ‫ קטר‬describes the burning of a sacrifice of an animal or of incense to send it up in smoke. The word could imply that the coming spectacle is heavily perfumed by the burning of various forms of incense. Alternatively, it may mean that the approaching troop is kicking up a column of dust that looks like a cloud of smoke sent up by incense; but even if this is the meaning, the

178

Song of Songs 3:6-11

metaphor of incense is still significant for the sense of opulence and pleasure it provokes. Against many modern translations, rendering ‫ מקפרת‬simply as “perfumed” without reference to smoke or burning is misleading since this would seem to imply that the individuals involved had merely splashed on some cologne. ‫ קטר‬implies the burning of a fragrant powder. ‫ מקפרת‬is not in apposition to ‫זאת‬, “this,” although it may be feminine singular by attraction to that pronoun. If it were in apposition to ‫זאת‬, that would imply that the thing that ‫ זאת‬refers to (whether it be the woman or the whole spectacle) was being burned up as a sacrifice, which is not the case. It is the fragrant resins, myrrh, and frankincense, and not the wedding party, that are being burned up. Myrrh (‫ )מור‬is a masculine noun and usually is used as a fragrant ointment rather than as an incense for burning. Frankincense (‫)לבונה‬, however, is feminine and is used for such purposes (e.g., Lev 2:2), and the gender of ‫ מקפרת‬may be determined by ‫לבונה‬. Burning up myrrh and other exotic powdered resins is a measure of how extravagant and opulent this scene is. ‫ מכל אבקת רוכל‬is literally “from every powder of a merchant,” but it probably refers to fragrances that could not be locally manufactured and for which one had to go to an importer. Thus they were “exotic.” The ‫ ם‬in ‫ מכל‬is partitive and implies that only the best incense is being used. It is obviously unrealistic to suppose that a group of women viewing an approaching entourage from a distance could detect the presence of specific spices and incense. But the actual nature of the cloudy pillars and the literal limits to human sensation are not at issue here. Elsewhere in the Bible burning incense occurs in a context of sacred worship (e.g., Exod 30-31; Lev 2 :1 2 ‫ ; ־‬Num 7). For an audience living in this culture, incense would connote the mystery, awe, and indeed the pleasure of worship and the holy. Here, by drawing upon the connotations of incense, the Song directs that awe toward human love. 7 The meaning of ‫ מפה‬as “palanquin” or “litter” in conjunction with ‫אפריון‬, “sedan chair,” in v 9 is fairly well established even though the etymology of ‫אפריון‬ is uncertain. G. L. Carr (111) takes the two words to refer to two different objects, but this is improbable. The word ‫ מפה‬basically means “bed,” but context demands that it be some kind of royal litter here since, according to v 6, it is coming up from the wilderness. See also Gerleman (138). This plainly could not be a fixed bed. Fox (Song of Songs, 125-27) tries to separate v 6 from vv 7-11 and so argue that ‫ מפה‬and ‫ אפריון‬describe a fixed bed rather than a palanquin. Fox’s linguistic arguments that ‫ אפריון‬is a fixed bed are unpersuasive. Scholars sometimes relate ‫ אפריון‬to the Sanskrit paryanka (“palanquin”; cf. BDB) or to the Greek φορβΐον, “litter.” The LXX has φορβΐον, and the Vulgate has ferculum, “bier, litter,” telling us at least how the ancients understood this term. Even without v 6, moreover, it is hard to see how the ‫ אפריון‬or ‫ מפה‬could here be a bed. If that were the meaning, the girls of Jerusalem would not be invited to come and have a look at it (as though they could invade Solomon’s private chambers, v 11). The image of sixty warriors standing around his ‫ מפה‬is equally jolting if we take that to be the bed he sleeps in (with a woman!). The grammar here is somewhat awkward; thus the translation “Oh, it is his palanquin! The one that belongs to Solomon!” The style befits an excited exclamation and sudden recognition, like that of a modern teenager unexpectedly encountering a celebrity. The sixty warriors are a kind of honor guard. The ‫ מן‬in

Comment

179

‫מגברי‬, “of the warriors,” is partitive and implies men chosen from the warriors of Israel—i.e., elite troops of an honor guard. Scholars have observed that the number is twice that of David’s guard, thirty (2 Sam 23:18-19). If the doubling is intentional, it is probably a hyperbole meant to imply that this spectacle is glorious beyond description. In reality, a bridal procession in a normal wedding probably was accompanied by some friends of the groom, but the royal trappings here add further spectacle to the scene. 8 The phrase ‫ אחזי חרב‬is literally “seized of the sword.” Today many scholars take it to mean “skilled with the sword” in parallel to ‫מלמדי מלחמה‬, “trained in war.” The Akkadian cognate ahãzu, “learn,” and the Ugaritic ahd hrth, “skilled in plowing,” support this; see Pope (435) for further discussion. The military prowess and preparedness of the guard again adds to the splendor of the scene, but one wonders if there is more to it than military trappings in light of the odd note that they are armed against the “terrors of the night.” Scholars regularly relate this to superstition about a jealous demon who would kill either the bride or the groom on the wedding night (as in Tobit 6:14-18). For a full discussion of this, see Pope (435-40). Such superstition is found nowhere else in the Song, however, and employing soldiers to ward off demons is at any rate rather odd. Certainly no one would want sixty soldiers standing around his bed on his wedding night, as some interpretations seem to suggest. I have theorized that the guards of the city in Song 3:1-5 refer to the woman’s virginity. While the warriors of this text are probably not strictly a metaphor for her virginity, the image may connote some of the same ideal. The woman must be delivered pure and safe to the man. The terrors of the night are ambiguous, but it is significant that they are of the “night.” This is the time of love, but it is also the time of treachery, stealth, ambush, and rape. The woman is protected so that she may come safely to her night with the groom. All in all, the text may reflect an actual custom of ancient Israelite weddings, that the bride was escorted by an honor guard of local men (perhaps her brothers, or the friends of the groom). The need for the guard was more symbolic than real, but they had the function of delivering the woman to her wedding safe and sound. 9 At first reading, it seems surprising that the focus of the text is on the sedan chair and the entourage rather than on the bride or groom. The reason is that this canto celebrates the glories of love itself, and of the wedding, rather than the specific individuals involved. As described above, the allusion to “Solomon” adds splendor to the canto and elevates a wedding to the status of a royal event. 10 It is very difficult to be certain about what parts of the palanquin are being described. Still, it is clear that this is an extravagantly expensive piece of work. ‫עמודיו‬, “its pillars,” refers to posts that hold up a canopy over the sedan chair. ‫ רפידה‬is a hapax legomenon, but it seems to be related to ‫רפד‬, “to spread out.” I take it to be the framework that supports a canvas canopy over a sedan chair. If correct, this probably means that the wooden framework that supported the canopy had an overlay of gold. Of itself, ‫ תוך‬means “middle,” but here it evidently refers to some part of the interior of the sedan chair. Although a hapax legomenon, it seems fairly clear that ‫ רצוף‬means “inlaid” or “fitted.” Murphy (149) observes that Akkadian and Syriac parallels support this interpretation. The

180

Song of Songs 3:6-11

noun ‫ רצפה‬in Ezek 40:17-18 means “pavement,” and thus ‫ רצף‬would seem to describe the joining of objects together. The LXX actually has λιθόστρωτοv, “pavement,” here in the Song. The significance of ‫ארגמן‬, “purple,” is that the item in question was made of material dyed purple with the secretions from certain mollusks found in the eastern Mediterranean (any one of four species of mollusks could be used). Tyre and Sidon were the principal sources of this material. The color was highly prized, and items colored with this dye were extravagantly expensive (it required some eight thousand mollusks to produce a single gram of this dye, according to ISBE 3:1057, “purple”). It goes without saying that one would not normally use this dye for upholstery. The significance of ‫אהבה‬, “love,” is obscure here. Numerous scholars propose emendations. Fox (Song of Songs, 126) emends to ‫אבנים‬, “stones.” While ‫ אבנים‬can refer to precious stones (often with a modifier), this seems an awfully flat term to use in a book that revels in its rich vocabulary. The word ‫ אבנים‬normally just refers to rocks. At any rate, evidence for this emendation is wanting. Murphy (149) notes that some scholars emend to ‫הבנים‬, “ebony.” This makes better sense than “stones,” but it too suffers from being purely conjectural. G. R. Driver (JBL 55 [1936] 111) suggested that ‫ אזזבה‬here means “leather” on the basis of an Arabic cognate, but this suggestion has found little favor with scholars. In short, no emendation is fully persuasive. If, however, one is willing to understand an implied preposition such as 5 with ‫אהבה‬, one might take it to mean, “inlaid with (the word) love,” or one might regard “love” to be the metaphorical material from which this part of the palanquin is made. Some scholars suggest that the interior of the palanquin is inlaid with ivory tiles depicting erotic motifs, but there is no parallel for using ‫ אהבה‬in this way. Even granting the possibility that Hebrew would employ an abstract term like “love” to denote erotic art, the word used would almost certainly be ‫ דדים‬and not ‫אזזבה‬. Although poetry does drop particles and prepositions, it is not clear that this is the case here. Also, there is little warrant for translating it adverbially as “lovingly” (NASB, NIV). No emendation or rendition of the text is convincing or able to gain wide acceptance. I therefore suggest that “its interior is fitted together” is used absolutely. This line refers only to the quality of the craftsmanship of the vehicle and says nothing about the materials used, much less about any graphical art. That is, the pieces of the sedan chair are not fastened together with nails, ropes, or other materials but by means of carefully carved interlocking joints. This understanding of ‫ רצפה‬is appropriate given what we know of the word. If this is correct, then the word ‫ אסבה‬stands alone, without any clear grammatical link to any other word in the passage. If this is the case, then ‫אזהבה‬, “love,” might be read to be a kind of suspended predicate in apposition to the entire account. That is, the whole entourage is called “love” because the gorgeous and opulent palanquin, the fragrance of the incense, and the royal guard together depict the meaning of the event. A profound marvel—the love of a man and a woman—is being honored in the ceremony. If this usage of ‫ אזהבה‬seems peculiar, one should note that later the man, in the middle of an extensive wasf on the manifold beauty of the woman, declares her to be ‫אהבה בתענוגים‬, “love with the delights” (Song 7:7 [ET 7:6]). The way the text draws upon the language of theophany and worship lends credibility to this interpretation. The materials of the sedan chair—wood from

Comment

181

Lebanon, silver, and gold—together with the fact that Solomon “made” it, forces the thoughtful reader to recall the building of the temple (1 Kgs 5-6). The purple fabric recalls the fabric of the tabernacle (e.g., Exod 35). The sedan chair is almost a kind of shrine or an ark of the covenant. But the woman inside is not deified or made an object of worship. The text says nothing about the woman and almost nothing about the man. All attention is on the spectacular and opulent entourage, where ‫אהבה‬, “love,” is honored as a wonderful and mysterious gift. ‫מבנות ירושלם‬: Because of the preposition ‫מן‬, translations often render this as “by the daughters of Jerusalem.” It is better, however, to treat the ‫ מ‬as an emphatic, enclitic ‫ מ‬with ‫אהבה‬, “love,” in the previous line and leave it untranslated. See Pope (446) and Murphy (150). Even if the ‫ מ‬were taken to represent the preposition ‫ מן‬here, it still would not follow that ‫ מבנות ירושלם‬must be linked to line 3F. The ‫ מן‬could be taken as a partitive. Either way, the phrase is vocative; it goes with the exhortation that follows in v 11 and is matched by ‫בנות ציון‬, “daughters of Zion,” in line 4B. 11 The chorus calls on the girls of Jerusalem to come out and view “Solomon” but says little about the man himself. Instead, their words draw attention to (1) the crown he wore on his wedding, (2) his mother, and (3) the joy that filled his heart at his wedding. As suggested already, “Solomon” here is not a character in a story but serves as a symbol of regal majesty, a quality that every groom (ideally) partakes of. The ‫עטר‬, “crown,” here is not necessarily a crown of state but may be some kind of wedding garland. Even if it were a wedding garland, however, the fact that it is on Solomon’s head gives it royal status. In effect, the wearing of the wedding garland gives every groom such status. If postbiblical Jewish customs are a guide, it is likely that Israelite grooms at this time wore wedding crowns and that their brides were in fact brought to them on palanquins. B. Sotah 49a begins (Epstein edition translation, 1985): “During the war with Vespasian they [the rabbis] decreed against [the use of] crowns worn by bridegrooms and against [the use of] the drum. During the war of Quietus they decreed against [the use of] crowns worn by brides and that nobody should teach his son Greek. During the final war they decreed that a bride should not go out in a palanquin in the midst of the city, but our rabbis permitted a bride to go out in a palanquin in the midst of the city.” See also 3 Macc 4:8 and m. Sotah 9:14. Of course, it is possible that these practices were derived from Song 3:5-11, but in light of how obscure this passage is, it is more likely that the Song alludes to an ancient practice than it is that a later custom grew out of the Song. This text also implies that the mother of the groom placed the wedding garland on his head. The historical mother of Solomon was the famous Bathsheba. It is difficult for the informed biblical reader to encounter this text and not recall her history with David, although it is unlikely that David’s notorious crimes are the point of this allusion. Nevertheless, recollection of the story brings to mind that Bathsheba had been a woman who bathed on the roof and who by her alluring beauty almost brought down a king. Although now given the ceremonial task of crowning her son at his wedding, she had once been a woman of powerful sexuality. The mother, the very image of domesticity, had once been an alluring woman. Elsewhere, the Song presents the sexual experience of the man and the woman as a renewal of the experience of their mothers (Song 8:2,

182

Song of Songs 3:6- 11

5). They would complete the circle by entering the mystery through which they had themselves been engendered by their mothers. Also, the presence of the mother at the wedding is a reminder that in ancient Israel a wedding was not simply a private matter between a man and a woman but also involved the extended families, and in particular the family of the groom. The joy of “Solomon” at his wedding reminds the audience of the celebratory nature of the event. The joy is not simply a matter of the impending wedding night but is also a result of the exaltation of the bride and groom and of love itself. The young women of the city are called out to experience the excitement. Explanation

The marriage of a man and woman is here represented as an event that is both regal and divine. Of themselves, the man and woman are ordinary mortals, but the ceremonial bringing of the bride to the groom exalts both of them to the status of royalty. One might suggest that a marriage reenacts the story of Gen 2, when God brought the woman to Adam, the first “king.” It reminds us of the ideal that we were intended to fulfill and of this creation miracle, the union of man and woman, that was not altogether spoiled by the fall. The ceremonial trappings of the entourage convey the reality that the joining of man and woman is a thing of great glory. It is a celebration of love. The fact that we have here a canto about a bride’s arrival does not mean that Song of Songs was performed at weddings or that it was the text of a wedding liturgy. Rather, the Song seems to draw on the wedding rituals of ancient Israel in order to orient the audience to what was happening in the course of the songs. That is, by inserting a canto on the arrival of a bride, the poet tells the audience that the Song is moving toward the consummation of the marriage of the man and woman. A distinctive motif of this canto is the abundance of royal trappings. The bride arrives in a lavish sedan chair belonging to the groom, the entourage has a large military escort, and the man is called a king. Twice the text refers to “Solomon.” Even so, this does not establish either that the Song of Songs describes actual events from the life of Solomon or that Solomon is a character in the Song. Instead, “Solomon” is just as much a lyrical motif as is the stag, the vineyard, or the shepherd. Some scholars speak of the groom as playing the role of Solomon. This is not inaccurate, but it is perhaps more precise to say that Solomon functions as a metaphorical figure who brings out aspects of the ideal bridegroom. The motif of the gazelle in Song 2:9 portrays the beauty, grace, and vigor of the idealized young man; the figure of Solomon presents him as magnificent—a king who greets the arrival of a bride when she comes in the palanquin and with the entourage that he has provided. A groom on his wedding day is thus a virtual king in that he is elevated above his companions, dressed more splendidly than any other man, and gives a royal reception to his bride. On this one day, a young man is a “Solomon in all his glory” (Matt 6:29 RSV). An interesting parallel to what happens here is in Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish virgins (Matt 25:113‫ ; ־‬against some interpreters [e.g., Schweizer, Good News according to Matthew, 466] I consider the entire parable to be dominical [cf. Davies and Allison, Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 392-94]). In that passage,

Explanation

183

ten virgins (παρθένοι) remain outside waiting for the arrival of a groom. He is evidently expected to appear sometime during the evening since the girls who will receive him all have torches (this is probably preferable to “lamps”; see Gundry, Matthew, 498-500 for a discussion of this issue), and actually he does not show up until the middle of the night. At that point, someone in the distance shouts that he is approaching, and the girls scurry about to get their torches prepared and accompany him into the house. Only those girls with burning torches are recognized to be part of the wedding party and are admitted. Jeremias (Parables ofJesus, 172-74) argues on the basis of nineteenth-century accounts of Palestinian weddings that this picture is not an artificial construct but that in all essential details is an accurate portrayal of what happened in weddings of ancient Judea. Even so, Jesus’ parable leaves a great deal out, including information about where the groom was going, where the bride was at the time, and at what stage of the wedding celebration all this took place. Beyond the information Jeremias has documented, details relevant to the wedding customs described in the parable are lost to us. F. W. Beare (Gospel according to Matthew, 480) notes that NT scholars are reduced to conjectural reconstructions of wedding customs of this period in order to interpret the text. There were almost 1,900 years between the Palestinian weddings Jeremias describes and the NT, and a considerable space of time (some 900 years, in my estimation) between the NT and the composition of the Song. Still, comparison is useful. In both the Song and the NT, a group of young, unmarried women announces and greets an arriving party. In Matthew, the bridegroom arrives; here, it is the bride. In contrast to the parable, the palanquin with the bride approaches during the day (as is established by the observation that people can see a column of smoke or dust at a distance, v 6). We also have no indication that the girls in the Song have torches. On the other hand, the customs described in the Song (that the woman comes riding in a palanquin and the man is wearing a wedding crown) have strong attestation in early postbiblical Judaism (see Comment on 3:11). One can account for the differences between the Song and Matthew in several ways. First, neither text purports to give an exhaustive account of contemporary wedding customs. It may be that the two texts allude to different events that took place in the course of normal wedding festivities. If so, there may have been one arrival for the groom (at the middle of the night) and one for the bride (the next day?). Second, the temporal and cultural distance between tenth-century B.C.E. Israel, first-century Judea, and nineteenth-century Palestine cannot be brushed aside. Jeremias points out that even in nineteenthcentury Palestine wedding customs differed from village to village. The practice described in Jesus’ parable may not have existed in the cultural context of the Song. Third, the Song may be drawing upon an incident such as the arrival of Pharaoh’s daughter as Solomon’s bride (1 Kgs 3:1) for its imagery. Again, this would not mean that this is a canto about this incident; it would only mean that the incident furnished a picture of grandeur at a wedding that served as a motif for the Song. Fourth, both the Song and Jesus manipulate their presentations of wedding customs for their own rhetorical purposes. In Jesus’ parable, half of the girls are out of oil when the groom finally arrives. One need not assume that this was a routine occurrence in actual weddings;

Song of Songs 4:1-15

184

presumably, girls would bring enough oil if it were normal that the groom did not arrive until the middle of the night. Jesus no doubt created the unusual situation of girls without oil for the sake of the message of his parable. This points to a significant difference between the two presentations. In Matthew, the focus is on the ten virgins and their preparedness or lack of the same. The bridegroom himself receives little attention while his retinue (if he has any) and means of transportation receive none at all. In the Song, by contrast, all attention is on the nature of the bridal entourage, which is described under the rubric of a royal visitation. Nothing is said of the bride herself. The details of this canto are drawn as much from the cultural trappings of royalty as from contemporary wedding practices. Put another way, this is probably not a presentation of how a normal bridal procession in ancient Israel would have actually looked. It is an idealized image of a wedding procession under the metaphor of royal splendor.

C. Tenor: The Flawless Bride I (4:1—15) Bibliography Brown, J. P. "The Mediterranean Vocabulary of the Vine.” VT 19 (1969) 146-70. Grim, K. R. “‘Your Neck Is like the Tower of David’ (The Meaning of a Simile in Song of Solomon).” B T 22 (1971) 70-74. Eichrodt, W. Ezekiel. OTL. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970. Garrett, D. A. Hosea,Joel. Honeyman, A. M. ‘Two Contributions to Canaanite Toponymy.” JTS50 (1949) 50-52. Lichtheim, M. Ancient Egyptian Literature. Vol. 2, The New Kingdom. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1976. Lyke, L. L. "The Song of Songs, Proverbs, and the Theology of Love.” In Theological Exegesis. Ed. C. Seitz and K. Greene-McCreight. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999. 208-23. Waldman, N. M. “A Note on Canticles 4:9.”JBL 89 (1970) 215-17. Translation F ir s t S t a n z a TENOR

How beautiful you are, my companion, how beautiful you are! Your eyes are doves behind your veil.a Your hair is like theflock of goats skippingbfrom Mount Gilead. Your teeth are like a shorn flock that comes up from washing in which every one has a twin: not one among them is bereft of its partner. Your lips are like scarlet thread, and your speech is lovely. Your cheek is like a split pomegranate behind your veil.

1A 1B 1C 2A 2B 3A 3B 3C 3D 4A 4B 5A

Notes 4

5

6

Your neck is like the tower ofDavid, built in courses. A thousand shields hang upon it, all of them the armaments of warriors. Your breasts are like twofawns, twins of a gazelle, that feed among the lotuses. Until the day comes to life and the shadows flee, I will get me to Myrrh Mountain and to Incense Hill.

185 6A 6B 6C 6D 7A 7B 8A 8B 8C 8D

S e c o n d St a n z a 7

8

You are beautiful all over, my companion, and you do not have a singleflaw. Come afrom Lebanon, O bride! Comeafrom Lebanon, make your way! Venture bfrom the summit of Amana, from the summit of Senir and Hermon! from the dens of lions, from the lairsc of leopards!

9A 9B 10A 10B 10C 10D 10E 10F

T h ir d S t a n z a 9

10

11

You leave me breathless, my sister, my bride. You leave me breathless with one ofyour glances,a with one strand ofyour necklace. How beautiful are your caresses.a my sister, my bride! How much better are your caressesa than wine, and the aroma ofyour perfume than any balsam! Your lips drip honey, my bride! Honey and cream are under your tongue! The aroma ofyour clothes is like the aroma of Lebanona

11A 11B 11C 12A 12B 12C 13A 13B 13C

F o u r t h St a n z a 12

13

14

15

An enclosed garden is my sister, my bride, an enclosed pool, a sealedfountain. Your growth is a paradise: pomegranates with choicefruit, henna with spikenard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every incense tree, myrrh and aloes with all the best balsam. Garden fountain! Well of living water, and flowingfrom Lebanon!

14A 14B 15A 15B 15C 15D 15E 15F 15G 15H 16A 16B 16C

Notes l.a. For MT ‫מבעד לצמתך‬, “from beyond your veil” (see Comment), LXX has σιώττησις, “silence” or “taciturnity,” for ‫צמה‬, “veil,” in the very peculiar phrase, έκτος τής σιωπήσβώς σου, “beyond your taciturnity.” Vg. absque eo quod intrinsecus latet, “besides what lies hidden within.” σ' κάλυμμα, “veil.”

186

Song of Songs 4:1- 15

l.b. LXX translates with άπ€καύφθησαν, “revealed,” while Vg. has ascenderunt, “ascend.” 8.a. MT ‫אתי‬, “with me,” but the ancient versions (LXX, OL, Syr., and Vg.) give strong support for reading this as ‫אתי‬, “come!” a fem. sg. impv. from ‫אתה‬. LXX δβυρο, “come,” and Vg. veni, “com e.” Murphy (155) argues for MT on the grounds that it makes sense and therefore need not be set aside. This requires that we take ‫ תבואי‬to be a “double-duty” verb, but it would be odd for the verb ‫תבואי‬, “make your way,” to be doing double duty from the end of the second line of two lines. Normally, a double-duty verb is at the beginning of a gapping structure, as in the second half of this verse, where ‫תשורי‬, “venture,” governs everything that follows it. Keel ([1994] 154) accepts ‫ אתי‬on the grounds that it is the more difficult reading, but he translates the verse with ellipses indicating that he thinks it is corrupt; this is not a helpful solution. It is simplest to follow the versions and read ‫אתי‬, as many scholars do (e.g., Pope, 474). 8.b. Taking ‫ שור‬as “to travel” and not “to gaze,” contrary to BDB. See Fox, Song of Songs, 135. 8.c. Emending M l'‫מהללי‬, “from the mountains of,” to ‫מהלי‬, “from the lairs of,” in parallel to ‫מתענות‬, “from the dens of.” Cf. Nah 2:13:‫הליו ותענתיו‬, “his lairs and his dens,” in reference to the dens of lions. 9.a. As Murphy (156) notes,‫עין‬, “eye,” is fem., but here the text uses the masc. form of the word ‫מאחד‬, “one” (but Q emends this to ‫)מאחת‬. The disagreement in gender may be accounted for by the fact that it is not strictly one of her eyes that disarms him but one of her glances (cf. Keel [1994] 71). 10.a. For MT ‫דליך‬, “your caresses,” both times LXX has μαστοί σου, “your breasts,” reading ‫ ;שלי ך‬cf. Vg. See Comment. 11 .a. It is possible that the phrase ‫מליח לבנון‬, “like the fragrance of Lebanon,” should be emended to ‫מליח לבנה‬, “like the fragrance of frankincense,” to match ‫מכל״משמים‬, “than any balsam,” in v 10. MT is intelligible, however, and need not be changed.

Form /Structure/Setting

In the context of the Song, the bride has been brought to the bridegroom in the sedan chair (Song 3:6- 11), and now they are ready to consummate their wedding. Terms of endearment—‫רעיתי‬, “my companion”; ‫אחתי‬, “my sister”; and ‫כלה‬, “bride”—dominate this canto as the groom now tenderly persuades the bride to yield herself to him. The canto is divided into four stanzas, each marked by a declaration of affection for the bride in the opening line. In v 1, the man declares, “How beautiful you are, my companion!” and the first stanza continues through v 6. In v 7 he says, "You are beautiful all over, my companion” and continues the second stanza through v 8. The third stanza, vv 9 1 1 ‫ ־‬, begins with the man calling her “my sister, my bride” in line 11A, but it also has a declaration of her beauty in the first line of the second strophe of the stanza (line 12A): “How beautiful are your caresses, my sister, my bride!” The fourth stanza, vv 1 2 1 5 ‫ ־‬, also begins with the man calling her his sister and bride. Together, the four stanzas present the bridegroom alternatively praising the bride and declaring her to be inaccessible to him (see figure 8). The obvious point is that he cannot have her until she voluntarily yields to him; it is a decision she must make. Division of such a large canto into strophes is difficult. Of course, one could simply make each of the four stanzas into strophes, but this would lead to some massive strophes and obscure the interrelationships among some of the lines. The discussion above suggests that there are sixteen strophes in all. Strophes 1 8 ‫ ־‬make up the above first stanza. A wasf (a song of praise to one’s beloved), it is governed by the description of the parts of the woman’s body. The first strophe (1A- C) repeats the strophe found in Song 1:15. The second and third strophes (2A 3‫ ־‬D) begin every line with the letter ‫( ש‬in line 3D it is preceded by a conjunction). The fourth, fifth, and sixth strophes concern three

Form/Structure/Setting

187

topics: the mouth (4A-B), the cheek (5A), and the neck (6A-D). Each strophe is marked by beginning a line with the preposition ‫כ‬, “like.” The seventh strophe describes the breasts under the metaphors of two fawns (7A-B) and two hills (8A-D). a ß a' ß'

The The The The

pleasures of the bride: her beauty (vv 1-6 [“my companion”]) inaccessible pleasure: the bride as mountain goddess (v 7-8 [“bride”]) pleasures of the bride: her affection (vv 9-11 [“my sister, (my) bride”]) inaccessible pleasure: the bride as locked garden (vv 12-15 [“my sister, (my) bride”]) Fig. 8. Alternating themes of canto VIc

The second stanza is made of two strophes (vv 7-8, lines 9A-10F). Strophe 9 could be read as an inclusion that concludes the first stanza, but for reasons outlined above, it is the opening of the second stanza. Strophe 10 employs lineinitial repetition in lines 10A-B (‫)אתי מלבנון‬, which should be read as feminine imperatives, “come from Lebanon.” Line 10B ends with ‫תבואי‬, “make your way!” which is matched at the beginning of line 10C by ,‫תשורי‬Venture!” both modal second feminine singular imperfects. Lines 10D-F are dependent on 10C and employ matching via the fourfold repetition of prepositional phrases with ‫ מן‬in 10C-F. The third stanza is made of three strophes (11A-13C, in vv 9-11). Each strophe is in three lines, and all three have the same pattern: the “B” lines, via repetition or matching, to some degree parallel the “A” lines, and the “C” lines, in syntactical dependence on the “B” lines, conclude the strophes. Strophe 11 begins with repetition (‫לבבתני‬, “you leave me”) in 11A-B. There is also consonance in the second word of 11A (‫אחתי‬, “my sister”) and 11B (‫באחת‬, “with one”). Line 11C is bound to 11B by dependence and matching (‫באחת‬, “with one,” in 11B, ‫באחד‬, “with one,” in 11C). Strophe 12 likewise begins with repetition (‫מה‬, “how,” in 12A and 12B, with ‫דדיך‬, “your caresses,” also repeated). Line 12C is bound to 12B by a simple conjunction. Strophe 13 does not begin with literal repetition, but lines 13A and 13B each begin with a word that means “honey” (‫ נפת‬and ‫)דבש‬. Line 13C is bound to 13B by another conjunction. Other elements also link the lines of this stanza together. For example, lines 12C and 13C each begin with ‫וריח‬, “and the fragrance.” Finally, all three strophes have the same logic: two lines describe the intoxicating power of her lovemaking, and a third line describes something delightful that she is wearing. In strophe 11 (v 9), two lines state that she “leaves him breathless,” and a third line speaks of her necklace. In strophe 12 (v 10), two lines speak of how wonderful her caresses are, and a third mentions her perfume. In strophe 13 (v 11), two lines speak of the sweetness of her kisses, and the third speaks of the fragrance of her clothes. All these elements mark this stanza as having three strophes of three lines. The fourth stanza is also made up of three strophes (vv 12-15, strophes 14-16). The first strophe begins with two lines that use repetition (‫גן נעול‬, “enclosed garden” [14A], and ‫גל נעול‬, “enclosed pool” [Í4B]). Strophe 14 thus begins with two lines that use repetition or matching and thus seems to be following the same pattern that the three strophes of the previous stanza employ. However, it breaks

188

Song of Songs 4:1- 15

off this pattern, and strophe 15 is altogether different. Strophe 16 returns to the pattern of two lines that employ matching, followed by a third line dependent on the second line. Like strophe 13 of the previous stanza, strophe 16 uses synonymous terms to achieve a kind of repetition for lines A and B: ‫מעין גנים‬, “spring of gardens,” and ‫באר מים חיים‬, “well of living waters.” Line 16C depends on 16B via another conjunction. Comment

1 The metaphor of the woman’s eyes being doves is difficult to unpack; see Comment on 1:15. In this verse, however, it seems that the point of comparison is that her eyes are partially hidden behind a veil, much as a dove hides in the cleft of a rock (see Song 2:14 and Jer 48:28). He finds the way her eyes seem to be hiding behind her veil to be very alluring. The idiom ‫מבעד לצמתך‬, “behind your veil,” appears here and at 4:3 and 6:7. The meaning of ‫ צמה‬as "Veil” is open to question. The problem is further complicated by the fact that the compound preposition ‫ ל) מבעד ל‬+ ‫ בעד‬+ ‫ )מן‬also occurs only in these verses, and ‫ צמה‬occurs elsewhere only at Isa 47:2. G. Gerleman (144) suggests that LXX σιώττησι, “silence” or “taciturnity,” has misread the verb as ‫צמת‬, “to destroy, to silence,” here. The Vulgate is equally obscure (see Note 4:1.a.) . Some translate ‫ צמה‬as “locks (of hair),” but evidence supporting this is inadequate. The sixteenth-century Spanish Hebraist Luis de Leon argued that Jerome was using a euphemistic paraphrase, because ‫ צמה‬actually refers to female pudenda (J. Barr, “Luis de Leon,” 2 3 1 3 3 ‫) ־‬. This interpretation is possible in light of Isa 47:2, a taunt of the “virgin daughter of Babylon,” where ‫גלי צמתך‬ could be taken to mean “expose your pudenda” rather than “take off your veil.” The first clause of Isa 47:3 is ‫תגל עדותך‬, “your nakedness will be exposed.” But it is almost impossible to make sense of the line ‫עיניך יונים מבעד לצמתך‬, “your eyes are doves behind your,” in the Song with this interpretation of the word ‫צמה‬. Pope (457) observes that Symmachus has κάλυμμα, "Veil,” here and that in Aramaic verbs from the root ‫ צמם‬are used of veiling the face. Hence, the translation "Veil” is retained here. Her hair, which may be dark and wavy, reminds him of a flock of goats leaping down the side of a mountain. The root ‫ גלש‬only appears here and again in precisely the same phrase at Song 6:5. Its meaning is uncertain. The versions are of little help and differ in their interpretations (see Note 4:1.b.). Pope (459-60) observes that two suggestions have been made from cognate languages. An apparently foreign word in the Egyptian text Papyrus Lansing, verso 1,9, k'-p'-sw, seems to mean “skip.” On the other hand, a Ugaritic fragment (2001.1.5) contains the phrase wiglt thmt, which might be taken to mean, “and the abyss was roiled.” Given the minimal state of our information, it is probably best to take ‫ גלש‬here to mean that the flock is skipping down the mountain and so from a distance resembles a turbulent, sensual mass of hair. (See HALOT vbl.) For a shepherd people, this would have been high praise, and the compliment connotes vitality in the woman. In addition, the praise of the woman is particularized in that the goats are leaping down “Mount Gilead.” The location of Mount Gilead is unknown. It may be not a single mountain but the ridges in the Transjordan opposite Samaria.

Comment

189

Judg 7:3 does refer to ‫מהר הגלעד‬, “the mountain of the Gilead,” but a number of scholars regard that text as suspect and emend to “Mount Gilboa” or render the phrase as “Mount Galud.” Interpreted as “Galud,” it would refer to Ain Jalud, to the west of the Jordan and south of Jezreel (cf. ISBE 2:470, “Gilead, Mount”). Here in the Song, however, there is no intrinsic reason to doubt the text. Probably ‫ מהר גלעד‬is either the slopes of Gilead generally or is a name attached to some specific site in Gilead that is now lost to us. It is noteworthy that the man often praises the woman in terms of the places, flora, and fauna of the Levant. Elsewhere, he compares her features to a tower that David built (4:4), to Lebanon (4:11), to Tirzah and Jerusalem (6:4), to the pools of Heshbon (7:4), and to Carmel (7:5). The text abounds in references to goats, to sheep that have just been shorn, to gazelles feeding, and to vineyards, local flowers, and fruits. 2 The woman has all of her teeth! This may seem like a rather droll bit of praise to the modern, Western reader, but we live in an age of highly sophisticated dentistry and orthodontics. Until very recently, a beautiful, healthy smile with no missing teeth was hardly something people could take for granted. The fact that the teeth are like shorn lambs that come up from washing obviously implies that they are clean and white. Although data on ‫ קצב‬is scarce, 2 Kgs 6:6 is fairly strong evidence that the rare root ‫ קצב‬means to “cut off,” or with reference to sheep, “shorn.” The fact that every one has a twin means that no teeth are missing. The root ‫ תאם‬with the sense to “double” or “have a twin” appears in Exod 26:24 and 36:29 (in both cases the noun ‫ )תואם‬and in Song 6:6, which virtually repeats the present text. In this case, the hipcil ‫ מתאימות‬cannot mean “bear twins,” in which case three sheep would be in view (the mother and her twin lambs). Rather, it means to have a twin sibling or to be in pairs. One could take “twin” to refer to the correspondence of upper and lower teeth, but probably it means that each tooth on the right side of the face has a matching tooth on the left side. That is, for the upper right canine tooth there is a matching canine on the upper left, and so forth. The adjective ‫ ושכלה‬would normally mean “childless” or refer to the bereavement suffered as the result of the death of one’s children. The point here is that every lamb has a twin and not that every sheep has twin children. Note also the assonance in the words ‫ושכלה‬, “bereft,” and ‫‘קזכלם‬, “which every one.” Shorn lambs leaping up from their washing connote vigor and health, just as a good smile is a sign of good health. The image of lambs at shearing time would have evoked deep feelings of appreciation for the joys of pastoral life in a people who knew this life well. 3 The idea that her lips are “like a scarlet thread” is not particularly attractive to us, since it seems to imply that she has thin lips. This is certainly not the point. The obvious visual link between the metaphor and the lips is the color red, a feature still regarded as attractive for women’s lips in many cultures. For the reader of the biblical canon, it is noteworthy that the phrase ‫חוט השני‬, “scarlet thread,” is precisely the same as that used to describe the “scarlet thread” by which Rahab signaled to the Israelites which house was hers (Josh 2:18). Is it coincidence that Rahab, a prostitute, had such an item readily available in her home? Possibly; but a scarlet thread may have had some kind of sexual signifi-

190

Song

of Songs

4:1-15

cance and thus have been a kind of trademark for prostitutes. Keel ([1994] 143) suggests that a prostitute would have attached the red cord to her door as a symbol of her profession. If so, the red cord may not have of itself signaled prostitution; it could have been a symbol for love (like the “heart” shape today) that was co-opted by prostitution. In any case, the point may be that the man sees her lips as an invitation to love. "Your speech is lovely.” Interpreters routinely take ‫ מדבר‬here to mean the “mouth as the organ of speech” on the basis of its pairing with ‫שפתתיך‬, “your lips.” It is more likely that ‫ מדבר‬here refers to speech itself rather than to the organ of speech. The Song frequently avoids parallelism that is fully redundant. Also, the adjective ‫נאוה‬, “lovely,” does not refer exclusively to visual beauty; see Ps 147:1, ‫נאוה תהלה‬, “praise [to God] is lovely.” Elsewhere in the Song the man sings of his delight in the sound of her voice (2:14). Fox (Song of Songs, 130) suggests that ‫ ומדבריך נאוה‬is a wordplay that could be heard to mean “and your wilderness is an oasis,” meaning that even her blemishes are beautiful. But the man regards her as flawless (v 7), and it is at any rate unlikely that he would use “wilderness” to mean “blemish.” The noun ‫רקה‬, “cheek,” appears five times in the Bible, including here and a parallel text in Song 6:7, as well as in Judg 4:21-22; 5:26. The latter three texts all describe how Jael drove a tent peg through the temple of Sisera. The word probably refers to the side of the head, including what we would call the temple and the cheekbone. In describing her cheeks as halves of pomegranates, he may mean one of two things. He could be saying that she has high cheek bones, analogous to how a pomegranate half bulges out on its rounded side. It is more likely, however, that he means that the parts of her cheeks that are visible above her veil have a pinkish color, like the interior of a split pomegranate. He has already spoken of the redness of her lips, and the point here seems to be that she has a youthful glow. Also, the interior of a pomegranate connotes sweetness and sensual pleasure. 4 The military language employed to describe the “tower of David” indicates that the main point of comparison is not that her neck is long and slender, like a high tower (notwithstanding the fact that Egyptians considered long necks attractive). Obviously there is a superficial resemblance between a tower and a neck, but height, delicacy, and proportion do not figure in the language here. Keel ([1994] 147) observes that ancient Near Eastern towers tended to be massive rather than slender. Also, not every tower is adorned with armaments as this one is. The meaning of ‫( לתלפיות‬a hapax legomenon) is uncertain. LXX reads it as a proper name. Most treat it as a noun from the root *‫לפא‬, meaning “to lay in courses” (Gerleman 148). Thus ‫ בנוי לתלפיות‬is routinely translated “built in courses.” BDB has the conjectural “armory” and Crim (BT 22 [1971] 74) the dubious interpretation "Your neck is like the tower of David, / round and smooth. / / A thousand famous soldiers / surrender their shields to its beauty.” The phrase “built in courses” may mean that it is built with ashlar—that is, with stone that could be precisely cut and thus tightly fitted together (cf. HALOT ‫)תלפיות‬. Aesthetically, this makes for a more admirable tower, and it also probably had some military advantage, since a foe could not easily scale or pry apart the stones. The word ‫ שלט‬appears seven times in the OT (2 Sam 8:7 [II 1 Chr 18:7]; 2 Kgs 11:10 [II 2 Chr 23:9]; Jer 51:11; Ezek 27:11; and here). It is usually translated

