Norman Solomon / Notes on the Song of Songs

Song of Songs : ‫ שיר השירים‬: Introductory Notes

By Norman Solomon

For Judisch-Christlich Bibelwoche, Osnabrück, 24-31 July 2011

The Superscription
Hebrew ‫ שיר‬shir means ‘song’ or ‘poem’. ‫ שיר השירים‬shir ha-shirim is the superlative form, so ‘most
excellent song’.

‫ אשר לשלמה‬asher li’Shlomo ‘of Solomon’ may indicate authorship or style, the literary setting (cf. 3:7),
or it may be a spurious claim to authority.

Although the superscription is found in ancient mss. and translations it is not integral to the text.

Structure of the Song

In our printed Bibles the Song is divided into 8 chapters of 17+17+11+16+16+12+14+14 verses, a
total of 97 verses. Verse divisions are part of the Hebrew tradition of reading and are found in early
manuscripts. The chapter divisions were introduced by Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury
(d. 1228), to facilitate citation, and were widely adopted by Jews as well as Christians when printing
was introduced; they do not always correspond with the natural divisions of the text, and this is
clearly the case in the Song.

Debate has long raged as to whether the book is merely a collection of disjointed songs (poems) or
fragments, or whether it has a coherent structure. Some of the songs imply a male singer, some a
female; this is most obvious in Hebrew, which is more strongly gendered than English or German.
Other songs are collective, perhaps intended for a chorus.

Some commentators detect a single narrative linking the songs. The late rabbi Dr. S. M. Lehrman (a
gifted storyteller himself) wrote:

Despite problems of authorship and interpretation, the story is briefly told. It describes the
trials of a beautiful peasant maiden from Shunem, or Shulem, who was employed by her
mother and brothers as a shepherdess to their flock of goats. She had fallen in love with a
shepherd of the same village, but the brothers did not look with approval on the union.
They, accordingly, transferred her services from the pasture to the vineyards, in the hope
that there her meeting with her lover would not be possible. One day, as she was tending to
the vines, she was seen by the servants of king Solomon, when he chanced to pass the
village on his journey to his summer resort in Lebanon. Impressed by her beauty, they try to
persuade her to accompany them. She refuses and is finally led away as captive to the
king’s chambers. No sooner does the king behold her, when he, too, falls violently in love
with her. He sings her beauty and uses all his endeavours to induce her to abandon her love

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for her shepherd for the love and wealth he can shower upon her. The ladies of the court
also join in trying to dislodge her love for her humble swain. Her heart, however, belongs to
him and she remains steadfast. (Lehrman, page x)
This is charming, but it is by no means the only story that can be or has been read into the text.

Others have read the book as the script for a drama or ritual performance.

Proposal for a Chiastic Structure

J. Cheryl Exum proposed a chiastic (‘X-shaped’) structure for the book, and this has been endorsed
by many scholars. The pivot or focal point is the ‘consummation’ represented by the scene in the
garden (4:16-5:1), standing for the transformation from virgin to wife which is the hermeneutic key
for interpretation of the book; either side of this the sections are arranged in ‘mirror’ order. Here is
Duane Garrett’s (p. 32) summary:

Superscript (1:1)
A I. Chorus and soprano: the entrance (1:2-4)
B II. Soprano: the virgin’s education I (1:5-6)
C III. Soprano and Chorus: finding the beloved (1:7-8)
D IV. Tenor, chorus and soprano: the first song of mutual love (1:9-2:7)
E V. Soprano and tenor: the invitation to depart (2:8-17)
F VI. Three wedding-night songs (3:1-5; 3:6-11; 4:1-15)
Fa a. Soprano: the bride’s anxiety (3:1-5)
Fb b. Chorus: the bride comes to the groom (3:6-11)
Fc c. Tenor: the flawless bride I (4:1-15)
G VII. Soprano, tenor and chorus: the consummation (4:16-5:1)
F’ VIII. Three wedding-night songs 5:2-16; 6:1-3; 6:4-10)
Fa’ a. Soprano, tenor and chorus: the bride’s pain (5:2-16)
Fb’ b. Chorus and soprano: the bride recovers the groom (5:9-6:3)
Fc’ c. Tenor and chorus: the flawless bride II (6:4-10)
E’ IX. Soprano, chorus and tenor: leaving girlhood behind (6:11-7:1)
D’ X. Tenor and soprano: the second song of mutual love (7:2-8:4)
C’ XI. Chorus and soprano: claiming the beloved (8:5-7)
B’ XII. Chorus and soprano: the virgin’s education II (8:8-12)
A’ XIII. Tenor, chorus and soprano: the farewell (8:13-14)

If this, or anything like it, is correct, it means that the final redactor imposed a very tight literary
structure on the material before him.

