Soulfood

Aaron Sironi

How do we understand Song of Songs? What is its use for teaching, training, correcting, and rebuking?

Solomon is not the hero of the song but its antithesis. The song is sung between a simple couple, one male and one female, with the women of their community singing of their love.

The beginning of the song is the intense longing of the woman for her lover. It calls us to see romantic love from the inside. She is a country woman who has labored outdoors and been ill-treated by her brothers. She never mentions her father despite mentioning her mother and brothers.

Her lover is a shepherd who adores her. He is no prince, but he is her king and she is his princess.

What are the two ways in Song of Songs?

Both simple lovers use their voices to praise and adore one another. Their attention is the other.

Then Solomon enters in chapter 3 – his character is resplendent and self-focused, surrounded by power and wealth. There is nothing about his love for her. The center of his attention is himself.

Which way do you want to go? Do you rejoice in the spouse of your youth who praises and tends you, or the wealth and glory of one who only desires to possess you?

Throughout the song there is separation and coming together, pursuit and capture, desire and fulfillment and unfulfilled desire again.

The song ends with yet another call to pursue and follow after – we are always struggling to stay together while circumstances and desires pull us apart. There are always threats to marriage and love must be renewed all the time. There is no final rest in marriage but a constant pursuit of togetherness and unity. There are times of rest and comfort but always trials in which love is tested.

Will I take the easy path or struggle for love in hard places? It is less important how much distance is between the lovers and more important which way we are facing. Are we facing towards each other or away?

There are 3 urgent warnings by the female in the song against stirring up love at the wrong time. Love is powerful and dangerous – don’t treat it casually. 8:6-7 warns how dangerous life can be. Lewis: “In the grandeur of Eros are the seeds of danger. The danger of Eros is not in loving someone too much but in loving God too little or not at all as we pursue Eros.”

We dare not replace God with Eros – but this is exactly the spirit of our age. Erotic love is the highest authority in the lives of the worldly.

The right person at the right time in the right context – how do we know? In some ways we never know until the wedding. But the song teaches that our community will help us discern these things and will help maintain the relationship.

Do not awaken love at the wrong time with the wrong person in the wrong context – wait patiently.

Solomon is also the antithesis of the Good Shepherd who stands in the background of the song and calls us to love him crazily and without abandon in the same way that he loves us. Jesus pursues us, darkened by sin as we are, with a love that is stronger than death and fierce as the grace.