Comment

191

“shield” (here in the Song it is paired with ‫)מגן‬. On the other hand, “shield” is not appropriate in Jer 51:11, where it seems to mean a “quiver (for arrows),” and only in the two texts in Samuel and Kings (with parallels) is “shield” likely. Fox (Song of Songs, 131) makes a good case that ‫ שלט‬simply means “military equipment.” Ezek 27:11 has a most remarkable parallel to this text: “the Gammadim were in your towers. They hung their weapons on your walls [‫]במגדלותיך היו שלטיהם חלו על־חומותיך‬ all around; they perfected your beauty.” That text is a lament over Tyre, and the identity of the “Gammadim” is uncertain (Eichrodt, Ezekiel, 379, takes it to mean “watchmen”). It is clear, however, that the Gammadim are allies and defenders of the city who both adorned and protected the walls with their arsenal. Precise translation is not possible for ‫שלט‬, but it definitely is military in nature. Even if we assume that the shields and weaponry are in some sense metaphorical for necklaces and other jewelry worn about the neck, the martial connotation of depicting her neck in these terms cannot be set aside. The association of the neck and tower with David, Israel’s great warrior king, enhances the military tone of the text. The language of Ezek 27:11 is very close to that of this verse. There is a kind of beauty associated with military hardware, but it is a beauty that connotes strength. Applied to walls and towers, this language connotes impregnability. The man’s adoration of the woman arises in part from the fact that he cannot take her at will. He speaks tenderly to her, hoping that she will give him willingly what he cannot take by force. Furthermore, his words imply respect for how she deports herself and possesses her beauty. She is not weak in her beauty but strong. 5 There is obviously no visual resemblance between her breasts and twin fawns other than that both come in pairs. A number of scholars follow W. Rudolph (147), who contends that one can see only the rounded backs of the two fawns protruding above tall flowers as they feed, and that this accounts for the simile here. But as Keel ([1994] 150) points out, this does not work in the shorter version of the simile at Song 7:3. Nor do we need to imagine that the woman is wearing a wreath of flowers around her breasts (Fox, Song of Songs, 131). Rather, it seems that the comparison is another example of how gazelles in the Song connote playfulness, energy, and sexuality (e.g., Song 2:7, 9). The picture of fawns feeding among lotus flowers (so taking ‫ )בשושנים‬seems unnatural; the lotus is a water lily. Of course, the image need not be one of fawns standing in the water and eating water lilies; it is more likely that they are understood to be feeding on grass near the edge of ponds where lotuses grow. It is in this sense, standing on dry ground, that they are “among” the lotuses. Or, it may be that ‫ שושנים‬connotes both lilies and lotuses (see Comment on 2:1-2, 16 above). But the juxtaposition of lotuses and fawns is significant. Both connote beauty, sexuality, and life. The woman can compare the man’s lips to lotuses (Song 5:13) and call herself a lotus (Song 2:1). For the man, her breasts are a focal point of her sexuality. 6 For the translation of ‫ עד שיפוח היום‬as “until the day comes to life,” see Comment on 2:17 above. Having described her breasts, the man abruptly breaks off from the description and declares his intentions. He is determined to get himself to “Myrrh Mountain” and “Incense Hill,” and the meaning of his words is hardly obscure: the two hills are obviously her breasts. They are not literal mountains in Israel

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or elsewhere, nor are they simply the “make-believe world of love poetry” (Murphy, 159). Scholars sometimes cite the Cairo love songs to the effect that a man in his woman’s arms imagines himself in the land of Punt, the domain of the gods (cf. Keel [1994] 152). In my view, the analogy to the Egyptian text here is overworked. “Myrrh Mountain” and “Incense Hill” are not the proper names of some mythological paradise like Punt or the Elysian Fields, nor are they literal hills in the terrain of Israel. They are a straightforward metaphor for breasts. In Song 7:7-8, the man does much the same thing he does here. In the course of a wasf (praise of the woman), he comes to the woman’s breasts and suddenly interrupts his description of her beauty and expresses a keen desire to enjoy her breasts; in 7:7 he says that they are like clusters in a palm tree, and in 7:8 he says that he will climb the tree and lay hold of those clusters. The breasts are here given the names “Myrrh Mountain” and “Incense Hill” obviously because their shape is mountain like but also because they give exotic pleasure, much as spices do. In addition, the Israelite bride may have literally perfumed her breasts with myrrh and incense; in Song 1:13, the woman describes the man as a pouch of myrrh between her breasts, a metaphor that may reflect an actual bridal practice. In saying that he intends to get himself to these mountains “until the day comes to life and the shadows flee,” the man means that he intends to make love to her all night long. The language of love is often hyperbolic. 7 This verse concludes the wasf with a summation that fairly says everything the man wants to get across: the woman is absolutely flawless. 8 However this verse is translated (see Note 4:8.c.), one should not take it to mean that the man is with the woman in her mountain lair. It could mean that he is calling her down from her mountain lair so that she could accompany him from Lebanon, a reading that would still retain ‫אתי‬, “with me,” but emendation is better. This strophe depicts the woman in goddesslike terms. She is high in the mountains of the north where she dwells with lions and leopards. Keel ([1994] 155) points out that the Anti-Lebanon range is the highest in the vicinity of Israel, attaining to a height of 3,088 meters above sea level. Hermon and Amana are two mountains of this range, although the location of Amana is disputed. According to Deut 3:9, Hermon and Senir are one and the same mountain. Keel ([1994] 155-57) also notes that cylinder seals from the Akkad period (ca. 2200) depict Ishtar ascending a mountain or standing with her foot on the back of a leashed lion, and he reproduces an Egyptian image of a nude goddess standing on a lion. Also, a gold pendant of ca. 1350 from Minet el-Beida, the harbor of Ugarit, is most illustrative. It depicts a naked goddess wearing only a necklace (v 9) ; she stands on a lion and holds a gazelle (v 5) in each hand (see Keel [1994] 91). An analogous piece is a stamp seal from Minos in Knossos (ca. 1500) that portrays a bare-breasted goddess standing on a mountain peak flanked by two lions (see Keel [1994] 160). In the Christian era, a young man who praised the woman of his dreams as an “angel” was not literally asserting that she was superhuman, nor was he composing devotional literature. Similarly, although the Song here depicts the woman in goddesslike terms, she is not a goddess and this is not a hymn fragment. In addition, we should not regard it as intolerable that she is suddenly described in these terms or see this as an interruption in the Song or an incongruous inser-

Comment

193

tion. Traditional images of goddesses have been pressed into service here to provide a metaphorical vision of how the woman seems to him. The point of the text is that she is wonderful, powerful (in her sexuality), and inaccessible. As such, this text appropriately responds to what has gone before in vv 1-7. The man sees her as a beauty surpassing hope and imagination, and at the very moment that he and she are near to coming together he wonders if she will actually make her way to him. She is goddesslike to him in that possessing her seems as magical and impossible as possessing a goddess—and we do well to remember that many a goddess from the ancient world carries the epithet “Virgin.” Once again, the virginity of the woman asserts itself and sets her far beyond his reach. She will be his only if she chooses to come down from her mountain lair. Here for the first time the woman is called ‫כלה‬, “bride” (the word can also mean “daughter-in-law,” but context excludes that meaning here). The word appears six times in the Song; astoundingly, these come in five successive verses (4:8, 9, 10, 11, 12) with the sixth appearing nearby in 5:1. A number of scholars regard ‫ כלה‬as merely a term of endearment that does not imply that a wedding has or will take place. While the use of the term does not demonstrate that the Song is an epithalamium—much less a kind of wedding liturgy—there is no reason to assert that “bride” does not have its normal meaning here. In the quasi-story that stands behind the Song, the man and woman are newly married. It is true that he also calls her “sister,” but this term is well known to be a term of affection a man may use for a woman, and it functions like ‫רעיתי‬, “my companion.” But it would be peculiar to use ‫כלה‬, “bride,” as a term of affection for a woman who was not in fact one’s bride. Furthermore, we need to account for the surprising cluster of uses of the term ‫כלה‬, “bride,” here and only here. As suggested above, this canto depicts a bridegroom calling his new bride on their wedding night to their first union. He tenderly woos her, in effect seducing her rather than simply claiming his right as husband to her body. Even so, he repeatedly calls her “bride” in this context to gently remind her that she has entered this relationship with him, and that a bride is not truly a bride until she has consummated her marriage. Calling her “bride” is not simply demanding sex from her on the grounds that she is now his wife, but it is a tender reminder of the nature of their relationship. Five times in a row addressing her by this epithet, he declares how beautiful and delightful she is to him while yet speaking of her as a goddess on a mountain (Song 4:8) or a locked up garden (Song 4:12). The point is that to truly be a bride she must descend to him and open her garden to him. Finally in Song 5:1, at the celebration of their sexual union (as I interpret it), he calls her “bride” for the last time. From that point forward, she is no longer a bride but a wife. 9 " You leave me breathless.” The pi'el denominative ‫ לבבתני‬may be understood as either to take away someone’s heart (i.e., to leave one feeling shaken and weak) or to give someone heart (i.e., to energize or even arouse sexually). Interpreters have given their opinions and support to either side of this issue. Pope (479-80) observes that Sumerian and Akkadian analogues imply that the root lbb, “heart,” can refer to male sexual arousal. See also Waldman (JBL 89 [1970] 215-17), who argues that ‫ לבב‬means “to rage” and from that “to be sexually aroused” on the analogy of οργή, “fury,” and όργάω, “to arouse.” Fox (Song of Songs, 136) rejects this interpretation on the grounds that the Akkadian mate­

194

Song of Songs 4:1-15

rial in question deals with impotence, which is not a matter of concern here. This is a weak objection; the fact that the specific Akkadian texts that we possess deal with impotence when they use lbb in a sexual sense does not mean that lbb connotes arousal only in a context of treating impotence. The pi'el ‫ לבב‬only occurs four times in the Bible; two are in this verse and two are in 2 Sam 13:6, 8, where it means to “bake bread” from a homonymous root. Scholars have naturally set these instances aside as irrelevant, but they may be in one sense germane to the issue here. In the 2 Samuel verses, Amnon is asking that Tamar come and “bake bread” (‫ )לבב‬in his sight so that he might eat from her hand. It may be that the Hebrew reader would have seen a wordplay between the two meanings and have taken that to be representative of a debauched aristocrat amusing himself with his own prurient cleverness. In the Song, however, it remains unclear how we should take ‫לבב‬. It is possible that the word itself is ambiguous and connoted both the arousal and the emotional slaying of a man by a woman. For this reason, I have left the ambiguity in place with the rendition, "You leave me breathless.” It is at any rate clear that the woman has all his attention. The noun ‫ענק‬, “strand,” appears in the form ‫ האנקות‬in Judg 8:26, where it refers to decorative bands about the necks of camels. In Prov 1:9, ‫ וענקים‬describes some kind of necklace, whether made of many strands, beads, or chain links. H ere,‫ ענק‬either means a single bead or a strand of a necklace of many strands. A single glance or a single strand or bead of her necklace, in other words, the slightest action on her part or the most insignificant detail of her jewelry, is sufficient to captivate him. In the ancient Near East, goddesses were sometimes portrayed as naked except for jewelry. The use of ‫אחתי‬, “my sister,” as a love term has naturally provoked scholarly interest. The term is found in Egyptian love poetry and even in Sumerian love poetry, and some interpreters, influenced by the practice of consanguineous marriage in the Egyptian royal house, thought that this was a common practice. In reality, it was probably quite rare. The term here does not mean that she is literally his sister. Still, we must ask why the Song would use a love term that seems to imply incestuous love (cf. Lev 18:9). The significance of the term as an affectionate expression of licit love is not unrelated to its literal meaning. A brother and sister are members of the same family and household. As close relatives, the emotional bond between them is very strong. In an ancient Israelite family, to be sure, kinship and its duties were not taken lightly. In calling her his “sister,” the man implies that they have become one family. The canonical analogue is Adam’s declaration that the woman was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh (Gen 2:23). In Wisdom literature, by contrast, the prostitute or adulteress is the “foreign woman” or “stranger” (‫ ;נכריה‬e.g., Prov 2:16; 5:20; 6:24; 7:5). In calling her sister, he declares that the two of them are bound as by having common flesh and blood. 10 This strophe opens with a recapitulation of the praise of her body but moves into a celebration of the joys of receiving affection from her. The metaphors here relate to sensations rather than to physical objects. Wine, perfume, balsam, honey, and milk all connote not the items themselves but their tastes and smells. Also, metaphors that are liquids rather than solids (such as towers, mountains, goats, or sheep) more readily lend themselves to the celebration of an action—her lovemaking—rather than to the praise of her physical body.

Comment

195

Balsam is an aromatic resin that flows from a plant after an incision has been made in a stem. It is used in the preparation of perfumes and incense, and the word ‫ בשם‬in the Song refers to perfumes made from balsam. Classical literature also refers to the balsam tree (το βάλσαμον). The exotic qualities of its oil gave rise to interesting legends. According to Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.28.3, the balsam tree grew in Arabia and was frequently the nesting place of vipers that would have to be driven away before the resin could be harvested. The danger of this activity was not as great as one might think, Pausanias assures us: “Since the vipers feed on the most fragrant of perfumes, their poison is diminished and less deadly.” The word is sometimes rendered as “spices,” but this is misleading because that term in English seems to imply leafy herbs and ground peppercorns, which are certainly not meant here. The Queen of Sheba brought balsam with her when she visited Solomon (1 Kgs 10:2, 10). At least in very wealthy households, people used balsam as a beautification treatment for women (Esth 2:12). The language of this verse fairly dramatically reworks but reflects a verse of praise that was heaped upon the man in Song 1:2-3: “Indeed your caresses are better than wine, / better than the fragrances of your perfumes. / Your very name is like perfumes poured out.” In the Song of Songs, the focal point of adoration progressively moves from the man to the woman. 11 The assonance and consonance of the phrase ‫נגןת תטפנה שבתותיך‬, “your lips drip honey,” underscores the sensuality of this verse. The Song invokes every kind of sensual experience, from the fragrances of perfume, balsam, and the cedars of Lebanon to the sweetness of honey and the richness of milk, to convey something of the pleasures the woman gives. Milk and honey are of course formulaic for the abundance of the land of Israel (Exod 3:8), and it may not be accidental that the pleasures of this Israelite woman are extolled in terms reminiscent of the glories of the land itself (see Comment on 4:1). 12 In the fourth strophe, the woman is an enclosed garden and pool. The word ‫גל‬, “pool,” basically means “heap,” and it is used either for a pile of rocks or a wave. Attempts to force this meaning into the text are futile (e.g., “rock garden” in the NASB). There is ample evidence for emending ‫ גל‬to ‫גן‬, “garden,” including the LXX, Vg., Syriac, and several Hebrew manuscripts. On the other hand, Pope (488-89) has accumulated a good bit of evidence for taking the root gll to connote “pool” here. Note that ‫ גלה‬means “bowl” in Zech 4:3 and Eccl 12:6; the plural means “springs” in Josh 15:19 and Judg 1:15.1would suggest that the Song uses ‫גל‬ as a rare word for “pool” here because the assonance with ‫ גן‬links it to the preceding metaphor, but its meaning links it to the following metaphor, “fountain.” The garden of the ancient Near East was something of a small park rather than a simple flower or vegetable garden. Numerous texts from the Bible and elsewhere attest to how highly such gardens were prized and regarded as sources of pleasure. A prime example is Eccl 2:4-6, where the author devotes three verses to a description of the extent of his gardens. Those gardens included vineyards, fruit trees, and pools of water. In Papyrus Harris 500, a girl describes herself as a garden with a stream in it. In the Lichtheim translation (New Kingdom, 192), it reads: “I am your sister, your best one; / I belong to you like this plot of ground / That I planted with flowers / And sweet smelling herbs. / Sweet is its stream, / Dug by your hand, / Refreshing in the north wind.” The image of the pleasures of the woman as a fountain also looks back to Prov 5:18-20, where the “wife of

196

Song

of

Songs 4 :1-15

your youth” is called a “fountain” and the young man is exhorted to let himself be satiated by her breasts. L. Lyke (“Song of Songs”) seeks to forge a link between the Song and the patriarchal stories at the point of the motif of the “betrothal to a woman at a well” (Gen 24:10-61; 29:1-20; Exod 2:15b-21). He observes that the language of wells and watering evokes the image of the female and fertility (also in connection with Prov 5:15-18). From this, Lyke goes on to conclude that “a result of the complexity of its metaphors is that the theological register of its individual and particular language can be projected to the whole of the Song. Therefore, while always the poetry of human love, it simultaneously can be understood in terms of the ancient idiom that understands humans’ relation to God via the same metaphors. It is this expansion of the collective intuitions about its language that leads to the sense that the Song, as a whole, can be read allegorically” (italics original). He further concludes that the “influence of the ‘secondary’ theological register on the ‘primary’ human register of the language is to provide one of the means by which it becomes possible to articulate the sanctity of human love” (“Song of Songs,” 223). There are several problems with Lyke’s analysis. First, it is not at all clear that the Song, where the woman is a sealed fountain, directly alludes to the Genesis and Exodus texts, where a woman is encountered at a well or spring. Second, it is not likely that the significance of the spring or well can be subjected to the kind of totality transfer that Lyke seems to suggest. Third, it is not clear from Lyke’s article what the “theological register” is in the metaphor of the spring, nor how it can be transferred to the Song. Fourth, like many other scholars, Lyke suggests that “as a whole” the Song can be legitimately allegorized. But the problems are in the details. The constant assertion that the love between humans “in some sense” is a figure of the love between God and humans is an empty sentiment unless one can show how it is done in the reality and the particulars of the text. The usage of the metaphor of the well found in the Song and elsewhere (especially Prov 5) suggests that in the Bible a well or spring can represent the sexuality of a woman both in terms of the pleasure she gives and her fertility; beyond that, one cannot safely go. In this verse the notable feature of the metaphor is that she is a “locked” garden and “sealed” fountain. The point is not that she is locked to all others but open to him. Rather, it is that she is as of yet still virginal and out of even his reach. Like the prior metaphor of the goddess on a mountain, this strophe presents her as inaccessible. He appeals to her to open herself to him. 13 The word ‫שלחיך‬, “your growth,” is generally translated “your shoots.” Evidence that the word actually means this is less than one could hope for. The noun ‫ שלח‬normally means “weapons” or “projectiles,” as in Neh 4:11, 17 (ET 4:17, 23). Some interpreters argue that the word means “pool” or “tunnel” in Joel 2:8, but this is certainly wrong (see Garrett, Hosea, Joel, 341 n. 34). Keel ([1994] 176) argues that the term means “canals” here and that it is metaphorical for the vagina, but he has limited evidence to support this claim. He cites the proper name ‫ברכת השלח‬, “Pool of the Shelah,” in Neh 3:15, but usage in a proper name cannot establish the meaning of a word. The name Valley of Achor, for example, does not imply that Achormeans something related to “valley” (it means “trouble”). Keel takes ‫ שלח‬to mean “shaft” in Job 33:18 in parallel to ‫שחת‬, “pit.”

Comment

197

This enjoys some modern support (a number of scholars see a reference to the River Styx here), but the traditional translation “sword” may well be correct (the LXX takes it as metonymy for “war”). Keel does note that shalch in Arabic can mean “vagina,” but this does little to support the notion that the Hebrew word here literally means “canal.” Furthermore, if the man is here singing about her vagina under the metaphor of a canal, why would he use the plural form (“your canals”)? Finally, to give such an elaborate depiction of her vagina by describing it in terms of no less than twelve different words for varieties of fruit, spices, and perfumes is simply in bad taste. The text being what it is, scholars have suggested numerous ways to emend the text, such as that it should be read as ‫שלחך‬, with ‫ש‬ being the relative pronoun and ‫ לחך‬being the noun ‫לח‬, “freshness,” with a pronoun suffix. So interpreted, it is “your freshness” (see Rudolph, 151). Probably the traditional interpretation is correct, that this word refers to the parts of a plant that “shoot” out (i.e., roots and stems) on the basis of the root ‫שלח‬, “to send out.” See the usage of the verb ‫ שלח‬in Jer 17:8 and Ps 80:12 (ET 80:11) and the noun ‫שלחותיה‬, “its shoots,” in Isa 16:8. The word here refers to the growth of plants generally and not to branches of a single plant. In short, the phrase “your growth” does not refer to any parts of the woman’s body. Rather, it refers to the variety of plants found in her “garden,” a metaphor for the pleasures of her lovemaking. This verse does not catalog parts of her anatomy under the metaphor of plants; still less does it focus on her vagina. It uses an assortment of aromatic plants to communicate the idea that her love gives manifold and diverse pleasures. Her affection is to him an Eden (“paradise”), a garden-park with every kind of exotic, delicious, and wonderful kind of plant. Loving her could never be boring. I have translated ‫ פרדס‬here as “paradise” because it seems to me that this communicates best to the English reader what is meant by the term. In American English, park connotes a public area with trees and recreation areas, but no spices or edible plants, and grove connotes a place where apples or oranges are intensively cultivated. Garden connotes a small piece of ground with cultivated flowers or vegetables. Even the term paradise is not fully adequate since to many people it suggests a tropical island. ‫ פרדס‬conveys the idea of a place that is intensely beautiful, and parklike in that it contains trees of all kinds but gardenlike in that it has spices, flowers, and edible plants. Also, notwithstanding the cantillation in the received text, there is no reason to regard ‫ פרדס‬as a construct here. It should be followed by a minor pause, marking a colon break. Seven lines follow after ‫פרדס‬, “paradise,” with the preposition ‫עם‬, “with,” serving to help demarcate the units. There are five pairs of items; the first two employ 15) ‫עם‬B-C), but 15D, 15E, and 15G are without ‫עם‬. Lines 15F and 15H employ ‫ עם‬with a plurality of items marked by ‫כל‬, “all.” Thus, lines 15B-H form a structured list (see figure 9). 14 Nard originated in India; saffron came from regions around the Caspian and Black Seas. ‫ קנה‬basically means “cane” or “reed.” The calamus is a kind of aromatic reed and seems to be what is meant here. Jer 6:20 links aromatic cane to frankincense and says that it was imported from a distant land. Exod 30:23 indicates that it was used for cultic purposes and also links it to cinnamon. Calamus was probably a variety of sweetcane imported from northern India (cf. ISBE 1:573, “Calamus”), and cinnamon came from India and Sri Lanka. Frankincense

Song of Songs 4:1-15

198

came from southern Arabia, and “aloes” probably came from the eaglewood, a tall, slender tree found in India and Malaya (ISBE 1:99, “Aloes”). Scholars have pointed out that the variety of plants described here is so diverse that it is hard to imagine how a single garden might contain them all. Thus it is sometimes regarded as a kind of fantasy garden. It is at least clear that only the very wealthy would be likely to have such a garden. At any rate, this is not meant to be taken as a literal garden. “Pomegranates with choice fruit,” 15 ‫עם פרי מגדים‬ “henna with spikenard,” 15 ‫עם־־נרדים‬ “nard and saffron,” 15 “calamus and cinnamon,” 15 “with every incense tree,” 15 “myrrh and aloes,” 15 “with all the best balsam,” 15 Fig. 9. Structure of canto VIc, lines 15B-H

‫דמונים‬B ‫כפרים‬C ‫נרד וכרכם‬D ‫קנה וקנמון‬E ‫עם כל־עצי לבונה‬ ‫מר ואהלות‬G ‫כל־ראשי בשמים‬

15 In Song 4:12, the beginning of this strophe, the man had sung of her under the two metaphors of the garden and the spring. In vv 13-14 he focused on the garden, but he concludes here by turning to the spring. As mentioned above, in Wisdom literature the woman as fountain signifies the giving of sexual pleasure (Prov 5:113-20). On a literal level, a fountain or well in a garden has two purposes: it waters the plants, and it gives refreshment to people in the garden. It may be significant that the source of water is a spring or well rather than a cistern, which simply collects water brought to it. The spring or well, by implication, has sources within itself and never runs dry. The woman continually draws from resources within herself all that is needed to maintain the pleasures of the garden and the refreshment she gives. She is the counterpart to the righteous man of Ps 1 or Jer 17:8, who is like a tree planted by streams of water and thus flourishes continually. Explanation Together, the four stanzas present the bridegroom tenderly persuading the bride to yield herself to him. He alternately praises her and declares her to be inaccessible to him. The obvious point is that he cannot have her until she voluntarily yields to him; it is a decision she must make. This text recognizes the place for tender speech in love, particularly as directed from the man to the woman. Such speech is not here manipulative or coercive. It is a subordination of the man’s physical desire to the emotional needs of the woman. It also acknowledges that sex is first the joining of two hearts and only then the joining of two bodies. Finally, it is marked by an unwillingness to use force or claim one’s legal rights as husband. In the context of the Song, the bride has been brought to the bridegroom in the sedan chair (3:6-11), and now they are ready to consummate their wedding. A number of motifs are present. Scholars routinely refer to the song of admiration (especially as seen in w 1-7) as a wasf, a song in praise of one’s beloved.

Explanation

199

The motif of pining over one’s inability to reach the beloved is also common in Egyptian love poetry. There, however, the pining is more literal in that the two lovers are physically separated. Here, the two are in one another’s presence but separated by the bride’s virginity. The motif of the woman as a garden of delights appears elsewhere in the Song and in ancient Near Eastern poetry. The portrait of the woman as a goddesslike figure, high on a mountain and surrounded by lions, draws upon a motif familiar from ancient artwork. Here, as elsewhere, the Song skillfully manipulates and recasts traditional motifs and images to create a text that is altogether unlike its contemporary analogues. A man from the southern United States might well compare his beloved’s beauty to that of a magnolia blossom or declare that his love for her is as enduring as the flow of the Mississippi. A man from Colorado or Alberta might in his mind merge his love for his wife with his love for the Rocky Mountains. A man from the coast of Maine might experience something of the same feelings when he looks at waves breaking into stony cliffs or smells the sea air as when he looks upon his wife or smells her fragrance. This does not mean that the woman is an allegory for these regions or that the local natural history is an allegory for the woman. Still less does it mean that the woman actually looks like or smells like the regional metaphors. One’s love of homeland is often localized in particulars—the bluebonnet flowers of Texas, the desert flora of Arizona, or the magpies of Korea. When a man loves his wife and loves his homeland, the two loves can merge in a way that is complementary and not competitive. So strong is this bond that a soldier at war in a distant land may perceive himself to be fighting to protect wife and country almost as though they were one and the same. We should not regard it as a given that the male singer of the Song would use so many particular images from the Levant. He could have easily used metaphors that were more universal, albeit not without occasionally falling into cliché. But the woman to whom he sings is not any woman from any place. She is, after all, an Israelite woman, and her appearance, mannerisms, and fragrance evoke feelings that are not unlike the sentiments aroused by the places, activities, and natural history of Israel. For us who are outsiders to the ancient land of Israel and its pastoral ways, many of these comparisons sound strange if not comical. But for the audience that láiew and loved this land and its ways, his praise of her would have been evocative of deep sentiments and thus would have told them why the man so loved this woman. Love for one’s spouse, like love for one’s homeland, is specific and bound to particulars. At the same time, however, the local color of describing her in terms familiar to an Israelite does not make this a patriotic or nationalistic tract. National identity as such plays no role in the

VII. Soprano, Tenor, and Chorus: The Consummation (4:16—5:1) Translation TENOR

16 Awaken, north wind, and come, south wind! Breathe on my garden and let the scent of its balsam waft!

1A 1B

SOPRANO

Let my lover come to hisa garden and eat its choicefruits.

2A 2B

TENOR

5:1 I comea to my garden, my sister, my bride. I pick my myrrh with my balsam. I eat my honey comb b with my honey. I drink my wine with my milk.

3A 3B 3C 3D

CHORUS

Eat, friends! Drink and be drunken with lovemaking!c

4A 4B

Notes 16.a. Two MSS of LXXAhave κήπον μου, “my garden.” But MT’s change of speaker makes good sense and should be kept. 5:1.a. The pf. forms do not always refer to the past, least of all in poetry. Here, a present translation is more appropriate than the English present pf. found in many versions. l.b. MT ‫יערי‬, “my honeycomb.” LXX (and Vg.) άρτον μου, “my bread.” l.c. It is difficult to tell whether ‫ דודים‬is a vocative here meaning “lovers” (parallel to ‫רעים‬, “friends”) or is direct object of ‫ שתו ושכרו‬and is an abstract pl. used for “lovemaking.” The term often appears in the Song in the sg. with a pronoun suf. as a term for the man (e.g.,‫דודי‬, “my lover,” in Song 1:16 and ‫דודך‬, "your lover,” in 5:9). However, it appears six times in the pl. (Song 1:2, 4; 4:10 [2x]; 7:13; and here). In every other case where it is pl. it refers to lovemaking rather than to lovers.

Form /Structure/Setting

The garden in this canto is the woman’s body. Since Song 4:16b speaks of “my garden” but 4:16c speaks of “his garden,” it appears that the man sings 4:16ab and the woman sings 4:16c. In 5:1 the man speaks of “my wine,” “my balsam,” and “my myrrh,” all in reference to the delights of the woman’s body and affection. Thus, the man also sings of her as “my garden.” Of course, it is possible that the woman sings all of v 16, first speaking of her body as “my garden” and then as “his garden,” but it is not possible that the man sings 4:16c. Similarly, it is clear that the man sings lines 3A-D in Song 5:1, but it seems that the chorus sings 4A-B at the end of 5:1; this final pair of lines addresses “friends” and exhorts them to drink deeply of love. That is, it appears that the chorus in 5:1c is telling the two lovers to enjoy their time together.

Explanation

201

If the lyrics are as I have arranged them, they form a neat symmetry. Each of the four strophes is held together by matching, albeit with some variation, as in strophe 1. In strophe 3 each line begins with a first-person perfect verb; this verb is always followed by a noun that is the object of the action (in every case the noun has a first singular suffix). The only variation is that line 3A ends with “my sister, bride,” whereas the other three lines all end with a prepositional phrase using ‫עם‬, “with.” In the structure of Song of Songs, this piece is the center of a large chiasmus that spans the whole of the work. Often, in a biblical chiasmus, the central text governs and provides the hermeneutical key to the whole text. In this case, the centerpiece is the sexual union of the man and woman. This moment is the pivot point for the whole book, and this commentary suggests that the bridal event, the movement from virgin to wife, is the theme of Song of Songs. Comment

16 The text uses the terms ‫צפון‬, “north wind,” and ‫תימן‬, “south wind,” but avoids the term ‫רוח‬. This word means “wind,” but it also is the divine Spirit that brooded over chaos in Gen 1:2 and arouses the dead bones in Ezek 37:9. In not using ‫רוח‬, the text avoids any possibility of presenting the sexual act as a sacramental event. The man does invoke these winds to breathe life into his garden, an act that recalls God breathing life into the body of the first man in Gen 2:7. While the text does not treat the sexual act in mythological terms or “sacralize” the moment, it does invoke something of the mystery and quasi-religious power of sexual ecstasy. 5:1 The language of this verse looks back to the song of admiration in Song 4:1-15, with its pairs of fragrances and flavors linked by the preposition ‫עם‬, “with”; see especially 4:13-14. The myrrh, balsam, honey, wine, and milk are all now qualified by the pronoun “my.” The woman is no longer that distant, untouchable marvel, the virgin. She is his. The chorus closes this canto with an exhortation to enjoy this moment. They do not counsel restraint. The verb ‫שכר‬ means to drink deeply; it frequently means to become drunken (e.g., Gen 9:21; 1 Sam 1:14; Jer 25:27). They should partake of this pleasure to the fullest. Explanation

The Hebrew Bible elsewhere speaks of wind blowing from the north and then from the south, in contrast to the movement of the sun, which is from east to west (Eccl 1:5-6). Here, the wind stirs up the fragrances of the exotic plants of the garden. The force of the wind is not described, but one would expect the coming together of the north wind and south wind to be a rather stormy event. Obviously the wind in view here would not be so severe as to be destructive to the metaphorical garden or to carry fragrances away, but it is not necessarily a gentle puff of a breeze. The blowing of powerful winds on a garden conveys the idea that the garden has been seized by an external power, such that the trees seem to move of their own accord and the resins and oils of the plants are released. It is an appropriate metaphor for sexual passion in the woman. The man desires his new wife to experience passion and give herself to him, but the “magic” of sexuality to seize, arouse, and open his wife to him is beyond

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his power to control. He can only invoke it as an outside force. Hebrew wisdom does not deify this power under names such as Eros or Aphrodite, but it does understand that the emotional fervor of sexuality seems to be a powerful force that seizes control of us. The woman responds that the man should come into his garden and eat his choice fruit. In the language of the Song of Songs, this is a straightforward invitation for him to enter her sexually. In the structure of the Song of Songs, this is the centerpiece and crescendo. All of the Song focuses on this, the union of the new husband and wife.

VIII. Three Wedding-Night Songs (5:2-6:10) A. Soprano, Tenor, and Chorus: Pain and Tramformation (5:2-8)

Bibliography Alden, R. “T ‫־‬n . ” NIDOTTE §8100. Black, F. C. “Beauty or the Beast? The Grotesque Body in the Song of Songs.” BibInt 8 (2000) 302- 23. Bright, J. Jeremiah. Exum, J. C. “A Literary and Structural Analysis of the Song of Songs.” ZAW 85 (1973) 47-79. Hess, R. “‫רסס‬.” NIDOTTE §8272. Holladay, W. L. Jeremiah 2. Israelit-Groll, S. The Art of Egyptian Love Lyrics. CahRB 49. Paris: Gabalda, 2000. King, P., and L. Stager. Life in Biblical Israel. Phipps, W. E. "T he Plight of the Song of Songs.‫ ״‬JAAR 42 (1974) 82- 100. Thomas, D. W. “Kelebh ‘Dog’: Its Origin and Some Usages of It in the Old Testament.” VT 10 (1960) 4 1 0 2 7 ‫ ־‬. Walsh, C. E. “A Startling Voice: Woman’s Desire in the Song of Songs.” BTB 28 (1998) 129‫ ־‬34. Translation First Stanza soprano

2 I am asleep, but my heart is awake. The voice of my lover, pounding: a

1A 1B

TENOR

Open to me! My sister, my companion, my dove, my perfect one! Now that my head isfull of dew, my locks arefull with the drops of the night! 3 I have stripped off my tunic! How can I put it back on ? I have washed my feet! How can I defile them ?

2A 2B 2C 2D 3A 3B 3C 3D

Second Stanza soprano

4 My lover puts his hand througha the opening and my womb rages against it. 5 I arise to open for my beloved, and my hand drips myrrh; even my fingers are running with myrrh, on the handles of the bolt. 6 I open to my lover, and my lover has lost interest!a He has moved along! I expire when he speaks.

4A 4B 5A 5B 5C 5D 6A 6B 7A

Song of Songs 5:2-8

204

I seek him and do not find him; I call him and he does not answer!

8A 8B

T h ir d S t a n z a

7 The guards that go about the city find me. They beat me, they wound me, they take my veil from me, the guards of the walls.

9A 9B 9C 9D

F o u r t h St a n z a

8 I call upon you to swear, daughters ofJerusalem, if you find my lover, what should you say to him ? That I am wounded by love.

10A 10B 10C 10D

Notes 2.a. LXX adds em την θυραν, “on the door.” 4.a. The prep.‫ מן‬here evidently means “through” as in Song 2:9. 6.a. Omitted in LXX. a' σ' Syr. are like Vg. declinaverat, “avoids (m e).”

Form /Structure/Setting

This text is a jolt to the harmony of the Song of Songs. After the rhapsodic praise of the glories of the woman and the delicate portrayal of their union in 4:1-5:1, we abruptly have a barely coherent canto of the man pounding at her door and running away followed by the woman taking a beating at the hands of the city guards. As the following comments will try to demonstrate, this is not by any means to be interpreted as an actual story involving a real door or guards or a physical beating of the woman. It is instead a symbolic representation of the woman’s loss of virginity. This canto is the first part of the second of the wedding-night cantos and corresponds to Song 3:1-5. Where 3:1-5 dealt with the woman’s anxiety over the wedding night, this part concerns the actual event. I differ from most interpreters in that I regard v 3 to be the man’s rather than the woman’s lyrics; see the Comment on 5:3 below. This canto can be easily divided into four stanzas. The first stanza begins with a two-line strophe (lines 1A-B) that describes the man’s desperate attempt to get in her door; this strophe uses only verbless clauses. Strophe 2 uses very terse language; line 2B is simply four vocatives! In strophe 3, lines 3A-B match lines 3C-D. The second stanza (vv 4-6), like the first, begins with a two-line strophe (lines 4A-B) that suggests a somewhat violent, invasive act on the part of her lover. Several strophes describing the opening of the door follow. First, she describes the bolt and her dripping fingers (lines 5A-D), the abrupt “disappearance” or loss of interest on her lover’s part (lines 6A-B), her despair when he speaks (line 7A), and her inability to find him (lines 8A-B). These strophes employ syntactic dependence (strophes 4, 5, and 6), repetition (5B-C), and matching (strophe 8). The third and fourth stanzas introduce two unexpected groups: the guards (v 7, strophe 9) and the Jerusalem girls (v 8, strophe 10). Each strophe has four lines. Like Song 2:7; 3:5; and 8:4, strophe 10 begins with the formula of adjuration

Form/Structure/Setting

205

directed toward the girls of Jerusalem. Here, however, the promise she elicits from them is not that they will not arouse love before it is ready but that they will tell her lover that she is wounded by love. The text actually calls attention to the fact that this is an unexpected use of the adjuration: the girls in v 9 ask her why she does this. Many interpreters draw attention to the similarity that this section has to the paraklausithyron, the song of complaint by a lover who stands outside his girlfriend’s house and pleads to be allowed admission. References to a door between lovers occur throughout ancient love poetry. It is found in Roman works (e.g., Lucretius, De rerum natura 4.1177-79), in the Egyptian Papyrus Chester Beatty I, and in the Akkadian British Museum 47507. While the comparisons are educational, they can lead the interpreter astray. The Song is not like other poems; it takes traditional motifs and weaves them into patterns that are altogether different from what we see in other literature. Murphy (169) has correctly observed that the essence of paraklausithyron is complaint by the excluded lover against the door itself and his girlfriend but that this element is absent here. In fact, however, there is no standard use for the image of the door between lovers in ancient poetry; different texts use the image in altogether different ways. For example, in Lucretius, the lover pining at his girlfriend’s door is an illustration of the madness of emotional passion. In British Museum 47507, it is actually the female lover (Ishtar) who wants the door to be open. In Papyrus Chester Beatty I, it is a foolish young man who has forgotten that the prostitute does not really love him and that he must pay for her services. In addition, the Egyptian song is a fairly straightforward piece about a boy trying to get into a brothel to gain access to a prostitute. The details have some referential and symbolic elements: when he says he will bring a sacrifice to the door, he means that he will bring gifts to the owners of the brothel; when he says he will pay a carpenter to build a grass door, he is using hyperbole to express the lengths he will go to in order to gain admission to the brothel. This canto of the Song of Songs goes far beyond the referential language of the Egyptian piece. It is surreal, and it is impossible, I will argue, to give this passage a literal reading without the text becoming nearly incomprehensible. Even if one should claim to make sense of the literal gist of these lyrics, one is left with a love song that is horrifying: A man pounds at his lover’s door; after some hesitation, she arises to let him in, but he has already run away; she frantically looks for him, but the night watchmen find her, strip her, and beat her up! As a love song (if taken literally), this is a monstrous parody. The only way to interpret this material meaningfully is to take its surreal imagery and incongruous twists for what they are: a metaphor symbolizing something altogether different from the quasi-story on the surface of the text. In short, the device of the paraklausithyron has been taken, radically modified, and exploited to convey a message quite different from what the Egyptian or Latin poets created. It is important to realize that, with the exception of the relatively innocent ‫נשק‬, “kiss,” in Song 1:2, the Song never uses direct language to describe a sexual act but always works under the veil of metaphor. Typical biblical terms for sexual acts (e.g., to lie [‫ ]שכב‬with a woman, to enter [‫ ]בוא‬a woman, to know [‫ ]יעד‬a woman, to uncover the nakedness [‫ ]גלה ערוה‬of a person) do not occur in the Song, and straightforward language such as ‫בתולים‬, “virginity,” is similarly avoided.