Function and Social Setting (Sitz im Leben)

Many of the songs in their original form may have been sung at weddings or other festivities; below,
I cite evidence from the Talmud of such use as late as the second century CE.

Could some of them have functioned as courting songs, serenades? Or as wedding songs? Fox (231)
does not believe they formed part of a wedding ritual, though they may well have been sung at
weddings as part of entertainment; he notes that the lovers are not married nor about to be, and
that their behaviour in general is not that of newlyweds. But perhaps he is being over-literal; the
completed work may well have served as a theatrical entertainment at weddings or other feasts,

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simply as a celebration of true love, not because it accurately portrayed the behaviour of bride and
groom.

Egyptian Parallels
The Egyptian love poems date from the period of the New Kingdom (c. 1550-1080 BCE), long
before any plausible date for composition of the Hebrew poems. They are contained in four
manuscripts: Papyrus Chester Beatty 1; Papyrus Harris 500; a Turin papyrus fragment; a
fragmentary Cairo Museum vase.

Direct influence on the composition of the Song is very unlikely. More probably, elements of
the Egyptian poems made their way into the general stock of Near Eastern poetry even
before the individual Hebrew songs were composed, let alone before they were fashioned into
the present work.

The Egyptian poems refer to the boy as ‘brother’ and the girl as ‘sister’; this happens several
times in the Song, too, e.g. ‘I have come to my garden, My sister, my bride’ (5:1, rather
misleadingly translated in JPS as ‘My own, my bride’), or ‘If only it could be as with a brother,
As if you had nursed at my mother’s breast’ (8:1). In the Song as well as in the Egyptian
poems entry into the garden is an expression of sexual fulfilment. Here are more examples of
similarity of phrasing, imagery and motifs:

Song Egyptian
Translation: Jewish Publication Society (JPS) Translation: M. Lichtheim
[Girl:] Hurry, my beloved, Swift as a gazelle or a [Girl:] O that you come to your sister swiftly, Like
young stag, To the hills of spices (8:14 ) a bounding gazelle in the wild
(Papyrus Chester Beatty 1. Lichtheim p. 187)
[Girl first:] I was asleep, but my heart was [Girl:] My heart flutters hastily, When I think of
wakeful. Hark, my beloved knocks! ‘Let me in, my love of you; It lets me not act sensibly, It
my own, My darling, my faultless dove! For my leaps (from) its place. It lets me not put on a
head is drenched with dew, My locks with the dress, Nor wrap my scarf around me; I put no
damp of night.’ I had taken off my robe—Was I paint upon my eyes, I’m not even anointed.
to don it again? I had bathed my feet—Was I to “don’t wait, go there,” it says to me, As often as I
soil them again? think of him; My heart, don’t act so stupidly,
My beloved took his hand off the latch, And my Why do you play the fool? Sit still, the brother
heart was stirred for him. I rose to let in my comes to you, And many eyes as well!
beloved; My hands dripped myrrh—My fingers, Let not the people says of me: “A woman fallen
flowing myrrh—Upon the handles of the bolt. through love!”
I opened the door for my beloved, But my Be steady when you think of him, My heart, do
beloved had turned and gone. I was faint not flutter!
because of what he had said. I sought, but found (Papyrus Chester Beatty 1. Lichtheim pp. 183-4)
him not. I called, but he did not answer.
I met the watchmen who patrol the town; They [Boy:] I passed by her house in the dark, I
struck me, they bruised me. The guards of the knocked and no one opened …
walls Stripped me of my mantle. (5:2-7) (Papyrus Chester Beatty 1. Lichtheim p. 188)
[The boy:] The song of the turtledove Is heard in The voice of the dove is calling, It says: “It’s day!
our land … Arise, my darling, My fair one, come Where are you?”
away! (2:12-13) (Papyrus Harris 500. Lichtheim p. 190)
[The boy:] Ah you are fair, my darling … Your [The boy:] The One, the sister without peer …
eyes are like doves Behind your veil. Your hair is Shining bright, fair of skin, Lovely the look of her
like a flock of goats Streaming down Mount eyes, Sweet he speech of her lips, She has not a
Gilead … Your lips are like a crimson thread, Your word too much.

