I’ll just summarize the very small part of the chapter where he talks about when we have the first evidence of it being interpreted
allegorically.
We can see it during the period between the destruction of the Second Temple and the Bar Kokhba Revolt in the following places:
2 Esdras 5:23-5:27
The Mishnah Ta’anit 4:8
The Shi’ur Qomah
John 3:28-29
He mentions that sections from Song of Songs scrolls were found at Qumran but only to support the theory that they had a sacred status early on. I found an article that I downloaded, “The Fragments of Canticles from Qumran: Implications and Limitations for Interpretations.” Hopefully, I’ll get to it in the next few days.
Song 1:5-6
On our first reading, the woman is talking to the daughters of Jerusalem and apologizing to them for being different. They shouldn’t pay any attention to her darkness as the sun has gazed upon her. Her brothers, wanting to preserve her honor, have quarreled with her and told her she has to guard their vineyards.
“They made me guard the vineyards/my own vineyards I have not guarded” hints of an act followed by its consequences. Has she not guarded her own because she had to guard theirs? Did she have to guard theirs as punishment for neglecting her own? In the first sense, the vineyard seems to be used literally, while in the second, figuratively. Having brought shame and dishonor, she was sent to guard their vineyards and thus her skin was darkened.
Is this really an apology to the fair-skinned daughters of Jerusalem, protected as they are by the shade of the city walls?
Reading it again, we might see the woman speaking confidently saying she is “dark and lovely.” And perhaps there is more to her mention of Kedar than the color of their tents. Might it not also be that she is identifying with this nomadic tribe unhindered by physical boundaries? If so, it is not hard to imagine the daughters of Jerusalem as being envious, confined as they are to the city and the strict social conventions within its walls.
BJH1960, of the texts you listed the Shi’ur Qomah is one of the earliest Hekhalot works. The Shi’ur Qomah, “Measurments of the Body”, is a midrash on portions of the Song, especially 5:10-16.
My beloved is white and ruddy,
Pre-eminent above ten thousand.
His head is as the most fine gold,
His locks are curled,
And black as a raven.
His eyes are like doves
Beside the water-brooks;
Washed with milk.
And fitly set.
His cheeks are a bed of spices.
As banks of sweet herbs;
His lips are as lilies,
Dropping with flowing myrrh.
His hands are as rods of gold
Set with beryl;
His body is as polished ivory
Overlaid with sapphires.
His legs are as pillars of marble.
Set upon sockets of fine gold;
This is my beloved, and this is my friend,
O daughters of Jerusalem.
This passage about the “Beloved”, interpreted mystically of course, appears all through the literature.
Here is an online translation.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
If you get the bug may as well read Gershom Scholem’s book which revived the modern critical interest. It was based on a series of lectures given in the 1940s.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Stephen, thanks for the online translation; I’ll check it out.
That book by Scholem looks of interest. It’s probably been at least a decade or so since I read his biography of Sabbatai Sevi and then two of his autobiographical writings (his early life/friendship with Walter Benjamin), all of which were great reads. I see it’s reasonably priced and with a forward by Robert Alter, what else do I need?
Thanks, Robert.
It’s such a magnificent book.
I rather like Rabbi Akiva’s take on it:
“For the whole world is not as worthy as the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel; for all the writings are holy but the Song of Songs is the holy of holies.”
If only I could read it in Hebrew!
Thanks, Stephen. Definitely one to put on my list of books to get.
By the way, that line from which he takes the title is from one of my favorite verses. Here’s the KJV:
“Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.”
I read the article I earlier mentioned about fragments found at Qumran. The author states that though there are obvious omissions in the texts from the canonical texts that have come down to us, the reasons behind them aren’t clear nor is the particular function that they had in the community. For this reason, he believes we need to be careful at suggesting how they might have interpreted them.
Also, of interest is that there was, it appears, a ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Song 2:1-3
This is a dialogue poem between the woman and her beloved.
The woman begins by comparing herself to a rose and then a lily.
It only seems natural to imagine the man wondering why she is doing so and then asking himself what the best way might be to respond.
He decides to praise her. If she is a rose, other women are thorns, lacking beauty, able to cause pain.
This is not what she wants to hear. He hasn’t solved the riddle (Song 6:2-3).
To achieve what she longs for, hoping he’ll now understand, she compares him to an apple tree, a tree that provides fruit sweet to her mouth (Song 5:16).
Song 8:8-10
In the beginning, the brothers are talking among themselves. They know their younger sister is listening to them, but they ignore her.
When they say she has no breasts, they are worrying about the absence of that so highly prized (Song 4:5; 7:8).