206

Song of Songs 5:2-8

Even where the text appears to be fairly ribald, it still employs metaphor (e.g., Song 7:8-9a [ET 7:7- 8a]: “This is what your full physique is like: a palm tree. / And your breasts are its clusters. / I said, T will climb the palm tree, / I will hold its panicles of dates.’” What we find here is an account of the woman’s first sexual event, which is likewise told in metaphor. Comment

2 ‫אני ישנה ולבי ער‬, “I am asleep, but my heart is awake,” does not nece mean that she is having a dream; none of the typical Semitic vocabulary of dreaming is present (Pope, 510-11). The word ‫ער‬, “awake,” may connote arousal, as does the root ‫ עור‬in Song 4:16 (cf. Exum, ZAW 85 [1973] 61). “I am asleep” may mean little more than that she is in bed. Dealing with this episode, as with Song 3 :1 5 ‫ ־‬, one should not dismiss it as a dream. Taken literally, the man is pounding at her door so that, even if she had been asleep, she would soon be wide awake (unless one argues that the man himself is part of a dream and that the whole episode is unreal). It is true that this text is surreal in its imagery and that many peculiar things happen, but symbols should be interpreted and not dismissed. Of course, dreams are often odd and highly symbolic (Gen 40- 41; Dan 2); it may be that “I am asleep, but my heart is awake” is a signal to the reader to expect a text that is dreamlike in its use of bizarre but emblematic images. Also, being both asleep and awake at the same time implies that the woman is both numb and alert. If this is the moment of her loss of virginity, it may be that her mind has shifted into something of a state of shock as she tries to come to terms with the experience. The verb ‫ דופק‬connotes “pounding” or driving hard. ‫ דפק‬appears in Gen 33:13, where Jacob warns that the cattle will die if they are driven hard, and in Judg 19:22, where the men of Gibeah attempted to batter down the door of a house. Fox (Song of Songs, 143) follows ibn Ezra and argues that the word here means “entreating,” but the meaning attested elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible is to be preferred. One would expect ‫ עתר‬or ‫ חלה‬if the intended meaning were “entreat.” Clearly this is not “knocking” in any polite sense. Taking the analogy ofJudg 19:22, it is closer to trying to batter down a door. The syntax of this line can be taken in one of two ways. The word ‫ קול‬can be taken to be an exclamation, as, “A voice!” and thus paraphrased as “Listen!” as in the NRSV. Alternatively,‫ קול דודי‬can be read as a construct chain, “the voice of my lover,” with ‫ דופק‬as the predicate. Grammatically, the latter is more likely. Probably the audience is to understand that he is pounding at the door and that this physical pounding on the door is matched by how he speaks. In the lines that follow, the man uses words in a staccato, pounding fashion that characterizes his desperation to get in. The man’s words have something of an air of desperation about them: “Open to me! My sister, my companion, my dove, my perfect one!” This rapid-fire string of affectionate terms implies that the man is trying to be as tender as possible but is in a desperate hurry for her to “open.” If I have interpreted the text correctly, this is the moment of the consummation of their wedding. It appears that he will now complete sexual union with her but that she is now resistant. Her resistance is not a sudden rejection of him but is the reality of her virginity. For his part, the man can scarcely restrain himself. The text implies that the man

Comment

207

and the woman enter the wedding night with very different physical impulses and concerns. The man feels an overwhelming need to complete the physical union and attain sexual relief, but the woman feels dread and hesitation at crossing the culturally conditioned psychological barrier of her virginity, together with fear of the physical pain that this may entail. To the man, the woman is strangely hesitant and unenthusiastic. To the woman, the man is demanding and insensitive. The wisdom of the Song prepares both parties to face the unexpected behavior of their partners with understanding. Although these words obviously belong to the man, it may be that in the performance of the Song they were actually sung by the soprano in a caricature of the man’s voice. The terms of affection, piled upon one another as they are in line 2B, lose their sweetness. The reason the man gives for his appeal is as follows:r c n ,‫שראשי נמלא־טל קוצותי‬ ‫“ לילה‬my head is full of dew, my locks are full with the drops of the night.” The metaphor obviously portrays him standing outside the door of a house and pleading to be let in on the grounds that he is getting wet with dew. Taken literally, the stated reason is weak; one might complain about standing outside in the rain, but not about standing outside in the dew. The referent for the “head” that is wet with the “drops of the night,” is not literally dew on the hair of the head. ‫ רסיס‬appears only here meaning “drop.” In Amos 6:11 the word means “fragments” or “something chopped up,” but this appears to be an unrelated form (cf. HALOT). In Ezek 46:14, the root ‫ רסס‬means “to moisten,” which accords well with a meaning “drop” here, and has cognates in Arabic and Syriac. Cf. Hess in NIDOTTE §8272. The man is pleading that his sexual stimulation is so strong at this point that further delay is unbearable for him. In modern English parlance, head is sometimes a euphemism for the penis, and this text seems to be employing the same circumspection in its language. The “drops of the night” refer to semen. (As an aside, I would suggest that this understanding of ‫ ראש‬might explain an enigmatic text and provide further evidence that “head” can refer to the penis. In 2 Sam 3:6-7 we read that, after the death of Saul, Abner took Saul’s concubine Rizpah for himself. Ish-bosheth [Ishbaal] read this as a political act directed against himself. The fact that Abner could take his father’s concubine made Ishbaal look pitifully weak in his struggle against David, and he challenged Abner to give an explanation. Abner gave the outraged reply, ‫הראש כלב אנכי אשר ליהודה‬, “Am I a dog’s head that belongs to Judah?” [2 Sam 3:8]. The meaning of “dog’s head” has mystified scholars. Most take it to be a kind of insult, which it surely is, but it is not clear why the head of the dog should be the focus of the aspersion. D. W. Thomas [ V T 10 (1960) 417-23] argues that a “dog’s head” is a baboon, but this is not persuasive, and at any rate it is not clear why Abner would ask if he were a “baboon belonging to Judah.” But if “head” is itself slang for “penis,” then “dog’s head” is a special kind of slur, one reserved for a male prostitute. In this case, Abner is asking Ishbaal if he thinks that the Davidic party [‘Judah”] has hired him as a male prostitute to bed Rizpah and so embarrass Ishbaal. This interpretation becomes all the more plausible when one recognizes that “dog” by itself was a term for a male prostitute [Deut 23:18-19 (ET 23:17-18), where context requires that the “wages of a dog” are monies earned by male prostitutes]. Professional soldier that he is, Abner uses language that is doubly graphic when he asks if Ishbaal thinks he is a “dog’s head.”)

208

Song of Songs 5:2-8

It is not at all difficult to imagine that an Israelite audience would have heard a sexual reference in the man’s remarks about his “head.” In addition, analogy suggests that they would have understood the “drops of the night” to be a seminal emission; Deut 23:11 (ET 23:10) describes a man’s nocturnal emission as a ‫מקרה־לילה‬, an “event of the night,” a phrase that is less suggestive than the “drops of the night” we have here, but still quite clear. At any rate, it is apparent that the man’s primary concern is not that his hair is getting wet with dew. Rather, his words symbolically describe an urgent desire for sexual release. 3 This verse is almost always taken to be part of the soprano’s lyrics. Interpreters generally assert that she is making the excuse that she cannot get up to open the door because she has already gone to bed. This is improbable, however, since the man is not asking her to come outside; he wants to come inside. She would have no reason to claim that she had washed her feet and therefore could not get them dirty. There is no indication that these words are anything but a continuation of the man’s lyrics. That is, they are further entreaties for her to let him in. We should note that the ‫כתנת‬, “tunic,” is rarely women’s clothing; it is more frequently used of male apparel in the OT (e.g., Gen 37:3; Exod 28:4; 40:14; 2 Sam 15:32; Isa 22:21; Ezra 2:69). Taken as the man’s words, the phrase that he had washed his feet may imply that he had washed them with a basin of water provided outside the door and did not want to go back out on the street, having just gone through the trouble of washing his feet. We should also note that ‫רכל‬, “foot,” in the dual is also used as a euphemism for the genital area; cf. HALÒT bpi. The statement that he had stripped off his tunic gives the startling image of him standing naked outside the door. This is of course absurd if taken literally, but it is comprehensible if the text here blurs the metaphor of the man outside the door and the signified meaning of the man at the very moment of consummating his marriage. The reality is that he is naked as he seeks to join himself to her; the metaphor is that he is standing outside the door. The sense of urgency implied in the metaphor is all the more vivid if one imagines him standing naked outside the door and desperately trying to come in. Even if the words were taken to be the woman’s, the sexual significance of the line would still be present. The only place where ‫כתנת‬, “tunic,” is specifically a woman’s garment is in the story of Tamar, where the ‫ כתנת‬she wears is the emblem of her virginity (2 Sam 13:18)! If the words do belong to the woman, they could mean “(If) I take off my ‫כתנת‬, how shall I put it back on,” meaning that she hesitates because she knows that loss of virginity is irreversible. Still, in my view, it is better simply to ascribe this verse to the man. 4-5 Many interpreters take this verse to mean that the man reached his hand through the latch opening to open the door (cf. NIV, NJB). But there is no evidence th a t can mean “latch opening” (see Pope, 518-19; G. L. Carr, 134; Fox, Song of Songs, 144). The word ‫ חר‬simply means “hole” (e.g., Ezek 8:7; 2 Kgs 12:10), although it can sometimes refer to a cave (e.g., Job 30:6). Keel ([1994] 190) comments that “Keyholes were apparently rare and made in such a way that it was not possible to put a hand through them,” but he proposes the more absurd idea that the man was trying to stick his hand through a peephole in the door. The intended significance, the sexual union of the man and woman, is at the surface of the text. Even if in an Israelite house there was a hole that a man

Comment

209

would put his hand through in order to open a door, and even if the word ‫חר‬ refers to such a hole, the sexual implications are clear (cf. King and Stager, Life in Biblical Israel, 31-33). The word ‫יד‬, “hand,” is well known to have a euphemistic significance as “penis” (Isa 57:8, 10; cf. Ugaritic text 52:33-35 [found in UT 409] ; HALOT 1]). The Qumran Manual of Discipline prescribes punishment for allowing one’s ‫יד‬, “hand,” to be exposed (1QS 7:13). As early as the Sumerian love poetry, “hand” appears to represent the male organ; in the song of King Shu-Sin’s beloved, she asks her bridegroom to put his “hand” on the “cup” in an evident euphemism for sexual union (CS 1:542). Although it is true that often a hand is just a hand, in this case it is impossible to escape the significance of his putting his ‫יד‬, “hand,” in the ‫חד‬, “hole.” The woman adds, “my womb raged against it.” ‫מעים‬, “womb,” can refer to the inner organs or guts of a person, the most personal, private parts, and can sometimes refer to emotions. Used of a woman, however, the word almost always refers to the womb and it often has ‫ בטן‬as a parallel. For example,‫עליך נסמכתי מבטן ממעי אמי‬, “I have relied upon you from birth, from the womb of my mother” (Ps 71:6), and ‫עמי העוד־לי בנים במעי‬, “Do I still have sons in my womb?” (Ruth 1:11 niv). The verb ‫ המה‬means to groan, growl, roar, or be in tumult. The best analogy for its usage with ‫ על‬is in Pss 42:6 (ET 42:5), 12 (ET 12:11); 43:5, where the psalmist asks his own discouraged soul (‫ )נפש‬, “Why do you groan against me?” The woman thus declares that her womb is roaring or raging against him, her lover. At the moment of their union, the woman’s sexual parts seemed to fight within her against the event. For her, the moment of the consummation of their marriage has become something less than ecstasy. ‫מעים‬, “womb,” is more than just the sexual organs themselves. It seems to her that her “insides” struggle against the event. Fox (Song of Songs, 144-45) rejects the view that this is a metaphorical account of the sexual union of the man and woman. His significant arguments are as follows. First, he contends that the man’s putting his “hand” through the “hole” only means that he put it in her window. Fox asks, "O n e wonders how the poet could have said ‘he put his hand in through the hole’ in such a way as to prevent [a sexual] reading.” Second, Fox asserts that v 5, where the woman says that she arose and opened for him, makes no sense if v 4 implies that intercourse has already taken place (so also D. Bergant, 64). Third, Fox contends that one should not read this text as a “gynecological conceit, in which each part of the door lock represents a specific part of the female genitals.” Fourth, he says that it is in poor taste and ruins the tone of the love song for the man to have sexual union with her and then abruptly get up and run out the door (v 6). Fox argues that the couple would have had sexual union had she opened the door in time, but she was too slow. Regarding the first objection, one must observe that the Hebrew Bible never uses ‫חר‬, “hole,” to mean “window.” The question “How could the poet have said ‘he put his hand in through the hole’ without sexual innuendo?” is not appropriate because there was no reason for the poet to make such an odd statement, using such provocative language, unless he intended a sexual meaning. If the poet had actually meant “window,” he could have used the very common term ‫חלון‬, which would not have any sexual overtones, least of all as a symbol of the woman’s

210

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genitals. Even if one acknowledges that the Israelite house had either a kind of hand-sized keyhole or large peephole, it does not follow that a poet who only meant to say, “he attempted to open the door,” was at a loss to find a way to communicate this without sexual overtones. The clause “he put his hand through the opening” is sexual, and a poet as skillful in the subtleties of language as this one would surely have known to avoid it if that were his intent. We should note that King and Stager (Life in Biblical Israel, 32), in their account of what they call the “Egyptian” key and keyhole system, add that in Song 5:4-6, “the poet’s double entendre is transparent throughout this passage.” Fox’s second objection arises from a confusion of the signifier and the signified. The signifier (the metaphor) is of a man trying to gain admission to a house. The signified is a man trying to attain sexual union with his new wife. When the woman says that she arose, she is, on the level of the metaphor, saying that she got up to open the door. Getting out of bed to open a door, however, is not part of the signified event (the sexual union). One should not take details from the signifier and apply them literally to the signified. The question, “Why would she jum p out of bed to open the door for him right after their sexual union?” is like asking, “If the ‘mountains of spices’ in Song 8:14 refer to the woman’s breasts, why does she ask her beloved to be like a ‘gazelle’ on them? Does she want him to trample on her breasts?” Her getting up may signify that she finally comes to the moment of full acceptance of the event. The arising could signify arousal on her part, but it need not. It indicates that she now embraces the man and this moment. The verb ‫קום‬, “to arise,” often implies that one carries out the action that he or she is expected to perform (e.g., Gen 37:35, “All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him” [RSV]). Literal standing up is not required, and the verb is an auxiliary. In the metaphor (the signifier), her “arising” is part of her going to open the door. The language of arising may be no more than part of the metaphor of the door, and it may not signify anything at all, and as such, needs no explanation. The details that follow, “and my hand drips myrrh; / even my fingers are running with myrrh, / on the handles of the bolt,” support this interpretation. One need not read this as a “gynecological conceit” (Fox) or claim that every part of the door represents part of the female anatomy to see that something beyond the literal meaning of opening a door is going on here. It is peculiar that her hands should be so soaked in myrrh—a very expensive product—that they should be dripping with it. A modern woman, by analogy, would not put a tablespoon of expensive perfume on her hands. J. Munro says in her analysis of the imagery of the Song (Spikenard and Saffron, 49), “Normally one would not let myrrh, imported at great cost from Arabia and India, simply drip (ntp) , for myrrh was a highly valued commodity, and among other things, a component of holy oil (Exod. 30.23-25). The image of dripping myrrh is therefore one of conspicuous abundance.” I would argue, however, that the dripping is not an image of abundance (which is not a topic in Song 3:1-5). Rather, such excess implies that the image is not to be read literally. Murphy’s suggestion (171) that the man had left a quantity of myrrh on the bolt as a token of his love is impossible (the woman’s fingers drenched the bolt, and not vice versa). Murphy’s opinion appears to be derived from Lucretius, where a love-sick male puts flowers on his beloved’s threshold, scented oil on

Comment

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her doorposts, and kisses on the door itself (De rerum natura 4.1177-79). As described above, the paraklausithyron is used in various ways in ancient poetry, and Song of Songs has taken this image and shaped it in a distinctive manner; one cannot use Lucretius or the Egyptian poems to determine the meaning of this sequence in the Song. Those who regard the sexual interpretation as prurient must explain why the poet would include such an unnatural detail in the account. The picture of a woman with her hands drenched in myrrh, who thereby saturates the bolt of a door, is not to be taken literally. It is probable that the significance of different elements of the metaphorical door do not cohere in a simple or logical manner to the sequence of events or to individual elements of the story. This is not an allegory, where a story follows a sequence of events in which each event coherently and sequentially has an allegorical meaning (as in Pilgrim's Progress). Rather, it is a series of metaphors, and the metaphors are not logically consistent. For example, the man pounding on the door and desperate to get in represents a man who is eager to achieve sexual union with his new wife; that is, he wants to enter her. This does not mean, however, that every part of the door represents a different part of her anatomy, or that every subsequent symbolic element will be logically coherent with the first. When the woman’s fingers drip with perfumed oils, they get the bolt of the door wet. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the ‫ואצבעתי‬, “fingers,” represent the woman’s genitals, that the oils suggest vaginal fluids, and that the ‫מנעול‬, “bolt,” suggests the man’s penis. It does not matter that at one moment the door represents the woman’s body or that the pounding man speaks of his desire to come inside her, and that at another moment the bar on the door represents part of the man’s anatomy. (This is not a “gynecological conceit” [Fox].) This interpretation does not require that we demonstrate that biblical Hebrew elsewhere uses “fingers” as a euphemism for a woman’s genitals. It is not a stock metaphor; it is driven by the symbolism of the context, that is, by the image of a woman opening a door. Sexual intercourse involves bodily fluids. In this case, ‫מור‬, “myrrh,” might suggest a woman’s natural fluid since myrrh connotes sexual pleasure in the Song (1:13; 4:6, 14; 5:1, 13). The metaphor implies that the woman now fully accepts the entrance of the man into herself. The woman getting up to open the door to the man suggests as much. One should also take note of a recent feminist interpretation, that the woman’s wet fingers tell us that she is masturbating and that this is a “biblical wet dream” (C. Walsh BTB 28 [1998] 129-34; also Walsh, Exquisite Desire, 10514; F. C. Black, BibInt 8 [2000] 314-15). On this view, the man vanishes because he was only a dream anyway. This interpretation is conceivable if one affirms that this canto describes a woman’s dream. I have argued, in the Comment on v 2, that there is no reason to regard this text as an account of a dream. In addition, this interpretation of the passage is illegitimately selective. One part of the text is a “dream” (the man at the door) and is dismissed as unimportant, while another part is what really happened (her fingers got wet) and is the focus of the whole text. In this interpretation, the reference to the man’s “hand,” implying that he had sexual relations with her, is brushed aside as the woman’s fantasy. The man who is at the door, who calls to her, who puts his hand through the hole, and who disappears, and whom she then seeks, is far more important in the text than her fingers, and there are no grounds for treating the latter as real and everything else as fantasy. This is not a passage about female masturbation.

212

Song

of

Songs 5:2-8

6 The opening words of this verse, “I open to my lover,” tell us that she has given her body to her new husband. It is probably significant that ‫פתחתי אני‬, “I opened,” here has no direct object (J. C. Exum “In the Eye of the Beholder,” 83-84); it is the woman herself who opens. More than that, she has yielded her heart, her identity, and her former life to him. She has given up the status of virgin to him and in a real sense placed herself in his hands. It is at this moment that she expects and needs his complete devotion and affection. The next words, however, are jolting: her lover loses interest (or perhaps, “wanders off”) ! ‫ חמק‬is often translated “goes away,” but that interpretation needs some explanation. The root appears elsewhere only in Jer 31:22: “How long will you dillydally [‫]תרזחמקין‬, unfaithful girl? For Yahweh has created a new thing in the earth: A woman will surround a man.” In context,‫ תתחמקין‬means that the girl has trouble making up her mind among her boyfriends; Bright (Jeremiah, 276) has appropriately proposed the translation “dillydally.” Holladay (1989:194) notes that the Arabic hamiqa/hamuqa means “stupid” or “silly.” The primary significance of ‫התחמק‬ seems to be indecision and silly, flirty behavior rather than physical movement from place to place. Here in the qal stem it does not signify that the man is going from woman to woman. It probably suggests a loss of interest. The point is not that he has physically run out the door but that his interest has abruptly dissipated. In the metaphorical story, of course, he disappears, and she must search for him in the streets. This brings us to Fox’s fourth objection, that it is unseemly for the man to have sexual relations with her and suddenly get up and leave. Once again, this objection reflects a fundamental confusion of the signifi e r with the signified. The signifier is her man frantic to come in, putting his hand through a hole, and abruptly leaving. The signified is the first sexual union of a bride and groom, and how the bride perceives the experience. The details of the symbolic tale of the man at the door and the signified event of the consummation of a marriage should not be mixed together. Even if one were to translate ‫ חמק‬as “depart,” the metaphorical departure of the man in the metaphorical story does not mean that, in the actual event (the signified), the man literally jum ped out of bed and ran down the street after having sexual relations with the woman. The man’s sudden “loss of interest” would seem to be nothing else but that he has experienced sexual release. As such, his ardent passion and desire have abruptly abated. This does not really mean that he has ceased to love her or to desire her, much less that he has bounded out the door. From the man’s perspective, one might suggest, he has not behaved in an unusual or cold-hearted manner. One cannot expect him to be as passionate after the event as he was before his sexual release. From the woman’s perspective, however, he seems to have suddenly abandoned her. In an instant, his passion has cooled, and that just as she has opened to him. He has ‫עבר‬, “moved along,” in the sense of behaving as though he were finished with lovemaking and could move on to something else. The verb ‫ עבר‬is often rendered “departed” or “gone,” but this does not seem to be precisely correct. For “depart,” Hebrew can employ a number of verbs (‫הלך‬, ‫עלה‬,‫) בוא‬. But ‫ עבר‬generally means “to cross over,” and it is often used for the crossing of rivers or for crossing through territory. Metaphorically, it often means to cross a moral boundary, i.e., to “transgress.” A good analogy for the usage of ‫ עבר‬in this text is in Gen 18:5, where Abraham tells his visitors they

Comment

213

should eat and then they can move along (‫ )עבר‬since they have visited him while passing through (‫)עבר‬. Hence, the word in Song 5:6 means something like “to move along” or “to continue with a journey.” A simple departure does not seem to be the main point (as it would have been with ‫ ;)הלך‬the word here conveys the idea “he went about his business.” Loss of interest, not mere physical absence, is implied. For her, this is a cruel joke, especially if she is in physical and emotional pain. The woman thus says that she expired when he spoke. The only helpful example we have for understanding ‫נפשי יצאה‬, “my soul expires,” is Gen 35:18, where the metaphor means “to die.” Here, the woman does not mean that she died. The phrase means “the breath to go out.” It could be analogous to what English speakers mean when they say “was totally deflated” and refer to the experience of heartbreak or of having one’s hopes dashed. At the same time, we cannot assume that this expression would not have been jolting to an Israelite audience, who may have heard it to mean “I died.” "To expire” is an appropriate translation. ‫בדברו‬, “when he speaks”: If the man is speaking to her, he is obviously not literally absent. The speaking here denotes a return to prosaic speech and an end to the actions and words of passionate love. He has left the realm of ecstatic eros and has returned to the ordinary. She feels deflated and crushed—worse than that, she says she has died. If as some suggest ‫ דבר‬in this context can mean, “turn away” (see Note 5:6.a.), the point is even more forceful: he has simply stopped making love to her and turned over! I do not, however, consider “turn away” to be a likely meaning of the word on the basis of Akkadian and Arabic cognates (e.g., Murphy, 165; Pope, 526). HALOT s.v. I ‫ דבר‬lists several examples of ‫ דבר‬in the pi'el meaning “turn away” or “drive away,” but these examples are either intelligible with the normal meaning of “speak” (e.g., Ps 75:6 [ET 75:5]) or are based on conjectural emendations (e.g. Ps 56:6 [ET 56:5]). It is possible that an ancient Israelite audience would have recognized ‫ בדברו‬to mean, “when he turned away,” but this is far from certain. Translators feel that the usual meaning, “when he spoke,” is impossible because the man has supposedly run off into the night. This commentary argues that the account of the man who pounds at the door and runs away is merely the signifier, a symbolic account meant to represent something entirely different. As such, some of the details are impossible or absurd if read literally. While the meaning “he turned away” would suit this interpretation, I am not convinced that the word has this meaning in biblical Hebrew. It is better to take the word in its normal sense of “speak” and understand that at this point the text is not working within the confines of the metaphor of the man at the door (cf. NRSV). 7 It has already been suggested that the guards of the city are a metaphor for the woman’s virginity. In Song 3:1-5, the woman confronts her anxiety over losing her virginity. In this text, she loses it. The guards’ beating is the searing pain she has after her husband withdraws. It seems somewhat peculiar that the Song says the guards took away the ‫רדיד‬. The meaning of the term ‫ רדידי‬is uncertain; it may mean “my shawl” or “my veil.” It only occurs elsewhere in Isa 3:23, where it is included in a list of clothing and accessories used by women and probably was some kind of a thin veil (cf. Alden, ‫ ףךי ד‬, NIDOTTE §8100). Thus, ‫ רדיד‬seems to be exclusively an item of women’s clothing in biblical Hebrew. It may also have been a garment that was

214

Song of Songs 5:2-8

associated particularly with young women. The Isaiah text castigates the “daughters of Zion” (Isa 3:16-17; see also Isa 4:4) for their jewelry, clothing, and provacative mannerisms. In light of the fact that the term “daughters of Zion/ Jerusalem” appears in the OT only here and in the Song, it would seem that Isaiah is speaking of young, fashion-minded women rather than of wealthy, older women. That the metaphorical phrase “daughter of Zion/Jerusalem” refers to the “virgin” Jerusalem further implies that Isaiah’s “daughters of Zion/Jerusalem” were actual young women. If biblical Hebrew associates the ‫ רדיד‬with young women—with women who were supposed to be virgins—‫ רדיד‬in this text may be representative of virginity itself. Otherwise, there is no clear reason for the text to point out that the guards took it away. This detail is not the poet’s way of making the assault more vivid; actual soldiers presumably had little use for women’s veils. As a poetic metaphor, however, soldiers stripping away the woman’s veil is a removal of the outward sign that she belongs to the “daughters of Zion.” As a woman who has lost her virginity, she no longer belongs among those women, as subsequent texts and the woman herself will make plain. Although ancient love poetry has no analogy to the guards, Keel ([1994] 195) does cite an intriguing provision of the Middle Assyrian law code (twelfth century) as follows: “A prostitute dare not veil herself; her head remains uncovered. Anyone seeing a veiled prostitute should arrest her, gather witnesses, and bring her to the entrance of the palace. Her jewelry may not be taken, but the one who arrests her receives her clothing. She should be given fifty blows with a club and have asphalt poured on her head.” Several significant differences between this text and the Song stand out. The woman of the Song is not a prostitute, and she is not arrested but simply assaulted. The guards do not receive her clothing after a judicial procedure but simply take her veil by force. The Assyrian text describes the role not of guards but of any common citizen. Nevertheless, the Assyrian text tells us that a veil may be representative of the status of the woman in an ancient Near Eastern culture. This may also imply that, in the symbolism of this text of the Song, the woman feels that she has lost her purity, notwithstanding that she lost her virginity in a lawful manner. That is, in a culture that gives so much emphasis to preserving virginity until marriage, the virgin inevitably has special status. The beating of the woman by the guards represents the physical and emotional trauma of losing her virginity. One should not expect chronological precision in relating the parabolic story to the signified loss of virginity. The parabolic story represents different aspects of the event; it is not a precise, moment-by-moment account. An objection that has been raised against this interpretation of the text is that the woman “hasn ’t been a virgin for quite some time” and thus cannot have just lost her virginity (Longman, 130). There is no indication whatsoever that she had lost her virginity prior to the consummation at Song 4:16-5:1. To review, the woman begins by singing of her longing for the man and of her self-consciousness (1:2-8). The woman and man then sing of their devotion to each other (1:9-2:7). The language is sexually charged (he is like a bundle of myrrh between her breasts, 1:13), but there is no statement to the effect that they have attained sexual union. Song 2:8-17 is the invitation to depart, and again the

Comment

215

desire for sexual fulfillment is clear, but there is no indication that the desire has been achieved. Song 3:1-4:15 is the beginning of the “wedding-night songs” that lead directly to the moment of fulfillment in 4:16-5:1. In short, the language of 1:2-4:15 is charged with sexual anticipation and as such strongly implies that the consummation has not occurred. W. E. Phipps observes (JAAR 42 [1974] 83), “It would be anachronistic to interpret the Song of Songs as infatuations and sexual experimentation of promiscuous youth.” Longman recognizes that 5:2-8 is erotic in nature (“The door is clearly a euphemism for the woman’s vagina” [166]), and yet of this verse, where the guards beat the woman, Longman resorts to describing the beating as a “dream” and suggests by way of interpretation that it symbolizes “the unfriendly urban-public gaze” (169). But why are people unfriendly to her? Why does the text use such violent language to make this point? Does the hostility of the “urban-public gaze” have any larger function in the Song, or is it isolated to this text, and if so, why? This verse is stunning to the reader, and it cannot be set aside with an isolated, ad hoc interpretation. Readers need to know why this astonishing verse is in the Song. I suggest that the only reading that makes sense in the context of the book is that it is the moment when she ceases to be a virgin. In summary, to assert that there is no sexual symbolism in this canto is to refuse to see how odd and contrived the details of the story are when it is given a superficial, literal reading: The man’s reason for needing to come in the house is the flimsy and peculiar excuse that his hair has dew in it; the man (as argued above) is standing naked outside the door; the woman has an enormous quantity of expensive, perfumed oils on her fingers; she has drenched her hands in perfume before going to bed even though she is not expecting the man to come and is initially unwilling to let him in; when the woman begins to open the door, the man abruptly runs away; to top it all off, the woman, the heroine of a romantic, sensual love song, gets beaten up by city guards! It is difficult to imagine that the poet intended us to hear the canto on this level. Gledhill (Message of the Song of Songs, 178, italics original) wants to read the story literally, but seems to be trying to avoid the scandal of the text by saying that “in her struggle to free herself, her flimsy garments were torn from her, leaving her battered, bruised, shivering, and half naked.” But the text says, "They beat me, they wound me, / they take my veil from me.” That is, this is not a tussle that got out of hand; it is a beating. In a book where every text is dominated by symbolism (the man is an apple tree, a shepherd, a king, a gazelle; the woman is a palm tree, a garden, a peasant, a princess), why would the poet suddenly tell a literal but bizarre story? Gledhill (Message of the Song of Songs, 181) can only justify the text by suggesting that it has moral lessons to teach: the canto tells how the woman suffered for being coquettish (“She is deliberately withdrawing her affection, perhaps as a punishment for some supposed slight or lack of appreciation”) . Besides the fact that this explanation is entirely extraneous to the text, one needs to remember that on a literal reading, the couple is not married. They do not live in the same house. In that case, would letting him in be the right thing to do? Would refusal to let him in be “coquettish”? By contrast, many interpreters who do see sexual imagery here are quite inconsistent. Walsh is selective about which elements are a dream and which are reality. Other interpreters see many sexual references in the early part of the

216

Song of Songs 5:2-8

sequence, but then, when the woman is beaten by the guards, lapse into the “dream” interpretation. 8 Once again, the woman calls on the girls of Jerusalem to make a promise. It is possible with Fox (Song of Songs, 146) to translate, “Do not tell him that I am wounded by love,” although the analogies Fox suggests (1 Kgs 12:16; Job 16:6) are not very close. This translation would be correct if the text had used ‫אם‬, “if,” or even ‫למה‬, “why,” but with ‫מה‬, “what,” it is only a possibility. It is more likely that she is asking them to convey the message to her beloved that she is wounded by love. She does not comprehend his behavior and feels abandoned by him. She has had to endure the ordeal alone. This is not a girl sending a message to her lover via some friends. It is a poetic device that uses an address to the chorus to convey information about the woman’s condition to the audience. It indicates that at the moment of her trauma she thinks of herself still as a girl who seeks the comfort and companionship of her friends in dealing with an emotional trial. She has not yet completed the emotional transition from girl to wife. The friends, however, will remind her of her love for him and enable her to complete her transformation (Song 5:9). But we must remind ourselves again that this is a song and not a dramatic play or history. The interaction of the singers is not to be understood as the dialogue of actors, and the lyrics do not make up a “story” as we understand the term. The woman did not run from her beating to her friends. The question, “Why would she suddenly start talking to her old girlfriends?” misunderstands the genre. The final line, that she is wounded by love, repeats a line from Song 2:5. There her pain came from the fact that she was yearning for a sexual relationship with her lover but was at the same time filled with dread. Here, her hurt is more real; what she both wanted and dreaded has come to pass. Explanation

In the interpretation that I am proposing, the entire sequence is a metaphorical story: the man pounds at her door; she opens to him but finds that he is gone; she looks for him and she gets beaten up by guards. The peculiar elements in the story (the dew on the hair, the oils on the fingers, and so forth) are understood to be contrived by the poet in order to develop the symbolism. On the symbolic level, the entire sequence relates that a new husband desperately wanted inside of his new wife, that she experienced sexual excitement, that he seemed to lose interest after sexual release, that she felt abandoned and experienced the pain of the loss of her virginity. Understood this way, the woman’s search for the man is metaphorical; she does not literally plunge into the night after her lover. She instead feels emotionally abandoned. She wonders where his love for her has gone. She feels that he has no sense of how strong is her need for passion and affection at this moment; it is as though he were not there at all. Her search for him in the night is thus emblematic of her yearning. Scholars sometimes draw a parallel between the woman’s quest for her beloved and the quest of Isis for Osiris or the quest of Anat for Baal. In these myths, the god (Osiris, Baal) is in a battle with an evil god (Seth, Mot, Yam). The good god is killed, but his goddess-consort (Isis, Anat) seeks his body in order to res-

Explanation

217

urrect him. The significance of the parallel between this mythological motif and this part of the Song is easy to exaggerate. In Song of Songs, the man and woman are not deities, the man is not in a battle with an evil deity, he does not die, and the woman does not resurrect him. If anything, it is the woman who falls into mortal danger (with the guards of the city), rather than the man. A more fruitful area for drawing parallels to the quest of the woman after the man is in the heroic literature of the ancient world. Heroic figures (Gilgamesh, Herakles, Orpheus, Jason, and so forth) must go on a quest in order to achieve their desired goals. In those tasks, they face great dangers. The quest can be a transformative event, although in the ancient legends the transformation is in a tragic context. In the Song, the protagonist is the woman. She must go out and face terrifying dangers in the night in order to possess love. Ancient stories of women who take heroic quests are more rare, but they are not unknown. The myth of Psyche is possibly the best example. In the version of Apuleius, a jealous Venus commanded Cupid to make the ravishing beauty Psyche fall in love with the most grotesque of men. Instead, Cupid himself fell in love with Psyche and took her to a remote island where he visited her only at night. Despite his warnings that she should never look on his face, she came with a lamp to see him while he lay asleep. While she gazed at his beauty, a drop of oil from the lamp fell on him and woke him. He rebuked her and fled away; she thereafter roamed the earth in search of him. Venus imposed harsh tasks on her, but Cupid was touched by her repentance, and Jupiter finally made her a goddess. We need to take one more look at the clause in v 6 that is usually rendered “I was crushed when he departed” or the like but which is translated above as “I expired when he spoke.” This is, in one sense, a kind of spiral into despair when her new husband appears to have abruptly moved from intense passion to prosaic speech. But the words may signify something more. The expiration of the woman may reflect the theme that is common in stories of the heroic quest, namely, the hero’s “death” and “resurrection” (in quotation marks because it is not a literal death here). A descent into Hades is a decisive break with the old self, and the return is a birth of the new self. Thus, the words may imply a motif of transformation. The Song, like the myths, sends the protagonist out on a heroic quest where she faces harrowing dangers. She leaves her security behind and exposes herself to danger and pain for the sake of attaining her beloved. There is no journey out into the streets of the night, but the image portrays her determination to have her beloved, in the face of what it costs her, an act of courage and devotion. This interpretation is fruitful both on the literary and the practical levels. It indicates that a young man and a young (virgin) woman enter a wedding night with fundamentally different sexual natures. For the man, the desire for sexual union is an uncomplicated, albeit urgent, matter. For the woman, however, it is a more complex affair and involves both physical trauma and the need for emotional support and tender affection. Both man and woman do well to approach their marriage with an understanding of the mindset of the other. The suggested parallel between the woman’s quest for her lover in the Song and the hero’s quest in epic literature to fulfill an appointed task indicates that the woman’s courage to face this moment for the sake of her beloved places her on a heroic

218

Song of Songs 5:9-6:3

level. She confronts a trauma that the man cannot know, and in doing so, she is the valiant and heroic protagonist of the Song.

B. The Bride Recovers the Groom (5:9-6:3) Bibliography Hill, A. E. “‫תרשיש‬.” NIDOTTE §9577. Lee, G. M. “Song of Songs 5:16, ‘My Beloved Is White and Ruddy.’” VT21 (1971) 609. Martinez, F. G. The Dead Sea Scrolls in English. Translation First Stanza chorus

9 What makes your lover better than other lovers, most beautiful of women, what makes your lover better than other lovers, that you would have us swear such an oath ?

1A 1B 1C 1D

SOPRANO

10 My lover is radiant and tan; he is outstandinga among ten thousand. 11 His head is pure gold. His hair is like the spathe,a black as a raven. 12 His eyes are like doves beside streams of water, washed in milk,a sitting on basins filled with water. 13 His cheeks are like a bed of balsam; they are trellises of aromatic herbs. His Ups are lotuses, dripping with flowing myrrh. 14 His arms are rods of gold set with the golden topaz. His loins are a piece of ivory hung with sapphires. 15 His thighs are alabaster pillars set on pedestals ofpure gold. The effect he gives is like Lebanon; he is as choice as the cedars. 16 His mouth is sweetness itself. Every part of him is desirable! This is my lover, this is my companion, O daughters of Jerusalem!

2A 2B 3A 3B 3C 4A 4B 4C 4D 5A 5B 6A 6B 7A 7B 8A 8B 9A 9B 9C 9D 10A 10B 10C 10D

Translation

219

Se c o n d St a n z a chorus

6:1 Where has your lover gone, most beautiful o f women, where has your lover turned, that we may seek him with you ?

11A 11B 11C 11D

SOPRANO

2 My lover went down to his garden to beds o f balsam, to graze in his gardens and to gather lotuses. 3 I am my lover's and my lover is mine, he who grazes among the lotuses.

12A 12B 12C 12D 13A 13B

Notes l 0.a. MT ‫ דגול‬is from ‫דגל‬, to “hoist a banner,” a root that reappears in Song 6:4, 10. Here it seems to mean “marked as special” and hence “outstanding.” LXX Vg. Tg. render it “chosen.” 11 .a. The meaning of MT ‫תלתלים‬, a hapax legomenon, is uncertain. It is sometimes rendered “wavy” on the analogy of ‫תל‬, a “mound,” but this seems to be little more than a conjecture. LXX renders it έλατα, which is usually rendered “palm-fronds,” and some prefer this translation here. LSJ, however, indicates that έλάτη means either “silver fir” or the “spathe of the date inflorescence.” The spathe is the part that encases the blooms or spadix of certain plants, such as the jack-in-the-pulpit. 12.a. Rudolph (158) proposes inserting 0 ‫ךו‬, “his teeth,‫ ״‬after ‫בחלב‬, “with milk,” on the grounds that it was lost through haplography. Thus, “his teeth are bathed in milk.” This is unlikely.