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Norman Solomon / Notes on the Song of Songs

mouth is lovely, Your brow behind your veil Upright neck, shining breast, Hair true lapis
[Gleams] like a pomegranate split open. lazuli; Arms surpassing gold, Fingers like lotus
Your neck is like the Tower of David, Built to hold buds.
weapons … Heavy thighs, narrow waist, Her legs parade her
Your breasts are like two fawns, Twins of a beauty; With graceful step she treads the ground
gazelle, Browsing among the lilies … Every part …
of you is fair, my darling, There is no blemish in (Papyrus Chester Beatty 1. Lichtheim p. 182)
you.
(4:1-7)

On Interpreting Sacred Texts

Mediaeval Christians engaged in four levels of exegesis: literal; spiritual/allegorical (Christological);
tropological (moral, ethical); anagogical (eschatological). From at least the twelfth century, Jews
likewise classified their exegesis in four categories: peshat (plain meaning); derash (homiletic); remez
(moral); sod (mystical or philosophical interpretation). These were summed up in the acronym
PaRDeS (paradise).

A modern reader will take stock of these traditions, but will also want to understand what the texts
might have conveyed during the lengthy process of redaction, how they were understood by those
who confirmed their canonical status, what their ritual or liturgical use signifies, and whether and
how they can be meaningful for the modern reader or worshipper. To this end, we possess
considerable philological, archaeological and historical resources which were not available to
traditional commentators.

Interpreting the Song

‘The Song was not written as an allegory of the love between Israel and God. Equality is the essence
of the relationship between the young lovers in the Song, and this can hardly have been intended as
a model for God’s relationship to Israel ... premarital courtship of equals such as we see in the Song
... is a poor correlative of the relationship between God the master and Israel his possession’ (Fox
237).

Fox is correct. So how, we might ask, did the book attain scriptural status? The ‘canonization’ (a
Christian term) of scripture was not a process of selection and adoption, but a process of rejection of
works deemed not to meet the criteria of divine inspiration. So we must reformulate the question:
Why was the book not rejected by the rabbis or the early Church fathers? Partly this must have been
due to its antiquity and its attribution to king Solomon; but its retention was justified primarily by
adoption of the allegorical interpretation.

Jewish Interpretation of the Song

The Mishnah, compiled early in the third century CE, indicates that the canonical status of Song of
Songs and Ecclesiastes was still being called into question in the previous century. (Paradoxically, the
rabbis confirmed the sacred status of scrolls by decreeing that they would ‘defile the hands’; the
holier something is the more it is liable to defilement.)

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All sacred Scriptures defile the hands. The Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes defile the hands …
Rabbi Simeon ben Azzai said, I have a tradition through the seventy-two elders that on the
day they appointed Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah president of the assembly [they decided] that
Song and Ecclesiastes defile the hands. Rabbi Aqiva said, Heaven forbid! No one ever
questioned whether Song of Songs defiles the hands; the world was unworthy until the day
the Song was revealed to Israel, for all the books are holy, but the Song is the holiest. If they
questioned anything, it was Ecclesiastes. (Mishnah: Yadayim 3:5)
Aqiva (early second century) condemned those who degraded the Song to mere entertainment:

Rabbi Aqiva said, One who trills his voice over the Song of Songs at banquets and treats it
like a [common] melody has no portion in the World to Come. (Tosefta ed. Zuckermandel
Sanhedrin 12:10; cf. Bavli Sanhedrin 101a.)
We have no direct evidence as to how Rabbi Akiva interpreted the Song. However, by the third
century rabbis were interpreting it, broadly speaking, as an allegory of the love between God and
Israel, articulated through the Torah; detailed comments often refer it to incidents in the history of
Israel or to aspects of the halakha.