What should they do for her when she is spoken for? If this means marriage, they are expressing concern that if someone wishes to marry her, her shame would be made public.
Next, the brothers talk of her as a wall and a door.
If they are referring to her breasts, the towers of silver may be ** you do not have permission to see this link ** like Rabbi Akiva made for his wife. This would be a way for their sister to hide what she was lacking. The cedar would do the same.
If she were, however, to accuse them of insulting her honor, they could claim what they were really talking about was her chastity. We might then think of the wall as a fortification (Ezek. 38:11). The door might be seen as the reverse of the wall. If so, the boards of cedar would seal it off.
Finally, the woman speaks, and we can see a stark difference between the perception her brothers have of her and her own perception of herself. In fact, they don’t seem to know anything about their sister. Not only does she declare that her breasts are towers but that she has a lover.
She seems to want her brothers to understand that the imagery they have used is unnecessary as she has found the peace and security she needs with her beloved.
Song 8:13-14
The final poem in the Song of Songs is an appeal by the man to his beloved and her response.
On our first reading of the poem, we may very well see it as a young man’s invitation to show her off to his companions (Est. 1:10-11) that has caused the woman to get angry and send him away.
But to the mountains of spices? That doesn’t seem particularly harsh.
If stag and gazelle do not refer to the animals but figuratively to the lovers, she is telling him to flee with her, and the books ends joyfully with the lovers together far away from all prying eyes.
It seems what discombobulated scribes the most was not only that the Song as composed was a brazen celebration of sexual joy, but that it is so frequently written from the woman’s point of view. She did it and she liked it! That is enough to give folks of a certain mindset an attack of the vapors. Even today. As creative as the mystical traditions derived from the Song were, it’s sad to realize that at heart they were generated by a discomfort with feminine sexuality.
CHAPTER 4: Thrice Asked “Who is She” in Song of Songs
This was a rather difficult chapter, so my two posts are going to be anything but thorough.
There are twenty-seven poems in the Song of Songs and five poetic fragments. Three of these fragments (Song 3:6; 6:10; 8:5) begin with “Who is she…” while the first and third begin with “Who is she that rises from the desert….”
The first and third question have no answer. The answer (Song 6:4-9) to the second is found before the question.
I will be talking about one of the fragments, Song 3:6. Before doing so, however, we need to look at the poem before and after it.
In Song 3:1-5 we read of a young woman’s dream while in Song 3:7-11 of Solomon’s bed.
What a contrast there is between the woman and the king.
Solomon, guarded by sixty warriors, doesn’t dare venture out because of the terrors of night. The woman, however, sets out without fear to find her love. The king is passive and in need of guards armed with swords. His mother is active, placing the crown on his head.
Why then was this riddle-question placed between the two poems?
The person who added it before the poem about Solomon’s bed was reminded of 1 Kgs. 10:1-13. Our riddle focus on the sense of smell. Consider also the plants that grow in the woman’s garden (Song 4:13-14).
The Queen of Sheba’s visit conceals a tradition hinted at in I Kgs. 10:13.
She has come to ask riddles (I Kgs. 10:1), and we know riddles are connected to the world of love and marriage (Judg. 14:12-18). She has also brought a vast quantity of perfumes (I Kgs. 10:10). Perfume appears in erotic contexts (Prov. 7:16-18; Song 5:1; Est. 2:12).
Later Jewish tradition made it more explicit. However, others tried to downplay it, adamantly denying its possibility.
Interestingly enough, in the Ethiopian epic ** you do not have permission to see this link ** their relationship results in the birth of the first king of Ethiopia.
The three question-riddles (Song 3:6; 6:10; 8:5) are similar to others in their use of similes (Isa. 60:8; Jer. 46:7) and in having an actively moving subject (Jer. 46:7; Ps. 24:3; Isa. 60:8; 63:1).
Most of those outside of the Song of Songs center on God and his appearances.
It is worth noting:
1) A question may appear without a direct answer next to it (Job 38:2) and may be repeated (Job 42:3).
2) There might be only a slight connection between the question and answer. In reading Jer. 46:7, the continuation of the prophecy is at the end of verse 8, so it is clear that the answer to the riddle is God. However, someone offering their own solution put Egypt at the end of the riddle.
3) There may be an answer without a question. Deut. 33:2 seems to have been the solution to a riddle such as the one that we find in Isa. 63:1.
The question-riddles were discrete elements and a popular literary genre.
We can imagine how the question might have been posed by a member of a group of friends and then everyone did their best to provide a clever answer. They also may have been used at wedding feasts as a way in which to praise the bride’s beauty.
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