Form /Structure/Setting

In this segment, questions by the chorus lead into songs by the bride. The subject matter is metaphorically the finding of the lost groom, but in reality it deals with the bride’s reflections first on her love for the groom and second on his love for her. She does not so much find the groom as she rediscovers herself and the reasons she married him. In the larger structure of the book, Song 5:96:3 corresponds to Song 3:6-11, where the chorus hails the arrival of the bride. In the earlier text the bride comes to the groom, while in the latter text the bride metaphorically finds the groom. In both passages, the chorus has a decisive role. Precious materials dominate the imagery in both. In 3:6-11 gold, silver, wood from Lebanon, and purple fabric make up the palanquin. In 5:9-6:3 the man is described in terms of gold, ivory, sapphires, and alabaster. Song 5:9-6:3 consist of two stanzas, each headed by questions posed by the chorus. In each case, the questions take the form of a four-line strophe (5:9; 6:1), and in each case the bride replies with a lengthy declaration of the glories of the man she loves. The first strophe of the first stanza (5:9, sung by the chorus) has matching pairs of lines (line lA is repeated in line 1C). In the soprano’s part that follows (vv 10-16), she sings a series of short strophes governed by the descriptions of the parts of the man’s body. The first strophe of the second stanza (6:1, again sung by the chorus) is another matching pair of lines (lines 11A-B match lines 11C-D). The soprano responds with two strophes (6:2-3); both of these strophes are held together by syntactical dependence.

220

Song of Songs 5:9-6:3

This text uses the familiar wasf. Under the literary guise of the woman describing her beloved to a group of girls so that they can help her search for him, the woman actually reminds herself of all the things that she finds extraordinary about him (5:9-15). Her love for him allows her to move beyond the pain of 5:2-7. Then, under the guise of telling the girls where to find the man, the woman proclaims that he is in love with her and delights himself in the pleasures that she gives (6:2-3). She triumphantly concludes that she and the man belong to one another (6:3) and so completes the healing process occasioned by her loss of virginity. Comment

9 The chorus is asking the woman what makes her beloved so special that they should make such a promise to her. This question forces the woman to recall why she loves her husband. In effect, the choir’s question calls the woman back to reflect on the fundamental reason that she gave her virginity to this man. Thus, the woman’s love for the man completes her transformation. She is transformed not simply because she has lost her virginity but because the event was for her a heroic quest carried out in a context of loving and being loved (see Explanation to 5:2-8 above). She can therefore cope with the pain of the experience and realize that he has not abandoned her at all. 10 In contrast to ancient standards of female beauty, where white skin was highly valued (see Comment on 1:5), the ancients seemed to prefer dark, tanned skin for men. Tan skin apparently was considered masculine. David was regarded as attractive for his reddish skin (1 Sam 16:12). Her claim that he is “outstanding among ten thousand” restates more prosaically what she had said in Song 2:3. 11 In this wasf. she works her way down from his head to his legs. She speaks of the head before speaking of the hair even though the latter is on top. The head (and face) imply the personality and individuality of the man, and this has precedence over the hair. Put another way, it is not simply his anatomy she loves; it is the man himself. The spathe (see Note encloses the blooms of certain plants, such as the jack-in-the-pulpit. Gerleman (173-74) argues that this part of the palm is dark on the outside but white on the inside. Its dark exterior makes it an apt counterpart to the comparison to a raven. Black hair implies youth and vigor; this is in contrast to gray hair, which naturally connotes age and experience (see Prov 20:29). Ancient peoples regularly lampooned baldness (cf. 2 Kgs 2:23). The comedies of Aristophanes frequently subjected bald men to taunts or made reference to this stock comic device (e.g., Clouds 540: “she does not ridicule bald men or dance lewd dances”). The woman’s beloved is neither bald nor gray! 12 The comparison of eyes to doves is something of a stock metaphor, although the point of comparison between the eyes and doves remains a mystery. Here, however, it is the washing of the dove that is the focus rather than the dove itself. This implies that his eyes are moist and sparkling. To put it negatively, the man does not have a dry, dead stare. The fluttering of birds when they bathe perhaps implies that his eyes have a lively, dancing movement. ‫חלב‬, “milk,” simply gives the metaphor in a more exaggerated form since milk implies richness. There is obviously no reason that a bird would actually bathe in milk.

Comment

221

‫ישבות על־־מלאת‬, “sitting on basins filled with water,” is difficult. Some render it as “mounted like jewels” (cf. NIV) on the basis of the fact that the picel of ‫ מלא‬can be used for setting jewels (Exod 28:17; cf. also the noun ‫מלאה‬, “setting”). But Gordis (90) calls this an inept rendering. Murphy (166) understands the man’s teeth to be the topic here and renders it “set in place,” but this is not persuasive. In light of the fact that doves appear to be the operative metaphor here, it seems best to take ‫ מלאת‬to refer to basins full of water above which the birds are perched rather than as settings for jewels or gums for the teeth. The LXX reads έπί πληρώματα ύδάτων, “above basins of water.” So also Keel ([1994] 199-201), and note especially his figures of vessels from Cypress and Hadrian’s villa near Rome that portray doves perched above vessels. 13 The line “towers [‫ ]ממילות‬of aromatic herbs” strikes interpreters as such a harsh metaphor that it is often emended to ‫מגדלות‬, the picel participle, and rendered something like “putting forth aromatic blossoms” (Murphy, 166). But while the pieel of ‫ גדל‬is used of rain that causes plants to grow (Isa 44:14; Ezek 31:4) or of a person who tends growing plants (Jonah 4:10), it is not elsewhere used of a place where plants grow. Keel ([1994] 201) follows Gerleman (175) and takes it to refer to cones of fat mixed with spices that Egyptians apparently wore on their heads at drinking parties. However, to describe the man’s cheeks as a spice cone that one would normally place on top of the head seems a grating turn of an image even by the standards of the Song. The best solution seems to be that the ‫ מגדלות‬are not military towers but banks of flowers that are towerlike because of their height (cf. NJB and NASB). It appears that the ‫ מגדלות מרקחים‬are trellises of aromatic flowers and herbs. The description of the man’s cheeks as like balsam or trellises of spices possibly relates to his beard, although the word ‫לחי‬, “cheeks,” tells us that her focus is more on his skin than on his beard. He may well have scented his beard with some kind of perfume, but this, too, is not necessarily the point of the metaphor. The word ‫ סן־קחים‬is a hapax, but it probably means something like “herbal spices” after the root ‫( רקח‬thus, HALOT), which is found in words concerning spiced ointments. Spices and perfumes in the Song generally imply something that is sensually pleasurable whether the spices are literally present or not. The lips, similarly, are described as lotuses, not because they in any sense look like lotuses but because they are almost magical in their rejuvenating or pleasuregiving power. The lotus was a symbol of life to the Egyptians. In addition, she may mean that his kisses have a sweet taste. Herodotus in his Histones 2.92.2-3 reports that the Egyptians gathered lotus flowers, crushed the poppylike centers, and baked bread. He also tells us that the root of the lotus has a sweet flavor. In The Odyssey, Odysseus encounters the “Lotus Eaters” (λωτοφάγοι) in his wanderings across the Mediterranean. Eating the lotus caused a person to enter a blissful, forgetful state, as described in Odyssey 9.91-97 (W. B. Stanford, ed., The Odyssey of Homer, 2d ed. [London: Macmillan, 1959] 134). οί δ’ αΐψ’ οίχόμενοι μίγβν άνδράσι Λωτοφάγοισιν. ούδ’ άρα Λωτοφάγοι μήδονθ’ έτάροισιν όλβθρον ήμ6τ 6 ροι9 , αλλά σφι δόσαν λωτοΐο πάσασθαι. των δ’ δς τις λωτοΐο φάγοι μβλιηδέα καρπόν, ούκέτ’ άπαγγεΐλαι πάλιν ήθβλβν ουδέ νόβσθαι

222

Song of Songs 5:9-6:3

άλλ’ αύτου βούλοντο μετ’ άνδράσι Λωτοφάγοισι λωτόν έρεπτόμεΐ'οι μενέμβν νόστου τ e λαθεσθαι. And they, straight away setting out, mingled with the Lotus-eating men. The Lotus-eaters plotted no ruin to the companions Of us, hut gave to them lotus to eat. But whoever ate of the sweet fruit of the lotus No longer wanted to come give a report or even to return, But they wished with the Lotus-eating men To remain plucking lotus, and toforget about going home.

Other classical writers also speak of the blissful forgetfulness of eating the lotus. Thus, she may be suggesting that his lips move her into a dreamy bliss. Of course, we cannot be sure that the λωτός of classical literature and the Hebrew ‫ שושן‬are the same, although LSJ does list “Egyptian Lotus” as one of the meanings for Χωτός. The woman adds that his lips are dripping with flowing myrrh, combining a phrase she had used of herself in Song 5:5 with the image of the lips dripping with pleasant liquids (Song 4:11). As in these texts, the metaphor connotes sexual excitement and pleasure (see also Comment on 2:2, 16 above). 14 ‫ידיו‬, “his hands,” by metonymy apparently refers to his arms since it makes little sense to describe hands as rodlike, unless one were referring to the fingers. There is absolutely no unanimity among scholars regarding the identity of the gemstone ‫תרשיש‬. I have chosen “golden topaz” with NIDOTTE §9577. But this is the only place in the Hebrew Bible where ‫ תרשיש‬has the definite article. This may imply that she has a single stone in mind for each hand rather than that they are covered with gemstones. ‫ מ ה‬, “loins” (found as dual ‫ מעים‬or plural ‫)מעים‬, refers to the lower abdominal part of the body (internally). It can refer to the intestines (2 Sam 20:10). Since this area was thought to govern emotions, the term often refers to one’s emotional state (Isa 16:11; Lam 1:20). The Aramaic ‫ מעה‬refers to the external abdomen in Dan 2:32, but it is not clear that this meaning applies in Hebrew. The word often refers to the genitals, be it of a man or a woman (Gen 15:4; 25:23; 2 Sam 7:12). The word is obviously not describing his internal organs or his emotions; it refers either to his abdominal region generally or his genitals specifically. The English word loins, although archaic, best captures this range of meaning. ‫עשת‬, “a piece,” is given an enormous number of interpretations. Many render it something like “plate” or “panel”; the NJB has “block.” This interpretation follows the LXX, which has ττυξίον, “tablet.” The more common Hebrew terms for “plate” or “tablet” are ‫ציא‬,‫( גליון‬Isa 3:23 and 8:1), and especially ‫לוח‬. Some take ‫ עשת‬to mean “smoothness” or “shine” after Jer 5:28, where the root ‫ עשת‬is paired with ‫שמן‬, “to be fat.” It is not at all clear that the form in Jer 5:28 is related to the word here, however, and attempts to create a translation on that analogy are really no more than conjecture. A more likely parallel is in the Copper Scroll from Qumran, 3Q15 I, 5; II, 4, where ‫ עשת זהב‬means “bar(s) of gold” (Martinez, Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 461, renders it “gold ingots”). Gerleman (176) suggests that ingots of gold would have taken the shape of bricks or disks; this can be taken to be support for the translation “plate.” On the other hand, while a brick, disk, or plate shape may be appropriate for gold, it hardly seems appropriate for ivory. In addition, the parallel to “gold ingots” suggests that ‫ עשת‬here

Comment

223

refers to ivory in an unfinished state, just as “gold ingots” differ from gold jewelry or inlaid gold in that ingots have not yet been artistically fashioned. The natural shape of an ivory tusk indicates that “bar” is a more likely translation. On the other hand, we should not take this to be a complete tusk of ivory, for which Hebrew would probably use ‫ קרן‬here (see Ezek 27:15, where ‫= קרנות שן‬ “tusks of ivory”). Murphy, curiously, translates these two lines as, “His belly, a work of ivory / covered in sapphires” (164). But in a footnote in his introduction (75 n. 305), he gives the lines a more thorough treatment and renders it, “his loins, a shaft of ivory, ensconced in lapis lazuli.” He also notes that rabbinic sources suggest that ‫ עשת‬refers to a pillar or column “comparable to the shape of a scroll.” The word is therefore almost certainly used as a metaphor for the penis, but I have given ‫ עשת‬the more neutral translation “piece.” The usage of ‫עלף‬, “hung,” is somewhat of a mystery. The LXX has έττί λίθου, “upon stone,” but Pope (544) is probably correct that the LXX is guessing here. In Isa 51:20 (pueal), Amos 8:13 (hitpa'el), and Jonah 4:8 (hitpa'el), it means to “faint.” In Gen 38:14 it is used (hitpa'el) of Tamar draping a large garment over herself in order to conceal her identity. An occurrence of the root in Ezek 31:15 should also be vocalized as a pu'al (HALOT) and translated “wilted.” Here in the Song (pu‘al), it describes the metaphorical ivory (‫ שן‬here treated as a feminine noun) somehow having sapphires attached to it. Some scholars deny that ‫עלף‬, “faint, wilt,” and ‫עלף‬, “drape,” are from the same root, but in light of how consistently ‫ עלף‬appears in the pu'al and hitpa'el, we are probably dealing with a single root. The basic idea of the root is probably to “droop” or “hang.” This would account for the meaning “faint” or “wilt,” since the person or tree in this state stands feebly with limbs hanging and is on the point of collapse, and it would also account for the meaning “drape” in Gen 38:14 (i.e., Tamar draped or hung a large veil over herself). It is difficult to see how ‫ מעלפת‬could mean “inlaid” here in the Song, as though sapphires were imbedded in the ivory. A translation “covered with sapphires” is also unlikely, since the sapphires do not seem to have obscured the ivory in the way that Tamar’s cloak hid her face. The main point of ‫ עלף‬seems to be that something hangs, not that something covers something else. In keeping with other usage of ‫עלף‬, it would appear that the ivory has sapphires hung from it. The similarity between arms and rods is obvious. Once again, she speaks of him as ‫זהב‬, “gold.” A number of interpreters point out that she seems to be describing a statue, and thus they postulate that this was originally a hymn to an idol. This is altogether unnecessary. The “gold” conveys the idea of high value, and it also reflects the fact that she has already described him as having a deep tan. It is noteworthy that she describes the parts of his body that would normally be exposed to the sun (head, arms, and lower legs) .as gold but describes those parts that would be hidden (loins and thighs) as ivory and alabaster (i.e., pale by comparison). She is not describing an image; she is describing a man’s body metaphorically using precious materials. The meaning of ‫מעיו עשת שן מעלפת ספירים‬, “his loins are a piece of ivory hung with sapphires,” is transparent, and one is tempted to hide behind a more innocuous, traditional translation (e.g., “his belly is a plate of ivory inlaid with sapphires”). As far as I can tell, however, evidence indicates that this is indeed a piece of ivory hung with sapphires. This naturally suggests the male genitals, and one might well look at this and wonder if there is the kind of phallic humor going on here that

224

Song of Songs 5:9-6:3

one would expect to find among the Greek comedians. This imagery, however, does not relate to having an enormous penis, as in Greek comedy (as described above, the word ‫ עשת‬does not mean “tusk,” contrary to Longman, 164). Instead, the woman describes his private parts as having high value to her. She does not focus any more on these parts than she does on his eyes, arms, or legs, and she uses precious metals and gems to describe these body parts as well. It is not inappropriate for a woman in love to take pleasure in the anatomy of her husband, including his sexual parts. The tone here is not comic. 15 The word ‫ את‬here should be translated “pedestals” rather than “sockets.” In the metaphor, these are what the thighs rest upon. His thighs are the pillars, and his lower leg region or feet are the base or pedestals for the pillars. As mentioned above, the whiteness of his upper thigh (alabaster) stands in contrast to the golden color of his lower legs, but she highly values every part of him. The total effect of the man’s appearance on her is like that of Lebanon. He is in her eyes magnificent to look upon. She here abandons the language of bodily parts being like precious materials to compare him to a forest. It should be clear by now that she is not describing an idol. She employs the comparison to Lebanon because the trees of the forest are both strong and beautiful (yet without excessive floral coloring) and so are an appropriate symbol of male beauty. In Song 2:3 also she declares him to be the finest among the trees (i.e., among men). The parable of Jotham (Judg 9:7-15) also compares men of different qualities to trees. 16 She returns to the pleasures of his mouth as an allusion to the pleasure of his kisses (Song 1:2). There is a triumphal, joyful note to this verse that heals the despair of Song 5:2-7. As a counterpart to Song 1:4 (“Rightly they love you! ”), she in effect says, “No wonder I love him!” Here alone the woman uses ‫רעי‬, “my companion,” of the man; elsewhere he routinely speaks of her with this term. She has fully set herself apart from the girls of Jerusalem; her true companion now is not they but he. 6:1 The second question of the chorus serves as a bridge to the soprano’s next part. Their question may give the impression that they are so intrigued by the beauty of this man, as she has described him, that they want to see him for themselves. At most, however, this question only superficially has that function. Once again, the point of this text is not that a woman is literally asking her friends to join a search party and find her truant husband. Rather, this question allows her to complete the process of transformation through the realization of the full force of her husband’s love for her. The first question (Song 5:9) allowed her to reflect on how much she loves him. This question allows her to acknowledge how much he loves her. 2-3 The man is not lost; she knows exactly where he is. Where is he? He is making love to her! As in Song 4:16, the ‫גן‬, “garden,” that belongs to the man is the body of his wife. In Song 5:13, she had described his cheeks as beds of balsam, but now she is the bed of balsam that he takes pleasure in. They belong to one another and mutually take pleasure in one another. Under the metaphor of the gazelle, he is feeding among the plants of the garden. Like a gardener, he is picking lotuses from his garden. All of this makes for narrative chaos if read in any literal way. If one imagines the woman to be standing outside asking her friends to help find her beloved, he cannot be at that moment in process of making love to her. Even her metaphors

Translation

225

are mixed and somewhat incoherent. He enters the garden both as a gardener and as a grazing animal, and he gleans among the lotuses (an unusual crop for an ancient Israelite!). As the parts of a canto, however, the lyrics wrap images of love around the audience. The soprano sings of the reality and presence of the man’s love. Contrary to those who interpret the Song from the standpoint of the fertility cults, going down (‫ )ירד‬hardly connotes a descent to Sheol. There is nothing of “love and death” in this verse (see Pope, 210-29). Keel ([1994] 209) notes that until Greco-Roman times settlements in Palestine were always on hills and that gardens were in the valleys. Thus, someone going to a garden would of necessity “go down.” Explanation

Once again, I must remind the reader that this is a song and not a drama or history. This is not a real woman actually talking to girlfriends about a lover who mysteriously ran off in the night. And as before, we must not mix the signifier with the signified and so imagine that the young bride, immediately after having consummated her marriage, is standing outside looking for help from the girls in finding her vanishing husband. Also, we are not to suppose that a young bride would actually give such a detailed account of her husband’s anatomy to her girlfriends. No “storyline” is present here, only the musical presentation of the transformative power of love. “I am my lover’s and my lover is mine”: the woman has been able to move beyond the trauma of Song 5:2-7 through the realization that she is now both lover and beloved and that all of the man’s desires are fulfilled in her. Her transformation from virgin to wife is complete. She now sees herself fully bound to the man in affection and commitment, and she possesses him just as he possesses her. There can be no question of the love described here being anything other than monogamous. The woman’s claim upon the man here is the counterpart to the man’s claim in Gen 2:23 that she is “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (RSV). The two have become one flesh.

C. Tenor and Chorus: The Flawless Bride II (6:4-10) Bibliography Stern, E. Archaeology of the Land of the Bible. Translation TENOR

4 You are beautiful, my companion, like Tirzah,a lovely, like Jerusalem, awesome, like panoplied cities.

1A 1B 1C

Song of Songs 6 :410‫־‬

226

5 Turn your eyes away from me,

6

7 8 9

fo r they excite me! Your hair is like the flock o f goats skipping from Gilead.b Your teeth are like a flock o f lambs that comes up from washing, in which every one has a t w in: not one among them is bereft o f its partner.a Your cheek is like a split pomegranate behind your veil.a There are sixty queens and eighty concubines and girls without number, but she is unique— my dove, my perfect one; she is unique to her mother, flawless to the one who gave her birth. The girls see her, and they reckon her blessed; the queens and concubines see her and praise her:

2A 2B 3A 3B 4A 4B 4C 4D 5A 6A 6B 6C 7A 7B 7C 8A 8B

CHORUS

10 Who is this, looking down like dawn ? Beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awesome as the panoply o f heaven.a

9A 9B 9C 9D 9E

Notes 4.a. LXX (followed by the versions) ως βυδοκχα, “like satisfaction.” The context mentioning other cities supports MT. 5.a. See Note 4:1.b. and Comment on 4:1. 6.a. See Comment on 4:2. 7.a. See Comment on 4:3.

Form /Structure/Setting

The phrase ‫דגלות‬:‫אימה ס‬, “awesome like the panoplied cities/heavens,” in vv 4 and 10 serves as an inclusion to demarcate the boundaries of this text. The man begins this section by singing of the woman being as awesome as the great cities of his day and concludes it by comparing her to the heavenly host. The three lines in v 10 (“Beautiful as the moon, / bright as the sun, / awesome as the panoply of heaven”) answers the three lines of v 4 ("You are beautiful, my companion, like Tirzah, / lovely, like Jerusalem, / awesome, like panoplied cities.”). It is not absolutely necessary to read v 10 (“Who is this. . . ”) as belonging to the chorus; the tenor could sing this strophe as well. On the other hand, a choral response is appropriate after v 9b declares that girls, queens, and royal concubines all praise her. For that matter, it is possible that v 10 is sung by both the tenor and chorus together. The wasf, as is common, uses a number of small strophes governed by the individual body parts under discussion. Still, there are some very nice touches. The matching three-line strophe at v 8 (strophe 6) is answered by another matching three-line strophe at v 9 (strophe 7).

Comment

227

This section repeats many of the themes and metaphors of the wasf of Song 4:1-15; in some cases we have verbatim repetition. Both 4:9 and 6:5 speak of how her eyes excite and intimidate him, albeit they use different expressions. Using almost identical language, both texts describe her hair as goats skipping down Gilead (Song 4:1b; 6:5b; the latter lacks the word ‫הר‬, “Mount”). The comparison of her teeth to pairs of lambs, v 6, is identical to Song 4:2 except that 4:2 has ‫הקצובות‬, “the shorn [sheep],” where 6:6 has ‫הרחלים‬, “the lambs.” The terminology in the two comparisons of her cheeks to sliced pomegranate (4:3b; 6:7) is the same. Some metaphors are similar in theme but different in content. In Song 4:8 the woman is a goddess high on a mountain among the lions, and in 4:12 she is a locked garden, but in 6:4 she is an armed city, and in 6:10 she is the armies of heaven. On the other hand, each text develops distinctive ideas. In Song 6:8-9, all other women compare unfavorably to her and even sing her praise, a theme lacking in 4:1-15. On the other hand, the motif of the garden dominates much of 4:1-15 but it is altogether absent from 6:4-10. Finally, 4:1-15 is much more detailed and elaborate as it poetically praises parts of her anatomy. The language of the garden has been dropped here probably because this metaphor focuses heavily upon sexual pleasure. In this canto, the tenor sings of his continuing devotion to her rather than of his sexual desire for her. Comment 4 The very first words from the man after his “absence” are "You are beautiful, my companion” (with ‫יפה‬, “beautiful,” coming first). They serve to reassure her of his continued devotion to her. He does not play the role of Amnon, who humbles the woman, then loses interest in her (2 Sam 13:15). More than that, he continues to hold her in awe: “lovely, like Jerusalem, awesome, like panoplied cities.” It is not correct to describe his attitude toward her as one of fear (against Murphy, 177), but surely there is amazed awe. The metaphor of the woman as unassailable city (like the virgin Zion; Isa 37:22) is not dropped after they have consummated their marriage. She is no more a virgin, but she remains inviolate. According to A. F. Rainey (ISBE 4:860-61; see also the discussion by A. Chambon in Stern, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, 2:433—40), the city Tirzah seems to be associated with Tell el-Fa'rah (north), near the Wadi el-Fa'rah and eleven kilometers north-northeast of Shechem. R. de Vaux excavated the site between 1946 and 1960 and found evidence of settlement from as early as the Neolithic age. A city with defensive ramparts, straight streets, and rectangular houses existed here in the Early Bronze Age but was abandoned around 2600 B.C.E. A new city stood here during MB IIA and IIB, and evidence indicates that the city lasted until the thirteenth century. De Vaux described three major strata for the Iron age. The earliest (stratum III) belonged to the period of David and Solomon and suffered a destruction around 900 B.C.E. Depending on how one reads the badly damaged stele of Sheshonq (Shishak) from Karnak, it is possible that Pharaoh Shishak sacked the city during his campaign in the latter half of the tenth century (K. A. Kitchen, ISBE, 4:489). Stratum II, the next major phase of the city, de Vaux dated to the eighth century; it suffered a violent end. The last phase (stratum I) was much more meager and belongs to the period after the Assyrian destruction of Samaria in 722.

228

Song of Songs 6:4-10

The Bible tells us that the Israelites under Joshua took the city (Josh 12:24). 1 Kgs 14:12-17 implies that Jeroboam made it his capital after the breakup of the united kingdom. Tirzah remained the capital of the northern kingdom until the brief reign of Zimri. According to 1 Kgs 16:17-18, Omri trapped Zimri in Tirzah and laid siege to the city. When the defenses of the city were breached, Zimri burned the royal palace down around his head and died in the flames. Omri then moved the capital to Samaria. The data tell us that Tirzah was a major city during the united monarchy, was an enemy city during the early days of the divided kingdom, and was a marginal or abandoned city afterwards. All in all, it is noteworthy that the Song places Tirzah on the level of a northern counterpart to Jerusalem. It is not likely that the Song would have celebrated the city if it had been written in Jerusalem after the secession of the northern kingdom (or that the Song would have celebrated Jerusalem if it had been written in the northern kingdom). As Keel ([1994] 213), says, “[S]uch a reference would be difficult to imagine during that period given the extremely tense relations between the two capitals (cf. 1 Kgs. 15:6, 16).” After the exile, Tirzah simply ceased to have any significance. For a poet at that time to create such a parallel would make no sense. Of course, one can always argue that a postexilic poet created the parallel as a kind of deliberate archaizing, but such an interpretation would clearly be ad hoc. Tirzah did not leave behind the kind of legacy that would prompt a postexilic poet to remind his audience of Tirzah’s former glory, nor did it serve as a type for a fabulous citadel (such as Camelot is for the English). Taken at face value, the parallel plainly implies that the Song was written during the narrow window of history when Tirzah had prominence in the north but was not yet the domain of an enemy state. Such boundaries set the text squarely in the Solomonic period. “Panoplied cities”: The word ‫ דגל‬is associated with military regiments, as in its frequent use in Num 2 for the banners around which military units were organized. Here, the feminine plural nip'al participle refers to the cities Tirzah and Jerusalem made awesome by the presence of defending armies with all their military pomp. 5-7 The root ‫ רהב‬means to show insolence in Isa 3:5, and in Prov 6:3 it means to importune someone boldly (both qal). At Ps 138:3 (hip'il), it means to make someone bold. Here (hip'il), translators often take it to mean “to humble, overwhelm, or make someone ashamed,” a meaning that is the opposite of what we see elsewhere. However, in the remainder of the man’s canto here (vv 6-9) he praises her; he does not seem to be embarrassed in her presence. The point here is probably that her eyes so excite him that he can hardly keep a cool head and not that she makes him feel ashamed. So ‫ רהב‬in the hipeil should be taken to mean “embolden” or “excite” rather than “embarrass.” The meaning seems to be that he can hardly keep his head when near her; everything about her sweeps him away. In 5b-6, the tenor essentially repeats material from Song 4:1-3. Again, one should not regard this repetition as merely the use of stock metaphor with no further significance. It conveys the message that the man’s desire for the woman is undiminished. She is, in his eyes, as beautiful and mysterious as she was while he still was awaiting the consummation of their marriage. 8-9 The point of these two verses, that the man regards his beloved as better than all other women, is self-evident. Readers naturally wonder if the queens

Explanation

229

and concubines refer to Solomon’s legendary harem (1 Kgs 11:3); Delitzsch ([1877] 111) argued that the relatively “small” numbers reflected a period early in Solomon’s reign! The rounded numbers, however, indicate that this is an artificial device for the sake of a hyperbolic comparison. The device is similar to the numerical pattern in Wisdom literature, “there are three things . . . , there are four” (“sixty” and “eighty” represent 3 x 20 and 4 x 20). In addition, princesses and concubines are reputedly the most beautiful of women (princesses because they were raised in a pampered setting and concubines because they are chosen specifically for their beauty). In the fashion of Wisdom literature, the man is proclaiming that however many other women of whatever status there may be, his beloved is still by far the best. Other women may be sixty, eighty, or countless in number, but his companion is ‫אחת‬, “one.” 10 Although ‫ אימה כנדגלות‬is precisely the same phrase as that found in v 4, “awesome as panoplied cities,” the context is different. There, the woman is likened to a fortified city; here, she is likened to heavenly bodies, and the ‫ נתלות‬must be the stars here personified as heavenly armies, “awesome as the panoply of heaven.” This verse looks back to Song 1:5-6, where the woman says she was darkened (‫ )שחורה‬by the sun because of the anger (‫נחרו‬, from the root ‫חרה‬, “to be hot”) of her brothers, yet was still beautiful (‫)יפה‬. Here, she looks down like the dawn (‫)שחר‬, is beautiful (‫)יפה‬, and is as dazzling as the sun (‫כחמה‬, literally “like the heat”). Where v 4 had described the woman’s awesome beauty under the metaphor of the fortified cities, this text describes her as splendid under the metaphor of heavenly bodies. The dawn was not just a time of day but a kind of heavenly body. Pagan literature identified the dawn as a goddess; students of Homer are familiar with the “rosy fingered Dawn” (ροδοδάκτυλος Ήώς). The choice of the word ‫ לבנה‬for “moon” in this text (as opposed to the common ‫ )ירח‬may have been driven by the fact that ‫ לבנה‬is the feminine of ‫לבן‬, “white.” The point of comparison is the splendor of the woman with the bright light of a full moon. Similarly, the choice of ‫ חמה‬for “sun” (instead of the normal ‫ )שמש‬may be due to its similarity to ‫חם‬, “heat” (another reflection on the woman’s radiance). Also, the poet may have wanted to avoid ‫ שמש‬and ‫ ירח‬precisely because of their associations with pagan deities. While the woman receives extravagant, hyperbolic praise, she is not divinized (nor is this a hymn in praise of a goddess). As described above, the phiase ‫ אימה כנדגלות‬here refers to the heavenly hosts—i.e., the stars. The military nature of this personification (the stars as an angelic army with banners) again indicates that the woman is awesome in her beauty. Explanation

The verbatim or near-verbatim repetition here of certain lines from chap. 4 is more than the use of formulaic expressions. By repeating his previous words of admiration for her, the man implies that his desire for the woman is undiminished by his having consummated the relationship with her. She is still as desirable to him as ever before. The fact that Song 6:4—10 is not as detailed or fulsome in describing her body is primarily for aesthetic reasons—the Song would be rather tedious if this section mechanically worked its way through all the details of the wasf in Song 4:1-15. The repetition of a few items of praise—

230

for her hair, teeth , and cheeks—is enough to signal to the audience that he still feels the same way about her. On the other hand, the lengthy praise of her beauty in 4:1-15 serves a specific purpose. There, the man is persuading her with words of admiration and love to give herself to him. He is in effect tenderly seducing her, if one may rightly speak of a groom seducing his bride on their wedding night. In Song 6:4-10 it is enough for him to reaffirm his desire for her. The change in metaphors from goddess on a mountain and locked garden in Song 4:1-15 to grand cities and heavenly host in Song 6:4-10 is significant. The operating motif behind the goddess and the locked garden is that she is inaccessible. By contrast, the operating motif of the grand cities and the heavenly array is that she is awesome. A mighty city is inaccessible only in time of war, and he has come to her in peace (cf. Song 8:10). And although one might speak of the heavenly host as inaccessible, this is not the implication one would ordinarily draw from the metaphor. Rather, comparison of her to the hosts of heaven implies that she is awe-inspiring. She is no longer a mountain goddess or a locked garden to him for the simple reason that she is no longer a virgin; he has deflowered her. But deflowering need not connote humiliation or loss of status. In his own mind, he has not humbled her at all; she is as awesome as ever, if not more so. His love for her has matured from urgent passion to profound devotion.

IX. Soprano, Chorus, and Tenor: Leaving Girlhood B ehind (6 :1 1 -7 :1 [6 :1 3 ]) Bibliography Bloch, A. A., and C. Bloch. “From I n the G arden o f D eligh ts. ” J u d a is m 44 (1995) 36-63. Deckers, M. ‘T h e Structure of the Song o f Songs and the Centrality o f n e p e s (6.12).” In A F em in ist C o m p a n io n to the S on g o f Songs. FCB 1. Ed. A. Brenner. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993. 172-212. Paul, S. M. “An Unrecognized Medical Idiom in Canticles 6,12 and Job 9,21.” B ib 59 (1978) 545-47. Translation SOPRANO

11 I came down to the nu t a grove to see the young plants by the river, to see if the vines were budding, the pomegranates blooming.b 12 I do not know my own soul; it has set me among the chariots of Ammi-nadiv! a

1A 1B 1C 1D 2A 2B

CHORUS

71 Comeback, comeback, O Shulammite!a Come back, come back, that we may gaze on you!

3A 3B

TENOR

Why would you gaze on the Shulammite, as on the “Dance of the Two Companies”?b

4A 4B

Notes 11.a. Although a hapax legomenon in the Hebrew Bible, the m eaning “nut” (or more specifically, “walnut”) is well established for ‫ אגוז‬from postbiblical Heb. and from cognates. See Pope, 574-79. 11.b. The Gk. here adds έκ6ΐ δώσω τούς μαστούς μου σοί, “There I will give you my breasts.” 12.a. See Comment on v 12 for a full discussion o f the m eaning o f this proper name. 7:1.a. There are no grounds for em ending this to “Shunam m ite” (i.e., Abishag, the woman o f 1 Kgs 1:3, 15; 2:17-22). l.b . The word ‫ המחנים‬is literally “the two camps.” As a proper name, ‫ מחנים‬refers to the place in Gilead on the Jabbok named by Jacob (Gen 32:3 [ET 32:2]). As a place name, the term appears thirteen times in the Bible, but never with the def. art.

Form,/Structure,/Setting

T h e sin g er o f w 11-12 is evidently th e w om an since v 12 seem s to speak o f this p e rso n b ein g tak en away in a ch a rio t, an d , im m ediately after th at, th e choru s p ro claim s th e lin e “C om e back, O S h u la m m ite!” (Song 7:1a [ET 6:13a]), w hich, w ith its p lu ra l fo rm ‫ונחזה־בך‬, “th a t we m ay gaze u p o n y o u ,” belo n g s to th e ch o ru s. S ong 7:1b (ET 6:13b), a reply to th e ch o ru s in b e h a lf o f th e S hulam m ite, belo n g s to th e m ale singer.