Targum
5:10 My beloved is fine and ruddy, pre-eminent Then did the congregation of Israel begin to
above the ten thousand praise the Master of the Universe, and this is
what they said: I desire to praise this God,
who by day is clothed in a robe white as
snow, and the glorious radiance of His
countenance shines like fire with great
wisdom and understanding as He daily
generates new teachings that He will declare
to His people on the great day; His instruction
is to the myriads of myriads of angels who
serve before Him
5:11 His head is as the most fine gold, His locks His Torah is (regigin?) than fine gold; the
are curled, And black as a raven interpretation of its words, and its numerous
reasons and commandments, are white as
snow to those who observe them, but to
those who donot they are black as the raven.
5:12 His eyes are like doves Beside the water- His eyes look constantly to Jerusalem to do
brooks; Washed with milk, and fitly set. good to it and to bless it from beginning to
end of the year, just as doves that watch for
the outpouring of water, on account of the
Sanhedrin who study the Torah and
illuminate the law so that it should smooth as
milk, and are cautious in judgement to
pronounce innocent or guilty.
5:13 His cheeks are as a bed of spices, As banks
of sweet herbs; His lips are as lilies,
Dropping with flowing myrrh.
5:14 His hands are as rods of gold Set with
beryl; His body is a polished ivory Overlaid
with sapphires.

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Norman Solomon / Notes on the Song of Songs

5.15 His legs are as pillars of marble, Set upon

sockets of fine gold; His aspect is like
Lebanon, Excellent as the cedars.
5.16 His mouth is most sweet; Yea, he is
altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and
this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.

Kabbalah

Midrash
3) MIDRASH SHIR HA-SHIRIM ("Midrash Song of Songs"), also a collection of extracts from various
Midrashim. The redactor used tannaitic literature, the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds, and
*Genesis Rabbah, as well as sources used by the Yelammedenu-Tanḥuma Midrashim. This Midrash,
which likewise has no proems and contains many aggadot of a later type, is also quoted by Judah b.
Kalonymus. It was apparently redacted in the 11th century. A scholarly edition was published from a
Cairo Genizah manuscript, dated 1197, by L. Gruenhut (1897).

Origen and Rabbi

abbi o anan of Tiberias, also known as o anan appa a (‘John the Smith—Aramaic na a a
means ‘smith’), was born in Sepphoris and studied under Judah Ha-Nasi and Oshaya Rabba. He
taught for a time in Sepphoris but later opened his own academy at Tiberias, where he died c279.

Among his contemporaries was the Church father Origen (d. 254), who lived in Caesarea. Both
commented on the biblical Song of Songs; both interpreted it as allegory. For Origen, it stands for
God, or Christ and his ‘bride,’ the Church; for o anan, it is an allegory of the love between God and
his people Israel. Reuven Kimelman, in an article published in 1980, listed five consistent differences
between them, corresponding to five major issues that divided Christians and Jews:

1. Origen writes of a covenant mediated by Moses between God and Israel; that is, an indirect
contact between the two, contrasted with the direct presence of Christ. o anan, on the
other hand, refers to the Covenant as negotiated by Moses, hence received by Israel direct
from God, as ‘the kisses of his mouth’ (Song of Songs 1:2). o anan emphasizes the closeness
and love between God and Israel, whereas Origen sets a distance between them.
2. According to Origen the Hebrew scripture was ‘completed,’ or ‘superseded,’ by the New
Testament. According to o anan scripture is ‘completed’ by the Oral Torah.
3. To Origen, Christ is the central figure, replacing Abraham and completing the reversal of
Adam’s sin. To o anan, Abraham remains in place and Torah is the ‘antidote’ to sin.
4. To Origen, Jerusalem is a symbol, a ‘heavenly city.’ To o anan, the earthly erusalem retains
its status as the link between Heaven and Earth, the place where God’s presence will again
be manifest.
5. Origen sees the sufferings of Israel as the proof of its repudiation by God; o anan accepts
the suffering as the loving chastisement and discipline of a forgiving father.

