Song of Solomon #22

Song of Solomon is an extended love poem celebrating the beauty, longing, and exclusivity of romantic and marital love between a husband and wife, expressed with unusually vivid poetic imagery for its ancient setting.

Read Song of Solomon in the King James Version →

Author and Date

The opening verse calls it “the song of songs, which is Solomon’s” (Song of Solomon 1:1). The Hebrew phrase can mean by, for, or about Solomon, and tradition dates the work to his reign (c. 970-930 BC), consistent with his reputation for composing songs (1 Kings 4:32). Solomon also appears in the third person (3:7); some scholars see a collection of love poems, and others cite vocabulary as evidence of a later date. Authorship and date are disputed.

Background and Audience

The poem draws on the courtship and wedding customs of ancient Israel, with royal pageantry alongside pastoral images of vineyards, gardens, flocks, and spices. Similar love poetry survives from ancient Egypt, as scholars often note. The speakers are the woman, the man, and a chorus called the daughters of Jerusalem (2:7). No occasion is named; Jewish tradition reads it aloud at Passover.

Outline

The structure is debated; a common division is:

• 1:1-2:7: Mutual longing and admiration between the woman and the man
• 2:8-3:5: The man’s spring invitation, and the woman’s night search for him
• 3:6-5:1: The wedding procession and the couple’s union
• 5:2-6:3: A dream of absence and search, ending in reconciliation
• 6:4-8:4: Renewed praise and desire between the couple
• 8:5-14: The seal of love, and the closing invitation

Key Themes

• Mutual desire: both lovers speak freely and praise each other.
• Exclusive commitment: love is pictured as a garden reserved for one and a seal set on the heart.
• Love’s strength: it is called as strong as death (8:6-7).
• Longing and absence: the poem includes seeking and losing as well as delight.

Interpreters read it literally, as a celebration of married love, or allegorically, as God’s love for Israel or Christ’s love for the church.

Key Verses

• Song of Solomon 1:1 — the title, “the song of songs,” the finest of songs
• Song of Solomon 2:10-13 — the man’s invitation to come away, set in the spring
• Song of Solomon 2:16 — the woman’s declaration of mutual belonging
• Song of Solomon 3:1-4 — her night search for the one her soul loves, and her joy at finding him
• Song of Solomon 8:6-7 — love as strong as death, which many waters cannot quench

How It Fits the Bible

The Song belongs to the Old Testament poetry and wisdom books, next to Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, which are also linked to Solomon. It develops the picture of marriage found in Genesis 2:24. Christian and Jewish readers have long read it in light of the marriage imagery used elsewhere in Scripture for God and his people, such as Ephesians 5:31-32.