232

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Songs 6:11-7:1

T h is b rie f section quickly m oves th ro u g h th re e singing parts, a n d this ra p id c h a n g e o f singers is indicative o f a tra n sfo rm a tio n in th e w o m an ’s situ atio n . It begins w ith calm , p asto ral im agery (th e w om an strolls dow n to see how h e r p lan ts are g ro w in g ), b u t su d d en ly in tro d u c e s a jo ltin g shift o f scene (she can h ard ly c o m p re h e n d how she cam e to be am o n g th e ch ario ts o f Ammi-nadiv, “My-beloved-is-a-prince”) . T h e Song ab ru p tly in d icates th a t th e w om an is leaving, m u c h to th e distress o f h e r co m p an io n s. Finally, th e g ro o m issues a m ild re b u k e to th e w om en to th e effect th a t they sh o u ld n o t call o n h e r to stay so th a t they can c o n tin u e to lo o k a t her. Comment

1 1-12 T h e m e ta p h o r o f th e g a rd e n alm o st always refers to fem ale sexuality (e.g., Song 4:12-5:1), a n d som e evidence indicates th a t th e w alnut, like th e apple, sym bolized sexuality in th e a n c ie n t w orld. A p lace called C aryae (Κ αρύαι, “waln u t tre e s ”) in L aco n ia was th e site o f an im age to A rtem is C aryatis (“A rtem is o f th e W a ln u t”) . H e re every year th e L a c e d a e m o n ia n m aid en s h e ld ch o ru s-d an ces in a festival called th e Κ αρυάτ6ια (P ausanias, Description of Greece 3.10.7). In this passage o f Song, however, th e w o m an has sim ply g o n e dow n to lo o k at h e r waln u ts a n d o th e r young, grow ing p lan ts, a n d n o festival is in view. T h e lan g u ag e o f these lines c o n n o te s n o t activity b u t e x p e ctatio n . By d escrib in g h e rse lf as g o in g dow n to c h e ck o n th ese plants, she in d icates th a t this is a m e ta p h o ric a l flashback to h e r ea rlier days, w h en she was aw aiting th e tim e o f love. In th e w ords o f th e o a th she called o n th e J e ru sa le m girls to take, she w ould n o t “aw aken th e passions o f love u n til they are re a d y ” (S ong 2:7). In v 12, however, she su d d en ly find s h e r situ atio n dram atically c h a n g ed . 12 T h e p h ra se ‫ לא ידעתי‬is o fte n tra n sla te d “b efo re I knew it,” b u t th e re is little ju stific a tio n fo r this. O n e w o u ld e x p e c t so m eth in g like ‫ בטרם אדע‬if th a t w ere th e in te n d e d m ean in g . O n th e analogy o f J o b 9:21 (‫) לא־אדע נפשי‬, o n e sh o u ld u n d e rs ta n d ‫ לא ידעתי נפשי‬to m ean , “I d o n o t know m yself.” It p ro b ab ly c o n n o te s “I can h ard ly k ee p my c o m p o s u re ” o r “I am b eside m yself w ith jo y .” S. M. Paul (Bib 59 [1978] 54 5 -4 7 ) co m p ares this to usage in M eso p o tam ian m ed ical texts, w h e re to “n o t k n o w o n e s e l f ’ im p lie s p a r tia l loss o f c o n sc io u sn e ss d u e to overstim u latio n o f th e em o tio n s. O n e all b u t d esp airs o f m ak in g sense o f th e seco n d lin e o f v 12 (cf. P o p e, 5 8 4 -9 1 ). T h e verse has given rise to an e n o rm o u s n u m b e r o f e m e n d e d a n d conje c tu r a l read in g s. N o n e o f th e m works. F o r ex am ple, sw itching th e c o n so n a n ts o f ‫ מרכבות‬, “c h a rio ts,” to ‫ מברכת‬, “blessed o n e ” (M urphy, 177; cf. n a b ), is h ard ly persuasive (M u rp h y h im self says, “N o n e o f th e m any e m e n d a tio n s p ro p o se d by sch o lars is really co n v in cin g ”) . A n o th e r far-fetched p ro p o sa l is th a t o f A. A. a n d C. B loch (Judaism 44 [1995] 5 7 -5 8 ), w ho switch th e letters a ro u n d fro m ‫עמי־נדיב‬ to ‫נדיב־עמי‬, “th e n o b le m a n o f my p e o p le ,” a n d so re n d e r it very freely as “She sat m e in th e m o st lavish o f c h a rio ts.” T h e tran slatio n s in th e a n c ie n t versions suggest th a t they w ere w orking w ith th e sam e tex t th a t we have in th e MT, a n d th a t they h a d as m u c h difficulty m ak in g sense o f it as we do. O n e m u st th e re fo re try to in te rp re t it w ith m inim al em en d a tio n . T h e m ost n atu ra l way to take ‫שמתני מרכבות‬ is as “she [i.e., my ‫נפש‬, “so u l”] has set m e (am o ng) c h a rio ts.” T aking th e p a th o f

Comment

233

least resistan ce fo r ‫עמי־נדיב‬, o n e c o u ld take it sim ply as a p ro p e r n am e. T his ro u te is tak en by th e LXX, V ulgate, a n d som e H eb rew m an u scrip ts, a lth o u g h they re a d th e m o re fam iliar “A m m in a d a b ” fo r “A m m inadiv.” T h e p rin cip a l p ro b le m with this tra n sla tio n is th at, unless “A m m in ad iv ” h a d som e significance fo r th e anc ie n t Israelites th a t is totally lost o n us, it a p p e a rs to m ake n o sense. T h e n am e A m m inadiv is a lto g e th e r u n k n o w n . R ead in g it as A m m in ad ab do es n o t really h elp m atters; th e re is n o A m m in ad ab o f g re a t re p u te in th e Bible. T h e n a m e is fo u n d in E x o d 6:23; N u m 1:7; 2:3; 7:12, 17; 10:14; R u th 4:19-20; 1 C h r 2:10; 6:7 (ET 6:22); 15:10-11. N o n e o f th ese is o f su fficien t statu re to give significance o r sym bolism to th e ch a rio ts h ere. P o p e (587) is c o rre c t w h en h e asserts th a t the “e x p e d ie n t o f tak in g u n in tellig ib le w ords as p ro p e r n am es has p ro d u c e d som e b izarre results in th e B ible a n d elsew h ere.” If an e m e n d a tio n is to be em ployed, o n e m ig h t re a d ‫ עמי־נליב‬as ‫ עמי נדיב‬, “a p rin cely m an is w ith m e .” Still, this is little m o re th a n a c o n jec tu re. T h e b est so lu tio n , however, is n o t to e m e n d b u t to reg a r d ‫ ע מי־נדי ב‬as th e w o m a n ’s s o b r iq u e t fo r h e r b elo v ed . S u p p o r t fo r th is in te rp re ta tio n is a m e re two verses away, in 7:2 (ET 7:1), w h ere th e m an calls th e w om an ‫ברדנליב‬, “d a u g h te r o f a p rin c e ,” i.e., “m y lady.” In ‫עמי־נליב‬, th e w om an has su b stitu te d ‫ עמי‬fo r th e m o re fam iliar ‫רולי‬, “my b elo v ed ,” a te rm she freq u en tly uses in texts su ch as S ong 1 :1 3 -1 4 .‫ דולי‬m ean s “m y u n c le ” b u t can also be used affectio n ately to m e a n “m y love,” a n d ‫ עמי‬likewise m ean s “my u n c le .” It is com m only u sed in p ro p e r n am es, such as 1) ‫ עמיזבל‬C h r 27:6) a n d ‫( עמיאל‬N um 13:12). T h u s it seem s th a t by e x te n sio n ‫ עמי‬has also tak en o n th e m e a n in g “my b elo v ed .” T h e re fo re ‫ עמי־נליב‬is in d e e d a p ro p e r n am e, alb eit an artificially c reated o n e, “M y-beloved-is-a-prince. ” T h e w om an is d u m b fo u n d e d th a t h e r own soul (‫ )נפש‬h a d c a rrie d h e r away a n d th a t she now stands am o n g th e ch ario ts o f “My‫־‬beloved‫־‬is‫־‬a‫־‬p rin c e ” (i.e., h e r new h u s b a n d ). T his d e sc rip tio n o f h e r situ atio n m ay have h a d a literal co u n terp a rt in th e w ed d in g c e rem o n ies o f a n c ie n t Israel w hen th e g ro o m d e p a rte d with his new b rid e, p e rh a p s o n th e day follow ing th e w ed d in g n ig h t. In any case, she is now b ein g tak en away to a new life. 7:1 As n o te d above, th e two halves o f this verse b elo n g to d iffe re n t parts since th e first lin e calls th e w om an back “th a t we m ay gaze o n y o u ” w hile the sec o n d is a m ild re b u k e , asking why they w an t to d o this. T h e p lu rality o f the first h a lf im p lies th a t it b elo n g s to th e ch o ru s, a n d th u s th e seco n d h a lf b elongs to th e g ro o m (it is n o t likely th a t th e w om an is speaking o f h e rse lf in th e th ird p e rso n ). T h e fact th a t ‫לזחזר‬, “w ould you g aze,” is m asculine p lu ral co u ld im ply th a t th e re is a m ale c h o ru s th a t takes p a r t in th e Song. O n th e o th e r h a n d , H ebrew is n o t co n sisten t in its use o f th e sec o n d fe m in in e p lu ral b u t som etim es uses th e se c o n d m ascu lin e p lu ral fo rm w ith a fe m in in e p lu ral su b ject (e.g., R u th 1:8). M ore to th e p o in t, th e S ong n ev er uses th e seco n d fe m in in e p lu ra l fo rm , even w h en w o m en are clearly b ein g ad d ressed (S ong 1:6; 2:7; 3:5; 5:8; 8:4). No m ale c h o ru s is really in d icated . T h e w o m en w an t th e b rid e to re m a in w ith th e m so th a t they m ay enjoy h e r beauty a n d c o m p a n io n sh ip . T h is is sim ple d e lig h t in th e b rid e a n d n o t sexual le erin g (as m ig h t be im p lied by a m ale c h o ru s). R a th e r th a n leave h e r to answ er fo r herself, however, th e g ro o m speaks u p for his brid e. H is w ords im ply th a t th e tim e fo r starin g at h e r is over. H e r g re at beauty was th a t o f a b rid e in all h e r array, b u t now th e w ed d in g is over. T h e precise

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m e a n in g o f th e “D an ce o f th e Two C o m p a n ie s” is u n k n o w n , b u t o n e can presum e th a t it was a d a n c e fam iliar to th e a u d ie n c e o f th e Song. If it involved two co m p an ie s o f d an cers, it m u st have b e e n q u ite co m p lex a n d have receiv ed th e ra p t a tte n tio n o f spectators. T h e n o u n ‫מחלה‬, “d a n c e ” (from ‫חול‬, “to w h irl”) , seem s to im ply a particu larly e x u b e ra n t k in d o f d a n c in g (E xod 15:20; 32:19; J u d g 21:21; 1 Sam 29:5); it was p e rh a p s s o m e th in g sim ilar to th e ecstatic d a n c in g o f th e “w hirlin g d erv ish e s” o f Turkey. T h e g ro o m is tellin g th e m n o t to stare at h e r as th o u g h she w ere such a show. T h e re is n o n e e d to see so m e th in g o f c o m b a t betw een two arm ies h e re , as d o es Keel ([1994] 229). Explanation

In th e stru c tu re o f S ong o f Songs, this section answ ers S ong 2:8-17, w h ere th e g ro o m invites th e w om an to d e p a rt w ith him . T h a t section also has p asto ral im ag ery (th e lover as a gazelle a n d th e flow ering o f th e lan d scap e in s p rin g ). M ore significantly, th e m an in S ong 2:10 calls th e w om an to com e away w ith him , b u t th e c h o ru s in S ong 7:1 (ET 6:13) cries o u t, “C om e back! C om e b ack !” a n d is m ildly re b u k e d by th e ten o r. In th e psychology o f th e Song, th e c h o ru s w ants th e w o m an to stay in th e ir w orld, b u t she c a n n o t d o this b ecau se she has crossed th e th re s h o ld fro m virgin to wife.

X. Tenor and Soprano: The Second Song o f M utual Love (7:2 [1 ]—8 :4 ) Bibliography Black, F. C. “What Is My Beloved? On Erotic Reading and the Song o f Songs.” In The L a b o u r o f R e a d in g : Desire, A lie n a tio n , a n d B ib lica l In terpretation . Ed. F. C. Black, R. Boer, and E. Runions. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999. Brenner, A. “Aromatics and Perfumes in the Song o f Songs.”/«SOT 25 (1983) 7 5 -8 1 .--------- . ‘“Come Back, Come Back the Shulammite’ (Song o f Songs 7:1-10): A Parody o f the w a s f Genre.” In A F em in ist C o m p a n io n to the S o n g o f Songs. FCB 1. Ed. A. Brenner. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993. 2 3 4 -5 7 .--------- . “A Note on b a t-r a b b tm (Song of Songs VII 5 ).” VT42 (1992) 11315. Joffe, A., J. P. Dessel, and R. Hallote. ‘T h e ‘Gilat Woman.’” N e a r E a ste rn Archaeology 64.1-2 (2001) 8-23. King, P., and L. Stager. L ife in B ib lic a l Israel. Stern, E. A rchaeology o f the L a n d o f the Bible. Trible, P. G od a n d the R hetoric o f Sexuality. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978.

Translation

First Stanza tenor

2{l)How beautiful are yourfeet in sandals, Bath-nadiv! a The curves of your hips are like nngs, the work of an artist! b 3 Your navel is like a rounded goblet that never lacksafo r mixed wine! b Your belly is like a heap of wheat hedged aboutc with lotuses. 4 Your two breasts are like twofawns, twins o f a gazelle. 5 Your neck is like the Tower of Ivory.a Your eyes are like the pools of Heshbon at the gate o f Bath Rabbim.b Your nose is like the Tower of Lebanon looking towardc Damascus. 6 Your head creates the effect of Mount Carmel, and the strands o f your hair are like rich, purple cloth; a king could get caught in that “loom ” of yours! a

Second Stanza 7 How beautiful you are! How pleasant you are! You are love with all its delights! 8 This is what yourfu ll physique is like: a palm tree. And your breasts are its clusters: 9 I said, “I will climb the palm tree; I will hold its panicles of dates? that your breasts may be like the clusters of grapes and the fragrance of your nipples b like apples. ”

1A 1B

1C 2A 2B 3A 3B 4A 4B 5A 6A 6B 7A

7B 8A 8A

8B 9A 9B 10A 10B 10C 10D 10E 10F

Song

236

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Songs 7:2- 8:4

T hird Stanza tenor

10 Your mouth is like thefinest wine

11A

SOPRANO

going smoothlya to my lover

1 IB

TENOR

gliding past my lips and teeth! b

11C

SOPRANO

11 I belong to my lover, and his desire is for me. Fourth Stanza

11D

SOPRANO

12 Come, my lover, let us go to thefield! Let us spend the night among the henna! 13 Let us go early to the vineyards! Let us see i f the vine has budded, if the grape blossom has opened, i f the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love! 14 The mandrakes give forth a fragrance, and at our doorways are all manner of choice fruits. New things as well as old, my lover, I treasure up for you.

Fifth Stanza 8:1 I f only I could treat you like my brother, one who sucked at the breasts of my mother! I would find you in public and kiss you, and no one would scorn me! 2 I will lead you, I will take you, to the house of my mother who used to teach me! I will let you drink wine ( the spiced variety!) a and the sweet wine of my pomegranate! b

Sixth Stanza 3 His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me. 4 I call on you to swear, daughters of Jerusalem, that you will not arouse or awaken the passions of love until they are ready.

12A 12B 13A 13B 13C 13D 13E 14A 14B 14C 14D 15A 15B 15C 15D 16A 16B 16C 16D 17A 17B 17C 17D 17E

Notes 2.a. Lit., “daughter o f a prince” (‫)בודנדיב‬, this is a sobriquet for his beloved. See Comment on

6: 12. 2.b. The word ‫ אמן‬is a hapax legomenon, but its m eaning is not in doubt. It is related to the Akkadian um manu, “artisan,” and is rendered Τίχνιτηδ in LXX and artifex in Vg. Cf. H A L O T . Prov 8:30 and Jer 52:15 have the related ‫אמון‬. 3.a. The negated impf. has an almost adj. role. Thus ‫ אל־יחסר‬should be rendered “that never lacks” and not as a juss., “may it never lack.” 3.b. ‫ מזג‬is a hapax legomenon but is probably related to ‫ממסך‬, “mixed w ine,” found in Isa 65:11 and Prov 23:30. It is some kind o f mixed or spiced wine. 3.c. ‫ סוג‬is another hapax legomenon in biblical Hebrew, but its m eaning as “hed ged ” or “fenced in ” is well established from Mishnaic Hebrew and cognate languages. Cf. H A L O T , ‫ סוג‬II.

Form/Structure/Setting

237

5.a. Num erous scholars have noted that a line appears to be missing after ‫ צוארך כמגדל השן‬, “your neck is like the Tower o f Ivory,” but evidence is lacking for us to determine what, if anything, is missing, and speculative em endations are unpersuasive. 5.b. Read ‫ בת רבה‬in reference to Rabbah, the Am m onite town not far to the northeast o f Heshbon. See A. Brenner, VT42 (1992) 113-15. 5.c. ‫ פני דםס(ק‬would normally mean “the face o f Damascus,” but here ‫ פני‬seems to be short for ‫לפני‬, “toward” or “facing.” 6 .a. ‫ ברהטים‬is enigmatic. Elsewhere, ‫ רהט‬is a “drinking trough” (Gen 30:38, 41; Exod 2:16). It may, however, refer to some part o f a loom, such as the beams to which the cords o f the warp were fastened (cf. H A LO T, ‫)רהט‬. Context supports this interpretation, and for the sake o f simplicity I have simply rendered it “that ‘loom ’ o f yours” without trying to specify a certain part o f the loom. 9.a. The word ‫ סנסנה‬seems to mean the “panicle o f the date” after the Akkadian sissinnu. See H A L O T ; ‫סנסנה‬. 9.b. ‫ אף‬regularly means “nose” (e.g., Gen 24:47; 2 Kgs 19:28; Job 40:24, 26; Prov 30:33), but it is peculiar that the tenor would sing o f the “fragrance o f your n ose.” Murphy (183) contends that ‫אף‬ here means “breath,” but ‫ אף‬never has this meaning unless one were to argue that the use o f ‫ אף‬for “anger” suggests this idea. On this basis, Keel ([1994] 246) takes ‫ אף‬to mean “heavy breathing and the scent produced by passion.” This is possible, but there is no evidence that the word was used for erotic passion as well as for anger. The normal Heb. words for “breath” are ‫ רוח‬and ‫נשמה‬, but never 2 .‫ אף‬Sam 22:16 speaks o f the “breath o f his n ose” (‫) רוח אפו‬, but this means that the nose has breath, not that it is breath. When Heb. wants to speak o f the smell o f o n e ’s breath, it uses ‫ רוח‬for “breath” (Job 19:17). Pope (636-37), on the analogy o f Ugaritic ap, “entrance,” suggests that it here means “vulva.” This is quite far-fetched. In U T 52.24, 59, 61 ( “The Birth o f Dawn and Dusk”), the gods suck “on the nipple o f the breast” ( bap dd or bap z d ) . Akkadian appu could also be used for the nipple. If the Hebrews sometimes used ‫ אף‬in the manner attested in the Ugaritic and Akkadian texts, they would have taken it in this context to mean “nipple.” 10.a. ‫ דובב‬is a hapax legomenon. Most scholars take it to be a qal ptc. o f ‫דבב‬, but that root elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible connotes speaking or spreading a rumor. H A L O T (‫ )דבב‬connects this occurrence in the Song to the Arabic dabba, “to crawl,” but this is hardly persuasive. Murphy (18384) more plausibly links it to the root ‫דוב‬, which he says means to “flow” but which H A L O T connects to the Arabic dwb, to “dissolve.” Notwithstanding the difficulties, H A L O T (‫ )דבב‬suggests that ‫דובב‬ here means som ething like “trickle.” lO.b. For ‫שפתי ישנים‬, “lips o f sleepers,” read ‫קזפתי ושני‬, “my lips and my teeth,” with LXX \ei\eoiv μου και όδουσιν, Syr., and Vg. 8 .2.a. ‫ מיין הרקה‬is often translated “spiced wine,” although one might expect ‫יין‬. to be either in const, with ‫ הרקה‬or in grammatical agreement with it if that were the meaning. It is more likely that ‫ךקח‬.‫ ד‬is in apposition as “from wine, the spiced variety.” 2.b. A number o f MSS have the pi. ‫דמונים‬, “pom egranates,” here rather than the first sg. suf. This is the easier reading (“from sweet wine o f pomegranates”), but in language as sexually charged as this, “my pom egranate” is correct.

Form /Structure/Setting

S ong 7:2 (ET 7:1 )-8 :4 is a massive ca n to in six stanzas. T h e first two stanzas, S ong 7:2-9 (lines 1A -10F), are a wasf, a descriptive song o f praise o f th e w o m an ’s beauty. T h e first stanza, su n g by th e ten o r, o p e n s w ith “H ow b ea u tifu l are your fe et in san d a ls,” a n d a d e sc rip tio n o f th e w o m a n ’s body follows. T h e d esc rip tio n m oves u p w a rd fro m th e fe e t to th e h ea d . T his p a r t o f th e ca n to has n in e sm all stro p h es, ea ch d esc rib in g a body a re a in tu rn (feet a n d legs, stro p h e 1; navel a n d belly, s tro p h e 2; belly, stro p h e 3; breasts, stro p h e 4; neck, stro p h e 5; eyes, s tro p h e 6; n o se, s tro p h e 7; h e a d a n d hair, s tro p h e 8). T h e sec o n d stanza is m a rk e d by “H ow b ea u tifu l you a r e ” in 7:7, e c h o in g “H ow b eau tifu l are yo u r feet in san d a ls” a t 7:2. A fter this ex clam ato ry p raise o f th e w om an (lines 9A -B ), th e te n o r sings a longer, single s tro p h e in praise o f th e full body o f th e w om an a n d in p artic u la r o f h e r breasts (lines 1 0A -F ). T h e two stanzas thus m irro r each o th e r

238

Song of Songs 7:2- 8:4

in th a t b o th are ex clam atio n s o f th e w o m a n ’s beauty, b u t stanza 1 gives a detailed , area-by-area d e sc rip tio n o f h e r beauty, w hile th e la tte r describ es h e r body in a m o re holistic fashion b u t fo cu sed o n h e r breasts. In th e t h i r d s ta n z a ( 7 :1 0 - 1 1 ) , th e t e n o r a n d s o p r a n o s in g f o u r lin e s a n tip h o n a lly (lines 1 1 A -D ). T h e fe m in in e sin g u lar suffix o n ‫וחכך‬, “a n d y o u r pala te ,” im p lies th a t th e te n o r sings lin e 11A. L in e 11B uses th e w o rd ‫ ל דודי‬, “to my b elo v e d ,” w hich is th e w o m a n ’s so b riq u e t fo r th e m an ; it in d icates th a t this lin e is su n g by th e so p ra n o . L in e 11C c o n tain s n o suggestion o f w ho th e sin g er is b u t is assig n ed to th e m an . L ine 11D again refers to ‫ דודי‬a n d th u s is su n g by th e so p ra n o . T h is ex c h a n g e m akes a n ice tran sitio n fro m th e m a n ’s p raise o f th e w om an ( 7 : 1 9 ‫ ) ־‬to th e w o m a n ’s songs o f lo n g in g fo r th e m an (7:12-8:4). T h e fo u rth a n d fifth stanzas (7 :1 2 -8 :2 ), d escrib in g th e w o m an ’s lo n g in g fo r th e m an , are h e r re sp o n se to th e te n o r ’s w ords in th e first two stanzas. In th e fo u rth stan za (7:12-14 [lines 1 2 A -13D ]), th e w om an p roclaim s h e r d esire fo r th e m a n ’s affection in th e m eta p h o ric a l term s o f th e vineyard a n d g a rd e n , w hich ec h o his d esc rip tio n o f h e r as a p alm tree , a g ra p e vine, a n d an ap p le tre e in 7:8-9. T h is stanza has th re e stro p h es. T h e first stro p h e, 7:12 (lines 12A -B ), is an inv itatio n to th e fields a n d th e h e n n a . T h e sec o n d stro p h e, 7:13 (lines 13A -E ), calls th e m a n to th e vineyards. T h e th ird stro p h e, 7:15 (lines 14A -D ), focuses o n th e m a n d ra k e blossom s a t th e ir door. In th e fifth stanza (8:1-2 [lines 15A 16D ]), sh e y ea rn s to be ab le to show affec tio n fo r h e r lover in p u b lic (first stro p h e , lin es 15A--D) b u t in stead asserts th a t she will take h im to th e “h o u se o f my m o th e r ” (se co n d stro p h e , lines 16A -D ). T h e sixth stanza substantially re p e a ts S ong 2 :6 -7 a n d closes o ff this can to . T h e w hole is a rra n g e d w ith th e m a n sin g in g o f his love fo r th e w om an in two stanzas, a tran sitio n a l e x c h an g e betw een th e singers, th e w om an sin g in g o f h e r love fo r th e m a n in two stanzas, a n d a co n c lu sio n w ith th e fam iliar a d ju ra tio n fo r th e m aid en s. T h e fo u r th c a n to (S ong 1 :9-2:7), w hich stands o p p o site this c a n to in th e larg e r s tru c tu re o f S ong o f Songs, also fe a tu re s th e wasf as a d o m in a n t fo rm al e le m e n t a n d is also m ad e u p o f six stanzas. T h e p o e t’s a r t is also in ev id en ce in th e c o n stru c tio n o f th e ind iv id u al strophes. In s tro p h e 2, asso n an ce links th e two lines (‫ אגן הסהר‬, “ro u n d e d g o b le t,” a n d ‫אל־יחסר‬, “d o es n o t lack ”). In stro p h es 14 a n d 15 (7:14 [ET 7 :13]-8:1) each has s o m e th in g o f an in clusion. L ine 14A b eg ins w ith ‫הדודאים‬, “th e m a n d ra k e s,” w hich so u n d s like ‫דודי‬, “m y lover,” a t th e b e g in n in g o f 14D. In stro p h e 15, b o th lines 15A a n d 15D e n d w ith ‫ לי‬, “to m e .” Still, th e co n stru c tio n o f th e stro p h es h e re d o es n o t have th e ela b o ra te artistry seen in o th e r p arts o f S ong o f Songs, p ro b a b ly b ecau se m u c h o f this m a te ria l is g o v ern ed by th e catalo g u e o f body p a rts in th e wasf. Comment

2 It is c u rio u s th a t h e b eg in s by sp e a k in g o f h e r fe e t “in sa n d a ls” since th ro u g h th e re st o f th e so n g it a p p e a rs th a t h e r e n tire body is ex p o se d to him . T h e d e sc rip tio n o f th e curves o f h e r hip s d o es n o t definitively say th a t h e r hips are ex p o se d , b u t it w ould seem to im ply it. If th e u n d e rs ta n d in g o f ‫ חלי‬as som eth in g like th e ro u n d e d cu rv e o f a g o ld e a rrin g is c o rre c t, it is an a p t m e ta p h o r

Comment

239

fo r a w o m a n ’s b are h ip. C ertainly h e r navel is ex p o sed to him in v 3. T h u s, it seem s, th e w om an in this wasf is p o rtra y e d as having little o r n o cloth in g . B ut, o f course, a so n g is n o t always co n sisten t a b o u t th ese things. It m ay be th a t a sandal, w h ich is an article o f c lo th in g th a t leaves m o st o f th e fo o t bare, is so m eth in g o f a tease. K eel ([1994] 231), o n th e basis o f a p o rtray al o f exiles in a re lie f from th e palace o f S e n n ac h arib , suggests th a t J u d e a n w om en n o rm ally w e n t b arefoot. If so, th e n th e san d al m ay convey th e id e a th a t she is dressed u p in a way th a t is p articu larly a llu rin g to him . Also, as Keel suggests, th e w earin g o f sandals m ay give h e r a dignity above th e c o m m o n w om an. A t S ong 6:12, b o th A m m i-nadiv a n d B ath‫־‬n adiv (“M y-beloved-is-a-prince” a n d “D aug h ter-o f-a-p rin ce”) are tak en to b e hypocorism s (p e t n am es) fo r th e m an a n d w om an. T h e se are evidently n o t th e ir given n am es b u t so b riq u ets they have bestow ed o n o n e an o th er. T h a t is, ea ch re g a rd s th e o th e r as reg al a n d praiseworthy. T h ese n a m e s d o n o t im ply th a t e ith e r is actually o f th e royal h o u seh o ld . T h e w o rd ‫ חלי‬a p p e a rs o n ly h e r e a n d a t P rov 25:12 in th e H e b rew B ible, alth o u g h H o s 2:15 has th e sim ilar ‫ חלי ה‬. T h e g e n e ric tra n sla tio n “o r n a m e n t” is n o t to o h e lp fu l. S om e r e n d e r it “je w e l,” b u t th is seem s un lik ely if by ‘je w e l” o n e m e a n s “g e m s to n e ,” since th e p o in t o f th e c o m p a riso n is th a t h e r th ig h is sm o o th a n d ro u n d e d , w h ich o f c o u rse a g e m sto n e is n o t. T h e P ro v erb s tex t has ‫ חלי‬p a ire d w ith ‫נזם‬, “e a r r in g ,” a n d in d ic a te s th a t a ‫ חלי‬was o fte n m a d e o f go ld , w h ich im p lies th a t ‫ חלי‬is also som e k in d o f rin g -sh a p e d (o r p e rh a p s ballsh a p e d ) p ie c e o f jew elry. 3 In E zek 16:4 th e ‫ שר‬is th e um bilical co rd , a n d in Prov 3:8 it is ap p a ren tly th e navel a n d by m etonym y stands fo r th e h e a lth o f th e body (parallel to ‫לעצמותיך‬, “to yo u r b o n e s ”). P o p e (617) observes th a t th e A rabic surr also m ean s “um bilical c o r d ” b u t n o te s th a t th e A rabic w o rd sirr m ean s “p u d e n d a ” o r “fo rn ic a tio n ,” a n d suggests th a t th e w o rd re fers to fem ale genitals. M any co m m e n ta to rs re g a rd th e “n av e l” h e re to actually b e th e w o m a n ’s vagina, a n d th u s they suggest th a t th e assertio n th a t it “n ev e r lacks fo r m ix ed w in e” refers to th e m o istu re o f an aro u se d w om an (th u s ap p a re n tly P o p e, 620, a n d M urphy, 185). O n th e o th e r h a n d , th e re is n o re aso n to tran slate ‫ שדרך‬as “y o u r valley,” as M urp h y (182) has d o n e. E vidence c ited above th a t it m ean s only “n av el” is q u ite clear. F u rth erm o re , th e ro u n d g o b le t is a fittin g m e ta p h o r fo r th e navel b u t a som ew hat p ec u lia r o n e fo r th e vagina. O f co u rse, it m ay well be th a t th e navel itself suggests th e w o m a n ’s g en itals eu p h em istically (L o n g m an , 195). O n th e surface at least, h e r belly a n d navel a re th e focus o f th e m a n ’s a d m ira tio n h ere. T h e ‫ אגן‬is a fairly larg e m ix in g bowl o r g o b le t an alo g o u s to th e G reek krater, th a t is, a big, tw o -h an d led bowl. P o p e (618) n o te s th a t th e san c tu a ry o f H irb e t S em rin has y ield ed n in e sp ecim en s o f sto n e bowls, som e o f w hich have th e inscrip tio n , “T h is k ra te r [ 'gn' dnh] so-and-so d e d ic a te d to such-and-such a deity,” a n d th a t an im age o f a bowl carv ed in to a cliff a t P e tra has an in scrip tio n th a t id en tifies it as an 'gn. It seem s o d d th a t a field o f w h eat w ould be h e d g e d a b o u t w ith lilies o r lotuses, b u t it m ay be th e w o m a n ’s belly a n d n o t th e w h eat th a t actually has th e flowers. In o th e r w ords, she m ay be w earin g a ch ain o f flowers a b o u t h e r waist. B ut even this m ay n o t be necessary; it m ay well be th a t th e flowers are p re s e n t in th e tex t sim ply to e n h a n c e th e p o rtrayal o f th e b eau ty o f th e “h e a p o f w h e a t” im agery, a n d th a t th e flow ers have n o special significance o r literal c o u n te rp a rt.

240

Song

of

Songs 7:2-8:4

W h a t m ay b e th e significance o f th e w ine a n d th e w h eat here? We have alre a d y n o t e d th a t sev eral a u th o r s ta k e ‫מזג‬, “w in e ,” to b e v a g in al m o is tu re . L o n g m a n (195) suggests th a t th e ‫חטים‬, “w h e a t,” is p u b ic hair; this in te rp re ta tio n req u ires th a t we take th e w ord ‫בטן‬, “belly,” to m ean specifically “pub ic h air,” w hich is ra th e r far-fetched. P rio r to L o n g m an , B re n n e r ( “C om e B ack,” 247) su g g ested th a t th e h e a p o f w h e at was p u b ic hair, b u t she saw a re fe re n c e to b o th belly a n d p u b ic h a ir in th e lan g u ag e. B re n n e r’s exegesis is q u ite p ec u lia r h ere; she claim s th e verse tells us th a t th e w om an o f th e S ong is “frankly, fa t” (“C om e B ack,” 248). T h e te x t speaks o f th e navel a n d all th e a b d o m in al area a n d n o t only o r specifically o f th e genitals. “W h e a t” d o es n o t suggest obesity. T h is verse speaks o f w ine a n d w heat, p ro d u c ts o f th e field a n d vineyard, in association w ith th e w o m a n ’s body. ‫חטים‬, “w h e a t,” occurs only h e re in th e S ong o f Songs, a lth o u g h “w in e” (h e re ‫מזג‬, elsew here ‫ )יין‬is u sed several tim es fo r th e p leasu res o f love. In k ee p in g w ith usage elsew here in th e Song, “w in e” usually refers n o t to som e specific bodily flu id (vaginal m o istu re, saliva, etc.) b u t to th e d elig h ts o f love g en erally (see S ong 1:2, 4; 2:4; 4:10; 5:1; 8:2). W heat, alo n g w ith barley, beans, a n d lentils, is a staple o f th e Israelite diet, b u t u n lik e sw eet fru its, honey, a n d w ine, it is n o t associated w ith ra p t p leasu re o r lovem aking. S om e suggest th a t th e c o lo r o f th e w o m an ’s belly m ay be sim ilar to th a t o f w heat; this m ay partially ex p lain th e lan g u ag e, b u t it do es n o t seem to be an a d e q u a te ex p la n a tio n . It m ay be th a t th e cu rv atu re o f b o u n d sheaves o f harv ested w h e a t su g g est th e c u rv a tu re o f th e w o m a n ’s waist. It w o u ld be m o re ce rta in th a t this was th e m e a n in g if th e p o e t h a d u sed th e w o rd ‫אלמה‬, “sh ea f,” in ste a d o f th e m o re am b ig u o u s ‫ערמה‬, “h e a p .” O n th e o th e r h a n d , ‫ אלמה‬only occurs in two verses in th e H eb rew S crip tu res (G en 37:7; Ps 126:6), a n d it m ay be th a t ‫ ערמה‬so m etim es re fe rre d to a sheaf. A sh ea f o f w h eat stalks b o u n d at th e m id d le c o u ld certain ly suggest a w o m a n ’s waist. (For a d esc rip tio n o f th e Israelite h arv est p ractices, see K ing a n d Stager, Life in Biblical Israel, 89-91.) Still, th e use o f ‫חטים‬, “w h e at,” h e re is striking. Since w heat, alo n g w ith th e o th e r staples o f th e Israelite diet, was essential fo r life a n d co u ld be re g a rd e d as th e p rim a ry fr u it o f th e field, it m ay b e th a t “w h e at” obliquely allu d es to th e w o m a n ’s distinctive re p ro d u c tiv e pow er, th e ability to grow a ch ild in h e r “belly” (o r “w o m b ,” ‫)בטן‬. F o r th e a n c ie n t Israelite, th e b irth o f th e first ch ild was n o t a lo n g -d e fe rre d blessing, m u c h less so m e th in g to avoid; it was th e m u ch -d esired fu lfillm e n t o f a m arria g e. C ouples d e sire d th e first p re g n an cy to co m e as soon as possible. T h u s, it is possible th a t th e m an h e re is also c e le b ratin g th e pow er o f th e w o m a n ’s “belly” to p ro d u c e fru it. T h e association o f w heat, th e staff o f life, w ith this po w er seem s a p p ro p ria te . T h e H eb rew ‫בטן‬, “belly, w om b, stom ach,” is an am biguous term , a n d it ap p ears th a t this verse m akes m u ch o f its ambiguity. O n o n e level, th e verse speaks o f th e sim ple beauty o f h e r navel a n d cu rv ed waist, like a b o u n d sh eaf o f w heat. O n ano th e r level, it suggests h e r genital area as well as sexual arousal. O n a th ird level, it speaks o f h e r as o n e w ho has th e pow er o f fertility in h e r “belly.” In o th e r w ords, th e m e a n in g o f th e verse sh o u ld n o t be lim ited e ith e r to th e w o m an ’s navel an d waist o r simply to h e r vagina a n d to sexual arousal b u t should encom pass h e r w hole “belly” with all its beauty, sexuality, a n d fertile power. 4 T h is verse re p eats, in ab b rev iated fo rm , Song 4:5 (see Comment th e re ). T his re p e titio n re m in d s th e re a d e r th a t m u c h o f th e lan g u ag e o f th e S ong is

Comment

241

form ulaic. T h u s, o n e sh o u ld be carefu l a b o u t re a d in g to o m u ch in to a m etaph o r. T h e im age o f th e breasts as two fawns is striking, b u t it is n o t necessarily la d e n w ith m u ltip le m ean in g s. 5 D espite th e p re se n c e o f th e d efin ite article, tran slatio n s alm ost always rend e r ‫ כמגדל השן‬as “like a n ivory to w er” in stead o f “like the ivory tow er.” It is unlikely, o f cou rse, th a t th e te x t refers to a tow er actually m ad e o f ivory o r even covered in ivory. T h e ex p e n se w ould be p ro hibitive. Like th e “h o u ses o f ivory” in Am os 3:15, th e tow er d esc rib ed h e re m ay have h a d som e ivory in o r o n it, o r it m ay have sim ply lo o k ed like ivory. C o u ld th e p o e t b e sp eak in g o f an im ag in ary object? T his is n o t likely, since u n re a l objects m ak e fo r p o o r sim iles a n d it is n o t a n o rm a l strategy o f th e Song. T h e article, m oreover, suggests th a t it is a real tow er (c o n trast th e idealized, ind efin ite “palaces o f ivory” in Ps 45:9 [ET 4 5:8]). I t p ro b ab ly h a d th e n am e simply b ecause it was w hitish in color. O th e r item s u sed fo r sim iles a n d m e ta p h o rs in th is c o n te x t (B ath R ab b im , H e sh b o n , C arm el) a re re a l o b jects a n d p ro p e r nam es. By th e sam e to k e n , ‫ כמגדל הלבנון‬is “like th e tow er o f L e b a n o n ” a n d sh o u ld n o t be tra n sla te d as an in d e fin ite n o u n . In a sm u ch as this tow er is said to be lo o k in g tow ard D am ascus, it is a specific tower. T h e ‘T o w e r o f Ivory” is b o th like a n d u n lik e th e ‘T o w er o f D avid” with w hich th e m an describ es th e w om an in S ong 4:4. In b o th cases, th e p o in t is n o t th a t th e re is som e visual c o rre s p o n d e n c e betw een th e w o m a n ’s n ec k a n d th e aforem e n tio n e d to w ers, a lth o u g h th e sim ilarity o f a n e c k to a to w er n o d o u b t suggested th e m e ta p h o r to th e p o et. R ather, th e dignity a n d aw esom eness o f the tow ers is a p p lie d to th e w om an. O n th e o th e r h a n d , ‘T o w er o f D avid” in 4:4 p re sen ts th e a u d ie n c e w ith so m eth in g like a fortress, a n d th e te rm th e re conn o tes im pregnability. T h e n a m e “Tow er o f Ivory,” by co n trast, im plies a tow er o f striking b eau ty a n d craftsm an sh ip — a tow er th a t is b eau tifu l in its cream y w hite co lo ra tio n . T h e c h a n g e in m e ta p h o r is significant. She is n o lo n g e r im p reg n a b le to him , a n d th e m ilitary lan g u ag e has d isa p p e a re d . B ut she is n o t bow ed. She re m a in s a tow er o f s tre n g th a n d eleg an ce. It goes w ith o u t saying th a t th e usage does n o t re fe r to th e a rro g a n t a n d a lo o f sch o lar im p lied in th e E nglish term , “ivory tow er.” H e sh b o n was lo cate d in th e T ra n sjo rd a n w est o f th e n o rth e r n ed g e o f the D ead Sea. It is id e n tifie d w ith Tell H esb an . A rch aeological re searc h has to d ate y ielded little m ateria l re m a in s fro m th e Iro n Age, a lth o u g h evidence fo r occup a tio n g o es b ac k to a t least 1200 B.C.E. T h e biblical n a rra tiv e in d ic a te s th a t H e sh b o n was o c c u p ie d ea rlie r th a n th at; N u m 2 1 :25-34 id en tifies it as th e city o f K ing S ih o n o f th e A m orites. T h e re are a n u m b e r o f reserv o irs in th e area; o n e o f th ese c o u ld have b e e n th e p o o ls th a t th e Song m en tio n s. S tratu m 17 (n in th to e ig h th ce n tu ries) o f Tell H e sb a n in p a rtic u la r has yielded a large reserv o ir o n th e so u th side o f th e Tell. It was fifteen m eters to a side a n d h a d a capacity o f a b o u t two m illion liters. L. T. G eraty ( “H e sh b o n ,” ABD 3:181-84) suggests th a t this m ay have b e e n th e re serv o ir o f S ong 7:5, alth o u g h , if th e d ate fo r th e S ong th a t this c o m m e n ta ry suggests is c o rre c t (te n th c e n tu ry ), a n o th e r p o o l is p ro b a b ly m ean t. G eraty also d escribes an egg-shaped cistern from th e tw elfth o r elev e n th c e n tu ry (in S tern , Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, 2:628). H e sh b o n ap p a re n tly u n d e rw e n t a v io len t d e stru c tio n at th e e n d o f S tratu m 16 (seventh to sixth c e n tu ry ). A p p aren tly th e site was a b a n d o n e d fo r a b o u t th re e

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h u n d re d years, fro m ca. 500 B.C.E. to ca. 200 B.C.E. (L. T. G eraty in E. S tern , Archaeology o f the Land o f the Bible, 2:628), a n d was re b u ilt in th e H ellen istic era.