Attitudes to Sex
Cherubim (BB 99a – check out Yoma 54a/b too):

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Norman Solomon / Notes on the Song of Songs

‫כיצד הן עומדין רבי יוחנן ור' אלעזר חד אמר פניהם איש אל אחיו וחד אמר פניהם‬
‫לבית ולמ"ד פניהם איש אל אחיו הא כתיב ופניהם לבית לא קשיא כאן בזמן שישראל‬
‫עושין רצונו של מקום כאן בזמן שאין ישראל עושין רצונו של מקום‬
Rashbam:

‫ הם הופכים פניהם זה לזה דוגמת חבת זכר‬.‫כאן בזמן שישראל עושין רצונו של מקום‬
‫ונקבה האוהבים זה לזה סימן שהקב"ה אוהב את ישראל ומתחלה כך נעשו פנים אל‬
‫פנים כדי שתשרה שכינה בישראל וישראל יעשו רצונו של מקום וכשאין עושין‬
:‫הופכין פניהם לבית על ידי נס‬

An Interpretation by Joseph Dov Soloveitchik (1903-1993)

In a beautiful essay he composed as a memorial for his wife Tonya, Soloveitchik, who categorically
rejects as heretical the literal reading of the Song, distinguishes two types of allegory found in
traditional commentaries: 1
 The metaphysical-historical allegory portrays the actual relationship between God and Israel
as it has been (and will be) in history; this is the line taken in midrash, Targum, Rashi, Kuzari,
Ibn Ezra.
 The metaphysical-universal allegory points to the ideal relationship between people and
God; this is the approach of Rabbenu Bahya, Maimonides,2 and kabbalah.
This is rather like the distinction he often makes between goral and ye’ud, Israel’s (actual) lot in
history, and its (ideal) destiny. Like Plato, he conceives the ideal as the truly real, and the actual or
historical as a transitory approximation.

Jewish Liturgical Use

Since the Middle Ages the Song has been grouped with Ruth, Ecclesiastes, Esther and Lamentations
as one of the Five Megillot (scrolls). This grouping is not reflected in the order in which the
Babylonian Talmud (Bava Batra 14b) sets the biblical books, nor in most mediaeval manuscripts, but
arises from the post-talmudic liturgical custom which added to the reading of Esther on Purim the
reading of the Song on Passover, Ruth on Shavuot, Lamentations on the Fast of Ab and Ecclesiastes
on Tabernacles. The Song is probably associated with Passover because of its spring setting.

1
Footnote 1 of ‫ ובקשתם משם‬on pp. 119-121of IHH.
2
Maimonides, Mishneh Torah: Hilkhot Teshuva 20:3; Guide 3:51.

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Norman Solomon / Notes on the Song of Songs

On the basis that the Song contains all the commandments and all of history until the coming
‘Sabbath of the Lord’ (Zohar 2:143-146) Kabbalists introduced the custom of reading the Song on
Fridays just before the Sabbath begins.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Exum, . Cheryl, ‘A literary and Structural Analysis of the Song of Songs’, in Zeitschrift für die
alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 85 [1973) 47-79.

Dorsey, David A., The Literary Structure of the Old Testament: A Commentary on Genesis-Malachi
Baker, Grand Rapids, 1999 New College BB 2 DOR

Fox, Michael V., The Song of Songs and the ancient Egyptian love songs (Madison, Wis : University of
Wisconsin Press, 1985).

Garrett, Duane, Songs of Songs (Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 23B: Nashville: Thomas Nelson,
2004).

Hermann, A., Altägyptische Liebesdichtung (Wiesbaden: 1959). SAC 382

Kimelman, euven, ‘ abbi Yohanan and Origen on the Song of Songs: a Third-Century Jewish-
Christian Disputation,’ in Harvard Theological eview 73,2 (1980): 567-95.

Lehrman, S. M., Song of Songs, in The Five Megilloth: Hebrew text, English translation and
commentary, ed. A. Cohen (Hindhead, Surrey: Soncino Press, 1946), ix-xiii and 1-32.

Lichtheim, Miriam, Ancient Egyptian Literature Vol. 2: The New Kingdom (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1976, 179-193.

Ydit, Meir M., The Song of Songs : a drama based on the original text of the scriptures (New York:
Vantage Press, 1983). HEB 224.4 Ydi2S

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