Song of Songs 1 Study Notes

1:1 The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s, like many of the lyrics, is alliterative and melodic. Song of Songs means the ultimate song, the finest song. The form of the phrase which is Solomon’s normally indicates authorship (cp. Pss 72; 127).

1:2 Oh, that he would kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! begins the Song like love often begins: with sudden intensity and excitement. The abrupt beginning artistically weds style to content, signaling to the reader that the Song will move at a quick and entrancing pace. The speaker is unidentified at this point. Later we learn that she is “the Shulammite” (6:13). For reasons explained in the note at 6:11-13, we will refer to her by the name “Shulamith.”

1:3 Name (Hb shem) and perfume (Hb shemen) are similar in Hebrew, so the Song presents here the first of its frequent wordplays. Since names were thought to capture essence, the praise also begins an important theme—that desire arises out of delight.

1:4 Solomon’s attractive qualities are apparent to others, not mere fantasies of infatuation.

1:5-6 Shulamith explained her darkened appearance as the consequence of her brothers’ (my mother’s sons) assignment to work outside in vineyards. We later discover they had leased this vineyard from Solomon (8:10-12).

1:7 As a shepherd finds shade for his flock during the heat of the day, Solomon could provide protection from the gaze of the women (vv. 5-6) and the anger of the brothers (v. 6) that burned like the sun. So Shulamith could ask Where do you let them (the flock) rest at noon? implicitly requesting relief in Solomon’s protection from the “sun’s” heat. This extended metaphor resumes in Shulamith’s comparison of Solomon to a tree in the forest in whose “shade” she delighted (2:3) and concludes in her being compared to the morning star (or dawn light in 6:10). “Dawn” (or morning star, Hb shakar) is a play on “dark” (Hb shekorah, 1:6), the effect of the sun on the skin. Love transformed the young woman darkened by the sun into the light of dawn.

In a wordplay, why appears in this form only here in the OT. Since the consonants are exactly the same as the name “Solomon,” the original readers might first have thought it should be translated “Solomon,” making the sentence read, “Solomon, I will be like a veiled woman by the flocks.” This is perhaps just the sort of playful thing young lovers would say.

One who veils herself is likely an allusion to Tamar, who disguised herself as a prostitute by donning a veil and then enticed Judah to fulfill his duty to provide for her (Gn 38:14-15). Like Tamar, Shulamith was not what she appeared to be: she was no more a common laborer than Tamar was a prostitute. But unlike Tamar, she did not have to use manipulation since Solomon was willing. So why indeed should Shulamith veil herself to conceal her motives? Later Shulamith is likened to a “palm tree,” which is tamar in Hebrew (Sg 7:7-8).

1:8 Most beautiful of women is a term of address used twice elsewhere by the young women of Jerusalem for Shulamith (5:9; 6:1). Perhaps these other occurrences are evidence that the women of Jerusalem also speak here. If so, the reader can imagine that in 1:7 Shulamith addressed Solomon in soliloquy, similar to vv. 2b-4a. Young goats is literally “female kids” (used only here in the OT), and it invites a figurative explanation for such an unusual flock. It likely anticipates the praise of Shulamith’s long, flowing hair being like a flock of goats descending a mountain (4:1).

1:9 A mare among Pharaoh’s chariots would stir the chariots’ stallions, just as Shulamith would attract the attention of men. “Shepherds” (Hb ra‘ah, v. 8), which evidently refers to “companions” (v. 7), is a wordplay with my darling (Hb ra‘yah), Solomon’s first term of endearment for Shulamith. The name thus underscores their companionate friendship (5:16), in the imagery of shepherd and shepherdess.

1:10 Archaeological drawings show jewels decorating bridles of horses, so the imagery of jewels on the cheeks and in necklaces likely extends the metaphor of the mare.

1:11 Accented with silver is literally “with decorations of silver,” although the word for “decorations” is of uncertain meaning.

1:12-2:5 This section is in chiastic balance with 8:5-7 in the design of the Song (see outline in the Introduction): (a) he was a sachet of myrrh . . . between my breasts (1:13), and she requested to be a seal over his heart (8:6); (b) they enjoyed the “house” of nature and the “house of wine” (lit for banquet hall, 1:17; 2:4), but “all the wealth of his house” (lit) could not buy love (8:7); (c) she delighted in him, likened him to an apricot (or apple) tree (2:3), and she awakened his love under the apricot (or apple) tree (8:5); (d) she was “faint from love” (lit in 2:5), and she emerged from the wilderness “leaning on the one she loves” (8:5).

1:12 One may also translate on his couch as “in his realm,” similar to its meaning in 1Kg 6:29; 2Kg 23:5 (“surrounding”), the only other times this phrase appears in the OT.

1:13-14 Spending the night personifies the sachet of myrrh, suggesting it was like a pillow a young woman would hold pretending it was her lover. While Solomon was away and about his realm, Shulamith’s thoughts about him were as evocative as myrrh. Henna blossoms are white or red and fragrant like roses. En-gedi was an oasis in the desert, perhaps continuing the metaphor of Solomon’s protection from the sun (vv. 6-7).

1:15-2:3 Mutual praise escalates, each building upon the imagery introduced by the other: his praise of her beauty and eyes like doves (1:15) elicited like praise (1:16a) to which she added additional imagery (1:16b-17); her comparison of herself to a flower (2:1) then elicited like praise (2:2a) from him to which he added additional imagery (2:2b), which she reciprocated (like an apricot tree), but also climactically embellished (she delighted to sit in his shade, 2:3). Doves were repeatedly shown in the drawings of the day as literal “messengers of love.” The look of love in lovers’ eyes is unmistakable. Our bed is verdant (1:16) may also be translated “our resting place is in the branches’ foliage,” which is perhaps more consistent with the context and other OT usage.