T h e eyes su g g est p o o ls o f w a te r to p o e ts b ec au se th ey are m o ist a n d reflective a n d have d e p th. A re se rv o ir also c o n n o te s th e d rin k in g o f w ater, a n d th u s th e lin e m ay im ply th e id e a o f d rin k in g in h e r beauty. H e r eyes are a p a rtic u la r focu s o f a d o ra tio n fo r th e m a n , a n d h e d esc rib es th e m in a series o f m e ta ‫־‬ p h o rs a n d ex p ressio n s. T h ey a re like doves (S ong 1:15; 4:1); th ey ex c ite h im (4:9) a n d a ro u se h im (6:5). It was su g g ested above th a t th e p rio r re fe re n c e s m e a n th a t sh e is sexually attractive. O n th e surface, a t least, this final m e ta p h o r seem s d iffe re n t since pools o f w ater d o n o t in any obvious way suggest sexual arou sal— u n u su a l in th e c o n te x t o f a wasf filled w ith sexually c h a rg e d lan g u ag e . T h is stan za m oves u p w a rd fro m th e fe e t b u t really g ravitates to w ard th e face a n d h e a d . T h is focus o n h e r h e a d im p lies his love fo r th e d istinctive b ea u ty o f h e r face a n d in d e e d fo r th e p e rs o n th a t h e r face re p re se n ts. H e is e x c ite d by her, b u t even in his aw areness o f h e r b re asts a n d p e rh a p s g en itals, v 3, h e has n o t lo st sig h t o f h e r face. T h e p ro c la m atio n th a t h e r nose is like th e tow er o f L eb an o n m ay seem com ical to th e m o d e rn re a d e r a n d suggests th a t she has an unusually lo n g nose. T his is certainly n o t th e p o e t’s in ten tio n . A gain, th e ‫מגדל‬, “tower,” co n n o tes dignity a n d stren g th . Also, a tow er can ad d g re at sym m etry a n d beauty to a landscape a n d will focus a view er’s atte n tio n o n itself. In th e sam e m an n er, the w o m an ’s nose perfectly sets o ff th e sym m etry o f h e r face a n d elicits th e m a n ’s adm iration. 6 ‫ ראשך עליך ככרמל‬is literally “y o u r h e a d u p o n you is like C a rm e l,” w hich so u n d s p ecu liarly c ru d e . B u t ‫ עליך‬p ro b ab ly im plies th e effect th a t h e r h e a d a n d h a ir as she has a rra n g e d it have o n h e r overall ap p e a ra n c e , a n d n o t ju s t to th e fact th a t h e r h e a d sits o n h e r body. H e r h e a d has n o visual sim ilarity to M o u n t C arm el (th e “C a rm e l” h e re is th e h e a d la n d [“M o u n t C a rm e l”] th a t ju ts in to th e M e d ite rra n e a n n o rth o f th e p lain o f S h a ro n a n d n o t th e village C arm el in J u d a h ) . T h e fact th a t th e H eb rew ‫ראש‬, “h e a d ,” is also u sed fo r b o th th e p e a k o f a m o u n ta in (2 Sam 15:32) a n d th e h a ir o f th e h e a d (Isa 7:20) m ay have suggested this co m p ariso n to th e po et. T h e n am e Carmel m e a n s “o r c h a rd ” o r “vin ey ard ,” b u t th e w ord is n o t u sed as a co m m o n n o u n in th e Song. T h e re g io n has fe rtile g ro u n d fo r olives, g rain , a n d grapes, w hich m akes it all th e m o re fo rtu ito u s as a re p re se n ta tio n o f th e w om an. C arm el was also a sacred site fro m at least th e sec o n d m ille n n iu m a n d th u s was an ap ‫־‬ p ro p ria te settin g fo r th e co n te st b etw een E lijah a n d th e priests o f th e fertility gods Baal a n d A sh erah (1 Kgs 18); cf. H . O. T h o m p so n , “C arm el, M o u n t,” ABD 1:874-75. M o u n t C arm el is n o t especially tall (a b o u t 550 m eters [1800 fe e t]), b u t its p ro m in e n c e above th e p lain s a n d th e sea m ake it all th e m o re strikingly b eau tifu l. T h is lin e p rim arily in d icates th a t h e r h e a d /h a ir co m p letes th e b eau ty o f h e r b ody ju s t as C arm el gives special b eau ty to th e lan d scap e in w hich it sits, b u t th e c o m p ariso n suggests h e r fe cu n d ity as well. T h e only an alo g u e to ‫“ דלה‬strands o f hair,” as used h ere is in Isa 38:12, w here it is th e w arp o f a fabric. It is from th e ro o t ‫ ד ל ל‬, “to h an g dow n,” a n d thus m eans locks o r stran d s o f hair. T h e w ord ‫ ארגמן‬usually refers to cloth dyed d ee p reddishp u rp le fro m th e shell o f th e m u rex shellfish. H ere, it seem s to re fe r to th read s th a t have b e e n dyed this color b u t th a t have n o t yet b een woven in to cloth. Perh aps th e a u d ie n c e is m e a n t to u n d e rs ta n d th a t th e w om an literally has d e e p

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reddish-black hair; even so, this p a rtic u la r w o r d , ‫ א ת מן‬, was probably chosen because th e dye was very costly a n d fabrics m ad e with this coloring w ere highly prized. T h e m e ta p h o r o f th e lo o m im plies th a t h e r fe m in in e pow er is g re a te r th a n th e m o st vigorous fo rm o f m ascu lin e power, th a t o f a king. W eaving was in th e a n c ie n t w orld o ften c o n sid e re d to be th e q u in tessen tial w o m an ’s work. T h e ideal wife o f Prov 31:19 stretch e s o u t h e r h a n d to th e d istaff (by co n trast, it was a disgrace fo r a m an to w ork w ith th e d istaff ac c o rd in g to D avid’s curse in 2 Sam 3:29). T h e re w ere ex c ep tio n s to this ru le ; th e craftsm en w ho fa b ricated th e te n t o f m e e tin g in c lu d e d m e n w ho w ere skilled a t w eaving (E xod 3 5 :34-35), implyin g th a t th e re was a p ro fessio n al g u ild o f m e n w ho in c lu d e d w eaving in th e ir skills. Even so, th ro u g h o u t th e a n c ie n t w orld, th e loom a n d d istaff w ere alm ost invariably associated w ith w om en. In a sm u c h as weaving co m p lex p a tte rn s involved a g o o d d ea l o f skill as well as an ability to m ake calculations, weaving is associated w ith c u n n in g a n d in tellig e n ce in w om en. T his th e m e ap p e ars rep eatedly in G reek m ythology. A riadne, a C retan princess a n d d a u g h te r o f K ing M inos, e n a b le d T h e s e u s to e sc a p e th e la b y rin th by g iving h im a sk ein o f th re a d . P en elo p e , wife o f O dysseus, h a d to c o n te n d w ith suitors w ho so u g h t to p e rsu ad e h e r th a t h e r h u s b a n d was d ead . She b o u g h t tim e fo r h e rse lf by tellin g th e m th a t she w o u ld ch o o se a new h u sb a n d as soon as she fin ish ed weaving a sh ro u d , b u t every n ig h t she u n ra v eled th e w ork o f th e previous day. T h e story o f A ra ch n e shows how m u c h p rid e w om en co u ld take in th e ir skills. A ra ch n e was so accom p lish ed a t w eaving th a t she c h a lle n g e d th e god d ess A th e n a to a co m p etitio n ; she w on, b u t th e sp itefu l g oddess c h a n g e d h e r in to a spider. In th e Bible, th e crafty D elilah so u g h t to u n d o S am so n ’s stre n g th by weaving th e stran d s o f his h a ir in to a lo o m (Judg 6:1 3 -1 4 ). T h u s, it is n o t su rp risin g th a t th e te n o r associates th e w o m a n ’s ability to su b d u e h im w ith th e c u n n in g skills o f th e loom . H e re, th e b a n te r is loving a n d joyful, a n d th e re is n o h in t o f m alice o r suspicion. 7 T h is verse b eg in s a new stanza in th e te n o r ’s p a r t o f this can to . T h e o p en in g lin e “how b ea u tifu l you a r e ” c o rre sp o n d s to “how b eau tifu l are yo u r fe e t” at th e o p e n in g o f th e first stanza. T h e o p e n in g stro p h e (S ong 7:7, lines 9A -B) is b rie f a n d abstract; th e m u c h lo n g e r sec o n d s tro p h e o f this stanza (7:8-9, lines 10A-F) co n c retely (a lb e it m etap h o rically ) d escribes th e w o m an ’s body a n d his d esire to m ak e love to her. M u rp h y (186) takes 7:7 as th e co n clu sio n to th e first stanza, re g a rd in g it as an in clu sio n w ith 7:2. T h is is possible, b u t tak en this way, th e sec o n d stanza o r wasf begins q u ite a b ru p tly a n d w ith o u t any lead-in. ‫ אהבה בתענוגים‬is literally “love w ith th e d e lig h ts” (“you a r e ” is im p lied ). O n e co u ld tak e ‫ אהבה‬to re fe r to th e w om an h e rs e lf (an ab stract fo r co n c rete) a n d th u s re n d e r it “b elo v ed .” S om e fu r th e r d evelop this in te rp re ta tio n by re a d in g w ith th e Syriac a n d A quila ‫ ב ת תגננוגים‬, “d elig h tfu l g irl,” fo r ‫וגים‬1‫ בתע‬. B ut ‫ אהבה‬is n ev er co n c re tiz e d in this way elsew here in th e S ong (it occurs eleven tim es over ten v erses). Since ‫ אהבה‬is a co m m o n ab stra ct n o u n a n d th e p h ra se is intelligible as it stands, I take it to be an ex clam atio n a b o u t how th rille d h e is w ith his relatio n sh ip to her. T h e re fo re , lin e 9B sh o u ld n o t be tra n s la te d “O loved o n e , d elig h tfu l d a u g h te r” (so M urphy, 80), b u t in c o n te x t as “(You are) love w ith all its d elig h ts.” H e d o es n o t sim ply use th e ab stra c t ‫ אהבה‬as a co n c re te n o u n , as “O loved o n e ” w ould have it. R ather, h e asserts th a t th e ab stract quality o f love is m ad e c o n c re te in th e w o m a n ’s body. She is, fo r h im , th e in c a rn a te fo rm o f th e d elig h ts o f love.

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8 ‫קומתך‬, lit. “y o u r h e ig h t,” h e re re fe rs to th e im p ressio n conveyed by th e w o m a n ’s e n tire bod y w h en view ed fro m h e a d to toe, h en c e “yo u r full p h y siq u e.” T h e ‫תמר‬, “d a te p a lm ,” is am o n g th e o ld est cu ltivated fru it trees. A c co rd in g to I. Ja c o b a n d W. Ja c o b (“F lo ra ,” ABD 2 :8 0 3 -1 7 ), it was a m arvelously useful p la n t in th a t every p a r t o f it co u ld be p u t to use in c o n stru c tio n a n d weaving. F u rn itu re , fences, ro p es, wigs, baskets, a n d m any o th e r item s co u ld be p ro d u c e d in th e a n c ie n t N e a r E ast fro m th e raw m aterials o f this tree. In a d d itio n , its flow ers are w hite a n d fra g ra n t a n d its fru it very sweet. T h e tree h a d lo n g b e e n associa te d w ith w o m en in th e Levant; ‫( תמר‬T am ar) is a w o m an ’s n a m e in G en 38:6 a n d 2 Sam 13:1. T h e tree is also q u ite g ra n d a n d can grow to o n e h u n d re d fe e t in h eig h t. T h u s, th e m a n ’s c h o se n m e ta p h o r is b o th suitable a n d highly com plim en tary . N o visual sim ilarity is im p lied betw een th e signified a n d th e signifier. Keel ([1994] 2 4 2-43) also observes th a t th e d ate p alm is associated w ith fertility goddesses th ro u g h o u t th e a n c ie n t w orld a n d th a t it also is re g a rd e d as th e p a tte r n o f th e holy tree. In M eso p o tam ian cy linder seals, fo r ex am p le, th e d a te p alm a p p e a rs alo n g sid e im ages o f Ishtar. T his association is im p o rta n t, b u t it is possible to m ak e 1:00 m u c h o f it. I c a n n o t ag ree w ith Keel ([1994] 246) th a t “th e m a n ’s p la n to clim b th e p alm a n d lay h o ld o f its d ate clusters (o r breasts) has th e a u ra o f a sacral a c t.” A gain, c o n tra ry to m any m o d e rn in te rp re te rs, th e S ong does n o t ritualize sexuality o r tre a t sexual in te rc o u rse as a sacred event. Similarly, th e a d o ra tio n o f th e w om an stops s h o rt o f deifying her. Still, th e fact th a t th e d a te p alm in a n c ie n t th in k in g was la d e n w ith significance as a m e ta p h o r o f fem ale sexuality n o d o u b t h elp s to d ire c t th e ch o ice o f sym bols u sed h e re . T h e w om an (n o t th e goddess) is fo r h im th e ex p ressio n o f sexual p ow er a n d pleasure th a t th e d a te p alm re p resen ts. T h e c o m p ariso n o f h e r breasts to th e clusters o f d ates does n o t m e a n th a t she is im a g in e d to be m any-breasted, like A rtem is o f E phesus, w hose ch e st is cove re d w ith b reasts (or, p erh ap s, w ith e g g s). T h e fru it o f th e d a te p alm is sweet, a n d it is th e fru it th a t especially draw s p e o p le to th e tree. So also th e b reasts o f th e w o m an give p leasu re a n d strongly a ttra c t th e m an . Also, indiv id u al d ates are ra th e r sm all, b u t th e d a te clusters th a t grow o n d a te palm s are ro u n d e d in a m a n n e r th a t som ew hat resem b les a w o m a n ’s breast. 9 ‫אמרתי‬, “I said,” indicates th e m a n ’s resolve to enjoy th e w o m an ’s body. T his in d icatio n o f resolve works well w ith a m e ta p h o r o f clim bing a date-palm tree. In lig h t o f th e h eig h t th a t these trees co u ld attain, as well as th e prim itive n a tu re o f any clim bing e q u ip m e n t th a t th e a n c ie n t o rc h a rd fa rm er m ig h t have possessed, g o in g u p a d ate palm to g et th e fru it w ould have b ee n n o small task. T his do es n o t m ean th a t m aking love to th e w om an req u ires som e h ero ic show o f stren g th o n his p art; it only m ean s th a t desire to enjoy h e r pleasures is equal to th e desire a n d d e te rm in a tio n o n e w ould n e e d in o rd e r to scale th e d ate palm fo r its fruit. T h e focus o n th e w o m an ’s breasts as a source o f pleasure recalls th e ex h o rtation o f Prov 5:19: “L et (your w ife’s) breasts satisfy you at all times; be ex h ilarated w ith h e r love always” (my tran slatio n ). Keel ([1994] 246) observes th a t this focus o n th e breasts is re m in isce n t o f th e “pillar goddesses” from a n c ie n t Israel (esped ally e ig h th to sixth c e n tu ry B .C .E .) . T hese are fem ale figures, n u d e b u t som etim es with few clearly d efin e d anatom ical details ex c ep t fo r a p air o f large breasts. As Keel notes, ea rlier statuary o ften gave em phasis to th e fem ale genitals b u t p aid little o r n o atte n tio n to th e breasts. N otew orthy in this re g ard is th e “G ilat w o m an ,”

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a fo u rth -m illen n iu m fig u rin e fo u n d in th e B eer-sheba basin (see Joffe, Dessel an d H allote, Near Eastern Archaeology 64.1-2 [2001] 8 -23). This rep resen tatio n o f a n u d e w om an is q u ite prim itive; she has a barrel-sh ap ed torso a n d a ro u n d h e a d with small p o in ts re p re se n tin g th e ears. H e r face is crudely p a in te d on. H e r arm s an d legs are sticklike pieces. Strangely, however, alth o u g h h e r breasts are insignificant poin ts o n h e r chest, h e r genitals are th e m ost realistic ele m e n t o f h e r e n tire body, even to th e p o in t o f re p re se n tin g h e r pubic h air with a series o f carefully d o n e incisions in th e cro tch area o f h e r te rra co tta body. N o such a tte n tio n is given to th e h a ir o f h e r head . Keel ([1994] 250) has re p ro d u ctio n s o f second-m illennium scarabs from Gezer, Lachish, a n d elsew here th a t likewise focus all atten tio n on a n ak ed w o m an ’s cro tch b u t give n o a tten tio n to th e breasts. T hus, it is possible th a t the shift fro m a focus strictly o n th e w o m an ’s genitals to a focus o n th e breasts speaks o f a shift away from an em phasis strictly o n fertility a n d re p ro d u c tio n to a focus o n th e pleasures o f sexuality. Be th a t as it may, it is at least clear th a t the atten tio n o n th e breasts h ere a n d in Prov 5 indicates th a t sexual activity is for p leasu re also a n d n o t simply fo r re p ro d u ctio n . L ine 1 0 D , ‫ אחזה בסנסניו‬, “I will h o ld its p an icle o f d ates,” c o u ld be re n d e re d w ith “I will g ra b ” o r “seize.” T his seem s a v io len t term , a n d it co u ld be tak en by the w om an to be a c ru d e if n o t p ain fu l actio n o n his p art. However, all m u st be re a d in co n te x t, a n d th e verb sim ply describes his en th u siasm a b o u t h e r breast. In th e larg e r co n tex t, in w hich b o th m an a n d w om an are ex h ilaratin g in th e ir jo y o f love, this verb n e e d n o t be tak en to be an offensively aggressive action. T h e m e ta p h o rs shift in lines 10E, w h ere h e r b reast is like a b u n c h o f grapes, a n d 10F, w h e re h e r n ip p le has th e fra g ra n c e o f apples. T h e c o m p a riso n o f lovem aking a n d especially o f th e w o m a n ’s body to fru it is n o t unu su al. 10 T his a n d th e n e x t verse m ake an a n tip h o n al transition to th e so p ra n o ’s part. ‫ כיין הטוב‬, lit. “like th e wine o f th e g o o d ,” is th e wine o f a very g o o d vintage an d thus m o re th a n ju s t “g o o d w ine.” W ine is associated with th e act o f kissing in Song 1:2, a n d th e re feren ces to lips a n d te e th (as in th e p ro p o sed em en d a tio n ) fu rth e r im ply th a t kissing is th e focus o f this stanza. T h e a n tip h o n al singing o f these lyrics im plies th a t th e activity is equally delightful for b o th th e m an a n d th e w om an. 11 In S ong 2:16 a n d 6:3, th e w om an sim ply sings th a t she belo n g s to h e r lover a n d h e r lover b elo n g s to her. H e re, she sings, “I b e lo n g to my lover, a n d his d esire is fo r m e .” W hy does she n o t assert th a t h e b elongs to her? C ertainly it is still tru e th a t h e b elo n g s to h er; th e o w n ersh ip has n o t b ec o m e a one-way street. N evertheless, th e c h a n g e d lan g u ag e m ay be significant. T h e locus o f love a n d d esire h e re is th e w o m a n ’s body; all possessiveness a n d d esire are d ire c te d tow ard her. W hile it is still tru e th a t th e m an a n d w om an m utually possess o n e an o th e r, it is th e w o m a n ’s body th a t is th e d o m a in o f th e ir love. Like th e E nglish w o rd desire, th e H eb rew ‫ תשוקה‬can be health y o r pathological. It a p p e a rs th re e tim es in th e H eb rew Bible, at G en 3:16 a n d 4:7 a n d in this verse. In G en 4:7 sin is m etap h o rically p re se n te d as som e k in d o f cro u ch in g beast th a t desires to am b u sh a n d ca rry away C ain as its prey; th e re , th e “d e sire ” is clearly evil. T h e in te rp re ta tio n o f G en 3:16 is d eb a te d , b u t in th a t c o n te x t as well, th e desire sh o u ld be re g a rd e d as p ath o lo g ical. T h e relev an t line, ‘T o u r desire will be fo r y o u r h u sb an d , a n d h e will ru le y o u ” (NIV), gram m atically m atch es G en 4:7 a n d so p ro b ab ly sh o u ld be given th e sam e re ad in g , th a t th e desire is a negative d esire (c o n trast T rible, God and theRhetonc of Sexuality, 160). In th e con-

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tex t o f G en 3:16, m oreover, G o d is d e sc rib in g th e p ain a n d co n flict th a t will e n te r th e w o m a n ’s life b ecau se o f sin. N e ith e r th e d esire o f th e w om an n o r th e ru le by th e m an can be in te rp re te d in th a t c o n te x t as positive o r healthy. Because o f th e fall, th e id eal o f m a rria g e is in G en 3 p o rtra y ed as sh a tte re d a n d deadly. T h e w om an will “d e s ire ” th e m an , b u t it will be an u n h ealth y , clinging, a n d c o n tro llin g desire. T h e m an , likewise, will “r u le ” th e w om an n o t in a ben e v o le n t fa sh io n b u t as a co ld oppressor. N evertheless, this usage is n o t d ete rm in a tiv e fo r th e m e a n in g o f ‫ תשוקה‬in S ong 7:11. In th e Song, th e id eal o f love a n d m a rria g e is re p re se n te d alm ost as th o u g h th e fall h a d n ev e r h a p p e n e d . O n e s h o u ld n o t tran sfer th e m e a n in g o f ‫ תשוקה‬in G enesis to th e Song. S ong o f Songs p re se n ts love, sexuality, a n d th e p leasu res o f a m a n a n d w om an as co m p assio n ate as well as ro b u st a n d healthy. 12 It is d ifficu lt to know w h at to m ak e o f ‫בכפרים‬. M ost versions a n c ie n t a n d m o d e rn take ‫ קפךים‬to m e a n “villages” (e.g., LXX: K iipats). W hy w o uld she w an t to go to th e villages unless “villages” h e re sim ply m ean s “c o u n try sid e ”? O n th e o th e r h a n d , ‫ בפרים‬m e a n in g “h e n n a ” is o n e o f th e d elights o f love in S ong 1:14 a n d in p a rtic u la r o f th e w o m a n ’s body a t S ong 4:13. In a sm u c h as this is an invitatio n to love (v 13: “th e re I will give you m y love”), it seem s best to tak e ‫ כפרים‬to re fe r to h e n n a . In 1:14, h e r lover a n d th e love h e has fo r h e r are like h e n n a blossom s th a t a d o rn h e r beauty. In 4:13, th e m an uses h e n n a as p a r t o f a m etap h o ric a l d e sc rip tio n o f th e m a n ifo ld p leasu res th a t h e r body gives him . T h u s, to s p e n d th e n ig h t a m o n g th e h e n n a is self-evidently an invitation to h im to enjoy love w ith her. H e r in v itatio n to h im to go to th e fields is p ro b ab ly a d o u b le e n te n d re . N o d o u b t lovers d id literally go o u t in to th e fields to enjoy th e ir love in privacy. T h e level o f privacy o n e co u ld fin d o u t in th e fields, in c o n tra st to th e close q u a rte rs in th e co n fin e s o f cities a n d villages, to say n o th in g o f ho u ses w ith e x te n d e d fam ilies, is e v id en t in th e ra p e legislation o f D e u t 22:23-27. A t th e sam e tim e, th e fields, like th e g ard en s, vineyard, a n d m eadow s o f th e Song o f Songs, symbolize th e p leasu res o f love. 13 As M u rp h y (187) observes, ‫נשכימה‬, “le t us go early,” d o es n o t d e n o te a sec o n d ro u n d o f jo u rn e y s b u t is p arallel to th e in vitation in th e p revious verse. T h e so p ra n o is th e singer. L ines 13B a n d 13D re p e a t v erb atim two lines fo u n d in S ong 6:11; th e w om an is th e sin g er th e re as well. A t 6:11, th e w o m a n ’s w ords signify e x p e c ta tio n . H e r w ords a re follow ed by h e r b e in g sw ept away o n th e c h a rio t o f Am m i-nadiv. S ong 6:11-7:1 c o n tin u e s th e tran sitio n o f th e w om an fro m m a id e n to wife. In S ong 7:13, in c o n tra st to 6:11, th e w om an d o es n o t go dow n to th e g a rd e n s alo n e b u t invites th e m a n to go w ith her. T h e m o tif o f 6:11 is th e re flectio n s o f a y o u n g w om an o n h e r own b lossom ing a n d tra n sfo rm a tio n , w hile th e m o tif o f 7:13 is jo in t e x p lo ra tio n a n d discovery. T h u s, a lth o u g h it is c o rre c t to say th a t th e re is a sexual m e a n in g b e h in d h e r w ords, th e re is m o re to it th a n sim ply a n o th e r in v itatio n to a tryst u n d e r th e guise o f a g a rd e n . T h e g a rd e n h a d b e e n an a re n a o f w aiting a n d ex p e ctatio n , b u t now it is w h e re she a n d h e r m a n ex p lo re th e d elig h ts o f love to g eth er. H e re, too, th e re is a d o u b le e n te n d re . W hile th e vineyards a n d groves sym bolize sexuality a n d sexual discovery, they a re also lite ral vineyards a n d groves th a t y o u n g lovers e x p lo re to g eth er. 14 T h is is th e only place in th e S ong o f Songs w h ere m an d ra k e s are m entio n e d . T h e only o th e r place they a p p e a r in th e Bible is in th e fam o u s ep iso d e

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o f L e a h ’s m a n d ra k e s (G en 30:14-16). A g re a t d eal o f su p erstitio n a n d folklore su rro u n d s th e m a n d ra k e . Its ro o ts can som ew hat resem b le a h u m a n fo rm (similar to g in sen g , w hich is also called “A sian m a n d ra k e ”), a n d le g e n d says th a t it scream s w h en u p ro o te d a n d th a t its scream s can cause d e a th o r insanity. It is re g a rd e d in fo lk lo re as having curative o r fertility pow ers, a n d it has b e e n u sed as a narco tic (it can in fact be q u ite to x ic). A ccording to Jac o b a n d Ja c o b ( “F lo ra,” ABD 2 :8 0 3 -1 7 ), it has a “bluish-violet, b ell-sh ap ed flower.” It is notew orthy, esped ally in lig h t o f th e su p p o sed pow ers o f th e m a n d ra k e ro o t, th a t th e w om an actually m akes n o m e n tio n o f th e ro o t b u t only refers to its flow er a n d th e frag ra n ce th a t th e flow er gives. However, Keel ([1994] 257-59) suggests th a t th e frag ran c e o f th e m a n d ra k e was th o u g h t by th e an cien ts to possess ap h ro d isiac powers. M ost significantly, h e p o in ts to a p a in te d re lie f from Tell el-A m arna (fourte e n th c e n tu r y ) in w h ic h a n E g y p tian q u e e n h o ld s m a n d ra k e s u n d e r th e p h a r a o h ’s n o se in o rd e r to aro u se his sexual in terest. T h e C airo love songs, similarly, re g a rd th e sm elling o f m an d ra k es to b e a p re lu d e to lovem aking. T h e so p ra n o sings th a t all m a n n e r o f ch o ice fru its are a t th e ir doorw ays. T h e doorw ay c o u ld b e tak en to be a n o th e r sym bol o f th e w o m an ’s genitals, b u t this is unlikely since she speaks o f “o u r doorw ays.” T h e p ic tu re is o f a h o u se th a t is g ra n d e n o u g h to have m o re th a n o n e doorw ay a n d th a t has varieties o f fruitb e a rin g o r flo w erin g p la n ts a t th e doorw ays. T h e doorw ays also suggest th e H eb rew c o n c e p t o f “g o in g in a n d c o m in g o u t,” an id io m fo r e n g a g in g in daily activity o f all kinds (e.g., D e u t 28:6). In a d d itio n , ‫ חדשים גכרישנים‬, “new thin g s as well as o ld ,” is a m erism fo r “all kinds o f th in g s.” T h e lan g u ag e th u s suggests th a t th e h o m e o f th e c o u p le is richly en d o w ed w ith delig h ts o f every kind, b o th fam iliar a n d new. Sexuality is n o t ab se n t fro m this im age— certainly th e c o n te x t is c h a rg e d w ith sexual lan g u ag e— b u t th e sexuality is set in an id ealized p o rtra it o f d om estic h ap p in ess. T h e affec tio n ate giving o f th e w o m a n ’s body to h e r m an is re p re s e n te d in th e last lines o f th e two stro p h es fo u n d in w 13-14. S tro p h e 14 (v 13) en d s w ith ‘T h e r e I will give you m y love” (line 13E), a n d stro p h e 15 (v 14) en d s w ith “my lover, I have tre a su re d (these) fo r y o u ” (line 14D). T h e w om an stands at th e c e n te r o f a joyful, loving h o m e. 8:1 T h e w o m a n ’s wish th a t h e r m an co u ld b e h e r b ro th e r so u n d s m o st pecu liar to m o d e rn ears, as th o u g h she h a d a stran g e d esire fo r incest. T h e re a d e r m ust, however, b e a r two th in g s in m in d . First, brother a n d sister w ere co m m o n term s o f e n d e a rm e n t betw een lovers in th e a n c ie n t N ear East, as is in d ic a te d by th e fre q u e n t use o f th e term s in th e E gyptian love poetry. S econd, she is n o t w ishing th a t she c o u ld m ake love to h im in pu b lic, b u t she is w ishing th a t she co u ld b e m o re p u b lic a b o u t h e r affectio n fo r him . A p p aren tly any p u b lic show o f affectio n b etw een a m an a n d w om an, even a h u sb a n d a n d wife, was severely c e n su re d in Israelite society a t this tim e. O n e c o u ld publicly kiss a close b lo o d relative, however, w ith o u t aro u sin g th e ire o f th e co m m u n ity (G en 29:11). T hus, h e r d esire is n o t to kiss h e r b ro th e r b u t to m ake know n u n ash am ed ly h e r love fo r h e r h u sb a n d . T h e sexual life o f a co u p le is p ro p e rly k e p t private, b u t this very privacy p rev en ts th e w om an fro m in any way expressin g o p en ly th e jo y she has fo u n d in h e r m a n ’s love. O n e sh o u ld a d d th a t she is n o m o re ex h ib itio n ist th a n she is in cestu o u s, b u t she w ould like to kiss in pu b lic to le t everyone know how she feels a b o u t him . A fem ale sin g er in th e sixth stanza o f P apyrus C h ester

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Beatty I g ro u p A expresses exactly th e sam e d esire to be able to kiss h e r “b r o th e r ” w ith o u t fe ar o f re p ro a c h . T h e lan g u ag e w ith w hich th e w om an o f S ong o f Songs describes th e m an as “b ro th e r ,” however, is arrestin g : “o n e w ho su ck ed a t th e breasts o f m y m o th e r.” T his lin e looks b ack to th e e n d o f th e m a n ’s piece, in w hich h e spoke o f his d e te rm in a tio n to g e t to th e w o m a n ’s breasts (S ong 7:9), a n d it also looks a h e a d to th e n e x t verse, w here she says th a t she will lead him to h e r “m o th e r ’s h o u s e .” 2 T h e verbs o f th e first lin e o f this s tro p h e (line 16A) sh o u ld n o t be given an optative, o r subjunctive tran slatio n . T h e im p e rfe c t fo rm s ‫ אנהגך אביאך‬d o n o t c o n tin u e th e optative c o n stru c tio n o f th e p revious verse. T h e actions ex p ressed h e re — such as giving h e r lover w ine— are n o t u n a tta in a b le w ishes b u t are th e k inds o f th in g s she can d o w ith him . T h e use o f two verbs side by side in d icates d e te rm in a tio n to ca rry o u t h e r in te n tio n tow ard h e r lover. T h ey sh o u ld be re n d e re d , “I will le a d you, I will take y o u .” She is n o t saying th a t if h e w ere h e r b ro th e r she w ould take h im to h e r m o th e r’s h ouse. R ather, th e p la c e m e n t o f th e two verbs in asy n d eto n is em p h atic a n d speaks o f h e r dete rm in a tio n . T h is use o f two o r m o re im p erfe cts in asy ndeton to suggest resolve is n o t u n c o m m o n . F o r ex am p le, in E x o d 15:9 we re ad , ‘T h e en em y said, T will p u rsu e , I will overtake, I will divide [‫ ] ארדף אשיג אחלק‬th e sp o il’” (RSV). T h u s, contrary to K eel ([1994] 261), she is n o t saying th a t she w ishes h e w ere h e r b ro th e r so th a t she c o u ld sneak h im in to h e r m o th e r ’s house. R ather, she d eclares th a t since she c a n n o t give h im any affectio n openly, she will m o re th a n m ak e u p fo r it w ith th e affectio n she gives h im in private. T h e lin e ‫ אל־בית אמי תלמדני‬, “to th e h o u se o f my m o th e r w ho u sed to teac h m e ,” calls fo r a tte n tio n . W hy w o u ld she d esire to take him to h e r m o th e r’s house? M any in te rp re te rs assum e th a t th e co u p le is u n m a rrie d a n d th a t she w ants to take h im th e re fo r a sexual rendezvous. E lsew here, however, she seem s to have n o tro u b le in fin d in g an occasion to m ak e love to him , so why w o u ld she now w ant to take h im to h e r m o th e r ’s h o u se fo r a tryst? If th e re la tio n sh ip w ere 11‫־‬ licit, w h at lo catio n w ould be m o re fra u g h t w ith d a n g e r th a n h e r p a re n ts ’ hom e? A n d if o n e goes back to th e view th a t she w ants h im to be h e r b ro th e r so she can take h im h o m e a n d be his lover, th e logic is so b izarre, n o t to say p erv erse, th a t it goes well b ey o n d th e b o u n d s even o f a n c ie n t p o etic license. T h e v erb ‫ תלמדני‬co u ld b e tra n sla te d “you will teach m e .” T h e re fe re n c e to h e r “m o th e r ’s h o u s e ,” however, suggests th a t th e v erb is a th ird fe m in in e sin g u lar (re fe rrin g to h e r m o th e r) ra th e r th a n a sec o n d m ascu lin e singular. T h e fo rm is am b ig u o u s, a n d m an y in te rp re te rs re g a rd it as a sec o n d m ascu lin e since it is unlikely th a t a t this stage th e w o m a n ’s m o th e r w ould teac h her. However, th e sense n e e d n o t be fu tu re , a n d “she teac h es m e ” co u ld m ean , “she serves as my e x a m p le .” Probably, however, th e w ord h e re is a h istorical im p e rfe c t a n d has th e sense “she u se d to teac h m e ” a n d , thus, “she was m y te a c h e r.” E lsew here in th e b o o k she is n o t in th e p o sitio n o f lo o k in g to th e m an to be h e r te a c h e r in love, so it seem s o d d th a t she w ould d escrib e h e r re la tio n sh ip to h im in su ch term s h ere . In a d d itio n , line co n stra in ts re q u ire th a t we tre a t ‫ אל־בית אמי תלמדני‬, “to th e h o u se o f m y m o th e r w ho u sed to teac h m e ,” as a single line. We c a n n o t d ro p ‫ אביאך‬fro m lin e 16A to lin e 16B since th a t w o u ld leave lin e 16A w ith a single u n it (to o sh o rt). We c a n n o t tre a t lines 16A-B as a single line since th a t w o uld give us a lin e w ith five c o n stitu e n ts (to o lo n g ) . Also, c o n tra ry to several in te rp re te rs, we

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c a n n o t m ove th e verb ‫ תלמדני‬to lin e 16C a n d tran slate it “You will teach m e so th a t I m ay give you a d rin k o f spiced w in e” (th u s Keel [1994] 2 6 1 6 2 ‫) ־‬. T his m ove places two sim p le im p erfe cts o f d iffe re n t p e rso n side by side, w hich is q u ite h arsh. If th e m e a n in g w ere “you w ould teach m e so th a t I m ig h t give a d rin k to y o u ,” th e verb ‫ אשקך‬w ould certainly have th e co n ju n ctio n . In ad d itio n , lin e 16B is syntactically b o u n d to lin e 16A. All o f th is strongly suggests th a t ‫אמי‬, “my m o th e r,” is th e su b ject o f th e verb ‫ תלמדני‬w ith an im p lied relative p ro n o u n . A n u m b e r o f scholars (e.g., P o p e, 659) advocate e m e n d in g to ‫תלדני‬, “she b o re m e ,” b u t this is u n w a rra n te d . Even if she is his wife, it is n o t at all clear why she w ould w ant to go to h e r m o th e r ’s h ouse. T h ro u g h o u t th e w hole S ong we see th e transfo rm a tio n o f th e w o m an fro m a girl a t h o m e u n d e r th e d o m in a tio n o f h e r family— o f h e r “m o th e r ’s so n s” (Song 1:6)— to a w om an w ho in th e love o f h e r h u s b a n d is fre e fro m th e ir co n tro l. H e n c e , a d esire to go m ak e love in h e r m o th e r ’s h o m e is surprising. T h e “h o u se o f my m o th e r ” occurs elsew here in th e S ong only a t 3:4. T h e re , I suggested th a t th e h o u se o f h e r m o th e r a n d th e ch a m b e r o f th e w om an w ho conceiv ed h e r can only be th e w om b. H e re th e m ean in g is even clearer. In S ong 8:1-2 she self-evidently is taking h im to a n ig h t o f lovem aking, a n d n o explanation fo r d o in g this in h e r m o th e r ’s literal h o u se is satisfactory. T h e “m o th e r’s h o u s e ” is th u s h e re a e u p h e m ism fo r th e fem ale genitals, a n d it is a p p ro p ria te as a d esig n atio n o f th e p lace o f p ro c re a tio n . T h e p h ra se “m y m o th e r . . . w ho u sed to teac h m e ” th e re fo re suggests th a t h e r m o th e r was h e r first te a c h e r a n d ex am p le in th e ways o f sexuality. In a n c ie n t Israel th e m o th e r was n o d o u b t th e g irl’s p rim a ry te a c h e r in m atters o f puberty, m e n stru a tio n , sexuality, c h ild b irth , a n d lactatio n; th e re w ould have b e e n n o m iddle-sch o o l lectu res o n h u m a n sexuality. U nless she w ere th e y o u n g est in the family, an Israelite girl m ay well have b e e n p re s e n t a t th e b irth s o f som e y o u n g er siblings a n d certain ly w ould have seen h e r m o th e r o r h e r m o th e r ’s p eers nursin g th e y o u n g er c h ild re n . O f course, an Israelite p e a sa n t girl w ould also have assisted h e r m o th e r in m atters involving an im al h usbandry. In sum m ary, th e anc ie n t girl w ould have grow n u p w ith a m u c h m o re in tim ate aw areness o f th e sexual life o f h e r m o th e r th a n h e r m o d e rn c o u n te rp a rt does, a n d she w ould rightly call h e r m o th e r “my te a c h e r” in these things. T h e re is so m e th in g b eau tifu l in this p ictu re . She is n o t, in e n te rin g th e w orld o f sexuality, d o in g so m eth in g th a t is alien a n d a b h o rre n t to her. She is em ulatin g w h at she has seen a n d h e a rd all o f h e r life in th e p erso n w ho, u p to this tim e, has b e e n th e closest to her. M ore th a n th at, as h e r m o th e r m ad e love to h e r fa th e r a n d so gave b irth to d a u g h te rs a n d sons, she will do th e sam e a n d b eco m e th e te a c h e r o f h e r d au g h ters. ‫ עסיס‬is a k in d o f sweet o r fresh wine. T h e w ord occurs in Isa 49:26; Jo e l 1:5; 4:18 (ET 3:18); A m os 9:13 a n d h e re . H e r p ro m ise to give h e r m an w ine a n d sweet p o m e g ra n a te w ine to d rin k is a n o th e r fairly obvious p ro m ise to give him h e r favors. Keel ([1994] 263) illustrates a re lie f from th e tim e o f Ram ses III in w hich n u d e w om en o f th e h a re m give a m an p o m eg ra n ates a n d m an d rak es, a fairly clea r display o f th e sexual significance o f these item s. 3-4 T h ese verses re p e a t S ong 2 : 6 7 ‫ ־‬ex c e p t th a t th e re is n o a d ju ra tio n to swear by th e gazelles h ere. A gain, th e w om an is at re st in h e r m a n ’s love, an d she again calls o n th e girls n o t to arouse love u n til th e rig h t tim e.

250

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Explanation

First, th e m an gives an a d m irin g d e sc rip tio n o f various p arts o f th e w o m a n ’s anatom y; h e th e n graphically d escrib es his stro n g in te n tio n to m ake love to her. N o tw ith stan d in g th e a tte n tio n h e gives to h e r breasts in th e sec o n d stanza, w 7 9, th e m o v e m e n t h e re fro m th e fe e t u p w a rd is m ean in g fu l. T h e goal a n d focal p o in t o f th e first stanza are h e r face a n d h ea d . T his focus conveys an ap p reciatio n fo r th e p e rso n a n d p erso n ality o f th e w om an since th e face, m o re th a n any o th e r p a r t o f th e body, physically p re se n ts a p e rs o n ’s individuality. T h e n th e w om an uses b ea u tifu l b u t fo r th e m o st p a r t in d ire c t lan g u ag e to sp eak o f th e p leasu res o f love; b u t in th e last stanza, sh e m u ch m o re boldly asserts th a t she will m ak e love to him . T h u s, th e first a n d fo u rth stanzas are p re lu d e s to th e seco n d a n d fifth, w hich sh o u ld be tak en to b e th e focal p o in ts o f this ca n to . T h e p o in t is th a t th e lovers are now free to en g ag e in sexual play, a n d they are in te n t o n d o in g so. T h is so n g co n c lu d e s w ith th e w o m an ex pressing h e r h ap p in ess at b ein g in th e arm s o f h e r beloved a n d w a rn in g th e o th e r girls n o t to s q u a n d e r th e ir affectio n a n d h earts.

X I. Chorus and Soprano: Claim ing the Beloved (8 :5 -7 ) Bibliography

Albright, W. F. “Archaic Survival in the Text of Canticles.” In Hebrew and Semitic Studies. FS G. R. Driver, ed. D. W. Thomas and W. D. McHardy. Oxford: Clarendon, 1963. 1-7. Murphy, R. E. “Dance and Death in the Song of Songs.” In Love & Death in the Ancient Near East. FS Μ. H Pope, ed. J. H. Marks and R. M. Good. Guilfofd, CT: Four Quarters, 1987. 117-19. Tromp, N. J. “Wisdom and the Canticle. Ct 8, 6c-7b: Text, Character, Message and Im port.” In La Sagesse de l'Ancien Testament. Ed. M. Gilbert. Gembloux: Duculot, 1979. 88-95. Watson, W. G. E. “Love and Death Once More (Song of Songs VIII 6).” VT 47 (1997) 385-87. Translation

First Stanza chorus

5 Who is this coming up from the wildernessa leaning on her lover?

1A IB 1C

SOPRANO

Under the apple tree I aroused you.b That is where your mother conceived you; b that is where she conceived, she gave youb birth.

Second Stanza 6 Set me like a seal upon your heart, like a seal upon your arm. For love is strong, like death. Jealousy is severe, like the grave. Its spark a is a blaze of fire! It is a mighty flame! 7 Many waters are not able to extinguish love, and rivers cannot overwhelm it. I f a man were to give all his worldly possessionsafo r love, his offer would be utterly scorned.

2A 2B 2C 3A 3B 3C 3D 3E 3F 3G 3H 31

Notes 5.a. MT ‫המדבר‬, “the wilderness.‫ ״‬LXX Χβλευκανθισμενη (supported by OL) = ‫מתבררת‬, “purifying herself.‫״‬ 5.b. The Syr. renders the second sg. suf. in this verse as fem. and so requires that this be taken as the m an’s lines, and some interpreters have followed suit. The Syr. alone, however, is slender basis for making the em endations, notwithstanding the extensive discussions on the part o f some scholars (e.g., Murphy, 191). The Heb. is clear and widely supported; in these circumstances, emendation is ill advised. It appears that some interpreters found the notion that the woman would intentionally arouse the man to be offensive. 7.a. ‫את כל הון ביתו‬, lit. “all the wealth o f his house.”

252

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Form /Structure/Setting

T h is ca n to has two stanzas; th e first is m a d e o f two sim ilar stro p h es, a n d th e sec o n d is m ad e o f a single lo n g stro p h e. It has a ch o ral in tro d u c tio n (8:5a), b u t th e body o f th e ca n to is given to th e so p ra n o (8 :5 b -7 ). T h e ch o ral s tro p h e co u ld be tak en to b e two lines, b u t since we have a m a tch in g p a ir o f lines in IB a n d 1C (p artic ip le follow ed by p re p o sitio n a l p h ra s e ), it is p robably b est to le t 1A sta n d alo n e as a co m p le te line. T h e s o p ra n o ’s p a r t has two stro p h es, o n e q u ite s h o rt a n d th e o th e r very long. S ong 8:5b, “u n d e r th e ap p le tre e ,” is th e first stro p h e. As in th e ch o ra l stro p h e, th ere are th re e lines, w ith line 2C closely m a tch in g line 2B. T hus, th e can to o p en s w ith two th re e -lin e stro p h es, a n d e a ch has an o p e n in g lin e follow ed by two m a tc h in g lines in syntactic d e p e n d e n c e o n th e first. T h e se c o n d stanza has an un u su ally lo n g s tro p h e — n in e lines. O f co u rse, o n e m ig h t a rg u e fo r b re ak in g this in to sm aller stro p h es, b u t th e re d o es n o t a p p e a r to be any clea r re aso n to d o so. T h e e n tire stro p h e ap p e ars to be b o u n d tog e th e r by th e n o tio n o f th e pow er o f love. L ines 3F a n d 3H are u n u su ally long, a n d they are answ ered by two very s h o rt lines (3G a n d 3I ). O n e w o n d ers how this w o u ld have s o u n d e d w hen p e rfo rm e d . Form ally, this c a n to b egins as in q u iry (su n g by th e c h o ru s) b u t quickly tu rn s from th a t to a song o n th e pow er o f love (th e s o p ra n o ). In this re sp e c t this u n it looks back to S ong 3:6-11. B o th can to s sp eak o f th e co m in g o f th e b rid e. However, w h ereas th e te n o r re s p o n d e d to th e c h o ru s ’s ca n to in 3:6-11 w ith a song ten d e rly a llu rin g his b rid e in S ong 4 :1-15, th e so p ra n o h e re re sp o n d s w ith a ca n to o n th e pow er a n d je a lo u s fu ry o f love (S ong 8 :5 b -7 ). T h a t is, w h ere th e w o m a n ’s arrival before th e ir u n io n was follow ed by his ap p e al fo r h e r to give herself to him , th e w o m a n ’s arrival h e re after th eir u n io n is follow ed by h e r claim to his ab so lu te d evotion. In th e stru c tu re o f S ong o f Songs, however, this u n it looks back to 1:7-8, th e Song o f F in d in g th e B eloved. T h e re , th e so p ra n o d esp a ire d o f fin d in g h e r beloved a n d asked h im w h ere h e m ig h t be, a d d in g th a t she d id n o t w ant to be a w om an “p ick in g fleas” a m o n g th e flocks. T h e c h o ru s in tu rn to ld h e r to go o u t to w h e re th e s h e p h e rd s m ay be fo u n d . H e re , however, in stead o f tellin g h e r to go o u t to th e pastu res, th e c h o ru s sings o f th e arrival o f th e w om an. She b egins h e r p a r t w ith lyrics ad d ressed to th e m a n , “U n d e r th e ap p le tree I aro u se d y o u .” T h a t is, in ste a d o f seeking h e r lover, she sings o f w here she fo u n d him . F u rth erm o re , in S ong 1:7 she asked w h ere h e m ad e his flocks lie dow n a t th e h e a t o f n o o n , b u t in 8:6 sh e sings o f th e h e a t o f love, d ec la rin g it to be an u n q u e n c h able fire. M ost im p o rtan tly , w h ereas 1:7-8 d escribes h e r som ew hat d e sp e ra te d esire to fin d h e r beloved, in this tex t she d e m a n d s th a t h e p e rm a n e n tly set h e r as a seal o n his h e a rt a n d arm . She will n ev er lose him again. Comment

5 Lines 1A-B re p e a t verbatim a text from Song 3:6 (“W ho is this com ing u p from the w ilderness?”). T h e following line, however, is radically different. W here 3:6 has th e theophanylike description “like a pillar o f sm oke,” the p re sen t text continues with “leaning on h e r lover.” T h e earlier text d epicted the b rid e arriving with

Comment

253

regal sp len d o r w here this text presents an im age o f the w om an at peace drawing security a n d stability from h e r m an. Also, w here th e fo rm er text m oved into a section in w hich th e ch o ru s gave an elaborate portrayal o f the m ilitary en to u rag e o f the Solom onic g room (Song 3:7-11), h ere th e arrival im agery is d ro p p e d as quickly as it is m en tio n ed . Instead, the w om an sings o f the passionate love th at binds h e r to h e r husband. T h e m o tif in 3:6-11 was the m an a n d w om an in a fo rm a l cerem ony; the m o tif h ere is o f th e m an an d w om an in passionate love. T h e verb ‫ עור‬ap p ears n in e tim es in th e Song o f Songs, a n d fo u r o f these times, as here, it is in th e po'lel stem . In th e qal, th e verb m eans to “aw aken” (cf. Song 4:16; 5:2). In th e nip'al it m ean s to “be w oken u p .” T h e hip'il m ean s to “aw aken” or m o re freq u en tly to “set in m o tio n ” (e.g., Isa 41:2, 25; 45:13; Ezr 1:1). In t h e po'lel it m ean s to “set in m o tio n ,” “d istu rb ,” o r “a ro u se” (Ps 80:3; J o b 3:8; Prov 10:12; Zech 9:13). T h e po'lel freq u en tly suggests arousing som e kind o f fury o r passion. T h e th re e o th e r po'lel o cc u rre n ces in th e Song are in 2:7; 3:5; a n d 8:4, w here the w om an ex h o rts th e Jeru sa lem girls n o t to “aro u se” (po'lel) o r “aw aken” (hip'il) love. In short, th e w om an is n o t saying h e re th a t she simply woke th e m an w hen h e was n a p p in g u n d e r an ap p le tree. R ather, “aro u se” is th e p ro p e r translation. T h e w o m a n ’s can to co n cern s fiery passion, possession, a n d pain. She begins with th e straightforw ard assertion th a t she aro u sed him u n d e r th e apple tree, characteristically a m e ta p h o r o f physical love. She th e n declares th a t this place, the apple tree, was w here th e m a n ’s m o th e r conceived him , w ent into th e pains o f labor, a n d gave b irth to him . Scholars have m ade m u ch o f this language, b u t few surpassed W. F. A lb rig h t (“A rchaic Survival,” 7), w ho suggested th at “the m o th e r o f th e beloved was a m ythical figure, possibly a girl w ho h ad escaped to th e d esert after b eco m in g p re g n a n t by a g o d .” T his is n o t th e p o in t o f this canto. T h e significance o f th e “a p p le ” was discussed in th e Comment o n 2:3, b u t th e specific place o f arousal— u n d e r th e ap p le tree— calls fo r co m m en t. Why was it n o t u n d e r a datepalm tree, o r in th e vineyards? T h e re are m any o th e r fru it a n d g ard en m etap h o rs for sexuality in th e Song besides th e apple. It m ay be th a t th e ap p e ara n ce o f the ap p le tre e is significant. A peculiarity o f m any apple trees is th a t they a p p e a r g n arle d a n d twisted an d , especially in winter, have m o re o f an aged look th an do m any o th e r trees. N evertheless, they p ro d u c e luscious fru it that, with its red d ish coloratio n , full a n d ro u n d e d shape, a n d juicy flesh, seem s to be th e very im age o f youth. T h e b ra n ch es o f th e tree fo rk in m any directions; th e re is n o th in g lin ear ab o u t an ap p le tree (in contrast, fo r exam ple, to th e d ate p a lm ). All o f this suggests th a t th e apple tree symbolizes n o t m erely sexuality b u t sexuality as it continues from g e n e ra tio n to g en eratio n . T h e old give b irth to th e young, a n d th e “family tre e ” co n tin u es to sp read a n d grow th ro u g h th e years. O n e can hardly d o u b t th a t ‫עוררתיך‬, “I aro u sed you,” refers to sexual a n d reproductive activity, b u t the w om an does n o t literally m ean th at all this took place u n d e r an app le tree. R ather, u n d e r the m e ta p h o r o f th e apple tree she speaks ra th e r directly o f sexual in terc o u rse a n d w hat follows it, co n cep tio n a n d birth. Sexual u n io n a n d giving b irth are tim es o f in ten se physical a n d em o tio n al pleasure an d traum a. T h e w om an has e n te re d this k in d o f in tense physical relatio n sh ip with h e r h u sb an d , a n d she recap itu lates th e ex p e rien ce o f th eir m others. T h e re is som e q u estio n re g a rd in g w h e th e r this p icel o f ‫ חבל‬m ean s to “give b irth ” o r to “co n ceiv e” a child (cf. H A LO T, a n d n o te th a t ‫ חבל‬m ean s “lab o r p a in s” [e.g., Isa 13:8; 26:17]). T h e only o th e r place w h ere this fo rm is u sed in co n n ec-

254

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Songs 8:5-7

tio n w ith p re g n a n c y is in Ps 7:15 (ET 7:14), ‫ הנה יחבל־און והרה עמל וילד שקר‬, “C onsider! H e conceives w ickedness a n d is p re g n a n t w ith tro u b le a n d gives b irth to d e c e p tio n .” T h e Ps 7 te x t su p p o rts tak in g it to re fe r to co n c e p tio n o r p re g n a n c y ra th e r th a n to ch ild b irth . Still, th e S ong seem s to ex p lo it som e o f th e am biguity o f th e te rm h e re . See below. 6 In th e a n c ie n t N e ar East, seals w ere m a d e w ith th e use o f w ood, clay, o r sto n e stam ps im p ressed in to lu m p s o f clay o r wax. In a d d itio n to th e stam p ed seal, th e cy lin d er seal co u ld b e ro lle d over a lu m p o f clay to p ro d u c e an im age. T h e distinctive Egyptian seal, th e scarab, was also widely u sed in P alestine. Fing e r rin g s m ig h t also in clu d e a seal o r scarab (as was th e case a p p a ren tly w ith th e rin g th a t th e p h a ra o h gave to J o s e p h in G en 41:42). Seals co u ld be en g rav ed w ith p ic to rial im ages, w ritten text, o r b o th . Seals w ere especially im p o rtan t for indicating ow nership o r m aintaining security. O n e w ould use a seal called a bulla to secure a treasury, to g u aran tee the authenticity o f a royal ed ict or a deed, an d to p ro tec t th e co ntents o f a scroll (D eut 32:34; Esth 3:12; J e r 32:10; Isa 29:11). T h e telltale seal (a scarab?) o f Ju d a h in G en 38:18 was p ro o f th a t h e h a d b een with his daughter-in-law. T h e breastplate with twelve stones re p re se n tin g th e tribes o f Israel h ad the engraved seal “holy to Yahweh” (Exod 28:36), indicating th at th e tribes o f Israel were th e special possession o f God. Jezebel was able to sen d letters in A haz’s n am e by using his seal (1 Kgs 21:8). In this text, th e w om an calls u p o n th e m an to set h e r as a seal o n his h e a rt an d arm . T h is is a sign o f covenant c o m m itm e n t to m arriage a n d is an alogous to th e w earing o f phylacteries as tokens a n d re m in d e rs o f Israel’s co v en an t fidelity to Yahweh (D eu t 6:4-9; 11:13-21). In th e Song, th e ‫חותם‬, “seal,” co u ld re fe r to th e w earing o f a seal a ro u n d th e n eck o r o n an arm b a n d , b u t it is m o re likely to be purely m etap h o rical. We d o n o t have evidence th a t p eo p le in th e a n c ie n t N ear East h a d stan d ard tokens o f love o r m arriag e analogous to th e m o d e rn w edding ring. In G en 24, th e servant o f A b rah am gives a rin g a n d bracelets to R ebekah as signs o f his desire to take h e r back to b e Isaac’s wife, b u t even h e re it is n o t clear th a t any o f th e jew elry w ould have b ee n u n d e rsto o d to c o n n o te m arriag e in th e specific way th e m o d e rn w edding rin g does. M urphy (191) co m m en ts th a t th e “p ractice o f w earing so m eth in g th a t belongs to o n e ’s beloved is o f course widesp re a d .” Still, it do es n o t a p p e a r th a t th e w om an h e re alludes to som e com m only p racticed custom o f m e n w earing jew elry o r clo th in g th a t re p re se n te d th e ir love for th eir wives o r girlfriends. T h e scribes w ho co p ied a n d preserved th e Song w ould n o d o u b t associate this line w ith th e bullae w ith w hich they ro u tinely closed u p scrolls a n d m a rk e d th e m as th e ir own. T his m ay be th e key to th e m etap h o r. As a scroll is closed u p a n d sealed tig h t against all b u t th e in d icated ow ner o f th e bulla, so th e m an is to be closed u p tow ard every o th e r w om an. It is fro m th is p ersp ectiv e th a t o n e sh o u ld in te rp re t th e follow ing lines, “F o r love is stro n g , like d e a th . / Jealo u sy is severe, like th e g rave.” T his d o es n o t re fe r to a fu n e ra ry c u lt (P o p e, 2 2 8 -2 9 a n d passim), n o r do es it m e a n th a t love is an ap o tro p a ic a m u le t m e a n t to w ard o ff d e a th (cf. P o p e, 666-67, a n d K eel [1994] 2 7 2 -7 4 ). In a d d itio n , o n e sh o u ld n o t seek th e key to this line in fertility m yths c o n c e rn in g Isis a n d O siris o r Baal a n d A nat. T h e stories o f h ero ic w o m en w ho saved th e ir m e n in tim es o f tro u b le th a t Keel ([1994] 274-75) allu d es to (e.g., M ichal in 1 Sam 19:9-17) are a n o th e r false trail. T h e w om an is n o t h e re prom isin g to fig h t fo r h e r h u sb a n d o r p re serv e his life.

Comment

255

Love in this te x t is n o t in a battle with d e a th b u t is compared to d e a th (see also M urphy, “D an ce a n d D e a th ,” 118). N. J. T ro m p (“W isdom a n d th e C an ticle,” 94) arg u es th a t 8 :6 b -7 c is a W isdom te a c h in g th a t conveys th e follow ing m essage: “Love is re p re s e n te d h e re as a fo rce w hich is able to o vercom e th e negative forces th a t th re a te n th e very existence o f th e w orld a n d m an k in d . In o th e r words, Love gains th e victory over chaos a n d creates w holesom e o rd e r a n d life.” But, c o n tra ry to T ro m p , th e re is n o re aso n to suspect th a t this is a sec o n d ary editorial ad d itio n , a n d to isolate it fro m its c o n te x t (w here th e issue a t h a n d is th e possessiveness o f love) is u n w a rra n te d . T h e re is n o in d icatio n h e re o f love gainin g a ‘V ictory” over d e a th . T h ese, love a n d d e a th , are co n cep tu ally b o u n d yet p o la r opposites. It is n o t likely th a t “love is strong, like d e a th ” re fers prim arily to th e pow er o f sexuality a n d re g e n e ra tio n to p re serv e th e fam ily lin e in th e face o f d e a th (W atson, V T 47 [1997] 3 8 5 -8 7 ). W hile th a t is n o d o u b t tru e , a n d th e re are som e allusions to re p ro d u c tio n in th e S ong a n d even in th e previous verse, th e follow ing lines m ak e it clear th a t she is h e re speak in g o f th e passion a n d jealo u sy o f love r a th e r th a n its re p ro d u ctiv e fu n c tio n . ‫זף‬0‫ ך‬a p p e a rs to m e a n “sp a rk ” in J o b 5:7 b u t seem s to re fe r to lig h tn in g in Ps 78:48. In D e u t 32:24 a n d H a b 3:5 it is a plague. In Ps 76:4 (ET 3), ‫פי־כןשת‬0 ‫ ך‬, “flam es o f a bow ,” seem s to m e a n arrows. T h e r o o t id ea o f flam es seem s to be b e h in d all o f th ese uses. H e n ce, “sp a rk ” is th e m o st re aso n ab le tran slatio n at this p o in t. T h e w ord ‫ ף‬0 ‫ ך‬does n o t o f itself m e a n “arro w ” a n d sh o u ld n o t be translated th a t way in th e ab sen ce o f th e qualifying n o u n “bow.” T h e re is n o allusion h e re to s o m e th in g like C u p id ’s arrow s. Also, th e re is n o co m p ellin g reaso n to suppo se th a t lig h tn in g is m e a n t h ere. T h e w ord ‫ שלהבתיה‬occurs only h ere, b u t it is probably a co m bination o f th e n o u n ‫שלהסת‬, “flam e,” a n d th e s h o rte n e d fo rm o f th e divine n am e ‫יהרה‬. A lternative explanation s, e.g., th a t it is a th ird fem in in e singular p ro n o u n suffix (as in the LXX), are n o t persuasive. T h e co lo rfu l LXX re n d itio n , π ε ρ ίπ τε ρ α α υ τή ς π ε ρ ίπ τε ρ α πυρός φλόγεβ α υ τή ς, ‫״‬en circled by a co lo n n ad e o f her, en circled by a co lo n n ad e o f fire, h e r flam es,” is n o t a so u n d basis fo r e ith e r em en d in g o r in te rp re tin g the H ebrew text. A t th e sam e tim e, ‫ שלהבתיה‬sh o u ld n o t be taken as an actual referen ce to th e n am e o f G od. T h e e n d in g h e re has virtually lost all theological significance, a n d it sim ply fu n ctio n s adjectivally fo r “m ighty” o r th e like. T h e assertio n th a t th e flam e o f love is like a m ighty flam e do es n o t allu d e to a w e ath e r g o d castin g a th u n d e rb o lt w hile in b attle w ith Yamm o r Mot. T h e Iangu ag e d escrib es th e fu rio u s p ow er o f love. T h e n o u n ‫שלהבת‬, “flam e ,” ap p e ars in J o b 15:30, w h ere it describes G o d ’s d e stru c tio n o f th e w icked, a n d in Ezek 21:3 (ET 20:47), w h ere G od th re a te n s to c o n su m e th e trees o f th e N egev w ith fire. In b o th cases, th e fire is m e ta p h o ric a l fo r divine w rath. T h e w ord is n ev er u sed in th e Bible fo r literal fire; ra th e r, it c o n n o te s je a lo u s anger. It is th e fire o f w rath, n o t th e fire o f com passion, th a t is in view h e re ( contra M urphy, 197). T h e Iang uage d escrib es th e a rd o r a n d exclusivity o f th e b o n d o f love betw een m an a n d w om an. In this verse, a lth o u g h it has a divine c o u n te rp a rt, th e “flam e” o f jealousy is a h u m a n a ttrib u te. 7 T h e c o n tra st betw een fire a n d w ater is so obvious th a t o n e h ard ly n e e d look to m ythological im ages o f th e w aters o f p rim o rd ial chaos fo r an ex p lan a‫־‬ tio n o f this line. T h e fu ry o f th e fire o f love is so g re a t th a t even g re a t volum es o f w ater c a n n o t q u e n c h it. O n e c a n n o t easily escape its pow er after o n e has en-

256

Song

of

Songs 8 :5-7

te re d this realm . T h o se w ho have a d m itte d this fire in to th e ir lives will fin d it im possible to douse. Explanation

W hy d o es this ca n to b eg in w ith an arrival m otif? It do es n o t seem a necessary o r even c o n g ru o u s in tro d u c tio n to th e so m b e r analysis o f th e pow er o f love th a t follows. B ut o n close in sp ectio n , it is an a p p ro p ria te p re lu d e to th e w o m a n ’s song. T h e previous arrival c a n to (S ong 3:6-11) gave th e co u p le a g ra n d a n d h ero ic status. M uch th e sam e is tru e h e re , w h ere it is th e w om an w ho is th e o b ject o f a tte n tio n a n d w ho is p lace d in h ig h esteem . T h e fact th a t she is “leanin g o n h e r lo v er” does n o t d im in ish h e r p o sitio n b u t suggests to th e a u d ie n c e th a t this is a w om an w ho knows love. T h e c h o ral p re lu d e in fo rm s th e a u d ie n c e th a t th e w om an has sufficient statu re a n d e x p e rien ce to m ake th e p ro fo u n d pron o u n c e m e n ts o n love th a t follow. T h e S o n g ’s fixation o n th e m o th e r (v 5) is im p o rta n t. N o t o n e tim e d o es th e S ong re fe r to th e father, b u t seven tim es it m e n tio n s th e m o th e r (S ong 1:6; 3:4, 11; 6:9; 8:1, 2, 5). T h e w o m a n ’s p re m a rita l d o m estic life was g o v e rn e d by h e r “m o th e r ’s so n s” (1:6). S olom on was cro w n ed by his m o th e r (3:11), a n d th e b rid e is th e b elo v ed d a u g h te r o f h e r m o th e r (6:9). T h e in tim ate c o n n e c tio n betw een b ro th e r a n d sister is d e fin e d by th e fact th a t they b o th n u rse d at th e b reasts o f o n e m o th e r (8:1). T h e “m o th e r ’s h o u s e ” is a m e ta p h o r fo r th e w o m a n ’s w om b w ith its sexual a n d re p ro d u ctiv e fu n c tio n s (3:4; 8:2). H e re in 8:5 th e passions o f th e w ife /m o th e r b in d h e r a n d h e r h u sb a n d together. T aken to g eth er, th e reason fo r th e d o m in a n c e o f th e m o th e r a n d th e silence a b o u t th e fa th e r are n o t difficu lt to explain: against th e p assio n ate d e p th o f h e r e x p e rien ce s in losing virginity, e n te r in g p reg n an cy , giving b irth , a n d n u rs in g c h ild re n , th e m a n ’s sexual e x p e rie n c e s are ra th e r trivial by co m p ariso n . T h e w om an is th e d o m a in o f sexual a n d do m estic love. T h e w o m a n ’s n am e is m etap h o rically stam p ed u p o n th e m a n ’s arm , his breast, a n d in d e e d u p o n his soul. As th e w om an h a d su n g o f th e m an as a sac h et o f m y rrh h a n g in g b etw een h e r breasts (S ong 1:13), she now sings o f h e rs e lf as stam p e d in to th e body a n d m in d o f h e r h u sb a n d . T his can only m e a n th a t she possesses h im as h e r own a n d now d e m a n d s his co m p lete fidelity. T h e b o n d is o f co u rse a b o n d o f love, b u t she is u n ash a m e d ly possessive a n d exclusive a b o u t it. Since m a n a n d w om an w ere fro m th e b e g in n in g m e a n t to be “o n e fle sh ,” infidelity a n d even polygam y are h e re ex c lu d e d . T h e term s in w hich th e w om an claim s possession over th e m a n are very strong; it is striking th a t th e S ong closes w ith th e w o m an , ra th e r th a n th e m an , m ak in g this claim to exclusive ow nership. She claim s th a t love, like d e a th , is in escap ab le. T h e love th e m an a n d w om an have e x p e rie n c e d has b o u n d th e m to g e th e r p erm an en tly . T h e passion o f th e ir love fo r o n e a n o th e r h o ld s th e m as relentlessly as does d e a th , a n d only d e a th itself can actually sep a rate th e two lovers. F ury a n d d e stru c tio n are im p licit in th ese w ords. T h o se w ho passionately love are passionately possessive. O n e cann o t trifle w ith love o r w ith o n e ’s lover. Yahweh h im self is a je a lo u s G od (E xod 20:5). A lth o u g h th e re are th o se w ho a re p a ra n o id a b o u t infidelity, n eu ro tic ally d e p e n d e n t, o r w rongly je a lo u s (ex em p lified in lite ra tu re by O th e llo ), exclusivity is n o t o f itself c o r ru p t o r oppressive. It is w rong, in d e e d p erv erse, fo r th e

Explanation

257

lover to be in d iffe re n t to th e p re se n c e o f rivals. Also, jealo u sy in this c o n te x t n e e d n o t re fe r to th e p a ra n o id suspicion th a t o n e ’s lover is faithless. If th e jealo usy o f Y ahw eh o v e r Is ra e l is th e m o d e l, th e te rm re f e r s to a p r o p e r possessiveness in th e settin g o f a w h o leso m e re latio n sh ip . Rightly e x p e rie n c e d by h ea lth y souls, this exclusivity is p a r t o f th e g lo ry o f love a n d fu rth e r in d icates th e seriousness o f e n te rin g this re la tio n sh ip . T h e co m p ariso n to d e a th p ro b ab ly has a n o th e r im plication: to m a rry is to give o n e ’s life to a n o th er, a n d w hoever m arrie s has d ied to all o th ers. A nalogous to J e su s ’ te a c h in g th a t o n e m u st “d ie ” in o rd e r to ex p e rie n c e tru e fre e d o m a n d life in th e gospel (John 12:24), o n e m u st die to all ex tra m arital sex in o rd e r to e x p e rie n c e th e jo y o f m arital sex. N o o n e sh o u ld lightly o r thou g h tlessly e n te r in to a love o r sexual relatio n ship. To d o so is to invite e m o tio n al c a ta stro p h e— love has g re at pow er over o n e ’s own soul as well as over th e soul o f th e oth er. T h o se w ho th in k th a t they can lightly e n te r love b u t th e n q u e n c h its fires at will create tu rm o il w ithin th e ir own h ea rts a n d invite tro u b le fro m th e ir lovers. It is hardly o u t o f ch a ra c te r for the w o m a n ’s p a r t to give th e a u d ie n c e such w arn in g s a b o u t th e pow er o f love. She has alread y th re e tim es called o n th e Je ru sa le m girls n o t to aro u se love b efo re it is read y (S ong 2:7; 3:5; 8:4). T his is n o t to say, however, th a t love is a b a d thing. It is an exquisite, soulco n su m in g e x p e rie n c e th a t h u m a n s y earn for. To have this k in d o f passion for a n o th e r p e rso n is a gift; it c a n n o t be b o u g h t o r sold. W h en th e w om an sings o f so m eo n e giving his m o n ey fo r love, she is n o t re fe rrin g to buying sexual favors (w hich certain ly can be d o n e ) o r even to g ain in g a wife w ith w ealth, w hich is also fairly co m m o n . She ra th e r is sp eak in g o f th e ex p e rie n c e o f love itself, som eth in g th a t can n ev e r be b o u g h t. In ad d itio n , this text intersects w ith o th e r biblical W isdom literature. Love is h ere valued above w ealth a n d possessions, a n d it ca n n o t be bou g h t. Prov 16:16 proclaim s, ‘T o g et wisdom , how m u ch b e tte r it is th an gold! / A nd to g e t understan d in g is p re fera b le to silver!” Love, like Lady W isdom , exceeds th e value o f gold (Prov 8:19). It is im p o rta n t to observe th a t in S ong 8:7 it is th e w om an who d em an d s fidelity o f th e m an. In th e an c ie n t N ear East it was a given th a t ad u ltery by a wife was a h ein o u s offense, b u t ex p ectatio n s o f m en were far less in this regard. Yet h ere, as in Prov 5:7-23, sexual devotion is d e m a n d e d o f th e h usband. T h e b rid e m akes th e sam e k in d o f claim o n him as Lady W isdom does o n the young m an (Prov 1:20-33). Fidelity to o n e ’s b rid e is eq u a te d with fidelity to Wisdom ; h o ld in g to th e o n e preserves love, a n d h o ld in g to th e o th e r preserves life.

XII. Chorus and Soprano: The V irgin’s Education Π (8 :8 -1 2 ) Bibliography Alden, R. L. “Song o f Songs 8:12a: Who Said It?” JETS 31 (1988) 271- 78. Arbel, D. V. ‘“ My Vineyard, My Very Own, Is for Myself.’ ” In The Song of Songs: A Feminist Companion to the Bible. FCB 2d ser. 6. Ed. A. A. Brenner and C. R. Fontaine. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000. 90-101.

Translation

First Stanza chorus

8 We have a sister, a little girl (she has no breasts) . What shall we do fo r our sister on the day that she is engaged? 9 I f she is a wall, we will build her a tier a o f silver. I f she is a door, we will enclose her with a plank of cedar.

1A 1B 1C ID 2A 2B 2C 2D

SOPRANO

10 I was a a wall, and my breasts were tike towers; then b in his c eyes I was one d whofinds peace. Second Stanza

3A 3B

chorus

11 There was a vineyard belonging to Solomon in Baal Hamon. He leased the vineyard to tenants. Each would pay from his crop a thousand pieces o f silver.

4A 4B 4C

SOPRANO

12 My vineyard, the one that belongs to me, is in my power a The thousand arefo r you, Solomon, but two hundred fo r those who tend the crops.

5A 5B 5C

Notes 9.a. LXX OL Syr. and Vg. make this pi. Read a sg. with MT. 10.a. Contrary to most translations, it is not necessary to translate the verbless clause ‫ אני חומה‬in the present tense. The temporal particle ‫ אז‬implies that this.verse concerns the past. 10.b. LXX reads 6γώ [i.e .,‫]אני‬, “I,” for M T s ‫אז‬, “th en .” Read MT. 10.c. LXXB “in their eyes.” 10.d. The ptc. ‫מוצאת‬:‫ כ‬means “like one finding,” but “like” (‫ ) כ‬here relates to the m etaphor o f the walled city. If “like” is included in the translation, one should understand it to mean “I was like a city finding peace.” Otherwise, the ‫ כ‬should be left untranslated as in the k a f ventatis. 12.a. ‫ לפני‬means not only “before m e” but “in my power.” A parallel is Gen 34:10: ‫תהיה לפניכם שבו‬ ‫וסחררה והאחזו בהוהארא‬, “and the land will be available to you; setde down and trade in it and acquire property in it.”

Comment

259

Form /Structure/Setting

T his te x t is co m p o sed o f two stanzas; th e first has th re e stro p h es, a n d th e seco n d has two. In ea ch stanza, th e c h o ru s sings first w ith lyrics d esc rib in g som e p a rtic u la r issue th a t relates to a th ird p arty (th e p ro p e r care fo r th e “little sister” in stro p h e 1, a n d th e care fo r th e vineyard o f S o lom on in stro p h e 4). T h e n , in each stanza, th e so p ra n o re sp o n d s by d escrib in g h e r own situ atio n vis-a-vis th e issues th e c h o ru s has raised. T h e c h o ral stro p h es 1 a n d 2 are each o f fo u r lines, a n d th e w o m a n ’s re sp o n se in stro p h e 3 is two lines. In stanza 2, b o th th e ch o ru s a n d th e so p ra n o sing a single stro p h e o f th re e lines. T his c a n to is th u s u n u su a l fo r th e fact th a t th e m ajority o f th e lyrics are sung n e ith e r by th e te n o r n o r th e so p ra n o b u t by th e ch o ru s. O n e m ig h t say th a t the c o n c e rn s a n d q u estio n s o f th e co m m u n ity r a th e r th a n th e ra p tu ro u s love o f th e m an a n d w o m an d o m in a te this can to . O n th e o th e r h a n d , th e m o v em en t fro m a stanza heavily d o m in a te d by th e c h o ru s (S ong 8:8-10) to o n e in w hich th e lines are b a la n c e d a n d th e so p ra n o has th e last w ord (S ong 8:11-12) im plies th a t the w om an has in som e m easu re triu m p h e d over th e w orld a ro u n d her. T h is u n it clearly relates to ‘T h e V irg in ’s E d u c a tio n ” in S ong 1:5-6. C atchw ords th a t lin k S ong 1:5-6 to 8 :8 -1 2 are ‫עלמה‬, “S o lo m o n ”; ‫נטר‬, “ te n d , te n a n ts ”; a n d ‫כרמי‬, “m y v in ey ard .” T h e p o in t o f this te x t is th a t she has left ch ild h o o d b e h in d a n d e n te r e d th e fre e d o m a n d responsibility o f w o m an h o o d . In te rp re te rs o fte n assert th a t S ong 8:8 -9 b elo n g s to th e b ro th ers. N ow here else in th e Song, however, d o es o n e fin d any in d ic atio n th a t th e re is a m ale choru s fu n c tio n in g as “b ro th e rs .” T his is th e re su lt o f th in k in g o f Song o f Songs as a d ra m a r a th e r th a n as a Song. Even th e fem ale c h o ru s only very loosely plays th e p a r t o f th e J e ru sa le m girls; th e ir m ain ro le is to provide a th ird voice in th e Song. T h ey in te ra c t w ith th e two p rin c ip a l singers a n d allow fo r m o re freed o m a n d co m p lex ity in th e lib re tto th a n a so n g o f only two p arts w ould allow. T h e re is n o n e e d to ask a b o u t th e re la tio n sh ip b etw een th e little girl o f 8 :8-9 a n d th e c h o ru s, as th o u g h th ese w ere actu al c h a rac te rs in a d ra m a o r history. T h e w hole p o in t b e h in d in tro d u c in g th e little girl is to p rovide a vehicle th a t allows the Song to e la b o ra te o n th e tra n sfo rm a tio n fro m virgin to wife. O n e sho u ld also ad d th a t th e plural form s in Song 8:8-9 are fairly clear indicators th a t these lyrics belo n g to the ch o ru s an d n o t to the soprano o r th e tenor. It is o f course possible th a t we could have som ething m o re com plex going on h ere (e.g., the sop ran o a n d te n o r singing to g eth er in w 8 -9 ), but, in the absence o f clear evid en ce to th e contrary, it is best to go with th e sim plest solution, th at the first-person plural form s im ply th a t th e ch o ru s is singing. T h e singer o f 8:12 is undoub ted ly the sam e as th e singer o f 8:10, the w om an (see also A lden}f iT S 31 [1988] 271-78). Comment

8 T h e c h o ru s describ es th e little sister by saying th a t she has n o breasts. She co u ld th e re fo re be anyw here betw een a sm all ch ild a n d a p re ad o lesce n t. T h e sexual n a tu re o f th e d e p ic tio n is striking; it d efin es h e r in term s o f h e r sexual m aturity. T his co n trasts w ith th e m o re typical way o f d efin in g c h ild h o o d in term s o f m e n ta l capacity, as in Isa 7:15-16 (ability to m ake m o ral choices), Isa 8:4 (ability to say “f a th e r” a n d “m o th e r ”), J e r 1:6 (ability to speak w ith e lo q u e n c e ), a n d

260

Song

of

S ongs 8 :8-12

J o n a h 4:11 (ability to d istin g u ish left fro m rig h t). B ut th e d esc rip tio n is ap p ro p ria te b ecau se it is precisely th e sexual life o f th e girl th a t is th e focus o f th e c h o r u s ’s c o n c e rn . 1 Sam 2 5 :3 9 , ‫ וידבר באביגיל לקחתה לו לאשה‬, “a n d h e spoke fo r Abigail to take h e r to h im self as his w ife,” indicates th a t th e idiom ‫ שידבר־בה‬refers to th e b e tro th a l o f a w om an. A lth o u g h strict g ra m m a r w ould im ply th a t ‫ ביום שידבר־בה‬, “o n th e day th a t she is e n g a g e d ,” m ean s th a t they w ant to know w hat they sho u ld d o o n th a t specific day, th e actual m ean in g may n o t be q u ite so precise. T h a t is, in stead o f asking w hat they sh o u ld d o specifically o n th e ch ild ’s day o f en g ag em en t, they m ay be asking w hat they sh o u ld do with regard to h e r fu tu re en g ag em en t. O n th e o th e r h an d , if th e cultural practice in view h e re involves a girl b eco m in g b e tro th e d while she is still a sm all child a n d lo n g b efo re h e r actual w edding, the g ra m m a r can be ap p lied m o re literally. E ith er way, th e ch o ru s appears to be asking w hat they sho u ld do fo r h e r in lig h t o f th e fact th a t she will som eday m arry. 9 In te rp re te rs freq u en tly see a n antith esis h e re betw een th e ‫חומה‬, “w all,” a n d th e ‫ד ל ת‬, “d o o r,” w ith th e wall re p re s e n tin g chastity a n d th e d o o r re p re s e n tin g a te n d e n c y tow ard prom iscuity. T h a t is, o n e co u ld take these altern ativ es to re fe r to th e g irl’s m o ra l ch aracter, specifically in th e sexual realm . O n th e surface this ap p e a rs to be re aso n ab le, b u t several factors m ake it an unlikely in te rp re ta tio n . First, it is n o t clea r th a t o n e can o r s h o u ld p re d e te rm in e w h e th e r a p re p u b esc e n t girl will b e chaste in la te r years. S eco n d , th e apodosis afte r each altern ativ e is p re tty m u c h th e sam e; in b o th cases, they in te n d to fortify th e girl ag ainst assault (i.e., take steps to m ain ta in h e r ch a stity ). T h ird , th e w ord fo r “d o o r ” h e re describ es n o t an access b u t a b arrier. I f th e in te n t h a d b e e n to d escrib e h e r as n o t re sista n t to th e sexual desires o f m ales, th e tex t w ould have p ro b ab ly u sed th e te rm ‫פתח‬, “d o o rw ay ” o r “o p e n in g ,” r a th e r th a n ‫דל ת‬, “th e d o o r its e lf’; cf. Keel ([1994] 279). It is m o re likely th a t th e two alternatives in tro d u c e d by ‫אם‬, “if,” m ea n “if we use th e analogy o f th e w all” a n d “if we use th e analogy o f a d o o r.” In b o th cases, th e analogy has n o th in g to d o w ith th e g irl’s m o ral disp o sitio n b u t looks back to th e p ic tu re o f th e virgin as a w alled city. W ith b o th analogies, th e c h o ru s asserts th a t they will take steps to in su re th a t th e y oung girl re m a in s a virgin u n til h e r w edding. T h e te rm ‫טירה‬, “tier,” alm o st always m ean s “e n c a m p m e n t” (G en 25:16; N um 31:10; E zek 25:4; Ps 69:26; 1 C h r 6:39). O n e tim e it m ean s a row o f stones in a wall (Ezek 46:23, w h ere it is u sed in c o n ju n c tio n w ith ‫ ;טור‬a course o r row o f jew els, beam s, statues, o r stones in E x o d 28:17-20; 39:10-13; 1 Kgs 6:36; 7:2, 4, 12, 18, 20, 42; 2 C h r 4:13). T h e w o rd h e re is o ften tak en to m ean “tu r r e t” o r “b a ttle m e n t,” b u t th e re is n o clear analogy fo r this usage. I f ‫ טירה‬is fu n d a m e n tally a v a ria n t o f ‫טור‬, this co u ld ex p lain how it co u ld m ean e ith e r “e n c a m p m e n t” (in w hich th e re is a row o f tents) o r a row o f stones in a wall. B ut th e n o tio n th a t this is som e k in d o f b attle tow er is d ifficu lt to justify. T h e tra n sla tio n o f ‫ נצור‬h e re is difficult. T h e verb ‫ צור‬som etim es m ean s to “sec u r e ” m o n ey in a bag, as in D e u t 14:25; 2 Kgs 5:23; E zra 5:3. T his usage is p arallel to ‫צרר‬, “tie u p ,” a n d som e scholars take th e fo rm h e re to be a v aria n t o f ‫צרר‬. B ut o n e d o es n o t “tie u p ” so m e th in g w ith cedar, a n d this in te rp re ta tio n sh o u ld be rejected . T h e LXX has διαγράψ ω μεν‫׳‬, a verb th a t m ean s to “d e lin e a te ” o r “m ark o ff w ith lin es.” T his im plies th a t th e S ep tu ag in tal translators re a d ‫ צור‬w ith a m eanin g o f “to chisel, fo rm , o r e n g ra v e ” (see E xod 32:4; 1 Kgs 7:15). T his is a b ifo rm

Comment

261

o f ‫יצר‬. T aken this way, it w ould im ply th a t th e “d o o r ” was d e c o ra te d o r en g rav ed w ith c e d a r carvings. ‫ צור‬can also m ean to harass o r fight, as in E xod 23:22 a n d D e u t 2:9, 19, b u t th a t usage is o u t o f th e q u estio n h ere. ‫ צור‬o ften m ean s to “besieg e,” as in D e u t 20:12; 2 Sam 11:1; 20:15; 1 Kgs 15:27; 16:17; 20:1. In all these cases it is u sed w ith th e p re p o sitio n ‫ ; ע ל‬in d e e d , u sed w ith ‫ ע ל‬, th e verb ‫ צור‬elsew h ere always m ean s to “b esieg e” (20x). T h is is very stro n g evidence, a n d o n e m u st assum e th a t sam e m e a n in g prevails h e re . However, th e p u rp o se o f a siege was n o t ju s t to b re ak in to a city. A siege was, first o f all, a stratag em m e a n t to k eep an y o n e fro m g e ttin g in to o r o u t o f a city. H e n ce, we sh o u ld take this to m e a n “b e sie g e ” n o t in th e sense o f “assault” b u t in th e sense o f “e n c lo se .” T h e ‫ טירת כסף‬, “tie r o f silver,” a n d th e ‫ לוח ארז‬, “p la n k o f ce d ar,” are b o th m e a n t to fortify th e castle (th e virgin) ag ain st assault (loss o f virginity). T h e m e ta p h o r does n o t c o n c e rn how she m ig h t lose h e r virginity (w h eth er by force o r by consen t); it only in d icates th a t th e c h o ru s in te n d s to p re v e n t loss o f virginity. Silver a n d cedar, however, are o rn a m e n ta l; they are n o t m aterials o n e w ould typically use fo r defensive bulw arks. T h is is self-evident in th e case o f silver, b u t ce d a r is associated w ith p alatial dw ellings as well (e.g., 2 Sam 7:2, 7; J e r 2 2 : 1 4 1 ;15‫ ־‬Kgs 5 7 ‫ ; ־‬E zra 3:7). T h e im p licatio n o f u sin g expensive a n d d ecorative m aterials (as o p p o se d to iro n , sto n e, o r g en e ric w ood) to secu re th e virginity o f th e girl is th a t h e r status as virgin is to be h o n o re d a n d m a in ta in e d in a way th a t en h a n c e s h e r dignity. S he is n o t p la c e d in a p riso n like a crim inal; she is p ro te c te d like a precious trea su re. T h e h isto rical analogy is how th e virgin d a u g h te rs o f David w ere h o n o re d w ith d eco rativ e clo th in g (2 Sam 13:18). 10 T h e so p ra n o tu rn s th e im age o f th e wall in an u n e x p e c te d d irec tio n by d escrib in g h e r breasts as th e tow ers o n th e wall. T his obviously conveys th e fact th at, u n lik e th e little sister, she has a tta in e d sexual m atu rity a n d has full breasts. B ut it also in d icates h e r resistance to sed u ctio n . In th e d efen se o f a city, the tow ers are th e p ro u d sym bols o f its resistan ce to all attackers; th e taking o f the tow ers im plies th a t th e last vestiges o f resistance have collapsed a n d th e city is in th e h a n d s o f its enem ies. By ‫בעיניו‬, “in his eyes,” she d o es n o t only m ean , “in his estim a tio n ” o r “in his o p in io n .” S he also m ean s th a t she has fo u n d in his eyes p eace fo r herself. 11-1 2 T h e lo catio n o f Baal H a m o n is u n k n o w n. An o ld sp ecu latio n is th a t Baal H a m o n is to be id e n tifie d w ith B alam on o f J u d ith 8:3, a city th at, ac co rd in g to th a t text, was n e a r D o th a n (n o rth o f S a m a ria ). P o p e ( 6 8 6 8 8 ‫ ) ־‬n o tes th e similarity b etw een Baal H a m o n a n d Baal-hammo, th e n a m e o f a C arth ag in ian deity m e n tio n e d in votive in scrip tio n s. H e suggests th a t ‫ המון‬be e m e n d e d to ‫חמון‬, th e n am e o f a town m e n tio n e d in Jo sh 19:28. H e also n o tes th a t th e n a m e Hammon occurs in th e M a'sub in scrip tio n , w hich m e n tio n s th a t som e citizens d e d ic a te d a sh rin e to A sh tarte in th e sh rin e o f th e g o d o f Hammon. H e arg u es o n th e basis o f som e texts o f d u b io u s in te rp re ta tio n th a t Baal-hammon was itself a place nam e. In a d d itio n , since A sh tarte was associated w ith th e m o tif o f g u a rd in g a vineyard in U garitic T ext 2001.2.1, h e suggests th a t this te x t a n d S ong 1:6 m ay allu d e to a sh rin e to A sh tarte a t Hammon. A p a rt fro m th e fact th a t e m e n d a tio n is un su p p o rte d , th e c o n n e c tio n s P o p e p ro p o se s are to o te n u o u s to be persuasive. T h e n a m e Baal H a m o n m ay be p u rely fanciful. It m ean s “lo rd o f u p ro a r,” “lo rd o f w e alth ,” o r p e rh a p s even, “h u sb a n d o f a m o b .” T his co u ld be a playful allusion to S o lo m o n ’s w ealth a n d in fam o u s h arem . A vineyard re p re se n ts real

262

Song

of

Songs 8 :8-12

p ro p e rty a n d w ealth, b u t in th e S ong it also re p re se n ts fem ale sexuality. T h u s, m any in te rp re te rs see S o lo m o n ’s vineyard as a very thinly veiled allusion to his h arem . In th e analogy, th e te n a n ts w ould be g u ard ia n s o f th e h arem . S om e see h e re a jo k e a t S o lo m o n ’s ex p en se: th e two h u n d re d shekels th a t go to th e tenants (v 12) im ply th a t som e o f th e officials w ho are in ch arg e o f S o lo m o n ’s h a re m receive sexual favors fro m its w o m en (this assum es th a t n o t all o f th e k ee p ers o f th e h a re m w ere e u n u c h s ). I f this in te rp re ta tio n is c o rrec t, o n e w ould p ro b ab ly re g a rd th e m a n as th e sin g er o f v 12. H e w o u ld be saying th at, u n lik e S o lo m o n w ith his m o b o f w o m en , h e has o n e single vineyard, his wife, fo r him self. If o n e presses th e above in te rp re ta tio n , it a p p e ars th a t “S o lo m o n ’s v in ey ard ” is d e sc rib in g a b ro th e l ra th e r th a n a h arem . If in his vineyard are w o m en u n d e r th e c o n tro l o f te n a n ts fro m th e vineyard w ho p a id h im o n e th o u sa n d pieces o f silver a n d e a rn e d two h u n d re d fo r them selves, it can only be a b ro th el; a h a re m d o es n o t tu r n a p ro fit. B u t this is n o t w h a t th e tex t im plies. If th e vineyard o f S o lo m o n is sim ply his h arem , th e m e ta p h o r o f p ro fit is ill conceived a n d a t b est q u ite awkward. T h e re a re c o m p ellin g reasons, however, fo r re g a rd in g this in te rp re ta tio n as som ew h at su p erficial a n d u ltim ately as sim ply w rong. T h e w om an is th e sin g er in S ong 8:12 b ecau se it relates back to S ong 1:6, in w hich she co m p lain s th a t she co u ld n o t k ee p h e r own vineyard w hile u n d e r h e r b ro th e rs ’ authority. In 8:12 we see th e re d e m p tio n a n d tra n sfo rm a tio n o f th e w om an w hereby she now has contro l o v er h e r ow n vineyard. T h is sym m etry is d estro y ed a n d th e re la tio n sh ip betw een th e two passages is o b scu re if a t 8:12 h e r h u sb a n d sim ply d eclares his au th o rity over her, th e vineyard. T h e p ro b le m h e re is n o t th a t th e m o d e rn re a d e r refuses to a c c e p t th e a n c ie n t u n d e rs ta n d in g o f th e re la tio n sh ip b etw een husb a n d a n d wife; it is th a t th e tex t itself re q u ire s som e k in d o f balance. T his b alance is n o t ach iev ed by th e m a n d e c la rin g th a t h e possesses his own vineyard, however tru e th a t m ay be. W hile th e vineyard o f S o lo m o n m ay allu d e to his h arem , it is n o t exclusively o r even p rim arily th at. T h e key to in te rp re tin g this m e ta p h o r is in th e w o m a n ’s use o f th e te rm in S ong 1:6, w h ere h e r lack o f fre e d o m to te n d h e r own vineyard is em b lem atic o f h e r servile status. T h e re , she co u ld n o t te n d h e r own vineyard becau se o f th e d u ties im p o sed o n h e r by h e r b ro th ers. S o lom on, by co n trast, do es n o t te n d his ow n vineyard by choice. H e has voluntarily allow ed servants to take his p lace in c a rin g fo r a vineyard a n d w atch in g it flourish. Explanation

In S ong 1:5-6, th e w om an sang o f h e r life in th e h o m e o f h e r m o th er, w here h e r b ro th e rs tre a te d h e r as a slave. She was fo rced to w ork in th e family vineyards a n d h a d n o o p p o rtu n ity to cultivate h e r own. She was in effect an o u tsid er in th a t she was given n o freed o m to fin d a n d develop h e r interests. N evertheless, she was m ad e stro n g by th e ex p e rien ce a n d is ready to take h e r place as a w om an. T h is text, S ong 8 :8-12, also deals w ith th e e d u c a tio n o f th e virgin. First, th e singers o f th e c h o ru s ask w h at th ey sh o u ld d o w ith th e ir little sister a n d rh e to rically a n sw e r th e ir ow n q u e s tio n ( w 8 - 9 ) . T h e w o m a n t h e n sin g s o f h e r tra n sfo rm a tio n fro m virgin to wife u n d e r th e m e ta p h o r th a t th e c h o ru s has em ployed, th e wall (v 10). Previously she h a d b e e n like o n e read y fo r w ar w h ere

Explanation

263

m e n w ere c o n c e rn e d . H e r defen ses w ere u p , a n d she was th e w alled city surro u n d e d by th e g u ard s o f th e wall (S ong 3:3), h e r virginity. W ith him , however, she fo u n d peace. T h a t is, lo o k in g in to his eyes, she fo u n d o n e w hom she co u ld fully tru st. She was n o lo n g e r a town u n d e r siege; she co u ld o p e n th e gates freely. T h e “tow ers” now b elo n g to h e r lover, b u t n o t by co n q u e st o r force. H is b a n n e r flies over th e city, a n d it is a b a n n e r o f love (S ong 2:4). In v 11, th e c h o ru s sings o f th e vineyard o f S olom on, a m o tif th a t obviously looks b ack to th e vineyard o f S ong 1:5-6. S o lo m on has in effect c u t h im self o ff fro m th e p leasu res o f d ire c t inv o lv em en t in life a n d c o n v e rted th e process in to a financial tran sactio n . T h e ag rarian ideal o f te n d in g a g a rd e n a n d having th e jo y o f eatin g g ra p es fro m vines th a t o n e has c a re d fo r w ith o n e ’s own h a n d s is lost o n S o lo m o n as h e sits se q u e ste re d in Je ru sa le m taking in acco u n ts receivable. T h e te x t allu d es to his h a re m h e re in th e sense th a t th e tru e m e a n in g o f sexual love is lost o n S o lo m o n as well. F o r him , a vast h a re m was a p olitical necessity a n d a visible sign th a t h e was a g re a t a n d w ealthy m o n arc h . B ut h e h a d n o experie n c e o f love as th e sin g er o f this c a n to e x p e rie n c e d it: “My lover is m in e a n d I am his.” S o lo m o n was th e Baal Hamon, th e lo rd o f a m ob. H e ow ned a g re at m any th in g s a n d p e o p le b u t knew th e m only fro m a distance. T h e w o m an re sp o n d s th a t she w ould ra th e r have p erso n al c o n tro l over h e r own vineyard th a n be in S o lo m o n ’s p o sitio n , th a t is, be th e ab se n te e la n d lo rd over vast estates. In c o n tra st to S o lom on, th e w om an ex p e rien ce s life a n d h e r o n e lover directly.

XIII. Tenor, Chorus, and Soprano: The Farew ell (8 :1 3 -1 4 ) Bibliography John o f Ford. Sermons on the Final Verses of the Song of Songs. Trans. W. M. Beckett. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 1977. Tonrnay, J. R. “The Song o f Songs and Its Concluding Section.” Imm 10 (1980) 5-14.

Translation TENOR AND CHORUS

13 O ladya who inhabits the gardens, while friends listen for your voice? let me hear you!

1A IB

SOPRANO

14 Hasten away, my lover, and make yourself alike a gazellea or a young stag on the mountains of balsam!

2A 2B 2C

Notes 13.a. “Lady” is im plied by the fem. sg. p tc . ‫ ה י ^ ת‬, “one inhabiting.” The LXX has the masc. sg. ό καθήμ6 νο 9 and Syr. reads masc. pi., but em endation o f the MT is not called for. Cf. Murphy, 194. 13.b. The word ‫לקילך‬, “to your voice,O could do double duty as object o f both ‫מקשיבים‬, “listening,” and ‫השמיעיני‬, “let me hear.” 14.a‫־‬a. Missing in LXX and some MSS o f Syr.

Form /Structure/Setting

T h is te x t is co m p o sed o f two s h o rt stro p h es. In v 13 th e m ale, o r th e ch o ru s, o r b o th to g eth er, call o u t to th e w om an, a n d in v 14 th e w om an answers. Scholars a re u n s u re a b o u t w ho th e sin g er is in v 13, b u t, since th e w om an is th e focus a n d p ro ta g o n ist o f th e Song, th e c h o ru s a n d te n o r are u n d e rs to o d to sing tog e th e r to h e r h ere. T h ey in effect th ro w th e sp o tlig h t o n h e r in o rd e r to celeb rate h e r tra n sfo rm a tio n . T his b le n d in g o f voices is th e c o u n te rp a rt to th e in tro d u ctio n in S ong 1:2-4, w h e re th e so p ra n o a n d c h o ru s c o m p ete w ith o n e a n o th e r in d ec la rin g th e ir a d m ira tio n fo r th e m an . T h e w om an re sp o n d s in v 14 by calling on th e m a n to re su m e his ro le as lover u n d e r th e guise o f th e stag o n th e m o u n tains o f balsam . As th e S ong h a d b e g u n w ith a call fo r th e m a n to “kiss m e w ith th e kisses o f his m o u th ” (1:2), it e n d s w ith a call fo r him to e x u lt in th e love o f th e w om an. Comment

13 In S ong 2:14 th e w o m a n ’s voice is surpassingly sweet to th e m an , a n d he desires to h e a r h e r speak. In this verse, ev ery o n e has fallen in love w ith her. If it is c o rre c t th a t b o th th e te n o r a n d c h o ru s sing this to g eth er, th e c o m b in a tio n o f

Explanation

265

th e ir voices signals to th e a u d ie n c e th a t ev eryone w ants to h e a r h e r speak. T h e lyrics d ec la re th a t “frie n d s listen fo r y o u r v o ice.” ‫חברים‬, “frie n d s,” occurs elsew h ere only in th e S ong at 1:7, w h ere it refers to h e r lo v er’s associates, th e o th e r sh ep h e rd s. In th a t text, th e w om an sang o f h e r h esitatio n a b o u t a p p e a rin g in th e m id st o f his frien d s, a situ atio n in w hich she w ould have b e e n an outsider. H e re, she is th e m a n ’s wife a n d is a d m ire d by all— h u sb an d , girls, a n d shepherds. She has re p la c e d th e m an as th e o b ject o f a d m ira tio n (see Song 1:2—4). T h e appellation given to h e r as ‫היושבת בגנים‬, “the lady w ho inhabits the gardens,” is significant. In the Song, the m e ta p h o r o f th e gard en o r o f fru it regularly refers to sexual pleasures generally o r to th e w om an’s body specifically. H ere, as the lady who inhabits the gardens, she is the do m ain o f love. T h e joys an d desires o f love have h er at the ce n te r an d all look u p o n h e r in wonder. Certainly the m an is en c h an ted by her. (T he line “let m e h ea r you” may have b een sung by the ten o r alone.) 14 T h e w om an re sp o n d s only to th e m an a n d seem s u n c o n c e rn e d a b o u t th e c h o ru s o r th e “frie n d s .” T his stands in c o n tra st to Song 1:7, w h ere she was m o rtifie d a t th e th o u g h t o f b e in g a m o n g th e co m p an io n s o f th e m an . H e re she focuses h e r a tte n tio n w holly o n h im a n d ig n o res all o th ers. W hen she tells him to ‫ברח‬, “fle e ,” she d o es n o t m e a n th a t h e sh o u ld r u n away fro m her. U n d e r th e m e ta p h o r o f th e stag o n th e m o u n ta in s, she is calling o n him to com e away from th e crow ds a n d give all his a tte n tio n to her. T h e p h ra se ‫ הרי בשמים‬, “m o u n ta in s o f balsam ,” refers to th e w o m a n ’s breasts a n d by m etonym y to h e r w hole body (with focus o n h e r sex u ality ). She is calling o n h im to m ake love to her. Explanation

T his is th e th ird tim e a c a n to o r stanza has e n d e d w ith re fe re n c e to th e m an e x p e rie n c in g h e r breasts u n d e r th e m e ta p h o r o f m o u n tain s. T h e ca n to o f th e invitatio n to d e p a rt (S ong 2 :8-17) co n clu d es w ith h e r inviting him to be like a d e e r o r gazelle “o n th e cleft m o u n ta in s ” (2:17). A t Song 4:6, th e m an en d s a stanza by saying th a t h e will g e t h im self “to M yrrh M o untain a n d to In cen se H ill.” H e re, th e e n tire S ong o f Songs en d s w ith a call fo r him to ex p e rien ce th e “m o u n tains o f b alsam .” T h e m o u n ta in is obviously a favorite im age fo r th e b reast in th e Song, b u t th e re is m o re to be said th a n th at. A n o th e r im age fo r th e b reast in th e S ong is a clu ster o f d ates o r g rap es (S ong 7:9 [ET 7:8]). B ut m o u n tain s, a p a rt fro m th e ir obvious visual sim ilarity to breasts, are n o t co n su m ab le o r transien t in n a tu re . To th e co n trary , they c o n n o te g ra n d e u r a n d p e rm a n e n c e . As such, p e rh a p s m o u n ta in is a p re fe rre d m e ta p h o r because it shows th a t sexual love tra n sc e n d s any o n e c o u p le ’s e x p e rien ce . It is an ab id in g universal o f th e h u m a n ex p e rie n c e . It has dignity, like th e m o u n tain s, a n d S ong o f Songs itself is also, like th e m o u n ta in s, an a b id in g sta te m e n t o f its beauty a n d dignity. By placin g th e call to th e m o u n ta in s a t th e e n d o f various p arts a n d at th e e n d o f the e n tire o pus, th e te x t m akes th e m o u n ta in s th e special focus o f a tte n tio n . T his focus o n th e breasts as th e re g io n o f lovem aking is in k ee p in g w ith Prov 5:19 a n d suggests th a t th e S ong rightly belo n g s in th e W isdom corpus. It fu rth e r suggests th a t th e w o m a n ’s bod y (a n d especially h e r breasts) is th e locus o f th e c o u p le ’s love. Finally, mountains in its literal sense suggests a p asto ral settin g in th e hill c o u n try o f Israel, a n d so provides an im age o f an id eal setting fo r y o ung lovers. T h e m an a n d w om an th u s d e p a rt in to th e co u n try sid e a n d leave th e aud ien ce , a n d th e re ad er, w ith a d istan t, wistful vision o f love.

Lamentations

Author’s Preface If I recall correctly, I first discussed w ith J o h n W atts th e possibility o f u n d ertaking this p ro je c t in th e fall o f 1996. David H u b b a rd h a d passed away w ith o u t c o m p le tin g th e w ork o n L am e n ta tio n s, a n d J o h n was lo o king fo r so m eo n e to take Dr. H u b b a rd ’s n o te s o n c h a p te r 1 a n d in c o rp o ra te th e m in to a com m entary o n th e book. I n ev er h a d th e privilege o f m e e tin g Dr. H u b b a rd , b u t I have m e t m any in flu e n c e d by his m inistry. I ac c e p te d this assig n m en t so m etim e in 1997, a n d th e e n d re su lt is b efo re you. It is an h o n o r to have h a d th e ch a n ce to w ork o n c e again w ith m y “F a th e r D o cto r,” J o h n W atts, w ho p re p a re d th e m etrical n o ta tio n s fo r this volum e, a n d w ith m y frie n d Jam es Watts. T h e ir ed ito rial ex p ertise m a d e this a b e tte r book, as d id M elanie M cQ u e re’s. T his c o m m e n ta ry was w ritten in a variety o f places a n d w ith th e h e lp o f m any p eo p le. Som e in itial w ork was acco m p lish ed a t T h e S o u th e rn B aptist T heological S em in ary fro m 1997 to 1999. I am p articu larly gratefu l to B ru ce Keisling o f Boyce C e n te n n ia l L ibrary, w ho c o n d u c te d b ib lio g rap h ical searches fo r m e. F u rth e r w ork was u n d e rta k e n o n th e p ro je c t while I was teac h in g at T rinity E piscopal S chool fo r M inistry fro m 1999 to 2001. B esides enjoying u n q u alified su p p o rt fro m m y faculty colleagues, o u r d ea n , Gavin M cG rath, a n d o u r presid e n t, P e te r M oore, I was greatly h e lp e d by having S arah L e b h a r as my re searc h assistant. S arah m ad e c e rtain th a t I h a d n e e d e d resources, a task m ad e easier by Dr. R o b e rt M unday a n d th e staff o f th e T rinity library. D u rin g th e su m m er o f 2001 I ta u g h t a t B eeson Divinity School, w h ere I u sed th e S am ford U niversity L ib rary a n d w rote th e in tro d u c to ry chapter. Since 2001 I have served o n th e faculty o f W h e ato n C ollege, a place th a t supp o rts its faculty m e m b e rs ’ w riting efforts adm irably. I have received re searc h assistance fro m S te p h e n W ebster, A m b er S tone, K eith W illiam s, a n d G reg Goss. I have also b e n e fite d fro m th e h elp o f th e staff at Buswell M em orial Library. D u rin g th e su m m er o f 2002 I was given an A ld een G ra n t by th e college to do re s e a rc h a n d w ritin g o n th e c o m m e n ta ry a t M oore T h e o lo g ic a l C ollege in Sydney, A ustralia. W hile in re sid e n ce th e re , I was e n c o u ra g e d by O ld T estam e n t colleagues B arry W ebb a n d Paul W illiam son, as well as by J o h n W oodhouse, principal o f M oore C ollege, h im self an O ld T estam e n t scholar. T h e college librarians w ere u n fa ilin g ly c h e e rfu l a n d h elp fu l. A rc h b ish o p P e te r J e n s e n a n d P h illip J e n se n , D ean o f St. A n d rew ’s C ath ed ra l, Sydney, m ad e th e a rra n g e m e n ts fo r o u r stay a n d o ffe re d su p e rb hospitality. T h e J e n s e n b ro th e rs are g ood, gracious, a n d e n c o u ra g in g frien d s, as are th e ir wives, C h ristin e a n d H e le n . Besides th e frie n d s already m e n tio n e d , I have received c o n sta n t su p p o rt from long-tim e frie n d s a n d fro m fam ily m em b ers. R ich ard Bailey, Kyle M cC lellan, M ike T ucker, T om Jo n e s, a n d G reg T h o rn b u r y o ffered specific e n c o u ra g e m e n t o n th e p ro je c t a n d o n life. In 1998 B en M itchell, w ho has th e gift o f mercy, was w ith m e d u rin g very h a rd tim es, a n d my o ld est a n d wisest frie n d , Jim D ixon, g u id e d m e th ro u g h som e to u g h decisions associated w ith tho se tim es. B en a n d Jim have a h ig h theology o f frie n d sh ip . As always, Scott H a fe m a n n in fo rm ed , en c o u ra g e d , a n d in sp ire d m e th ro u g h o u t th e w riting process. In fact, Scott was

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th e o n e w ho first advised m e to ac c e p t th e p ro ject. O nly G od can give you frien d s like Scott. My sister S u zan n e Kingsley a n d h e r h u sb an d , G o rd o n , sh ap e d my views o n la m e n t a n d h o p e m o re th a n they will ever know. M ost o f all, m y wife, H e ath er, a n d m y d a u g h ter, Molly, have c o n trib u te d th e ir love, lau g h ter, a n d ex p e rtise to this p ro ject. H e ath er, a pro fessio n al th eo lo g ical edito r, o ffe re d advice alo n g sid e love a n d e n c o u ra g e m e n t. S he also p rovides an a tm o s p h e re in o u r h o m e th a t is as co n d u civ e to scholarly w riting as I can im agine. Molly re jo ic e d in every fin ish ed stage. S he also sh a re d th e difficu lt ch a n g es th a t o c c u rre d in th e last several years. S he is c u rren tly co n c lu d in g u n d e r g r a d e ate stu d ies in biblical studies a n d will p u rs u e g ra d u a te studies in New T e sta m e n t a t O x fo rd U niversity n e x t year. I am g ra te fu l fo r h e r c o m m itm e n t to o u r L ord. T h o u g h it w o u ld be a p p ro p ria te to d e d ic a te this p ro je c t in h o n o r o f D avid H u b b a rd , I believe h e w o u ld ag ree w ith m y decision to d ed ica te it to Molly. Afte r all, h e gave his life to p re p a rin g p e o p le like Molly fo r th e L o rd ’s w ork, a n d I sh are a t least a m easu re o f his c o m m itm e n t. F o r th ese a n d o th e r kindnesses, I am very g rateful. Paul R. H ouse Wheaton College Easter 2003

Commentary Bibliography In th e te x t o f th e co m m en tary , re fe re n c e s to co m m en tarie s o n L am e n ta tio n s are by a u th o r ’s n a m e only. Aalders, G. C. De Klaagliederen. Kampen: Kok, 1952. Adeney, W. F. The Song of Solomon and the Lamentations ofJeremiah. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1900. Alshekh, M. The Book

of Lamentations: Solace amidst the Ashes: The Commentary of Rabbi Mosheh Alshich on Megillath Eichah/Lamentations. Jerusalem: Feldheim, 1993. Ash, A. L. Jeremiah and Lamentations. The Living Word Commentary. Abilene, TX: Abilene Christian UP, 1987. Berlin, A. Lamentations. OTL. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2002. Bettan, I. The Five Scrolls: A Commentary on the Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther. Cincinnati: Union o f Am erican Hebrew Congregations, 1950. Boecker, H. J. Klagelieder. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1985. Bonaventure. D. Bonaventxrrce S.R.E. Episcopi Card. . . . In librvm sapientice & lamentatinoes Ieremiae Prophetae pia & erudite expositio. Venice: Apud Petrum de Francisdcijs, 1574. Brandscheidt, R. Das Buck der Klagelieder. GSAT 10. Dusseldorf: Patmos, 1988. Budde, K. “Die Klagelieder.” In K. Budde, A. Bertholet, and D. G. Wildeboer, Die Funf Megillot. KHC 17. Freiburg, Leipzig, and Tubingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1898. Bugenhagen, J. In Ieremian Propetam Commentarium. Vitebergae: In Offi* cina Petri Seitz, 1546. Bullinger, H. Threnorum, seu, Lamentationum beati Ieremiae prophetae breuis explication. Tiguri: Excudebat Froschouerus, 1561. Calvin, J. Commentaries on the Book of the Prophet feremiah and the Lamentations. Trans. J. Owen. Calvin’s Commentaries 11. 1563. Reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1996. Castro, C. de. Commentariorum in Ieremice Prophetias, Lamentationes, et Baruch. Paris: Apud Michaelem Sonniom, 1609. Cheyne, T. K. Lamentations. London: Funk 8c Wagnalls, 1913. Coffman, J. B. Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations. Abilene, TX: Abilene Christian UP, 1994. Crowley, E. J. The Books of Lamentations, Baruch, Sophonia, Nahum, andHebacuc: With a Commentary. New York: Paulist Press, 1962. Dalglish, E. R. Jeremiah, Lamentations. Nashville: Broadman, 1983. Davidson, R. Jeremiah I I and Lamentations. Daily Study Bible. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985. Del Rio, M. A. Commentarivs litteralis in Threnos, id est, Lamentationes Ieremice prophetce. Lvgdvni: Svmptibvs Horatii Cardon, 1608. Deursen, F. van. Ruth, Klaagliederen, Esther. Amsterdam: Duijten 8c Schipperheijn, 1991. Dobbs-Allsopp, F. W. Lamentations. IBC. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2002. Droin, J. M. LeLivre des Lamentations: “Comment*”: Une traduction et un commentaire. Geneva: Labor 8c Fides, 1995. Ellicott, C. J. The Book ofJeremiah and Lamentations. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1961. Ellison, H. L. “Lamentations.” In Expositor's Bible Commentary. 12 vols. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1986. 6:695-733. Ewald, H. Die Psalmen und die Klagelieder. 3d ed. DAB. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck 8c Ruprecht, 1866. Exell, J. S. Jeremiah, the Lamentations of Jeremiah. 1900. Reprint, New York: Revell, 1981. Figueiro, P. A. Paraphrases in Praophetias Ieremice, Commentarios in eiusdem Lamentationes. Lyon: Suptibus Horatii Cardon, 1615. Fuerst, W. J. The Books of Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, Lamentations. CBC. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1975. Gaab, J. F. von. Beitrage zurErklarung des sogenannten Hohenlieds, Koheleths und der KLaglieder. Tubingen: Heerbrandt’schen, 1795. Gelin, A. Jeremie—Les Lamentations—Le Livre de Baruch. La Sainte Bible de Jerusalem. Paris: Cerf, 1951. Gerstenberger, E. S. Psalms, Part 2, and Lamentations. FO TL 15. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001.-------- . Zu Hilfe, mein Gott: Psalmen und Klagelieder. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989. Ghislerius, M. In Ieremiam propetam commentarii. . .Jugduni: Laurentii Durand, 1623. Gordis, R. The Song of Songs and Lamentations. New York: Ktav, 1974. Gosdeck, D. M. Jeremiah, Lamentations. Milwaukee: Northwestern, 2000.-------- .

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Jeremiah, Lamentations. St. Louis: CPH, 1995. Gottwald, N. K. “Lamentations.” In Harper's Bible Commentary. Ed. J. L. Mays et al. San Francisco: Harper 8c Row, 1988. 646-51. Gross, H. Klagelieder. Wurzburg: Echter, 1986. Guest, J. Jeremiah, Lamentations. Communicator’s Commentary. Waco, TX: Word, 1988. Guinan, M. D. “Lamentations.” In The NewJerome Biblical Commentary. Ed. R. E. Brown et al. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990. 55862. Habel, N. C . Jeiemiah and Lamentations. St. Louis: Concordia, 1968. Haller, M. “Die Klagelieder.” In M. Haller and K. Galling, Die Funf Megilloth. HAT 18. Tubingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1940. Hamon, M. Commentaire sur les Lamentations deJeremie. Paris: Chez Le Clere, 1790. Hardt, H. von der. Threnos. Helmstadii, 1712. Harrison, R. K. Jeremiah and Lamentations. TOTC. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973. Henderson, E. The Book 0J the ProphetJeremiah and That of the Lamentations. Andover: Draper, 1868. Hillers, D. R. Lamentations. AB 7A. New York: Doubleday, 1972.-------- . Lamentations. 2d ed. AB 7A. New York: Doubleday, 1992. Hinton, L. B. Jeremiah and Lamentations. Basic Bible Commentary. Nashville: Abingdon, 1988. Hitzig, J. Das Hohe Lied: Erklart von d. Ferdinand Hitzig. Die Klaglieder. Erklart von d. Otto Thenius. Leipzig: Hirzel, 1855. Huelsemann, J. D. Joh. Hulsemanni in Jeremian &f Threnos Commentarius posthumus. Frankfurt: Sumptibus Johannis Herebordi Klosii, 1696. Huey, F. B. Jeremiah and Lamentations. NAC. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1993. Jensen, I. L. Jeremiah and Lamentations. Chicago: Moody Press, 1966. Kaiser, O. “Klagelieder.” In H. Ringren and O. Kaiser, Das Hohelied/Klagelieder/Das Buck Ester. 4th ed. ATD 16.2. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck 8c Ruprecht, 1992. Keil, C. F. Jeremiah, Lamentations. Trans. J. Martin. Commentary on the Old Testament 8. 1872. Reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980. Kent, D. G. Lamentations: Bible Study Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1983. Knabenbauer, J. Commentarius in Danielum prophetam, Lamentationes et Baruch. Paris: Lethielluex, 1891. Knight, G. A. F. Esther, Song of Songs, and Lamentations. TBC. London: SCM Press, 1955. Kodell, J. Lamentations, Haggai, Zechanah, Malachi, Obadiah, Joel, Second Zechanah, Baruch. Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1982. Kraus, H. J. Klagelieder. 3d ed. BKAT 20. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1968. Kuist, Η. T. The Book ofJeremiah; the Lamentations ofJeremiah. Richmond, VA: John Knox, 1960. Lamparter, H. Das Buck der Sehnsucht: Das Buch Ruth, das Hohe Lied, die Klagelieder. Stuttgart: Calwer, 1962. Lohr, M. Die Klagelieder desJeremia. HKAT 3.2.2. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck 8c Ruprecht, 1906. Lowth, W. A Commentary upon the Prophecy and Lamentations ofJeremiah. London, 1728. Lundmark, J. In ThrenosJeremiae dissertation: Cujus partem primam. Upsala: Edman, 1799. Mayer, F. Die KlageliederJeremias: Ein Evengelium fur Miihselige und Beladene. Stuttgart: Quell, 1934. McGee, J. V. Jeremiah and Lamentations. Pasadena, CA: Thru the Bible Books, 1978. Meek, T. J., and W. P. Merrill. “Lamentations.” IB. 12 vols. Nashville: Abingdon, 1956. 6:3-38. Moskowitz, Y. Z. “Lamentations.” In FiveMegillot. Da'at Miqra Series. Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1990. Muller, Η. P. Das Hohelied, Klagelieder, das Buch Ester. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck 8c Ruprecht, 1992. Nagelsbach, C. W. H. The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah: Theologically and Homiletically Expounded. Edinburgh: Clark, 1871. O ’Connor, K. M. “Lamentations.” NIB. Nashville: Abingdon, 2001. 6:1013-72.-------- . “Lamentations.” In The Women's Bible Commentary. Ed. C. A. Newsom and S. H. Ringe. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1992. 17882. Oecolampadius, J. In Hieremiam Prephetam Commentariorum libri tres. Argentinae: In Officina Matthia Apiarii, 1533. Oettli, S. “Die Klagelieder.” In Kurzgefaszter Kommentar zu den heiligen Schnsften Alten und Neuen Testaments. Ed. H. Strack and O. Zockler. A: Altes Testament 7. Abteilung: Die poetischen Hagiographen. Nordlingen, 1889. 199-224. Origen. Jeremiahomilien; Keleliederkommentar; Erklarung der Samuel- und Konigsbucher. Reprint, Berlin: Akademie, 1983. Paffrath, T. Die Klagelieder. Bonn: Hanstein, 1932. Paschasius Radbertus. Commentaria in Lamentationibus Ieremie prophete. Basel: Balilien, 1502.------- . In Lammtatioes Ieremice prophetce quce ut quinque capitibus continent, ita in quing redegit libros, opus certe aureun, nunquam antehac uisum, nec typis excusum. Cologne: Ex officina Eucharii, 1532. Peake, A S. Jeremiah and Lamentations. Vol. 2, Jeremiah XXV to U I,

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Lamentations. Century Bible. London: Caxton, 1911. Piscator, J. In ProphetamJeremiam et ejusdem Lamentationes Commentanus. Herbornae Nassoviorum: Ex Officina typographica Christophori Corvini, 1614. Ploger, O. “Die Klagelieder.” In O. Ploger et al. FunfMegilloth: Ruth, Das Hohelied, Esther, Der Prediger, Die Klagelieder. (H AT 1.18, 2d ed. Tubingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1969. Provan, I. Lamentations. NCB. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991. Re’emi, S. P. ‘T h e Theology o f Hope: A Commentary on the Book o f Lamentations.” In R. Martin-Achard and S. P. Re’emi, God’s People in Crisis: A Commentary on the Book of Amos and A Commentary on the Book of Lamentations. ITC. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1984. Renkema, J. Lamentations. Trans. B. Doyle. HCOT. Leuven: Peeters, 1998. Ricciotti, G. Le Lamentazioni de Geremia. Turin and Rome: n.p., 1924. Ringgren, H. Das Hohe Lied, Klagelieder, Das Buck Esther. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck 8c Ruprecht, 1981. Rudolph, W. Das BuchRuth, Das Hohe Lied, Die Klagelieder. 2d ed. KAT 17.1-3. Gutersloh: Mohn, 1962. Salters, R. B. Jonah and Lamentations. Old Testament Guides. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994. Schneider, H. Das Buck Daniel. Das Buck der Klagelieder. Das Buch Baruch. Frieburg: Herder, 1954. Smit, G. Ruth, Ester en Klaagliederen. Groningen: Wolters, 1930. Smith, J. feremiah and Lamentations. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1972. Stoll, C. D. Die Klagelieder. Woppertal: Brockhaus, 1986. Streane, A. W. Jeremiah, Lamentations. Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1881. Strobel, A. Trauer um Jerusalem: Jeremia, Klagelieder, Baruch. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1973. Tamow, J. In ThrenosJeremiae commentanus. Hamburg: Sumptibus Sam. Heilii 8c Joh. Gottf. Liebezeit, 1707. Thenius, O. Die Klagelieder. Leipzig: Mohr (Siebeck), 1855. Tobiah ben Elieser (Toviyahu ben Eli’ezer). Tobia ben Elieser’s Commentar zu Threni (Lekach Tob.): Zum ersten male nach ms. Munchen. Berlin: Druck von H. Itzkowski, 1895. Udall, J. A Commentane upon theLamentations ofleremy. London, 1900. Vaihinger, J. G. Der Prediger und das hohelied. Stuttgart: Besler, 1858. Weiser, A. “Klagelieder.” In H. Ringren, A. Weiser, and W. Zimmerli, Spruche/ Prediger, Das Hohe Lied/Klagelieder, Das Buch Esther. 2d ed. ATD 16. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962. Westermann, C. Lamentations: Issues and Interpretation. Trans. C. Muenchow. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994. Wiesmann, H. Die Klagelieder. Frankfurt am Main: Philosophisch-theologische Hochschule Sankt Georgen, 1954. Wright, J. S. Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970. Yamamuro, G. Eremiya-ki; Eremiya aika. Tokyo: Kyuseidan Shuppan oyobi Kyokyubu, 1941. Ziegler, J. Jeremias. Baruch. Threni. EpistulaJeremiae. 2d ed. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck Sc Ruprecht, 1976. Zlotowitz, A. Lamen-

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